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Lightroom

Lesson 29 from: The Boudoir Workshop

Christa Meola

Lightroom

Lesson 29 from: The Boudoir Workshop

Christa Meola

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Lesson Info

29. Lightroom

Next Lesson: Photoshop

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Introduction

07:36
2

Let’s Get this Party Started Right!

20:35
3

Redefining Boudoir: YOUR Brand & Style

29:59
4

Working with Women

20:01
5

Creating Relaxed Clients

17:49
6

Posing and Anti-Posing

12:05
7

Flattering All Body Types

21:13

Lesson Info

Lightroom

So we're going to do a quick little light room demo just going to show you a couple of my favorite tools just going to be a minute so I'm sorry we could probably take a couple more questions while we're rolling in the computer here do you ever revisit images you should like it yeah yeah it's so funny I do every now and then I go back to go see where I started you know what I did? What was I doing with that rebel on stuff and I will revisit some things and can I get the mouth to please um it's kind of funny it's kind of you know, I think it's really nice because you see that you are growing because sometimes we feel constantly at our set point of suck ege if if we're talking about last night on because we're creative individuals that means we always want to grow we thrive on challenges so we're always at that set point even if we're going here were kind of setting the bar here because we want to get better so you're always feeling like, damn, I'm not improving because I'm always feeling...

like I could be better but actually you are growing and improving, but because you're an awesome creative individual, you are craving changing growth so do you understand what I'm saying? So we kind of keep that bar keeps catching up with us so it's nice to kind of take a step back and look at stuff you did a year ago and go oh my goodness I am much better now so um let me see one thing I think we're all set here adam you can kind of show my screen um awesome so um so this is just from earlier uh what we were shooting on the gray seem listen gonna go through this quickly um if you're not familiar with light room I just want you to know it's seriously for dummies it's so easy you don't even need a manual but you should get one it'll make it a lot easier but seriously you could figure it out I'm not going totally give a soup to nuts thing I do have work flow dvds that are available not currently but soon to be they're also part of my online boudoir workshop where I go in depth and do an hour tutorial on light room and everything I dio and also photoshopped but right now I'm just going to get to the essentials so we've imported these in in library is kind of where I take my best selects I'm going to work backwards and I just simply hit be teo enter into the quick collection and I'm just seriously hitting the left arrow and b I kind of like this one what do you guys think? No no no no moving fast. This is when I just had her geeking out she's, so adorable. Um, so this is seriously how fast I go, and I just selected that one, by the way. So, um, I'm going to turn off auto advance. Usually I have that set already for some reason. It's defaulting um, auto advance. Let me get that. Just kind of moves you to the right after you select one, but I want to keep moving fast, so I don't want it to move me to the right automatically. So just turn that off. Kitt, I think that's one did I like any of these? I don't think I could see the sign, but maybe I will actually and photoshopped type out the text because I like her lips. They're the best and that's what I'm looking for this is when the stroke didn't fire um, this says something differently singing just like that one kind of like it. I think her shoulder allah is too close to the frame. So maybe I'll cop that that's so cute I love her lashing cat eye keep going. Keep it going that's kind of adorable. So is this how fast you guys go? Yeah, that one you know, I try, I should say that I try I'm just kind of giving you an idea this is my pacing seriously if you want to know what I was thinking I'm just not that kind of going is a good does it hit me does it work for me? Um do I have something like this? Do I need it in my set this is kind of just a model shooting it was a demo for you teaching you certain things s o I'm not actually considering telling a story but a lot of times I'm like ok did I have too much with her eyes closed we need to find some with eyes at the camera where's my body shot uh well I go through and look for my body shots and pick the best one here and I'm not doing that so I'm just literally picking the ones that jump out at me so I'm gonna just select a couple more and then we're going to get started on on editing them uh that's hysterical on selecting it wait that's hot question from stare from suzanne and red line and you're doing this yeah when you choose the ones you like are you are going in and looking for the focus on making sure that the focus was sharp um sometimes yes, I can't tell I absolutely well on the same note when you should something in movement yes do you tend to use the same shallow that field risking now the movement keeps well two point eight s o that is kind of shallow but you know what if she's running towards me really fast instead of running this way she's coming this way then maybe uh I'll go up tio by four point oh, maybe can't see what that writing on it know what I mean? China wait for it to go away because I really want to see the top of her lift because that's what I'm really most focusing on um so there's you can remove that yeah, I think her lips are better here sets when I selected this one I was working for I think that would be great in black and white just because of all the levels of tone reality and yeah see how it was walking at first so I checked it and then I made it happen so you gotta work for that, blaine just like it's like calling you out. Okay, so I'm just going to quickly go through a couple more into the beginning of her shoot come many call out the ones that you are selecting can I call them out? Yeah, just as your as you were selecting oh sure sorry about that. I thought you could tell when it says add two quick collection um picking that one step ahead of model lee thing going on that's kind of cute like that I like that justcause expression is adorable. Uh, lights not perfect there. Uh, yeah, we'll lose it. Okay, so I'm just gonna go through her so after you do that real quick um, wait, uh, I'm sorry, so I'm working on their computers some a little slow right now, but so twenty eight images and then I take him in to develop and this is what I usually do when I work on them. Take one image at the time. I usually work from the top down. I will check my exposure first, usually hopefully special. If you're working in the studio you now and you don't need to adjust it that's what beautiful, but working with strobes, you set it and forget it, but if I was to adjust it a little bit like maybe was a little hot, we'll just take it down there. If you blow out some highlights that you want to recover, this is always an awesome tool. So when I was shooting backlit sometimes if I just want a little information for their hair or a little bit more sea, where there skin ends, I will hit recover and I am so not scientific about it I literally click on like that and like, okay, maybe just a little bit accordingly, this is all to taste this is all like doesn't look pretty in terms of color balance I literally go won't go all the way up, go all the way down and then fund a place in the middle that works and zach, um does pretty much the same venues like we'd read go all the way to the extreme and bring it back um, fill light I usually never touch because it kind of decreases the quality of the image to me blacks really nice working in black if you want to work in black and white and making it more contrast um sometimes I do that a little bit never touched brightness contrast I usually never touch because I'm not only if I know I'm gonna transfer to back away a lot, what else? Any questions so far going to keep going sharpening sometimes, especially when we're working with the twenty four seventy I will sharpen up to fifty um I don't do it a lot because boudoir like to be soft, but they're certain it was especially, um if I'm doing some high contrast thing, andi, if I'm one the twenty four, seventy sometimes it's not always the sharpest uh, so I definitely will sharpen a little there's the noise reduction um if you're shooting in very high s o uh, you might want teo adjust the luminant vigna today let me tell you something about men yet ng okay, please do not hope for been yet your images it's totally fine if you love that look, but do it so it's like almost imperceptible um and how you just do that? I wouldn't really do it on the studio backdrop, but that's how you do it and you can change how much you are using with the mid point, those two tools and then grain um I never use in here. I'll just do that photo shop so that's really it one other tool I wanted to show you real quick. Um let's do it with this one is the graduated filter up here in this little box right there click on that it will bring this up, you literally can kind of drag a light source over let's just say I wanted it should be really dramatic and blacked out there. You can literally keep it, keep it going and you, khun change brightness contrast all those things. Listen there, but I just do it with exposure. You can also like if you needed a hairline and didn't have one you know you can create light source by dragging it over, see more separation in her body this tool rocks don't overuse it, don't rely on it as a crutch, but in clutch situations it really awesome any questions on that have a question from yes from caz mob when you're doing these edits how are you sure that they're consistent for the whole set okay there's something awesome in light room we were going to just touch on called sink so anything I do in one all that have to do with similar instance let's just do it let's just do it I'll show you so this is another one that I would like to show graduated filter kind of dig in the shadow someone exaggerated a little bit more maybe drop that down a little bit if I wanted to do that on all the images I could just hit shift select them all and hit sink and I can sync all or nothing of the things I just did so let's say oh I had that siri's where it was just a little too hot because she got kind of close let me just drop that exposure down this is what's so awesome about light room hold on it's loading um do you always use the mouse shit? Um I don't use the tablet because I'm moving away from all my time on the computer I know I should started that years ago so if you want to drop your exposure down let's say change your white balance a little bit then you just, uh hit shift think usually I check check all and then un check local adjustments which is the graduated filter and sink that there you go and if you want to change everything to black and white you guys are all familiar with light room, right? Most everybody is now um you know, you can do pre sets you can create your own presets I don't want teo in light room do anything like creative like action oriented, any kind of special situations just kind of want to have my lighting on likes like my exposure and my color like awesome and any maybe the graduated filter on a couple if I'm going to crop, maybe I'll do it here you just do that by pressing are the aspect ratio is already locked it isn't press a and you kind of go like this with it um and that's all and then I just exported out into a client folder and what I do is one upon import I always call it the same thing it's the date and then the last name of the client first name so it's twenty twelve oh two ten underscore you know creative live is what I named this one studio set and then when I export out all of my best image, all awesomely color corrected and lighting has enhanced um and then I exported out the same title but then best and forever and always from this point forward, I just work with that best boulder. And if I want to transfer something black and white uh, sometimes I'll do it in light room. It depends how much control I want over it. Um I like doing it more and photo shop. If I have the time, I will from only doing, you know, ten, I will do it in photo shop. But if I want to do the whole session or half the session um I will do it here. And v is just the fast and easy way to change it to grade school and then you can fucks with occur the levels here own she is sexy. Okay, let's officially it I wanted to keep it lean and short and pretty much just the tools I use. I always feel like photo shop and light room. Kind of like, you know it's an iceberg hundley's the tip I only need that I don't need to fuck with all it khun dio I just need to know the few things that can help me. So go ahead. One question, um before going to for a shop for enhancing anything, you already decide if one image will be either color or black and white, yes. I I always know okay, I'm going to change that one I can tell right away which ones that really want remember one I was saying I was just passing that one's gonna look great in black and white I pretty much know and I like to change I like to change half usually so question not far from er mei vanek is so what do you look for when deciding on black and white conversions and I'm not sure if that's uh which images to turn into black and white or interesting or from the technicals great which well let's talk about bull uh I think that's cool um gosh hearted aesthetics um when you change things too black away when you take out when you remove the color your eye immediately goes to what the story is what the emotion is it's more easily recognized um and also lina's enhance and shape so I love cop I almost always loved everything more black or white honestly, um so I'm looking at line and shapes um and if the color is so dramatic or the point of it is black and white would you remember that picture we saw a few slides ago of the chair and it had this check pattern and her suppose we're in stripes so black and white right obvious that's going to be a black and white so the color one and then in terms of what am I looking for in the changes? It depends on the mood of the shot so how did I like that shot? Do I want it to be soft? You know, I want to see a lot of information or do I want more kiosk youto take the thing which is an italian term another art term which is deep deep blacks like almost solid lacks animal solid whites um so it totally depends on what I'm going for and uh so that's pretty much light room I think we're ready to move on to photo shop lester anymore light room questions like photo shop or do sometimes just do like we made it and then you're done oh, sometimes I just do light room but really not for boudoir um very rarely am I not doing a couple of things in photo shop but that's a really good question colorado does everything for me they just do the touching um yeah, but they do color correction also. Thank you. Uh question can we have more but if if that's ready then I was just waiting for it to be ready. Okay, cool. So moving on to the next thing okay, um this is always people always ask this question but uh in davies do you shoot and raw are too thick I shoot raw uh um I started shooting j peg I should run now because I liketo have more flexibility and post especially when I'm shooting natural light all natural light so I liked it so she ra do you ever show a client a black and white image and they say you really love it but I want to see it in color and do they do you show them in color now where is that your decision that's my decision yeah, I am and when I did started a family portraiture I kind of changed less black away because I know everyone like cutler but then I started getting into a groove with myself and started, you know, choosing them occasionally I would have some of that this is the christmas card I really want this one in color and like kind of knew you would so I have that also no but I want to show you kind of as a set what I think is best and then yeah, okay, totally understand, but with boudoir I don't do that three hundred j picked a photo shop pretty export in corto um three hundred j peg that's actually was that bunch of people were out before we moved on uh is could you talk about your export setting? Okay, yeah, great, I actually I don't do anything standard. All I do is export eight by twelve three hundred dp I j peg um, I feel like I don't really need more than that, and, uh, I don't do presets. I have to start doing metadata and stuff like that, so I will be doing that scene. But I am not currently doing that yet, but, yeah, oh, is adding, your copyright is a good idea. Do you export eight by twelve or maximum resolution twelve?

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Christa Meola Day 1.pdf
Christa Meola Day 2.pdf
Christa Meola Day 3.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This is meant to be a HELPFUL review for those that are wondering if they should purchase this workshop. About 75% of what I took away from this workshop was posing, composition for boudoir and the importance of eye lines and capturing movement. I had two boudoir sessions a week after this workshop and my images significantly improved. I was able to coach my clients through poses better, direct them on where to look for better eye lines, I was more aware of their posture and how to fix it, I think I sounded more professional and felt more confidant with getting awesome poses, stand out expressions and adding movement to my images. I put a fan on my client the way Christa does.. and she is right! The instant I put the fan on my client, her expression changed and you could tell she was really "feeling it". She told me she felt like a real supermodel right after I turned on the fan. If you are looking for inspiration on how to coach women and pose for boudoir then Christa is the girl for you. I think the most worthwhile thing I learned watching this is something that will help me in the years to come... with my brand, my website, my workflow and my business goals. I learned how to "keep it simple" which is Christa's tag line. For example Christa brings a roll of gray background paper and uses gaffer tape to hang it from the wall of the hotel (instead of bringing a 12ft background stand). I know this seems simple but this will change my life! I hate dragging equipment back and forth. There are some negative reviews on here about Christa's technical skills, but I think these people may have missed the whole point. If you provide an awesome product and an awesome experience for your client, they will buy it. And guess what.. your client will never know if you used your camera in auto or manual and they won't care if you used one light instead of two. As someone who has been in business for 3 years doing boudoir exclusively I learned a lot. I see a lot of value in learning from someone who doesn't spend a lot of money on fancy equipment, yet charges her clients over $3,000 for sessions. I'm a huge fan of her keep it simple philosophy and I'm glad Christa is willing to be honest about her workflow and how she best utilizes her time. Your not going to agree with or use everything Christa talks about, you take the parts that you like and are most helpful to you and work them into building a stronger business.

a Creativelive Student
 

AWESOME DEAL on Christa's course. I just sent an email to my husband to tell him thanks for "gifting" me this course. I told him just the ONE CLASS about pricing was worth the full $129 price of the course. And there are over 50 classes?! That is a crazy stupid good deal. You can learn something good from every class you take, every book you read, and just apply the stuff that works for you. There are a lot of people out there who seem to just enjoy giving crappy reviews, and to me it's almost like bullying. How someone could not find $129 worth of value in this course is beyond me. In my opinion this course is worth over a thousand bucks, because it can help you make SO much more money. I hate when I see people whining about things that are not 100 percent perfect, and they get annoyed if the person isn't catering to their exact needs. It's like the Yelper generation, with a disturbing sense of entitlement. I would love to see those people try teaching a class about boudoir and see if they could do any better. It also seems like, the more popular a person gets, the more other people feel the need to tear them down. I'm grateful that Christa even offered this course at ALL. Thanks Christa for all you do to help those of us who really need to know this stuff. You rock.

a Creativelive Student
 

I never thought I would shoot boudoir. I am a shy and private person. I started entertaining the idea when I first saw Christa's work and saw how beautiful and tasteful it can be. I love her lighting and all that she uses from historic painters and sculptors. I watched all three days live and learned a ton. I have a lot of lighting education, but it was nice to freshen up my skills. I loved the posing tips and the three typical situations she uses for one shoot. I loved learning about how she shoots in hotels and also using things like an outdoor situation. I have now shot my first boudoir session and it was a total hit. I am thrilled to show my client her images. This was fantastic! Thank you, Christa!

Student Work

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