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Transform Tool

Lesson 37 from: Cinematic Lighting for Portraiture

Chris Knight

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Lesson Info

37. Transform Tool

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

04:29
2

What is Cinematic Lighting?

06:42
3

Motivated & Practical Lighting

07:41
4

5 Cinematic Lighting Tips

04:53
5

Low-Key & Upstage Lighting

06:26
6

Control Your Fill Lighting

05:18
7

Show Depth In Your Image

13:24
8

Pre-Production for Cinematic Lighting

22:42
9

Grip Tools: Clamps

08:41
10

Grip Tools: Apple Boxes, C-Stands & Grip Heads

10:53
11

Grip Tools: Pins & Portable Gear

04:50
12

Grip Tools: Scrims, Silks, Flags & Tape

13:52
13

Grip Tools: Wind and Haze Machines

04:07
14

Grip Tools: Unusual Tools

04:47
15

Grip Tools: Filters

11:05
16

Grip Tools: Q&A

15:04
17

Theater Shoot: Concept

08:03
18

Theater Shoot: Pre-Production Considerations

08:48
19

Theater Shoot: Lighting Gear

04:27
20

Theater Shoot: Motivated Lighting Considerations

26:47
21

Theater Shoot: Lighting Walkthrough

20:45
22

Theater Shoot: Capturing The 1st Shot

27:37
23

Theater Shoot: Hero Shot

21:47
24

Theater Shoot: Capturing In The Seats

21:48
25

Airstrip Shoot: Concept

05:49
26

Airstrip Shoot: Pre-Production Considerations

19:31
27

The Haircut: Location Specifics and Motivated Lighting

13:17
28

Working With Scrims On Location

06:34
29

The Haircut: Getting the Shot

24:28
30

The Haircut: Shooting Plates

08:21
31

Staggered Planes: Location Specifics and Motivated Lighting

08:10
32

Staggered Planes: Getting The Shot

08:23
33

Capturing Plates With Talent In Background

16:26
34

Airstrip: Environmental Portraits

07:01
35

Airstrip: Location Shooting Q&A

22:05
36

Using Plates to Create a Pano in Lightroom®

16:08
37

Transform Tool

04:50
38

Post-Processing 1st Theater Shot

09:48
39

Retouching Details in Photoshop®

13:09
40

Color Grading in Alien Skin Exposure X3

06:27
41

Post-Processing Theater Hero Shot in Photoshop®

08:11
42

Creating a Spotlight in Photoshop®

05:31
43

Adjusting Color for Cinematic Lighting

12:28
44

Post-Processing: The Haircut

12:08
45

Coloring the Sky and Removing Modern Building

05:10
46

Creating a Pano Using Plates in Photoshop®

17:12
47

Developing Cinematic Portraits in Lightroom®

07:29
48

Retouching Cinematic Portraits in Photoshop®

08:57
49

Color Grading Cinematic Portraits in Alien Skin

13:20

Lesson Info

Transform Tool

Now I'm gonna reset this for just a moment to show you what that crop, what the image looks like with no color grading done to it. Okay, so this is what it looks like flat raw, no nothing. You can see that we are on a relatively warm white balance for shooting on tungsten lights. I mean, it'd be warm for a regular strobe. A regular strobe is gonna be about 55 hundred. I'm at six thousand so it's a little bit warmer than that and that makes all of my tungsten lights appear very gold and warm and I, you know I talked about this briefly yesterday but when you start to color balance this to what is correct. Like this is actually, relatively close to what the space looked like which just doesn't look as pretty. So going back to that regular, warm white balance I just think makes the whole thing look golden and reminds me of like Beauty & the Beast. That's what I thought the colors looked like. Like a princess. Now this is looking pretty good. Straight out of camera but just in case you ...

want to adjust perspective, here's one other way to do it. So obviously you can change crop angle here and that's not an uncommon thing to have to adjust. When you're doing a panorama, sometimes it stitches and it messes us the horizon and you have to tweak it a little bit. Super common but this is a little bit of a perspective so the horizon is kind of slanted and I think it looks pretty good but lets say you want these vertical lines for whatever reason, to be a little bit more straight up and down. If you want, like if you want to go that route. That's where transform comes into play and you can do a little bit of lens correction here. So I'm just gonna take a look at a few of these different settings, just the auto settings, to show you how this can change the perspective. So this is off, this is auto. Stretches her out, I think a little bit too much. I think it overcompensates the vertical pitch. Level just obviously levels it which changes it ever so slightly. Here's your vertical. Again, I think it messes up, it overcompensates and then full kind of tries to, you know sometimes it works better than others. What I think is pretty neat is the guided and for guided you actually draw what you want Lightroom to align the perspective to. So in this particular case, you usually need at least two lines. I'm gonna grab, let's say this line here and I'm gonna trace, cause basically you're saying this should be vertical so I'm drawing the edge, right? So something like that. And then this one should also be vertical and it's not so there. And that will fix that pitch for you. And so it works a little bit better than the regular guided one. And if you want to kind of tweak it even more, you can come back into that guided and you can readjust what these look like from one way or the other. So like if you moved out a little bit, it's gonna slightly change the perspective and so that's kind of how you can micro adjust it. You can also come down here to the transform selection and micro adjust it a bit here as well. Okay and so this becomes a way that you can take it from here to here. Just helps you with the perspective a little bit. You don't have to have it. But for those of you that are looking to tweak what the perspective is doing here, this becomes a really useful way to do it. So it's relatively quick and easy. Okay so this is kind of where we're at right now. I don't necessarily mind it with the original, the original pitch. I think she looks a little bit taller in it. The other one looks a little bit more straight on. Almost like I went a little bit higher with my camera to begin with. But the benefit of doing it this way is I needed that ceiling detail and if I went higher, I would lose it because of the perceptive so by me shooting at a little bit low, I get it but then I correct the perspective after the fact so I get the best of both worlds. Just two different ways you can achieve it.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Chris Knight - Cinematic Lighting for Portraiture Grip Quick Reference Guide

Ratings and Reviews

Bruce Walker
 

This course is simply terrific, and I highly recommend it. Firstly it arrived at the perfect time for me as I am soon to do a studio shoot very much in keeping with a cinematic or theatrical aesthetic. Secondly it's taught by Chris Knight who I swear is like a long-lost twin brother. :-) There are so many parallels in the way he thinks and works to my own style. So I avidly watched this as soon as it was available for anytime streaming. This is the first time I have made extensive use of the CL iPhone app, btw, and I love how it pretty much enabled me to seamlessly switch back and forth from desktop viewing to my iPad that I carry around the house during the day. I was able to make coffee and still carry on taking in the course, uninterrupted. The content is fantastic, delivered succinctly yet entertainingly. Some material and ideas are already in my repertoire and were reinforced and validated by Chris' demonstrations. But he also introduced a lot of ideas and methods new to me and very welcome. I was particularly glad to see how practical it is to stitch a series of tripod shots into a wide pano. I have been afraid to try that but I will now be using that in my next shoot, for sure. As alway, his post production practices revealed all kinds of tips about Lightroom and Photoshop I didn't know. Negatives. The volume level mastering is iffy. It started out at a decent level then midway through one of the early lessons dropped so much I had to turn up my sound system to compensate. And as I write this one lesson (34) is missing and in its place was a duplicate of the next lesson (35). I expect CL will have that fixed shortly though (I sent support a note).

Jeph DeLorme
 

One of the best classes I have viewed at Creative Live. Definitely worth the investment of time and money. The pace of the class allows you to learn extra tips and tricks throughout the process. Great instructor, highly recommend this class to anyone looking to step up their creative game.

a Creativelive Student
 

excellent class in all regards. outstanding instructor with experience in complicated cinematic shoots but who also is willing to thoroughly cover the basic nuts and bolts. i wish all creative live classes were of this quality.

Student Work

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