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Introduction

Lesson 2 from: Dramatic Post-Production

David Nightingale

Introduction

Lesson 2 from: Dramatic Post-Production

David Nightingale

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Lesson Info

2. Introduction

Lesson Info

Introduction

dramatic postproduction. Three days of working through a range of topics. We'll recap in a minute. What we're covering each three days. But I do want to stress to you guys here on people are watching online that I really do need your input. I've been teaching for a long time in photography, and I used to be psychologist leads to teach psychology, so I'm used to teaching. But I am nervous about being from the things of the people online. I was never one of those people who could just stand there for hours talking non stop. It kind of goes wrong after five minutes if I don't get input. So any questions you've got? She announced it. Your hands up. Anybody on the line has got question. I'm kind of relying on Kenya and Jim Toe. Keep keep stuff feeding in. I want this to be a conversation this weekend. It's not just about me telling your stuff. It's about having a conversation about these processes and what we're gonna do. So any questions this shame time? Okay, so to recap thin, I'm going t...

o start by. Looking at one makes a dramatic image. I've got some kind of things that I think are a key to that process, mostly to do with creativity, rather to do with technical stuff. But what kind of work through those today, we're looking at planning and workflow shooting postproduction working camera, and they will be out in the alley shooting some pictures later so hopefully hopefully not arrange fingers crossed. It's looking at damp this morning, but yeah, mostly. If not, we'll be shooting in here, which is it's gonna be a struggle for dramatic images in the studio. But we will. We will create some good images. Um, Saturday we're gonna go through the images, ongoing works for a range of technical topics. Now, we're going to do that in the context of what we discussed today. So I don't say too much about this now, but we're gonna look in the coastal looking at mass, an adjustment layers. We're gonna be looking at converting images to black and white toning images and then these advanced editing techniques. So, for example, one thing we might cover those lab color mode, which is kind of a different way of working with images. It's not when I use very often, but it is unusual, and it's a very interesting technique. But I do want to input from you about specific things that you maybe maybe a struggling with. Or maybe you've heard about. Or maybe you just want exploring a bit more detail on it. Maybe something I know nothing about, which will be a shame. So I'll just look silly then. But hopefully, no. So have a think about what you would like to do in that session. So we have about an hour, hour and 1/2 to work through some advanced techniques, so ponder what you'd like to do. You might not decide till tomorrow. Part way through tomorrow, I think. Okay, What? We've done that. How count? When we extend that, where would we go next? And again, The same further down line. If there's some specific thing that you think would be interested in me talking about, just just let me know someday. So what Actually are images wide? We need them, have the shooting. Handy pro systems. We're gonna work through the whole thing from start to finish. So kind of the technical reasons you'll be shooting actually on first place, how you would process them how you would shoot them on. I think we'll spend quite a lot of time thinking about photo realistic images. I think the heyday of actually images has gone, um, kind of if you produce something that looks like it's straight out of fota Matics. Pro people's first reaction now is that's an HDR image on a lot of people don't see beyond that anymore. What they see is the process. They don't see the content of the image. They don't see what you trying to say because it screams HDR preset button votomatics probe. So I think probably we're gonna try and move away from that. We'll look at those processes and we'll look at how you create those images. But I want to concentrate on moving beyond that on Using the actually out process is a creative technique that can produce dramatic and stunning images. Not once that everybody just immediately think so. Yeah, because a lot of people think against the stage now where they just can't see past that. Would you agree with that? You're all noting Excellent. Okay, so expectation introduction. We don't kind of initial start saying hello, So but I want to do it again. Now on. I want to know specifically from you guys. What you're hoping to take away from this workshop. So you've got something You obviously wanting to be here because you're here. Um but I want to know what it is you want to learn. I also want to know about your experience with post production. And I've got specific reason for asking this that will come to later, and it's kind of it's in two parts. One is kind of the obvious one, which is home proficient. Do you feel you are with photo shop? But the other one is kind of How do you see in the whole process? What what do you view? Is it something that you think maybe occasionally you have to do to an image? Is it something you're thinking about from the outset? How does it fit into your workflow? It's not so much photo shop itself, but the whole the whole idea of post production, you know, conceptually for you. What is post production? So I'm kind of making you think hopefully everyone's Weitzman your that you are quite lively. Eso if we could go around again. So again, perhaps people just join us at nine o'clock. So if you introduce yourselves, let's know what you're hoping to take away from the workshop on. Let me know about your experience with photo shop postproduction Andi from both a technical and creative point of view. So I'm an Ashram. Bo. I'm originally from Montreal, currently living in the Seattle area. Um, one of the things I'm hoping to get out of this workshop is how the how I can learn at the shooting stage in terms of the post processing options that will be available later. I certainly do a fair amount of post processing already. I touched all my images I use. I'm a big fan of light room. I also used photo shop have doubled in HDR. I use the Knicks software version. I've abused Votomatics as well. Don't get quite as good results, so I'm looking forward to that on on Sunday. But one of things that happens to me sometimes I discover images through the post production process, and although that's a good thing, I wish I had maybe more vision up front of the potential of these images, so I could, you know, even create better images. I don't know how much more you'd like me to tell you. I shoot Canon. I've been doing it for about 10 years. Um, and, uh, I also dabble in a few other things. I have an infrared camera, and I'd love to hear your take on the, uh you know, the potential frame for red in terms of creating dramatic images. Actually, I'm alone. A bird's up signed from West Seattle, and I transitioned into photography three years ago from probably 15 plus years and Web production and development. And, um, I focused mostly on or but I really like to do is architectural, industrial and working on some social documentary projects right now. And one of things I'm hoping to take away from the workshop is of several things is more a detail in black and white. Andi as we were talking in pre banter, it occurs to me that there are so many ways to do that and so many tools. So I'm really interested in seeing some of your techniques and the tools you used to do that because it could be overwhelming and making a decision. Um, my experience with post production. Uh, I work, mostly in light room. I shoot raw, of course, and I usually I try to get the best image in camera and then work just on toning and some saturation. Just slight adjustments. A used photo shop, CS five Only for certain things, because I really didn't know it well until we just stood a workshop with Lisa Snyder s o. Now, in the last two weeks, I've been dabbling in that more and more excellent. My name's Nicholas Ray. I'm from Sacramento, California. I grew up in Cincinnati and I actually got into photography kind of on accident. When I was in school and I studied geography and I had never started a minor cause that transferred around to a few different schools and want to apply, they said, Hey, you need a minor. So I picked photography for fun on by, started with film, and then I kind of kept it as a hobby. And then a few years ago, I started shooting, Um, for some friends who would ask me to do things aan den. So I've been doing that for three years and turned it into my full time job. Um, so right now, like I do most of my post production and light room, and I really only opened photo shop when I I really feel like I messed up image or something. And I need to, like, save it. Um, so I'm excited to learn more about Photoshopped and learn what automatics can do. And whatever other tricks you can show us to make some really cool dramatic images. Yeah, there's another nice point in that. People see. I'll mention this in a minute about the idea that post production is something that you used to rescue things, and it's something that comes at the end. But I'll come back to that because that's really what I want to get away from this weekend. If you can nail the shot on camera, that's great. I'm not I'm not suggesting Well, actually, I would. I would say that every single image could be improved in post production. If you've pretty much nailed it in the camera, then that improvement is gonna be minimal. Um, but as you'll see, there are ways which ties into your point of deliberately shooting for post production, and it's kind of a circular pattern that will talk about that Yeah. Okay. So, Well, you'll go. Why not? Thinking that shop is a rescue remedy or abandon or change your way of working this weekend? I guess I use it to, like, remove, like, distracting items from images and stuff like that to, um so that's pretty much my experience. So you've got a family experience with lighting a little bit with lighting. Okay? I've done a lot of stuff in studio, and then I shoot a lot of weddings and portrait's and food and stuff like that. Yeah. One of the things I want to talk about is thinking about production as a form of kind of reverse lighting lighting after the event, cause that kind of Yeah, Okay, but we'll come back to them. Excellent. Hi. My name's David Klempner. I came from Japan yesterday, live on a really remote island of 600 people in Southwest. Okay, now I think the saddest I just needed to up now on site. Thank you very much for coming all the way from Japan. I think this is a record for creative life, I think. Isn't it for a participant? Amazing. Pretty amazing. Yeah, and I watch a lot of creative live courses from from there, which actually comes into play because that's what I've learned the most of my post production. I've been living there for the last four years, and this is my last year. I'm going to be doing a project over the next year of the people of the island. I have about 40 some ideas having photographing, and so I'm really excited for this course, uh, to learn to think of post production had a time. One of my favorite features of your website is I've been following your block for a couple years, but is the original button in the lower right corner. So be gym and you can go down and roll over that button and see the original image that you took. And more often than not, I look at the original image and I'm not struck by it at all. I look at it. It's like that's sort of warning image, you know, and I don't think that you're taking pictures and then going back afterwards and just taking boring images and making them exciting. I'm sure that you're looking at that picture before you press the button and trying to understand what you're gonna do to it afterwards. And that's what I'd like to learn. Well, actually, the interesting story was that is when I started blogging when I was working as a full time Electra. This was in 2003 but in 2004 I decided to post image Today I've been following, you know, top. Yeah, that I'm just some general daily dose of interest. Yeah, I started with him. He just posted an image every single day since 2003 without fail. So I will. How difficult can it be? Big, Big mistake. A big mistake for the first couple of years on nearly managed to measure day, but never never managed a whole year of Dimension Day. The kind of the problem with that is that you get to the end of the day, you think what my going to post on you? Look at the pictures that you've got and you think, Well, these are all terrible. So for me, because I'd set myself that target. I was absolutely turning to stick to it when I started doing was what this is. I don't advise this. This is kind of the idea of using postproduction to rescue things is I started thinking about what could I do to these images to make it more interesting. Over time, I developed a way of working where I could think. Well, if I shot this this way, or if the light had been like this, then it would it would look good. So I kind of develop this way of working with images that look initially a week, if you like to make them the better. So at the start very much was a lot of the time it was I've got I've got to post something, so I'll work with this one. It looks like it's got some potential. But now this is what I hope you take away from this weekend is this idea of thinking that through from the outset and knowing a range of techniques you can use, so you go Ha, ha. That looks really good, but we'll go through a whole heap of examples this morning kind of show. You what mean? You will find that you know it. You know the answers to these questions before you start your just not putting it together in in that particular way, and it requires kind of inverting the way you think about post production. That's kind of things the morning again. I'm getting ahead of myself with that, but yeah, excellent. Hi Money must enroll in Game from Renton, Washington, which is about south just south of Seattle. Been working in digital photography for about five years. It's kind of a it's that created component is my my day job is a business analyst, so I'm dealing with analytical. So the creative component is where the digital comes into play. I've been working with light room, primarily have got into Photoshopped primarily for doing just those small edits the things that you really can't do within Photoshopped but within light room, um, primarily focusing in the area of light like landscape. So things were amount out in about and again in the Seattle area. We have a lot of gray, so game dramatic skies and so forth has always been a bit of a challenge. Other area that focus in also primarily or things with a lot of vibrant color. So colors one those components that attracts me, but the same time those images can become so overblown with with color is how to find another tone to him as well. So those type of things I'm looking at to gain more in the post processing perspective. Excellent. Hi, I'm Joan. I'm from Seattle. My uncle was a professional photographer, so I was around film for a long time, and I stopped playing with it about 15 years ago. And then I am a quilters, but I've done a lot of cad for for work. So, um, I got back into shooting photography because my friend had a new grandchild and I wanted better pictures of quilts I was doing. So, um, I went and got a camera, and it was amazing because I'd never done digital before and is the first time I got toe, see things right away and play with him a little bit. There was some in camera stuff you can play with. Um, so then I took a photography course and I said, Well, now I need better equipment, and I need to go further with this, cause now I want to do a lot more. It's, you know, it became back to a thing of itself. So I'm just trying to learn as much as I can about, um, a lot of this. I haven't used the tools very much, But coming from a cad background, it's not that difficult to follow. Excellent. So I hope that my sense did make sense to you guys. Yeah, you don't quite know what we doing yet. Everyone. It will make sense. Trust me, People were definitely charming and chiming in on the Internet. About one of the more common things that I saw was a lot of people are very interested in learning how to make HDR photographs not look like HDR photographs. That was 45 Yeah, we'll definitely that will. Seven covering out someday again. The thing about HDR photography, particularly with software, now is if anyone's played around with automatics. You've got the little buttons at the bottom and you've got grungy. Which was kind of like when HDR first came out. Everyone Wow, look at that. Wow, What is it? A narrow one goes, Oh, God, you got painterly. Which is kind of the more subtle effect, but still looks like actually part of thing that actually I was well on its people tuning in someday. One of the reasons that HD Ancic artificial is to do with kind of the unnatural colors that you get in the image, which is kind of a byproduct of the fact is shooting a range of exposures, different color temperatures across the range as a whole heap of things going on That so one of the things we're talking about is subsequent post production of HDR images to kind of tone down the things that make them look like an HDR image. So have how many of you have done in HDR converted to black and white, and immediately it looks better if you had that experience. The reason for that is you get kind of get rid of the wacky colors you throw in that window, and then you get this really nice high contrast image. Eso kind of those things that make HDR look actually are a lot of people now trying to get away from that. I don't want people to think that I press the painterly button. You know, sometimes it's worth doing, but more often not now. That's what people see first. So, yeah, we'll be looking at the whole process. The presets have to use yourself where have to do it, but we'll also finish up by saying, Okay, well, how can we use this process to create something is a bit more original, you know, I want to step away from what everybody else is doing this. What What do I need to do to kind of your image? That you showed me the start? Your landscape shop? I've got some suggestions for that. It's a typical what I would call kind of HDR artifacts there that make it look like an HDR. I never talked about HHC on Sunday, but when it comes to using those those tools, is it actually at the beginning of the process, or do you usually do some editing work power to, then take it into HDR, then back out from there? It would vary Martin. No, I will just take the raw file straight into Votomatics, but it's it's a subsequent editing. That's the issue. Eso It's kind of again we're covering since something so don't spend too much time in it now. It's kind of like stepping back a bit during the HDR processing to produce something that you need to tweak a bit further in post production. You can tweak it in such a way that it doesn't look overly hdr like. But anyway, we'll come back to that. Definitely. So hopefully that answers the question for the personal lines will. Okay, so what you learn this is a good bit. You learn that post production isn't difficult. Every single person I train on do workshops, but particular people I do want to warn training for on they tend to be professional photographers on that Come along on at the end. They always say that's not as difficult as I thought it was gonna be because they're expecting that somehow. What they need to do is really complex stuffing photo shop on its Not so hopefully as you'll see as we go along, the post production you need isn't isn't that complicated? So he's in second, but you don't need a whole heap of complex tools and techniques. Um, do explain that frame that you were so okay, right? Seriously, you do not need a whole heap of complex tools and techniques and photo shop Any any photo shop book you buy kind of walks through techniques on is the easy ones at the start, and then you get to the more complex ones at the end. And somehow this is some this feeling that you need to understand all these all these really intricate methods of doing stuff to create something interesting. What I really hope to demonstrate to you over the next couple of days is that's it's a misunderstanding. The Cabinet can be useful, but anyway, right, they will come back next point. I reckon that most of your other than if you just start out with food shop, you probably already understand most of what you need to know. But you don't know how to put it together. So I would guess. I remember this question. I'm gonna ask you either tomorrow or on Sunday. How much of these techniques did you know? But you haven't done it that way before, so I really, honestly believe that photo shop is not complicated. Uh, there are a load of complex tools you can use, which you probably don't need on. You really probably do understand most this already. We are so gonna go through handle plan, use of writing tools and techniques to realize your creative and aesthetic vision so you can't do a dramatic postproduction workshop without without talking about tools. So we will be doing the tools tomorrow. But today we're going to kind of set the stage for have those tools will be used right, and there's an end dot, dot dot I asked a question. Um, probably about a week or days ago on Google, plus on on Twitter, about the role of post production in photographer and specifically, where did they see it fitting into the creative process? And I got two ounces. That kind of typified. This is common idea that it's something that comes at the end on. I did ask him if we could use these so no one's gonna be upset. So smart shot photo at Khamisiyah. It should definitely come at the end after the shoot. Seriously, it comes at the end. It's the garnish on already well prepared dish rights. This kind of ties into what we're saying earlier that you know, you look at some of my before pictures and you think, Well, what's that about? That's not a well prepared dish, at least not in terms of its visual appeal, but it is in terms of the process for post production, so That's kind of a question you're asking. I think you know. How do you get from that to that? How do you see that? That could be that kind of what I want to concentrate on on another. Another response Here, this is This is less common now, But this this idea that somehow photo shop is cheating that all you're doing is kind of fiddling around for hours on end. And it's really got nothing to do with photographer. Too much time on post production, so I shouldn't run across. Have to process the image. The most important part process is taking immune itself, not what you can produce. Spending three hours on a single image in photo shop. Tippett, typically, can I just ask how off how long you spend on post producing image? I know it's a range, but what for? You would what for you would be a normal sort of that time. What would be a long time? I'd say for me if I'm gonna be serious about an image I'd probably put wanting to 30 minutes into it, right? But no room. And Fortis having most of the wrong photo shop, right? But that was experimenting. I'll go up to an hour or two hours, but that's playing around. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How does that fit? With what else? Yeah. Okay, Right. So what I want to do is dispense with this idea that somehow it's it's just something you do at the end. And again, you know, if you're shooting in the studio and, you know, in the shot in the light is absolutely right. Then kind of a lot of these arguments just fall, By the way, you've now the shot. You've got it. Maybe some little tweaks you can do on. So I was watching Zach. I got to do by a couple of times a year to teach out that on. They have a shooting at the main event in March. So Zack had a shooting against David Hobby on somebody else have forgotten my apologies, whoever it must. So what we got is 20 minutes. They don't know what we're going to shooting. They got 20 minutes to shoot. Process on display the image to the post. Production is very quick, but it's very quick because they're nailing the shop. When they take it, they can set up the lights. They know what they want, and they get it. So I want his actors clone out a little circle. Top of the energy caught a reflection from a light. Or when we're like some ceiling claimed that was the post production. We're not talking about that type of image today, any any shot that you take like that you could make marching better. But what we're talking about is thinking about post production is a tool you can use to determine what shoot. But again, I'm kind of getting ahead of myself. So the other thing you learn is that post production is an integral part of the photographic workflow, not just something that you bolt on at the end. It's kind of it's gonna be there in your mind before you start. Before you press the shutter, you're gonna be thinking about these things. So is that kind of makes sense so far. Excellent, right? So what makes a dramatic image before we get into looking at that kind of, We do need to agree what we're talking about. There's no point. It's all talking about dramatic images on all talking about something different. So hopefully at the end of this session will have a consensus about what we mean. But before that, I want to think about the photographic craft if you like. So this is a whole range of things that go into photography. But if you think it is a craft every craft can be broken down into, you have some material that you work with. You have some tools and techniques that you apply and you have a product. So, for example, if you're a sculptor, you've got a chunk of marble you hammers and chisels on. You've got the sculpture at the end that makes sense for painting on the end product is the painting your materials of the pains and cameras? Your tools are the brushes or the palette knives or your fingers or your feet or whatever else is using. So what is it for photography? What does this look like for photography? Some. That was a question. What's the material? That would be the visual subject that you're photographing? So we whatever what? Whatever it is the That's the material. Yes, the material is to see the scene at hand. So the tools and techniques. But what would that cover camera A computer post processing software. Okay on the product. The final photograph. Yeah, that we got. So the scene at hand is the material shooting post production of the tools and techniques on the image or the prince or whatever other form of and put you have is the product says kind of is kind of a simple model. There we go on. This is the first time I've used was not the first. It's the second time I've used at flow charts. It seems kind of ultimately to use flow charts to explain and creative process. This whole thing arose out of a discussion I had on Facebook with a guy called In my island who came along. One of my workshops recently asked me a question beforehand. It was it was going back to this idea about how would you see these? These results and can you look at something and know it's gonna look like that on sometimes it is this idea of experimentation you talked about earlier this the the image will emerge out of the post production on that does happen. But when you're doing it as a self considered process, you see what happened. How did you do it then? That's well, I'm kind of thinking about this because he was He was coming on one of my workshops, like that week I said, I haven't quite a straight my head, but I will do by the weekend. It's all right for the time being. Then I'll just accepts. That is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. My immediate reaction to that was No, no, that there's something really badly wrong with that. But it's only when I sat down to think all this through about what this processed entailed on came up with a spreadsheet. But today is the simple version. There's a nice quiet here from Albert Einstein. Everything should be made a simplest possible, but no simpler. I jumped ahead. You saw the big, big flow chart that you got a sneak games. So what he means here is oversimplification. I think oversimplification is probably more dangerous than over complication. That's not the word. But, you know, I mean, uh, so we can't oversimplify, because if we do, we have kind of the wrong understanding of what we're doing. So what we're doing this weekend is this So this kind of the whole idea of flow chart for creativity just seems wrong to me. There's something amiss with this whole idea, but basically this is what I think it boils down to, and it is kind of the steps in and amongst this that are over simplified. But here's how I think it breaks down just very quickly is gonna keep coming back to this the scene. So we start with seen. So there's there's your material, your tools and techniques. When you're shooting, the image are to do with creative skills. So composition in points of view, there's some creative slash technical skills, things like focal point depth of field lighting. And there's some specific technical skills. So shot to speed to arrest motion aperture for depth field. It kind of shades back into creative setting your exposure. And so the net result of that is you have a role file. Eso I'm using Blue Eyes products. It was good. The image that's the product of the bottom. So the raw file is actually two things. The raw file is also a material, so you don't start again on this point. You've got these technical skills converting your all file that will look at today subsequent post production that will be talking about today but working through tomorrow. But more are equally importantly that you've got on the other side. You have these creative skills of imagination and aesthetic intention, so there's no perspiration involved in that. There is, however, a big box in the middle with a big red line round. It says trial and error. I'm kind of this when you're starting out, you spend a lot of time inside that box. So what's gonna work? Will this work with that work? And you'll spend a lot time playing around. But basically what I'm hoping you'll take away is this idea that he is shooting a raw file toe, apply some technical skills to it on the basis of the creative imagination that you had when you took it in the first place. On then you end up with an image, and you kind of got these red lines that go around the outside, and that's this idea of shooting for post production. So the more you understand about this process at the bottom. So the raw file conversion postproduction, the creator skills, the imagination and the aesthetic intention. You can look at something and you can go where that's gonna look great. So a lot of time when I said it will imagine, you know, you're looking at the scene. What would make it look cool on the go? Well, we're lighting would have to be different, right? Find Can we do? What can we do about lighting in post production? I said, Well, you know, the skies just a bit flattened. Boring. Well, what happens if you increase the contrast? You know what would happen if we had some really dramatic clams up there? Oh, yeah, That looks a lot. That that would look, that would look cool. And this is kind of what I want you to take away from this, that it's this whole circular process of working with some tools and techniques, but their in service off your imagination and your aesthetic intention. They're not kind of little first shot tricks than not things that you just run throughout an image that kind of pre considered things that you can think. Wow. Yeah, that's really gonna work. So that kind of makes sense. It's been heavy going when it's presented us as a float chop When people friend, I have this desire to say Why why you're frowning? So what? What What were you thinking then? No, I'm just I was just thinking through some of things that you mention about clouds. I was kind of visualizing an image. I had my photo I took about a year ago where it was completely clear on the sky and trying to visualize if I had put clouds in that photo, what the outcome would be, whether it would be something that perspective so right, I don't mean cloning them out of another image necessary. You kind of did. For me. There's nothing cheating in fact shop when I'm not for a journalist, I don't feel any responsibility to produce an image that is a true representation of what I'm shooting. For me photography, that's not photography can be, but for most of the time, for my personal work. It's not about that, but I kind of don't clone in skies from other images. Not sure why, for me, it would take the fun out of it, because then you could just really shoot random stuff and just throw it all together and you don't know what something nice and nobody would ever know. So for me a lot of time thinking about this, this is what I got. What? What can I make from this? So one of the things we talk about, something called sympathetic postproduction. So you have this raw material. What can you make from it was sympathetic to the nature of the material. It's like cooking. You know, you can only make certain dishes from certain ingredients, and you've got some scope there. You can correct really great dishes from some very simple ingredients. But you can't create something that's completely different from the ingredients he started with. So, yeah, that would be one thing we could talk about. You know, if it needs to climbs, then think about the plans. Okay, so it's kind of a confusing thing to start with. I could have built my wife threat. And we will do that today and tomorrow. So kind of gonna work through all these steps. We're going to think about how they fit together. I can't promise it'll be intuitive by the time you leave. But hopefully the trial and error box in the bottom will shrink the more the more you do this the small that gets that sometimes you get an image that you absolutely no when you shoot it, what it's gonna look like there is no try. And there it you just use these tools you create the image that you mentioned sometimes a lot trying there sometimes is playing around on on occasion. Find something completely different comes out. You try one technique. You think all right? No, it's not gonna work this time. Let's try something else and you end up with something that is a completely different field. We may get to that when we talk about black and white conversion. If we look at poor traits, so how you can change the mood of an image based upon the post production?

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

David Nightingale - Day 1 Handout.pdf
David Nightingale - Student Files.zip
David Nightingale - More Examples.zip

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Ive been following davids work and tutorials for around a year now...well ever since i took up photography as a hobby. Im a lifetime member to chromasia.com and have been working through his tutorials when time allows. There is no fast track approach to this subject but i wanted the best advice i could get. Ive always found david very approachable over the internet and is always willing to offer advice on questions ive had regarding all manner of photography questions, being a noob. Whilst the tutorials are very comprehensive and well written sometimes its hard to digest this by yourself. So when i heard that he was presenting a three day course over the net. I jumped (well not quite more like sat down) at the chance to make sure i was able to watch the course (didnt manage that either). Sometimes its better to have a monkey see monkey do approach to walk you through different aspects of photoshop. And after the first day of the tutorial, so much information sunk in more so than it did sat reading through the tutorials. Although i didnt get to actively sit and watch the remainder of the last two days i did purchase the course so i can refer back to it time and time again. I can highly recommend this course, its concise, well planned and enjoyable course to watch. When you subcribe to the course you even get the files david walked through so you can practice yourself. I cant really praise the whole package enough...but its an invaluable reference course and couple this with chromasia membership you have a package that will dramatically improve your processed photos, the way you think about composition and importantly your camera settings! Great stuff

a Creativelive Student
 

David’s Dramatic Post Production Workshop is an excellent source of both education and inspiration. The Photoshop instruction is excellent and was my primary reason for watching the workshop. I was very surprised by how thought provoking the shooting sessions in the alley were and the lasting influence it will have on my own photography. Firstly the preparation for the session in the alley was interesting – having a goal and a purpose in mind. The fact that they are producing interesting work to illustrate the points and techniques in a rather dull alley helps emphasize the learning. On my next shoot after watching the workshop I definitely made adjustments in my approach. The discussion, examples and instruction on the goal of making an image more dramatic is very inspiring. It really makes me step back and review my own work to see how I can approach it from a different perspective

a Creativelive Student
 

The workshop was a great opportunity to learn to be more purposeful and intentional about the creative process at the post-production stage. I found the second day of the workshop – where David goes into his own approach in Photoshop – to be the most valuable for me. I look forward to putting this new found wisdom into practice into my own work. Thanks David!

Student Work

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