Lessons

Lesson Info

Working with Example Files

a case and let's take a look at some of these shots. So there's the one we were talking about. Shot the broken glass. Must Let's start with that one. Before we do that, I've got photo shops up in a particular way. Everybody has their own preference for working through editing. I'm going to suggest if you're working along with me over the next couple of days, there's kind of some of these pallets that you need to see. I'm so, for instance, the Instagram's normal. Quite important. I always have that visible. I'm frequently used in five pilot history parents quite useful. When you're kind of playing around with ideas, it's very jump backwards through a sequence of steps. I'm not gonna last Palin open up here up. Sorry. Most potent open on top. Left on. I got my adjustment palette opened in that. Now I'm gonna shrink these dynamics. I'm kind of running out screen space at this resolution on So when we do first I've got the hissed A grams set, Teoh expanded view switch that back to compact ...

view. So it's a little bit smaller on. Then I'm gonna grab hold of this agin just drunk that across a little bit more into it with bigger. I've also got my adjustment pallets that quite like the tool that we're probably gonna be using most over the next couple days of the curves. Talk kind of intimidate some people. It's not talk to look at, you know, you just got square, you've got straight line in a box on. But it's probably, you know, you could throw the rest of factual away and leave me with curves, masks and adjustment layers on 95% of my images. I'll be fine, you know, The rest is incidental. Almost so cursed was important. The reason I'm gonna expanded eso typically by default it will look. It would look like this. It would look a lot smaller on kind of the edge will be pulled in. The reason I got expanded is quite simple. If I click on the control points, if you look at this input value down here should be to see online. It says 57. If I use my arrow key to click it across, you'll see it jumps to 59 so it is jumping in to stop not to stop its jumping to increments. If I expand the curse dialogue, I do the same again. See, now it is 59. I click it on it jumps to write Stone 50 51 52 53. So I've got more control. When I make this bigger, I'm gonna make it smaller for the sake of showing as much of images possible because I've got quite low resolution on display at the moment. So make it smaller. Generally, when you're editing, if you want a bit more fine scale control with coastal, click a little. I come down there at the bottom that will make it bigger. So switch panel to standard view for me Now on, if you can make it bigger, switch penalty, expanded view. Okay, so we've got a good look at kind of settings here. If you're going to questions about pallets or why I'm using particular ones to share out. Same goes for people online. If you've got any questions, advance kind of setting up food shop, how I'm using it. Then, like a shame attempt to my guess is no stage. What type? Right. So as you mentioned, does this look like you mentioned it would Yes, it's kind of it's kind of flat. What's interesting about this history and what's it look like? What other type of images you have worked on before have this kind of distribution of tons? A lot would like low contrast. It means that it's a very common, very straightforward shape. It's a very, very simple shape. What I was thinking it was actually are images. When you're producing quite pronounced age, the arms you get this compression of tones. So is everyone happy that it can read the sister Graham, Tell me what it means. Someone pick up a microphone and tell me through it anybody way. Don't listen, interpret this history in for me. So, you know, we're looking at what's happening at this end here. There's no really deep blacks. Yeah, President. Yeah. So this'll edge of this crime is the black, so we've got no very deep blacks, okay? And then we have a lot of information in the mid tones, and then we don't have any really break highlights. Okay, on right, The top here. So at the top of his room, it's like peeking out, right? Oh, at the top. At the very top so it's clipping are I'm not quite know. OK, so what is the high? Tell us. There's a lot of information there. Yeah, so the higher is the more information, so there's no line it all down the bottom here, So there's no there's no very deep shadows, quite a lot of quite dark shadows. The majority of the tones are the most turns in this area here, which is kind of darker than the mid terms, but slim it 10 value type tailing off to somewhere between there's the mid tones. There's the whites to tailing off roughly halfway between on lots of not a lot of you, some some bright details in this line here, but not much. Nothing for the very bright highlights kind of extended standard history. So this stage we've got no clipping, which is good. We haven't lost new detail on. We've got an indication of towns, and all the high tells us is how many of the pixels of that particular value. Sometimes you gotta hissed a gram where clips it looks like it's clicking at the top, so people kind of worried that something being lost. That isn't the case. It's just the history is inaccurate. Um, you know, if if I fill the screen with Gray, what does this scrambling like for picking a shade of mid grade? Just the one line in the middle. Yeah, so I'm very quickly shape on. What you see then, is this clipping at the top on? You'll see what's more important. This is picking me great value. All right, Phil, the last. Now you got this. Instagram. So every single tone is the same. We pick one value. So we just have one spike right in the middle if I make that darker. So let's add No one extra layer was had a curve for making darker march winds instagram it jumps the left. We got what we still got one spike could make it lighter jumps. Um but it disappears altogether. In fact, that's quite interesting. Let's quickly warning symbol. It's just disappeared altogether. So anyway, right. Well, we're all sure we understand They're scamming folks shop. Do you use that? Hissed a gram when you're processing. If you don't use it in camera No. Okay. All right. Have to shoot you later. Right. So let's stir. Go back to beginning, right? Okay, So what we have then is kind of the shots out there that you can shoot that will look like this. And it might be shocked the wallet might be shut the window on the windows on the studio, for example to see from here the kind of some a textured they've got the protective wise and fire glass and things like that. So there is a similar shot this to be had. What it needs is more contrast or more color or something. So we kind of have a look at the finished result against turn all these adjustment layers on they There, you see the finished results, so kind of, you know, this is not gonna win any awards, but it is new and interesting image. Or at least I think it's an interesting image, so kind of the way of building the cell. I'm not going through these particular tools now because that's what we're doing tomorrow. But what I want this to do is give you a flavour of what can be achieved and how you can achieve it. So I'm not gonna explain the points in the curved. I'm not gonna explain the masks in great detail. I'm going to talk about how this image got built. Help, uh, So if we I applied a single adjustment to this one, and it kind of it kind of looks back from the outset on what I did was mask off this this section here because I wanted to treat it differently. And you'll see, you'll see that in a little while. I kind of grind up the edges, saying earlier that I like Haddin vignettes. But for this image, focus in the viewer into the images doesn't make a great deal of sense. There's no one key component trying draw their attention to. It's kind of the structure as a whole essay. You kind of got the 66 blocks on your losing detail at the edge. I got a mass curve. Just lighten up. Top left top, right and bottom right corners. Um, I've got a It took me a while to work that one out. It's kind of a little it's a little vignette. If we look at the mask, you kind of see a dark and down along the bottom edge that so it kind of just dark is the edge a little bit. But then done is Alison color on one of my favorite ways about in color and French shoppers. Curves talk if I want. It doesn't matter what technique it is. I'm like to say one of my favorite ways of doing this is using the coastal because the coastal is really flexible. It's kind of one of my favorite wise about in color. I would have ended. Waas selectively adjusted this this block down here. So for me, if we're talking about a foot short, dresses like my do do use light room for some things. But not for my own work. Because I can't do things like this have been able to pick out a section or segment of an image to treat it separately. It's kind of, you know, I feel like I've got both arms tied behind my back. I am got masks toe work with it. Just It just doesn't work the same for me on and then just the end of little, a little changing color for the image. So there's nothing complicated there. It's kind of thinking about what does the image need, and you identify that straight off the back, Um, and you can reverse engineer this one. So I know what is going to look like. It's, you know, it's a piece of broken glass. What's it gonna look like? It's gonna look great. Look, Flat like contrast. I'm making the changes. There is really straightforward. Yes, it's on my sense. Okay, let's close that one. Runners, take a look at this one. No, I want to do this with a slightly different white who's familiar with lighting. Have you guys So so so, So, So so right, right. If you wanted to light this shot, what would you be thinking off? What's the process? You go through three rings. Act, help! Hey, Arzak, how would you carry the photograph This? So if you're gonna like this, what would you be? What will you be thinking about? I would maybe think about if there was a natural light source like the sun like where would be coming from? I wouldn't wanna have it live with on camera light. I would maybe light it from above the left or right or something. So we could, like, maybe even see that shadow on the ground. Yeah. Small sandals gonna cast? Yeah, it's a wet rock were about the ambient light. What would you be doing about them? Um well, I would try to keep some ambient light so that we don't, like, just have a spotlight on the sandal. Okay, So you be dropping the ambient light. Yeah, a little bit. But I want to keep the clouds and the sea and everything. Yeah. Any other thoughts that all makes sense. Everybody kind of spotlighting the sandal and dropping the ambient friending again. No, I would I would actually probably drop the ambient even more so to get more drama in the clouds. I think I think there's a love. There's a lot of energy and the clouds. It could be called out from it as well, but also again focusing it, but not spotlighting it, but getting more energy. Other back. Okay, so we're probably thinking about one light on dropping the Ambien pretty much OK, right? Let's have a look right there. But there's there's a very simple adjustment to the sky. So if we start thinking about this in terms of lighting, So if we're going to use the lights, I'm no lighting expert either, but what you're trying to do is control the ratio between the Ambien and the like that you put in it now. Clearly, we're not putting light in itself, but what we can do is control the appearance of light. So kind of there's an adjustment in there that brings down this kind, starts to bring out some of this detail, will come back to your idea about making us more dramatic. In a moment. We'll go through how I process this first, So we kind of bring down the Ambien. What does that one do from a technical point of your dark? Is the sky a little bit more on? It darkens this patch down here. Don't worry about that. So it's kind of bringing the ambient down a little bit further. But what's it also doing OK, But what's he doing in terms off? If if we wanted to get from there to there using lighting what we're doing, also introducing some additional shadows as well? Yep, what we're kind of doing it is starting to focus the light on the shot. So kind of my answer to this year is gonna light. It would be something like either a grid or like a beauty dish for soft line on dropping down the ambience. What I'm starting to do now is kind of focus. I'm still playing about with the ratio between what we're adding or what we start with on the background. Ambient lines, boarding started. It is kind of shape the way the light affects the object. This was an interesting what I've done here. Can you see the difference is turned on enough. What does that do you know, in a lighting sense? What I added there you added a fill flash on the right. Yeah, I kind of put a little bit better feeling that. So if you know, if we're thinking about lighting this, maybe we're gonna light it from somewhere up here. We've got a great beauty dish. Maybe got it reflected is throwing a little bit like back in there. I should say that this is curve six, which means it was added later. It was the layer ordered. Doesn't matter too much at this stage will come back to all that sort of stuff tomorrow. It was kind of just throwing a little bit like like, back in. I'm cursed. 10 kind of this messes around with a contrast in this area here. So it makes thes one's a little bit brighter in a little blue little blue dots a little bit darker on. Don't worry about that one new. I'm kind of heading in your direction with this next one. I'm thinking about bringing the sky down a little bit more, so it's just another adjustment to pull the sky. Damn, Um, I'm carrying on without bringing it down a little bit further on the left on. But I do now is kind of switch away from the sky to think about the object. So kind of what I'm doing now is increasing the contrast in the foreground. That's bringing up the saturation a little bit, but also kind of the agency. Soft, light, hard light, you know, hard lights, directional saw flies very diffuse, so kind of as you increase contrast. What you're doing is you hardening the light you see now the lights start toe a little bit more focused. Let's not worry about that one off that one. It's not really relevant. Excuse me. Wanna fight with Trump card a little bit? Onda about that one, right? This one, it would be difficult to be lighting. What does that one do? Kind of Just go. You're highlighting some of the detail, and sure there. Yeah, I'm kind of just bringing out the texture here. So again, I'm just increasing the contrast between the lightest in the dark stairs to pick out some of the additional detail along the top. Kind of almost there. Now, another curves adjustment that one. Now that is some color here now. There's lots of different ways about in color. You know, it kind of looks OK, but one of the things that typically do is add this kind of warm tinge to the highlights and keep the shallows fairly neutral. You get kind of this yellow yellow glow to the sky, and then one final adjustments. Essentially image. It's a kind of what you've done is you've lit it, so we'll go back in a second and look about adding some more drawn to the sky. This is quite soft light. If I was using a light, you know, I've not shined a grid spot on this. It is not a narrow focus beam. It's quite diffuse light, but I brought up the foreground on I've taken down the background, so I balanced the image. So every kind of flick flick, all these adjustment layers off. One good way of working out how far you've got within image. If you hold down the old key and kick you click on the background less symbol there you can talk all you lads on enough kind of jump between the two. So you kind of look at the light. Now, you know, the brightest aerial image is kind of the top left in the sky. Um uh, your eyes drawn to that. She was looking a bit flat. I pulled the light down to the foreground, says that this is This is old kind of subtle stuff on None of it is difficult is you see tomorrow It's just simple adjustments to simple areas of the image, but it kind of focuses you back down. So this stage now, because I'm using adjustment legs if I want to be in the sky dam. So let's actually decide another layer at the top. Here, Um, have another curve and I don't spend too long. The postproduction. Thanks. We'll go through this again tomorrow. But with dark not down again. um switched Grady in on. I just do that. Change the blend mode of that as well to luminosity. So effects in the color If you kind of wanted that that harder effect with sky kind of bring that down even further If we wanted to focus a bit more The razor here on bigger not that big. Yeah, kind of Robson that I have that it's not working. Is that stay this way? What we got. So in terms of thinking of lighting, we've taken the army down further on practically focused a lot, a bit more that could be done slightly better. But if we talk about later on and off, you see, we've done exactly what you suggest, which is bring the claims down a bit further. I like that, too. I kind of went for a brighter image, but equally while it works down. So they're not difficult things to do on. What we did was we talked through the sequence off the creative changes that need to be made and what kind of ignoring factual stuff for the time being. But does that is not as an image. Do you feel that that works? How would you have approached it? And if you have been post prices from the outset, would you have done it in that way? Would you have thought about it in terms of bouncing? The light never fails for me, actually, what you're showing us that showing me specifically, it's it's really know my process would have been completely different, and I would probably struggled a lot more to get. Then producto where you are right there. Why, that's a tricky question. It is about what you asked me earlier. It's, you know, there's a lot of things I'm kind of absorbing as part of your process. It's really it's making me think. In a different perspective, I tended to go on a lot more with Grady INTs and so forth and try to work those things through where you're being much more selective. In some ways, that's making me think to use that as a different perspective. Yeah, yeah, I want to say I think you're sort of like a grandmaster chess player, and you're looking like 12 or 15 moves out and I'm just looking like two or three moves out, so no, I know. I know what you're saying, because I can make you look easy because I've done it lots and lots of times. If we think about the flow chart earlier, does that trial and error box and I won't I won't spend as much time in there as you will. But you know what's wrong with this image? Because you can identify from their set what's wrong with it. It's just working towards it. So I'm not doing anything that you don't know to do, perhaps doing a bit easier. But it's not a question of I'm thinking further ahead because we both know what's wrong with the lights to flatten the foreground. This guy's to bribe. So how do we handle the amendments? S O what we don't start? We don't make the shoe brighter because the backgrounds already to brighten the background, has to come down in brightness. It can't get any brighter, you know. It's almost blown out anyway, so you know that. And I know that. So that needs to do it. So you start with that. A lot of the initial changes to the image did nothing at all with the flip flop. So if we if we look at them again. You know, it's sky sky sand a little bit. Feel like there? Um um more sky, more sky. Finally, you get to that adjustment, which does increase the contrast little bit on the on the shoe. But what I'm doing first is kind of correcting what, surrounding on balancing the image so I can work from there. So I appreciate that you feel a bit stuck with it, but you're gonna be working through stuff tomorrow as well. And some of the images shoot today on Probably never has told yet. But you're gonna take it in turns to sit in my chair, and I'm gonna You're gonna do the life. Like, will I sit and talk to you? We're not obliged to, but I think I think that what kind of work? Well, because then we can talk through your thinking in my thinking. Probably What you're thinking is what people in line to be thinking as well, you know, where do I start? Waiter, I go with this image, so we'll have some of mine. Just do everything. Have some of your images to work with. But none of this. Honestly, none of this is particularly difficult creatively. Was that a difficult process? Did I identify anything wrong with this image that you wouldn't have spotted yourself or you couldn't smoke yourself? Did it end up, sergeant? Did it end up looking radically different then you might have imagined that could look so personally. Where I run into problems is unfortunately with laziness, and I know what I want. I know how I wanted to look. And where I tend to get lazy is I will try and do these corrections to the entire photograph instead of masking, which you clearly done here. You spent a lot of time masking. And so, um And then I will go and use the Dodge and burn tools to try and cheat out the same result without building maths. What? You're the problem with the doctrine? That was to promise with the Dodgers, mental for a start, destructive. So you directly, I just in the content of the image. Now you may be your drink. You duplicated the background layer on your working on that, but nonetheless, it is destructive. So once you've made the change, you've made change. If I if you want to turn off the fill light on the other side They're just talking about There are enough. But the other thing we dodge and burn is once you've made, you can make a change of look good. But then you make another change somewhere else, and then you first change doesn't look so good. So then you got a kind of reverse. The first change you can carry on messing amount forever. Andi Slowly degrading the image while you do that because you're already in the actual physical content of the file. If you practice for half a day using mask, you'll find it quicker because you can juggle all these different lies. I once went to a meta gonna calm at oil refineries Come across him if you if you Google him, he's a portrait photographer. H o Y l e on matters m a double T And he didn't exhibition of poor traits one year when I was in Dubai on the absolute fantastic portray. It's kind of a bit hdr like, but really, really detailed. I spent ages looking out In the end, you have actually done in these because you know, the no hdr. But there's something about this is different process. It's just courage in masks. Well, how many? Then we see that portrait that well, like I said. What? 150 separate adjustments for one in each year. You should have freckle on the guy's face. Well, that's that. You know, it's wanted to make that a little bit darker, so that's a curve in a mass just just for that freckle on. Do you see that? That reflection on just not that for action. This one here, this one? Yeah. Yeah, that's the one. That's a separate adjustment. And it's kind of the whole thing was built up with curves, masks and adjustment layers on. They looked absolute suit. You know, if you don't, you can't dodge and burn that. You can't hold it on your head long enough what he can do. And he was spending days on these. I haven't got the patience to do 150 adjustment. Last for an image, um, anywhere between solve 5 25 from me about the limit. All right, but the amount of control that you have when you work that way is absolutely phenomenal. But the key thing is, you can go back and change them again. You know, if you dodge and burn a bit and then you don't like it, you do. You'll give up because you'll get bored with doing it. This waiting his Turn it off. You know, if I turn on my adjustment lives off, I've got my image there. There's no change in the night. So from May this this is a quicker way of working. And do you tend to start with a shape on that on that on that mask or all White or all black? Um, well, when you create an adjustment, Larry Craig's itself with white masks. So, for instance, if we were starting from scratch with this one Mrs Turn off, these are the last again. So if I'm bringing down sky on what I'm gonna do again, we'll cover this tomorrow. But what I would do is I would add the adjustment, and I'm kind of looking at the area of the image I want to change. So at the moment I'm looking at the sky and thinking I can't. It's big down the whites a little bit. I need to Deep Midtown's Okay, that looks good. What I would then do for this image is I would use the Grady Intell to fade the effect from kind of a shoot the horizon. Um, so there you go on. Don't. So it's fractionally over. Don't know. So I'm not. Probably stepped back a little bit. They're so you've got a nice adjustment that took literally five seconds. You could some images. I would start with global adjustment. Eso kind of the one we looked at previously. The window. I did initially start with global adjustment, but then just kind of blocked at one of the windows. But you have so much more scope for control doing it this way. It works a lot better. Did make sense to you guys. Yeah. Yeah. There's a number of us here who use light room. So even though I realise that you cannot get the same amount of control in light room as you can and photo shop, I wonder if you wanted to talk a little bit about trying to re create some of these effects in light room. My family like me. I'm not an expert. Use of light with my use light room when I don't require this degree of control So for me, I shoot a few weddings every year on I use light room for pre processing. Um, it's a kind of you've got your selective controls. You got your grade, Ian's and things in life, haven't you? Kind of used those, But again, you kind of get stuck into a workflow. That's a bit more difficult, because what you created your radiance, You can't stuck with them. The only way to do it is to backtrack through your history until before, Until before that point, you can't go back. Can you go back? Yeah. Actually, you can reopen your greedy in and adjustments you've done Teoh adjustment brush stroke. But I know that. Like what? If you could do that, then you've got some control. But what you can't you can't do masking in light room. Can your such no on. So for you to get it to this stage, you can do this in light room. You can have the great and you can you can change it. What you can't start doing is picking out little bits. That's when you stuck back dodging burning. I do appreciate the fact shop is extremely expensive, but for me, I can. I couldn't work with light room. I could do so much in light room. But invariably, with every image that I edit, there will be some selective change that I'd have to dodge and burn in light room, which for me is it's no, it's no efficient. I've got the same degree of control. Besides which dodging and burning is kind of. It's kind of like brightened a bit, all docked in a bit. What I can do is alter the contrast of a bit so I could make it darker. But I can also increase the contrast. I can make it lighter and less in the contrast or vice versa. So, using masks, you have a lot more control. If you want to get to the stage where you can really control what you're doing, I honestly think people need food shop on. The only alternative. I think we begin, but I don't like using given much either. Find gimp a little bit different use. Yeah, I actually do own Photoshopped. As embarrassing as it might be to admit here, it's just, I guess, speaking to the comment earlier about being lazy in and finding, you know a lot of ease of use in being able to tackle multiple pictures quickly, one after the other and doing full image adjustments at once. So absolutely, it really does depend on workflow. You know, somebody said to me, right When you shoot his wedding and not use light room, you go. You must be kidding. You expect me to sit in process 400 individual files in focus shop? You know, that's gonna take forever. So absolutely, if you shoot in this type of you can't shoot for myself. What I'll typically do is I go and shoot, so come back with however many images and pick the ones on to work on. If I'm out for an afternoon on, I got 10 shots that I really like to the end of it. That fantastic. I don't need lightning to process 10 shots. Um, my typical Eddins time would be anywhere from maybe 10 minutes up to an hour, two hours, depending on how complicated it gets. Um, if you've got photo shop died, delve into it really would does give you a lot more control. Okay, that makes sense. The Internet audience very quiet today, kind of following along. Have they got the questions at this stage? Always questions. Excellent. Um, before one from Sam Cox, he wanted to know about procedurally. Do you or schedule wise? Do you shoot and process every day or two? Some days you shoot another days. Your process. Um, it would depend. Um, if I know I've got something really like, come in and try and find time to process it. Been honest mistake because I end up sort that are still there at three o'clock in the morning, playing around tinkering with stuff. I don't think it matters if you processed the same day that shoot. What I do think is important is that you always process more than once because you can look at it. You get to a stage that you're happy with. Invariably, there was something else. You want to change it again? That's the beauty of adjustment leads. You can easily go back, tweak images later, So it's always a good idea to kind of double process. Even if you open up, you go. Yeah, I do like that again. Well, mistrust. Does your mindset change between the two different processes between shooting and post production on I guess so. I hadn't really thought about it, but I think it depends on what I'm shooting. Shooting this type of stuff myself. I'm kind of thinking about the post production while I'm shooting from shooting the wedding. I'm thinking about shooting. Yeah, interesting question. Well, I think of it more about that one, but yeah, post post production is not clearly not the same process, but as you'll see this afternoon. Hopefully, you guys will be thinking about processing while you're doing the shooting. That's not always relevant, but it will be today because we're deliberately shooting in a bland environment simply because it's a good exercise to go through. Um, yeah, I'm not sure that Answer the question. I know, but yeah, kind of a couple of questions that are kind of similar. One from Bumpass. How do you decide on a final image if you make multiple variations or have multiple ideas? And then Sam Cox had earlier asked many of the sandal images. Image changes are very subtle. How do you know when you're done? Yeah, How do you know when you're done? It's kind of a killer question, Really. There's no good answer to that one. When I started blogging, I was doing it in the context of working a full time job, doing something else. So I was done When I run out time. It wasn't finished. If I wasn't entirely happy with it, then too bad it was done on it went live and that was it finished and kind of. That was a good discipline because it forced me to stop. If you don't have that time constraints than knowing when to stop is really difficult. Um, it's I think it's something you need to practice and ties integration of multiple variants as well. You know what's gonna work best? Um, it's very rare now that I'll end up with several versions of the same thing and can't decide between and always some reason to prefer one over the other. Um, but kind. If you can't decide, then keep all of them. Come back to it, wheat lighter. Look at it. Look at it again, Um, on the change, the changes are subtle, but the effect is not. It's a kind of to go from a starting point to the endpoint is kind of a big change from start to finish. on the maybe some subtle little tweaks along the way, but kind of for this image. The key thing is, if we think about in terms of lighting, is dialing down the ambient on focusing attention on the flip flop. So you could probably kind of do that with two adjustments once being a fit. What we want to bring down the background and then kind of play around with the balance between anything from there is kind of tweets like bringing out the texture on the top of the shoe is, it's not necessary, but it's kind of nice. I didn't feel like the side isn't necessarily. It's kind of a nice addition on. I'm kind of going in a circle because there is no easy answer to When do you stop? You kind of stop when you're reasonably happy with what you've got. Um, well, I will say is, the more you do it, the easier it gets. So if you practice, you will know when you got to a point. You satisfied with the problem When you're starting out with this is you don't know if it could be better. You get to a point where it's an improvement, but you're not really sure if you've got as far as you could get. But again, practice shows show to other people's why you got multiple variations of an image show to other people, which do you prefer. And if half of them, like 1/2 like the other than that, that's why you got two versions. Because those two things that work if everybody likes one, says, Well, that's terrible. Then you need to think Why? Well, why? Why the responding that way to this version? Not that one. So no, no easy answer. Kind of practice and perseverance, something you guys are captains all my cassettes to you. One last example. A vision. It was kind of the shot of the sun coming through here. Then what I think will do is it's now what cost to We're gonna break in a little while we're starting. It will start thinking about the props on the model on how we might shoot so wonder and detective with props. All right, we got the trustee flip flop on tell. It's everywhere. Now it's going quite under thing. You've all brought things along. I can get one last look at this image. What? What's wrong with us? Home. You know what color it went? Hopefully the person was online earlier said no more pink was gone for a break. What kind of is this is the same thing this is This is kind of simpler thing it again. It comes back to contrast in color, so there's a bit color. There's there's a bit of contrast. And as it brightness on, it doesn't need to Pink, you know, way don't like pink. Let's look at something else instead, Um, we could have the wrong button. We could have green people prefer on may be a bit more believe as well. Maybe we need a little bit more. More contrast. Never change the color. So you know again, it's not the ward with image, but it's kind of interesting. It's colorful when you compare it to the original just kind of got quite a lot more impact. This very little merit there. What was the other change that happened here? There's one little subtle change. It's actually difficult spot. Where you going? Greed. Switch back to the original. There is just a little bit cloning. Yeah, hopes button again. Yeah, It's just these little bits of flair on that was it? That's the invest, the only type, the only content editing. So basically again, it comes back to what I said earlier. What can you do to a pixel? And what did we do with all that? With all of those images to this one on Brian? Some contrast and color this wall bright, mostly brightness and contrast, not not much to do with color on brightness contrast in color for the broken windows. It is kind of working through the same sorts of steps each time. But thinking about what does this shot me? The worst thing to do with photo shop is do the tips and tricks thing. Eso you get the magazine? It's got the tip. You think OK, yeah, trying this image because for me, that's kind of the icing on the cake. It's not in the icing on the cake. It's the decoration on top of the icing on the cake. The icing on the cake is kind of a little fill, lights and stuff like that. But the basic stuff you should be doing his thing about what's wrong with this image? What do I need to do to this image to improve it on every single image we've looked at. You've known the answer. I can't think anyone we went through this morning that you struggled with you didn't sit in the same online. Everybody had great ideas. Some of them were different from the direction I went. But they're all addressing the same problems. You know, this is what's wrong with this image. The lights to flat or that it's not bright enough. The eyes are too dark, the colors don't quite work for the shot. How about black and white? And we have done the black. Everybody's doing the same stuff. Says it Kind of making sense. Yeah, well, gosh had done very little Photoshopped so far. I know this dramatic postproduction everything. If you don't do this kind of thinking beforehand, it does become a very random sort of thing that you're doing. Pass this ties back to the question can hear about when you stop. Perhaps you set your specs. You just sit and look at the picture and give yourself a brief for what needs to be done. So maybe if you got some experience of lighting, you think. Okay, if I was gonna like this shop, what would it look like when I'm finished on? You made it. Maybe it's the focus Light in the ambience dial down than everything else. So practice you set yourself a target for where you want to get to work towards that again. Sometimes images growing won't bending quite the ways that you would like to. There's an element of experience there as well. That comes back to what I said quite early on about sympathetic postproduction. You can't make some news miserable. Look happy. The claim was never going to look like a really polished advert for claims. So you need to push in the direction. It will naturally go. Um, yeah. By and large, I think I think we're making good progress. You know what you do? Should we start thinking about what? We're gonna shoot? Yeah, I don't A bogus doing with particular aspects of post production name. I'm slightly ahead of schedule now, but yeah, I have one question going back to the pure shot earlier when you chose more that color pink that you're working with. Is it more because that's where you're where you're going in your style right now? No, that's That's quite old shot up here. Here's appear. So let's have a look at how we could have done this differently. So those appear kind of what we need. Some contrast started, right? That's going a bit blue. This let's leave it that she could have gone kind of like that instead, which is more purple. Kind of. The issue is, it needs some color. So there's there's the contrast, just damage without color. And it's kind of not very interested right now because they are grey dull colors. So I chose to get quite colorful. Route could have gone a lot more blue. Alternatively, we could go black and white. Um, so I don't know this issues strived like him. What? So if you go black and white on, we might reevaluate this now? Nothing. All right. We need a bit more contrast. Foreground is picking off a little bit. Yeah, something like that. So look at this curve. I think that would be as well. Yeah, I kind of don't think it works as well as a black and white image. But the other benefit of again using adjustment layers is you make one change and then inevitably you'll need to change something else. So typically, when you change the black wine, I go, I find that you end up needing to any more contrast. So again, if you've got all your adjustment last queued up, you can just go back to tweet the different things. Um, sorry. What was the question? It was about the color that the choice. I'm not choosing that choice of color versus maybe oranges or something else in the morning sun. Suck it. What are the color? Could we make it? There was also from Tatiana from the Internet, yet wanted to know a little bit more about your larger color choice, like why you make certain choices with color house color, a tool for you. There's different ways you can think about Color is a tool. So when we had happy smiley clam kind of Oh, you got to listen in on their isn't quite right. There we go. Color. Here is a way of changing the moved. So for me, color is kind of an emotional overlying images. So the clown, what I needed was different colors to get the mood across. Would often do that. It's a really good question on I'm trying to unpick this different levels. I can answer it, and I'm trying to work through which one of the most relevant just kind of about moved eso for the clown. I'm conveying a different mood by changing the colors a lot of time trying to get away from this kind of standard stare I'll look that you get with digital cameras. Eso often tone images to had a slightly different appearance on. This is kind of like you pick a different film. Um, I don't think anyone inset there's only two things you can just that's that that's half of what we're doing. This kind of color on the other is brightness, so I'll try and refine the answer to that question as we go along. But to ask me what I'm trying to do with color in a general sense is actually quite difficult in terms of specific images. I think it's a bit easier. So for the clown, I'm trying to change the mood and making the club my sinister here I'm trying, came to counteract the fact that it doesn't look especially interested in black and white. The original colors air wrong cause the kind of gray and muted. So I went pink, but equally well, it could have gone green or something else. Um, what are their temples have this morning? Um, that's not a good example. Is Conrad explained why it went green? Um, he, uh this was a bounce increasing the kind of visual separation between her feet on the sea. So you introduce the color contrasts as well as a brightness on the contrast and brightness um on and the others were black and white. Kind of this one has had the tone added as well. So by the time we way get to the final image, you kind of get a tone. Apply to damage is a hole. So I don't know. It's very it's complicated. One of the beauties of color is you can use it to add at style. Um, so people will say that they can recognize the way I've turned one of my images, but it's kind of something I don't I don't think about doing I don't think all right, I'll have my signature tone now, but the kind of end up that way. Um, yeah, I'm wondering how you walk the line or the tension, how you dressed attention between making images that are compelling versus plausible. And some of your images are more realistic than others. So how was your thought process went? Because, for instance, this image with the very strong fuchsia tone with the pier doesn't look entirely plausible. So how what's your thought process when you decide to cross that line? I don't think about it. Why is it an issue? Oh, I guess I'm referring to a statement earlier. You made that you tried to make your images plausible. All right, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's different ways thinking that plausible, Ah, night shots that there's an interesting getting it with night shots that that's a very long exposures. It was actually black. So what color was it? There was no color until, and he's added that blessed. That's kind of a cop. Answer to your question. I don't really know the line between it's kind of kind of depends on perspective as well. There's a guy I'm not gonna name who visits my website every once in a while and rants and raves about the fact that my photography is awful, and all I do is Photoshopped. So you complains about everything, irrespective of what it looks like. Eso, whether it's plausible or surreal, it doesn't care, because I've done photo shop fame. Photography is about pointing a camera at something pressing the button, and that's it. You don't, um, that. Why is it an issue for what you do? It's not an issue. I just want to clarify that just curious as to what makes you, you know, go in a certain direction or another as part of your thought process, where it's interesting, because it again it depends on the change. So this guy could have looked like that. But that is quite profound. Change to the image. This one is less plausible in terms of the color of the sky. You got slightly green sky with the yellow tinge in it, which is kind of a signature thing for May, but nobody nobody would pick that up necessary. Bean artificial. So that's kind of a subtle change, but it is less photo realistic. The claim could have bean that color, but it's a bigger change, so you can kind of balancing the extent of the changes well with, um and I think plausibility to an extent must be in the eye of the beholder. Clearly that some stuff you can do in fact shop is completely not plausible. It all. So we've got to any Windows open now. But the shot off, Yeah, that's not plausible. You know, it's never, ever gonna look like that. You never been. Well, if it is, you better run and hide under a table or something. Clues that something bad has happened. But it works for me. It works as an image. It's It's just a graphic image with some light in the middle and some lines and some structure and some color. Um, but it's not by no means plausible. I think we're trying to say is I don't worry about it. I'm trying to work towards creating something that looks interesting or compelling or dramatic, or have you want to think about it? Um, but I do get picked up on my pink images. I'm certainly not trying to. I was just curious how you end up with such different results. On what? What's the visioning process up front that makes you end up in different places, kind of some of its premeditation, some of its No, because I know that I'm gonna be thinking about particular things and impose producing color is one thing I'll play around with, Um, so I kind of it's like that shot is slightly warmer than it was then. It was naturally, and it's kind of a position I end up in because I like looking at images like that. But I will change, so I will look at what the image looks like before its tone. So we're getting to a discussion about what? What's personal preference and what's not, which is obviously relevant with. That's the reason is no hard and fast. Answer the question because there's no right or wrong about this. It's like people who use, you know, five D mark twos on filters to emulate shooting with a toy plastic camera. You know, I think there's merit in those sorts of images. You don't have to be purist and have the plastic camera because it is kind of an aesthetic about that sort of image that works so emulating Polaroid shots using digital. And I think it's valid because there's a history of looking at Polaroid images on this something compelling about him. You're the most unnatural type of image. A tall, black and white, if you think about it, is nothing at all natural about black and white image. But it's so ingrained in our history of photographer that is conventional to nobody questions. You know, those people really great. You know, nobody says it. It is this kind of really purple when that cause it wasn't but But the world isn't black and white either, so that visual conventions playing with preferences, playing with techniques and kind of the all run together There's no answer to the question. It all that was that was avoiding your question, you know? And I guess this goes back to my my introduction when I said, You know, what's my purpose in this workshop? Might my goal. And it's very much to just understand the choices you make along the West, from the shooting to the best processing and when Ross you in a certain direction versus another okay with shooting bit is kind of It's about all the standard sort stuff. It's about post, but it is about thinking about exposure, making sure you've got enough data making sure the composition works. I'm using inappropriate depth of field everything that you do normally, kind of. The only difference is I wanted to concentrate on making sure your exposures. Okay, But when you get to this bit here, what we're talking about here is I put two things down here on the creative skills are put imagination and I put aesthetic intention and you can kind of think about those. Either is something you do beforehand or something you do afterwards. Now I setting intention implies that you're doing it first. But imagination is kind of one of things that first said this morning. Wouldn't it be cool? If so, if you look at something that wouldn't it be cool if there was lots of contrast in this guy or we lived in a world where everything was pink, any number of different things on kind of this trial and air a bit in the middle. Try different things I think would be cool if you're trying to get Actually, that's not cool. Little let's try something else that didn't work and I was an imagination on. Don't forget it. Let's try something different, but you play around with these things. You play around with color, you play around with town. You play around with selective adjustments and you will develop something that works for you as well. Kind of. We've done a lot of the key stuff, which is thinking about what it is we're shooting. How we bring all this together on a law coming Locklear tomorrow. And you have a lot of offers to play around. Um, but yeah, just my as I'm looking at these images in my thought process is, Well, why would I do that? And then I think, Well, if you're thinking ahead, you know, what context am I going to use that image in? And it may be in a Web space or something where that kind of color would really work. So again, it's thinking, No. Well, maybe I wouldn't be doing that. I'm very rarely. I teach groups of Children on their fantastic to teach because it's like when you teach agile adults white for you to tell him to do something. So, for instance, I'm like the hue, saturation talk, and right, open up the hue saturation. Talk about 10 seconds later, people. Wow! Whoa! Because the dragon Hugh slider around, messing around the saturation and kind of that sense of adventure. It's easy to lose it, and you kind of you don't have to force yourself. You can't force yourself to be managed, imaginative, but it is worth playing around with alternatives. A lot of time for me. It's kind of people ask me, Well, you know why Why do I take photographs? That's kind of really difficult question to answer. Can you answer that? Anyone Answer that question. Why do you take photographs? No way should be able to answer that question. Should I take him to try and capture moments like it could just be the way the light is coming out of that day? I do a lot of photographs of light coming through clouds and different. So we're just trying to capture a moment that might not happen again. Yeah, yeah, that's something I do as well. One of the other things I do. It's kind of like, What is this? Wouldn't it be cool if type of thing, um, what I try to do with a lot my images is capture what it captured not the essence of something, but show things in an interesting right. Just like if you watch Children playing, you give Children novel items eso like when I take our kids to McDonald's, there's only about to McDonalds and bongos don't very often get really excited, but they get the little plastic toy that probably cost about two cents to make in China. On my perception of that object is this is a piece of plastic rubbish that's going to be broken tomorrow. But you know that the running around, playing with them and the fascinated with this object to kind of one of things I can do with photography's is fascinates myself with the things that I'm photographing. So like the things on the beach, the flip flops, the broken bottle is the buckets. You know what's fascinating about this subject? If I if I just landed on Earth and never seen this stuff before, my perception will be different when I'm trying to do is kind of reinvent perception of these objects through post production. Does that kind of makes sense? Kind of. We have some great comments from the Internet about why people photograph I wanted to share with way have Leslie Photo says. It's my way of talking to the world, Jason Babel says. I take photographs to try and show the world how I see it and Matthew K photo. I take photographs to share the vision in my head. LJM says I am compelled to and show a story. And C. L Todd, who was are very untied. Who's upstairs helping us in the chat rooms as I shoot to capture a decisive moment. So thanks for everyone. Yeah, I think it's all of those things where it can be. All of those things came in. What question sparked off this discussion? Us? What? It must be near the time for a break. Surely, um, what we need to do now, then, is we can kind of go arounds conceptual stuff over and over again. I've gone through all the reasons for doing this. I want you to think before we start, So we're kind of done that now, and I want to put that on one side. Where I wanted to start thinking about is kind of some of the props that we've got on what gonna shoot. And perhaps we can tell people online about what it is we've got on day could make some suggestions as well. Before we. Before we break on, we have a short break on, then we'll get. We'll shoot for that well on, it's never going.