Skip to main content

Workflow and Retouching

Lesson 22 from: Unique Posing for Weddings

Doug Gordon

Workflow and Retouching

Lesson 22 from: Unique Posing for Weddings

Doug Gordon

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2000+ more >

Lesson Info

22. Workflow and Retouching

Next Lesson: Enhancing Features

Lesson Info

Workflow and Retouching

here's how my day works I started the bride's home roughly two hours before the wedding by starting a tew hours before I'm going to get there I'm going to do her boudoir I'm going to do huh pride alone flow posing the bride in a family full posing pride in a girl's flow posing that whole session will take me roughly thirty to forty minutes once I'm done with it at that point I'm going as I'm going to the church I'm up loading the images into my laptop and when you see how quickly re edit each you'll understand this now when I get to the church and the guy's haven't even arrived I'm editing and re touching those images then when the guys arrived I shoot the groom alone the groom with his family groom flow posing with these guys all that stuff and while I'm waiting for the bride arrive what do you think I'm doing I'm editing and retouching then when the bride gets there I think the images of her getting out of the car with the dad those candid moments that she's never going to look good ...

because she's nervous and the sun's hitting the wrong way whatever it may be and as I'm waiting for them to line up in the church I'm uploading an editing she walks down the aisle I shoot them I get all my images done on dh then after that I know that the priest is going to go and we're gonna have the first two readings we're gonna have the homily and I have about ten to fifteen minutes depending on the church and after doing it thirty five hundred times I kind of know what each priest is going to do because I've seen them before so then I'm editing during that time then during their bow exchange their rings and all of that I shoot and then while I'm waiting for the candle lighting to car is they're doing something maybe they're doing the prayer of the faithful maybe they're doing ah blessing maybe they're doing I just forgot what it's called communion all of that stuff I'm editing then then after they walk down the aisle and I shoot that they have their receiving line which takes ten fifteen minutes editing again why am I dealing this because I'm their toe work I don't need to take a break I don't need to eat I don't need to chat with my friends I need toe work because when I go home I want to be done I want my life but more importantly what I want is to make money the longer you take to deliver your images the less chance is they're going to buy I can't stress that enough to you it's about getting people excited and when the people most excited about their portrait of the weddings or any photo they had right away whether they most eager to buy right away and if they got married and had an event when do they have the most money from the gifts right away so we got to get them in and when we talk about business today we're going to do that immediately after the ceremony I do them walking out of the church then I go into families I go into bridal party than I do bridegroom and during the beginning of the cocktail hour I have a whole hour in a new york wedding for a cocktail I was sometimes an hour and a half what do you think I'm doing I'm editing and I'm retouching because I want all of those images add it to the perfection to put up on the screen at that wedding and when people are watching but the screen a same day at the same day show they're looking at it in amazement I'm taking the attention away from the bride and groom bringing it to the pictures and when I asked you at the beginning what's the best way to advertise I told you flat out the best way to advertise is with the people you have do you know how many times during the course of that I get asked for business cards because the images are wonderful do you know when I have a slide show or a zap it presentation do you know my odds of getting tipped go up like five hundred percent yes I get tipped even at the prices I charge I get tipped ninety percent of the time because when you put it out there when you do it fast when you do it and keep them excited and the bride and groom can walk up to you and look at the images director wedding to oh my god I love this you did it you made me look beautiful you made me feel beautiful it works it works and it makes you money but remember time is money it's about being efficient so what I'm about to explain to you I don't know I'm not a photo shop genius I'm nothing even close you know how I learned photoshopped I'll tell you it's kind of a cool story I was a w p p I and to be honest with you I was about to give up shooting digital I was going to be the rebel and go back to film and the reason I was going to give up digital was because I was losing my life was losing I was spending all my time in front of a computer and I'm in a gift shop at bally's on I see this guy over there this little hawaiian samoan guy his name is kevin ca botha I walk up to him and I swear there was a light shining behind his head I walked up to him and I'm like hi I'm doug gordon and he goes and I know I've been waiting he said this and I'm like what he talking about he goes I hear about your struggles I can fix you not like amanda fixing me amanda's fixing me the wrong way but kevin fixed me the right way the fact is what happened with kevin was kevin's a genius he knows photo shop in every extensive way so kevin said juanita come to one of my classes but what I realized is I don't have that temperament if I go to one of kevin's classes I'm going to be locked in and my head will be ready to explode because you watched me during pre show banter I can't stand still for two minutes imagine me sitting there watching a technique class I don't have that ability so I said let me by your actions just tell me how to use them and he goes all there's a whole pdf I'm like I can't do that I'm not going to read it that's not may so it goes play with them so I played and played and played and guess what his actions taught me photo shop and then I learned what it did and then I became involved in it but here's the thing you can know all the photo shop in the world and all these great techniques but how many of them make you money it's great to get a depth but how many make you money I learned howto fix problems you want to learn how to fix problems don't shoot problems I don't want to learn howto fix it in photo shop I want to learn how to fix it on camera I want to make it right I want to make it quick and easy so now I have all of kevin's actions I even started creating my own but that wasn't enough it wasn't enough because if I have to search your inaction palate great kevin meet this great thing called the dashboard I'm sure most of you know about why could type in what action I want that's too slow I needed to go one step further so what I needed to do was take my favorite actions and commands and find a way to make it better and I got it right here this is my little key paired and it's the most important thing in my life okay we developed the keypad because now I could just boom boom boom boom like a typewriter and you're going to see how quick I move on I function from one step to another but the most valuable thing inside that key paired is the button it says next image because right now you're probably going into photoshopping opening ten to fifteen or twenty images at the time and you're sitting there watching it and you're like this is so slow it's so annoying driving me crazy because it's slowing down your processing power no matter how powerful the computer's open one at a time and then when you hit next image the next one comes up opens immediately it's about work flow it's about being quick and it's also about known what I shot what I wanted to look at when I press the button for any of these images I know exactly what I want when it's happening I know here that I put ah white balance of day light out of my torch light because I wanted that background to go ultra orange I knew here that I was going over saturated and then I was going to use an action called a radiant landscaping and I was going to add an icing to soften it up in the radiant landscape was going to kick the color up and make me look genius I knew here that I was going again go in with a radiant landscape I was gonna wear it use an hd ought to kick it up then I was going to add something called powersoft wipe it off and it was going to whip it off the page and then I went in and rather than making action I added something called a high pass filter toe really make it explode I knew here that I just need its softness and I needed to burn down with a smoke us burn I knew I wanted an icing here and a little bit of a crop that was it I know when I shoot it what I'm thinking because I'm thinking to make the album and if you do this you're done you want to know what makes itself when I'm going home at the wedding I have I put the internet right into my computer I have one of those portable things I razed down my images and night room and then as the wedding's going on I'm already uploading them to the website I'm uploading them to image quicks so that when people go home they've gone up buy them and then in a little while when we get the sales I'm going to tell you how I make them by how I forced people to buy them and give them no choice but to go and get there while it and put that credit card and right now this minute because the second they walk away from that computer they're gonna forget about it we have to make ourselves important it's all about the moment everything you do in life is about grabbing the moment so now what is our workflow let's see exactly what we're gonna do gentlemen can we go to the live screen please so let's take a look right here so here's the thing all I've done is opened my first image now let's take a look at the image here this is my exact set up all those other things that come up on when you open iphoto shop I don't need them my whole world is built on cropping and setting things up now take a look if you look to the right of the image right in here I know that I don't want this so I could sit here for twenty minutes and start to clone it out or I could think about alternate crops one of the key things that I put my keypad is if I have to go in and start changing crops because I'm working with different how long does that take you're saying a couple of seconds right but when you have five hundred images of a couple of seconds that's going to add up just think about it if it was one second each five hundred times one second you're adding how much time to what you're doing you're adding roughly a lot of time you're reading probably another fifteen twenty minutes you don't need to do so right now my crop is an attempt by ten I'm gonna hit one button on my crop changes to a five by ten I go right in here now let's take a look now I'm a little bit warm here because in the beginning I forgot to change my wipe out so what I'm going to do is use an action that kevin created it's called to warm and take a look at what it does it changes the whole complexion of the image I press one button bring it down if I don't like it you don't need to know about photo shop you go in here and I could play with the opacity of the layer on adjusted to make it as warm as I want or what I could do was bring it all the way up and notice this here is on a ley amassed so I'm going to teach us something really valuable about leia mask white liam ask what did they do white lay a mask reveal black liam ask blak so that means now I could come in with my butt my brush that I said but that was one of those things is going to be late on tv doug's it but good we're going to be for brush on now that I'm in here you should know your short cuts their simple shortcuts that you should know you should know that j equals a patch tour spot healing but you should know that asa's your clone till you should know that sea is your crop that be assured moved to oh you should know that bee is your brush you should know that d is going to give you to the fault brush of black and white you should know that x is going to change it sonam and black a hit x and now what I couldn't dio is I can go in here and take a look all I'm going to do is because I like the sky the way it is perhaps I'm going to go win with my brush here at one hundred percent I'm using my bracket keys I'm gonna bring my capacity up which I can do just by pressing I could change my a pass ity by pressing the number so if I hit one it'll be one hundred these air all quick things you know if I had five it's fifty but for some reason it's not working watch what I do with one hundred percent I'm just painting it on where I wanted to give the color that I want on her and I'm giving the natural color rather than warm color but I'm keeping my background exactly the same arnie now let's take a look here when we bring in I know that I want to show up in her up so I'm going to do if he had an action called power look at the push it's giving the good a bit of a push is giving a punch and it's snapping it up now all these things right over here do I need to know what these do who cares why do I need to know what they do I press a button and it happens I'm not here to study and I'm here to make an image now from here I'm gonna go in I'm gonna press a button another button on my keyboard it's called powersoft looking are soft that made her face now it goes and it automatically defaults to the brush and I'm ableto wipe away where I don't want the softness you seethe sharpness restoring I'm going to come up to address here I'm gonna enlarge my brush and I'm going to go right in here now is greatest the actions are what makes this really happen and the fact that I programmed them into the keyboard watch this I had flattened and save images done and then I hit one of the button next image comes up that's a heck of a lot faster isn't it looking at us here I look at this year now what would I do in a situation like this how would I get rid of it well if you don't know there's a really cool thing and c s for an above I believe it's cs for its called content aware all you do is take your lasso so you hit elf a lasso go right in here now sometimes it works great sometimes it doesn't if I hit shift the lead on my keyboard content aware pops up and if I'm lucky it's gonna pull the sky and make it perfect that just made life a heck of a lot easier dent in it so I go in here and I see as I get closer to other edgy things that's when it becomes a problem and I'll have to go into my clone tool in this case it worked out beautifully that image looks pretty good the way it is so let's take a look at this action here we pull him we got good right there don't wait that's that small little torch like that one pound light that's just one filter and watch what happens when I hit hd aug look at the clarity and the image that's to clear this is thirty two hundred eyes so I probably magnified it to about two hundred per cent right now that's pretty good isn't it now hit icing which is going to soften the image up completely and go right from there now how's that image look looks pretty good doesn't it soft warm beautiful flattened move onto the next damage then from here I go into my crop I hit c for crap I hit ten by ten so I don't have to go up and do it I go there just like that I'm gonna bring it up for you I'm gonna shopping it up right there and then again I'm going to add an icing to it which is going to soften it up completely and take a look at the image works fairly well doesn't it nice cardy nice step move onto the next image I don't need to work that hard take a look here what should display I have no doubt that this should be a five by ten and this is going to give me strength it's going to give me power now take a look here remember how we live we live from the one side right so remember I told you we think of everything kevin thinks of everything watch what happens if I go in here and I press digital bill I'm able to paint the light back where I want it in case I want to put it on here that works pretty awesome doesn't it now from here I'm minus it out and now I could start to paint the sky down if I want to get it a little bit deeper by using something called smokeless burn but the fact is do I want to talk in that sky there not really but again it's about having options so I'm going to use icing on it the reason I keep using that same icing action is because of a saturation in it on what happens is you're looking u c a boulder you open it up and he start to notice things here all this is a this point is a custom curves layer and now playing with the adjustments I know what it does and I'm able to use the action based on knowing what it does that makes life easier simple now let's take a look in here look at how beautiful she looks but I probably could hit her with a little bit of light so I'm going to go right in here and I'm gonna open up her face do you see how soft that makes it is is there anything overly technical than I'm doing here right now not at all we're keeping it simple now I go in here and I decide how do I want to crop this can I leave this the way it is I don't like all this year so what would be a good crop I'm going to go in and I'm going to make it five by ten and now I'm just going to go in here just like this whether this is the student the moon the stars whatever it may be I'm going to get rid of it by using my patch tool here I'm going to get rid of it by using my patch tool there go just like that again I'm not looking for perfection I'm looking for quick easy transitions I shopping it how's that image fuck looks pretty good doesn't it flattened say move onto the next image then I go here with a square I'm just going to hit ten by ten on my square crop just like that and I'm going to show up in it up I'm gonna add icing and take a look what matters most is look at that lighting now if I see something in the background do I like this here no I'm just going to go over here with my clone to I hit s and now watch I'm going to slide it over but do I wanna work too long anus I reduce my brush size by working with what my brackets if I used my left bracket minnesota minimizes if I used my writing and largest guess what the download of this event includes what the photo shop tutorials on how to do this any of my teaching videos that we have in my store include photo shop so you can see exactly how I do each image because honestly that's just a cz important is pressing the button as you could tell how long do you think it takes me to add it this whole thing it takes no time at all go right in there look at how stunning they look how did we shoot this while we're on it we shot them do you remember we had mackenzie back here aiming a light into his face beautiful soft light and then we had what we had who was back there julia was bringing a light into the face perfect profile lighting of each girls do we have any questions over there because I'm sure summer starting to cut valjean okay let's talk about it talk about the questions I ask you guys hear first what questions do you have because have I taught you anything about photo shop not really I don't need to because it's not about that look average person uses roughly ten percent of their brain I used maybe one and a half two percent tops I need to maintain the most important information so what question do we have well dressed albert at the youth any plugging for foolish up like on one of the other things that I know why don't I use plug ins because I have to take a longer time I have everything right there on my dashboard I could do anything I want and make the perfect image anybody else over here keep that little keep it that's awesome isn't it where can you buy that my website www don't gordon workshops stopped my shopify dot com and it has the golden button in it the golden button is next dimension flat nancy it's magic ladies wow wow wow okay is on fire we talked about this before but let's ask it again kismet seventy two when cropping too unusual size is like five by ten are you cropping for prince albums or digital files and how does this translate fur sales and what if a client asks for it and eight by ten how do you explain how do I explain it to a client who asked for an eight by ten it's really simple I don't say no I go and let them think that it comes out of camera as a five by ten this way I cropped the five by ten to an eight by ten it looks terrible and then they have to buy my way my art my wife my interpretation my cell the idea behind it is giving these different shapes and sizes is going to create frame cels when I tell you that frames is the golden ticket like you wouldn't believe frames is a great thing because you make easy money on it he is what ideo every wedding we have we give eight by yates to the parents we give eleven by eleven to the bridegroom and a twenty by twenty now they come in and we let them try and do what we upgrade them two frames I pi a premade eight by eight frames from bay photo it cost me I don't know maybe of course me twelve dollars I'm walk it up like ten percent to like one hundred eighty that's new york's version of ten percent okay the fact is I'm able to create sales millions of dollars of revenue is generated from frame cels because people are leasing they are lazy they're not going to take your image and frame it they're going to throw it in a cause and I need those frames displayed even if you had a ten dollar frame and you charge twenty five it's done do I go through any extra work no I order the picture with the frame from bay photo it comes in I miss happy's khun b and then hand it to the kind it's got everything it's got the wire on the back it comes with a nail can't beat it well they're gonna do is hammering on the wall and if they're willing to pay well come over and put it on a wall for them it's very simple odd sizes for the album that for the frames there for the story that from my art interpretation I'm thinking of the album I'm looking that sink this here could be a side of a page and on the other side I could use one of the five by tens and build box okay so with the albums so you have a whole album will be square that's how you do that what we're going to do is most times we're going to work and that's twelve by twelve format but remember I don't want to give an album where every picture is the same size same shape I want a story my very dear friend gerry g on assume most of you probably know even watching it home jerry win album of the year every year it's not just because of his photography talent it's because of his simplicity of design jerry says it all the time keep it simple rather than go and make this extreme story so my cropping is dictating the way my story goes you have to remember one thing when designing an album we are at the mercy of what our clients pick so if they picked the wrong pictures I need to fell in with the images that it gonna work to create that story if they have eighty pitches in sixty of them a family pitches I'm in trouble okay so we have to keep that set up so I am shooting for the album okay so just again another followup uh from biden's light in texas so with these nan nonstandard crops what about selling single images to friends and family that just want a few images not a whole book or while prince of people are here's the great thing on my website on image quicks the website I use do you think I just offer images I offer frames as well and I offer odd shapes and sizes when someone orders a five by ten ten by twenty without a frame we call every single person who places in order on we say hi this is doug from packing photographer I just want to thank you so much for placing an order we saw that you wanted a ten by twenty I just want to let you know that's an odd crop I'm sure you saw that were frames were available so the problem is you'll have to get accustomed frame but if you want we have custom frames available at very inexpensive prices I think you're best off letting us frame why am I doing it why am I making that call making the called number one to confirm the orders correct and number two I want to up sell him because it's a lot harder to turn me down on a phone chlor in person I'm selling odd shapes and sizes because when you walk into someone's home and you see a standard sixteen much money you walk right buy it but when you walk into a home and see an odd shape and size you're going to pay attention which that means your advertising this is workflow and business all at the same time so many questions about the cropping um so inca says who is from cyprus when you flatten and save is this a second copy of the image while keeping the original still intact here's what we do this is the way we work our service in our database all workflow we have such an extensive work for to be able to put out images that we're putting him out so what we do is when the photographer comes in keeping two sets that keeping a master set that's um master unedited un retouched nothing it's every image they take then what they do is call it down to a reasonable number now in air k in some cases their coloring it down before they edit it do you think I called down before you had it I'm not shooting enough over what I would cut down so what I'm doing is I'm going in and retouching my image so the next question it's going to pop in if you're keeping the masters and you have the edited images uh do you allow your clients to go back to the masters they'd have to be a real pain in the case of my studio I will allow it if they ask but you know if I don't think that it should look that way I won't allow it in my case never ever ever ever now does this mean I'm a pain does this mean I'm arrogant it means that I'm an artist just like all of you on all of you home it means I want my work interpreted the way I want and interpreted nobody goes into a clothing designer and says hey I like this outfit can you change the colors they don't do it do they nobody goes in and says I love this painting but I would love if you could make the flowers pink rather than yellow it's my art I'm gonna interpret it the way I want they hired me to do a job we can't forget that we need to be exude confidence you're gonna find this hard to believe you really all right I'm about to tell you I am a shy introverted little puppy outside of this classroom I would rather sit and just hang out with the kids and family my wife and my kids and she keep it very simple and easy I don't like being that person on what happens is when you're here when I'm onstage with you I'm working when I'm shooting I'm on stage again on the ladies over there like there's no way he's introverted maybe they're like he's perverted it's hard to believe that you're introverted but we'll take your word on that any other questions yeah we know that goes we do have questions we have questions about so a lot of folks out there use light room or aperture question question is can you do a lot of this in those programs before she can I do have grown I like him forthe guess what else to keep it works with like room any light on what we do from there is we have our pre sets which also bike a border here's the thing do you think light room is going to save me time on what I'm doing to each image it doesn't and can I do as much unlike room the fact is I can't now if I'm shooting with a raw file then obviously like rooms and must but the fact is I like finishing it and seeing it this way the presets and light room as good as they are the kevin made they are nowhere near what the actions khun dio so I worked predominantly and photo shop because I want to produce things I can't take softness off the same way I can't get the same effects but you know teach their own but I'm always going to be a believer this isn't a fact this is my opinion that I think my images look better inside of light room inside a photo shop if you need to do something quick then you go into the light room and you could add it a reception or some money real quick but when I'm taking ten to fifteen seconds each image doesn't really matter does it um I'm going to be that much faster and light room and am I going to get the same effect no I can't shop been designated areas is easier yes do provider my friend provider is bay photo now here's the thing if you're sitting home right now and you're sitting here on your saying I just don't have time to do this this isn't my full time job there are people who can help you you have to make a choice is a business person do I wantto outsource my work what I want to do it myself now obviously there's times when we back up when we lost jesse the lady I was telling you about during the week because she was pregnant and we lost that we started to back up a little bit we sent our work to a company called pilot imaging this isn't a plug this is fact they edit and do all of our albums they process our files when we need them to they work with war files they work with j pegs we can have them added it to the same way we do our images why because I trained them one of the things I like so much about them was that I could tell them exactly how I wanted edited they I learned my method and they did it that way they even caymus far as to give you an idea of how what a good company is it's a lesson we're getting a ton of calls about people because you're talking about us can we bring our editors in tow watch you for a boot camp so I actually taught their editors for five days exactly what we do so they can replicated over and over and over for you and anybody else this company is so good it's a small little family run company and maryland rockville maryland school pilot imaging just awesome jeff enduring a man just wonderful wonderful people outsource if you have to it's okay but don't not do anything don't just deliver un retouched files don't take one more question of course okay I would like to know if you put your logo on all of your frame photo ideal I don't know why people say that all the time why don't you put your logo on your picture because I look at some of the school photographs do you know when I get the school photographs in the kid it drives him crazy to see that will go on it drives me crazy I'm not going to mention the company but the fact is that company doesn't need to advertise its the only thing they're doing in school photography mostly in sports nobody's going to him for a family session unless they're going into one of the major stories I don't want my local that they paid for it now some people here and they say you're losing advertising opportunity you know where I put my logo I give all of my clients the low res files size down when they pick up their proofs yes I get proofs we'll talk to some business you have paper it's really amazing you need to know they still had it but I give them proofs that give them the lowers files I'll even upload them for them where do you think why do I put the logo on there where do you think they're going they're going to social media so when they tweeted out when it facebook and everybody knows I did it on networks the magic that's how I get the business because how many people if it's in your home I think if someone walks into the home and seize my logo on it they're going to get annoyed they're paid for what they paid for me to advertise in the home social media makes that a lot easier so no I don't do it but my proofs on the bottom there's a little strip that pay photo puts on it with the name it says packing photographer copyright the year in the image number it's so small they could cut it off it's so small it's one one hundredth of the image but why do I put it there because when someone's looking for the proof book and they see five six seven eight hundred images and a proof book what do they keep seeing besides the image packing photographer packing stock for packing photographer packing embedded in her head you brand yourself I'm not just a photographer I'm a brand and we're gonna get to business later we're going to get the business you could tell him fight up girls if you are talking about making money so but while we're still on this so folks have gone to your website they're trying to figure out where they confined that keyboard it's right on its in there there's two choices with it what I did is because it's one of those things that I want to make sure people like it on my items due to the nature of them they're not really refundable so what happens with it is this one I can't do that because it's a product so what we did was we set up something really cool you can have this for ninety days for free to experiment it with it and have fun well even I think if I remember correctly cover the shipping expense and then at the end of ninety days you can purchase it outright I think it's like three hundred something dollars or the smart thing to dio is the lease it for nineteen dollars a month and then you can just use it at nineteen dollars a month for as long as you want and not worry if something goes wrong when you lease it you get free service it's inside the story it might be under a equipment or something like that but I don't want to make it a sales pitch if there's a problem with it I'll look at this store during the break and make sure it's there we'll have one of my staff that if one of my staff is watching vinay please go into the store administrator and check and make sure that rpg keyes is listed and active it could have just gotten overloaded just now okay all right excellent all right so let's move on again well looking at the images let's see exactly what we're getting again this is a beautiful beautiful image we're looking at the glow we're going right here we're moving on so let's take a look right here her eyes are closed but am I okay with it I love the lighting so much ten by ten just like that I'm gonna hd or get up I'm gonna add the icing here but I'm going to take the icing down you don't wantto overuse icing because it's a heavy heavy texture we're going to bring it down here but what I'm going to use a smokeless burn because I have a little bit too much detail in her and the reason I want to get rid of that details because I don't want to make it look heavier distracting now I can click on an individual layer and look I can curve it down can I and then I work my magic just like that so here's what I want to look at right now you've seen these images finished on rather than you just watch me at it the same type of image I'm going to escape from here on what I'm going to do is go up and let me find what I'm looking for let's take a look at these images here and see exactly how we work with close ups so I'm gonna open that image up I'm going to hit you up for a full frame and now from here let's take a look at this image we're going to bring it up by hitting apple plus I always want to work with a larger surface so ten by ten I go right in here so what's one of the most important things what should you do to any image first do you do your re touching at the beginning of the end you do it at the beginning you do it at the beginning because you want to get rid of everything you don't like so let's take a look right there I'm gonna go in there going to use the patch tool and I'm gonna get rid of it now this is personal preference I hate hate hate bags under the ice they drive me crazy on the reason I hate them is very very simple I think it takes away from the subject now let's take a look is her skin perfect no but what I'm going to do is because I'm pulling out I know that I'm going to go in and I'm going to soften it up with a power soft on what the powersoft is going to dio is is going to cover the whole image and I'm going to go in it goes automatically defaults to a brush I'm gonna wipe it away from the areas that I don't want it so that would be the eyes the teeth the jewelry is tai and of course I don't want them to think that I blew out the detail on the gown correct now is this background looking good here not so good so what we're going to do is go into that smokeless burn just like this and we're going to pull it down pull it down right to the edge we're gonna get a little bit of black did you notice it spilled over onto his face so I committed an upset so all I'm going to do here is reduced the brush size and I'm going to hit x and when I hit x that's going to allow me to take it right off again I'm wiping it away flattened save done now take a look here's our image we go right here can take a look we're going to go on a real close so I crop and then I go here I go o j there's so many different ways to do this retouching now here's the thing on our photo shop tutorials that go into more detail because I obviously have more time so when you purchased the download of this event and get the photo shop tutorial you're going to see me explaining the different options here for this do do you necessarily want to take that out of the eyes all the time all the way so what you could do if you wanted to make it work is working a different layer on by working in a different alternate layer I could change the capacity to make exactly how much of the eyes I wanted to show so again in here in here in here in here sharpness look at her hand I can't allow it to go soft but do I need to stay on this image for an hour how long did that take fifteen seconds watch along the next minute steaks goes right here just like that over the head I'm going to go toe a mocha black and white I'm going to go to what's called a cab ota high death but I want you to take a look here at exactly what this image did look at the clarity that's ridiculous isn't it it's too clear now from here I'm going to go in I'm gonna have my power soft and keeping it going ah moving look at the black and white just like that now I got powersoft I wipe it away keep it there keep it there so I tone it down tone it down wipe it off their hands like a tone it down hopefully it's not blowing out over saturating on that screen which it is go right in here let's take a look now it's not just about black and whites and see pierre it's about different toning so what I'm an ad here is a red tone image take a look do I need to get that bag under her eye the answer is yes yes yes so I have one button it says flat now this is key here is where I add an extra layer so by hitting apple j I'm creating an alternate layer because I don't want to lose the puffiness under eyes because I'm going to make her eye she's going to look more asian when it's done okay so I'm going to get in here now how does that look what I can do is go in here to the a pass ity and I could add it bacchus I like right that's what really matters so right and there I leave the sharpness now let's take a look here he's got a little bit of a problem going on under his chin so if you had apple shift x let's take a look what happens oh the good old fashioned savior what is it called it's called a liquefy so what we're going to do and this works out quite great is we're going to go in and we're going toe push that puppy up we're going to make him look even better so we'll make straight obviously I'm using a big brush making it work quick and does that make a world of difference let's take a look when I go ok let's go back here and when I go into my history look at his chin let's go on a real quick so you could see what's happening bam bam that's an overweight man looking then again he's gonna love that now I know if I'm right the next damage is going to be his nose on her cheek and she's looking at may and that's going to make life really easy toe add it isn't it so I go in here again with the ten by ten I crop it up I'm going to go and I'm going to get rid of it lips I don't want to grab that and I'm going to show you again remember I told you we tried to think of everything her eyes are quite beautiful they're actually stunning aren't they going to go into my dashboard just to show you in case you don't want to get the keyboard I type eyes and teeth and is an action called eyes and teeth and hands so let's take a look over here to the right in the layer power there's a whole bunch of different things going on they're pretty self explanatory aren't they so what we're going to do at this point is we're going to go into de saturate the reason I'm going into the de saturate layer this because I want to take the color out of her eye what is that going to remove its going to remove all the little blood vessels so I'm de saturating what is de saturating basically making it black and white but you can't really tell kate I'm going to go into both eyes and I've been a de saturated look at how perfect that lightest do you see the beautiful reflection there okay we're eight in here do you see it's sucking the color out of the I now what do you think's next I'm going to go toe eyes brighten now I'm going to exaggerate this so I'm going to come in and if you look in the beginning she's gonna look quite ridiculous okay if you look at her she looks like some type of freaky psych ops because she's got one eye bright and one eye not so I'm gonna go in and what do you think I'm going to do with the end does anybody in my studio audience have an answer I'm going to change what the opacity because we don't want howto look freaky so watch what we do we go into the capacity of that layer and we do what we bring it down a little bit and now does she look is freaky maybe a little bit more so we're gonna bring it down now take a look there's another one here called dawkins what we're going to do with this is go in and we're going to talk in this staff we're going to talk and our eyelash he said why would we do that because we want to draw more attention to her strength which is what her eyes so we're going into the eyebrow the eyelashes we got it done now from here if I want to go in I could actually whitened teeth up I can make her look like one of those bright smile commercials take a look I just really helped teeth out is that too bright she looks like who wasn't matt damon and something about marriage with his white wait okay so we want to get rid of that there just like that we're gonna bring the opacity down

Class Materials

bonus material

Day 1 Slides
Flow Posing Guide
Bonus Video: Workflow: Doug Gordon Photoshop A
Bonus Video: Workflow: Doug Gordon Photoshop B
Bonus Video: Workflow: Doug Gordon Photoshop C
Bonus Video: Workflow: Doug Gordon Photoshop D

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I loved every minute of it! I watched and re-watched the Live show 3 times and now have the video version to burn into my mind. I don't get sick of watching it, I learn something new with each viewing. I have notes upon notes, inspirational quotes and I was truly inspired. I saw you live at your workshop and I wish we would of covered the business section a bit more in depthly because after watching you here on creativeLive I was floored! I can't wait to attend another one of your workshops because you are a wealth of knowledge, energetic and you inspire me to be better! I'm so glad I wasn't afraid to try even though I was terrified at first. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being such an amazing mentor!

a Creativelive Student
 

Doug is AMAZING! The way he teaches makes it fun and easy to understand. The way he poses his couples are so fast and easy to learn, I have taken my photography from mediocre, to world-class. I would love to meet him and thank him personally one day. Thank you Creativelive for introducing me to Doug, and thank you, Doug, for introducing me to CreativeLive! The best community for learning!!!

Adrian Farr
 

Doug has so much enthusiasm, it is beyond measurable. He is truly a fantastic motivator. He helps you understand the best ways to work with the light you have and shows you some very simple yet effective posing techniques. I highly recommend watching and buying this course if you want some great advice on improving your photography.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES