Lessons
Bootcamp Introduction
16:22 2The Bridge Interface
13:33 3Setting up Bridge
06:55 4Overview of Bridge
11:29 5Practical Application of Bridge
27:56 6Introduction to Raw Editing
11:00 7Setting up ACR Preferences & Interface
07:39 8Global Tools Part 1
16:44Global Tools Part 2
20:01 10Local Tools
22:56 11Introduction to the Photoshop Interface
07:13 12Toolbars, Menus and Windows
25:07 13Setup and Interface
11:48 14Adobe Libraries
05:57 15Saving Files
07:39 16Introduction to Cropping
12:10 17Cropping for Composition in ACR
04:44 18Cropping for Composition in Photoshop
12:40 19Cropping for the Subject in Post
03:25 20Cropping for Print
07:34 21Perspective Cropping in Photoshop
07:11 22Introduction to Layers
08:42 23Vector & Raster Layers Basics
05:05 24Adjustment Layers in Photoshop
27:35 25Organizing and Managing Layers
15:35 26Introduction to Layer Tools and Blend Modes
21:34 27Screen and Multiply and Overlay
09:15 28Soft Light Blend Mode
07:34 29Color and Luminosity Blend Modes
12:47 30Color Burn and Color Dodge Blend Modes
07:43 31Introduction to Layer Styles
11:43 32Practical Application: Layer Tools
13:06 33Introduction to Masks and Brushes
04:43 34Brush Basics
09:22 35Custom Brushes
04:01 36Brush Mask: Vignettes
06:58 37Brush Mask: Curves Dodge & Burn
06:53 38Brush Mask: Hue & Saturation
07:52 39Mask Groups
05:52 40Clipping Masks
04:11 41Masking in Adobe Camera Raw
07:06 42Practical Applications: Masks
14:03 43Introduction to Selections
05:42 44Basic Selection Tools
17:41 45The Pen Tool
11:56 46Masks from Selections
04:22 47Selecting Subjects and Masking
07:11 48Color Range Mask
17:35 49Luminosity Masks Basics
12:00 50Introduction to Cleanup Tools
07:02 51Adobe Camera Raw
10:16 52Healing and Spot Healing Brush
14:56 53The Clone Stamp Tool
10:20 54The Patch Tool
06:38 55Content Aware Move Tool
04:56 56Content Aware Fill
06:46 57Custom Cleanup Selections
15:42 58Introduction to Shapes and Text
13:46 59Text Basics
15:57 60Shape Basics
07:00 61Adding Text to Pictures
09:46 62Custom Water Marks
14:05 63Introduction to Smart Objects
04:37 64Smart Object Basics
09:13 65Smart Objects and Filters
09:05 66Smart Objects and Image Transformation
10:57 67Smart Objects and Album Layouts
11:40 68Smart Objects and Composites
10:47 69Introduction to Image Transforming
04:34 70ACR and Lens Correction
09:45 71Photoshop and Lens Correction
14:26 72The Warp Tool
11:16 73Perspective Transformations
20:33 74Introduction to Actions in Photoshop
09:27 75Introduction to the Actions Panel Interface
05:06 76Making Your First Action
03:49 77Modifying Actions After You Record Them
11:38 78Adding Stops to Actions
04:01 79Conditional Actions
07:36 80Actions that Communicate
25:26 81Introduction to Filters
04:38 82ACR as a Filter
09:20 83Helpful Artistic Filters
17:08 84Helpful Practical Filters
07:08 85Sharpening with Filters
07:32 86Rendering Trees
08:20 87The Oil Paint and Add Noise Filters
15:08 88Introduction to Editing Video
06:20 89Timeline for Video
08:15 90Cropping Video
03:34 91Adjustment Layers and Video
05:25 92Building Lookup Tables
07:00 93Layers, Masking Video & Working with Type
15:11 94ACR to Edit Video
06:10 95Animated Gifs
11:39 96Introduction to Creative Effects
06:08 97Black, White, and Monochrome
18:05 98Matte and Cinematic Effects
08:23 99Gradient Maps and Solid Color Grades
12:20 100Gradients
04:21 101Glow and Haze
10:23 102Introduction to Natural Retouching
05:33 103Brightening Teeth
10:25 104Clean Up with the Clone Stamp Tool
08:07 105Cleaning and Brightening Eyes
16:58 106Advanced Clean Up Techniques
24:47 107Introduction to Portrait Workflow & Bridge Organization
14:47 108ACR for Portraits Pre-Edits
21:27 109Portrait Workflow Techniques
18:46 110Introduction to Landscape Workflow & Bridge Organization
12:17 111Landscape Workflow Techniques
37:36 112Introduction to Compositing & Bridge
06:59 113Composite Workflow Techniques
34:01 114Landscape Composite Projects
24:14 115Bonus: Rothko and Workspace
05:15 116Bonus: Adding Textures to Photos
07:05 117Bonus: The Mask (Extras)
05:18 118Bonus: The Color Range Mask in ACR
04:54Lesson Info
Brush Mask: Curves Dodge & Burn
So we've already talked about dodging and burning as it pertains to a gray layer. Now let's talk about dodging and burning with something like a Curves adjustment layer. Before when we talked about dodging and burning, we talked about dodging and burning on one layer, we filled it with gray, we used Soft Light Blend Mode to push and pull the lights and the darks throughout the image, remember that? So now what we're gonna need to do is I wanna separate those. I wanna make sure that my darks are on one layer and my highlights are on another layer. I wanna make sure that my dodge is on one layer and my burn is on another layer. So I'm gonna do that with a Curves adjustment layer. So if I click down here, I'm gonna go ahead and make one Curves adjustment layer, then I'm gonna make another Curves adjustment layer. And you see by default they come in with mass forming. I'm gonna change this one to Dodge. I'm gonna change this one to Burn. So with these selected I'm gonna go ahead and just t...
urn the eyeball off really quick on this one, click on this Curves adjustment layer, and bring up the curve to about right there. Now masks have a unique property just like every other layer as we talked about before, and that unique property is that you get two possibilities for each mask very quickly and very easily by reversing the data. So I bring that curve up. When I bring that curve up for dodging it's making the whole image lighter. So what I need to do is I need to protect the entire image. So I'm gonna click on this mask and press Control + I. That's invert, I'm gonna invert that mask from white to black. So now by inverting that mask to black I'm basically saying, "Okay, curve, "you can affect the whole canvas, "but wait a second. "Now I need you to not touch the canvas at all. "I'm gonna fill it with black "so that you don't affect anything that's going on "underneath this dodge layer." So I'll turn the eye on on the Burn for a second. Click on it, bring this down, make the whole image darker. Let's go about right there. And then I'll press Command or Control + I on the Burn. So now if you can guess what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna use white to paint on that mask. So instead of using black to just conceal things, I can use white to bring things back. So you have to-- With this, I think you have to kind of be on one side or the other. It's hard to really imagine a mask and how it works with both white and black working at the same time. So how I like to think about masks is whatever is black is not affecting my canvas. Whatever is white is going to affect my canvas. And that is typically how I think about it because if you ever try to thing about both categories where you're like that whole black reveals, white conceals-type thing, it's just too hard for me to wrap my head around that one. I need a really one quick, simple approach. Black will allow anything that's underneath to show through, and white allows the effect that I'm working on. And that's how I think of it. So now if I were to click on this dodge layer and if I press B for my brush tool, I've got a very large brush, so I need to make it smaller because I'm trying to dodge here, very meticulous dodging and burning. If you look at my layers palette, if I were to paint on this with black, it's not gonna do anything. But if I were to press X, the X key will switch me from black to white. If you ever find yourself in a rut with your palette down there and you wanna quickly change them from black to white, D will default those colors from black and white, and X will switch them. So whatever you're working on, if I press X I'm now painting with black because that's the primary color that you see down here in my layers palette, or in my color palette. If I press X I'm now working with white. So with this Dodge I can just start looking at this image and seeing areas that I want to draw the eye towards a little bit more. So I wanna draw the eye a little more towards this area. Maybe bring that up a little bit. Again, we talk about dodging and burning as being you the artist to make light where light was not, correct? So I'm dodging there to brighten that up, dodge there to bring that up. And the question is, here at this point, is Blake, you talked about that other Dodge and Burn layer and now you're showing me another one. Which one do I use? Well it really comes down to personal preference and what you choose to be the Dodge and Burn that you like. The quick-and-dirty Dodge and Burn is the one I showed you before which is the 50% gray layer using just the Dodge tool and the Burn tool. This is a little bit more tedious and it's more layer-intensive. It's not necessarily more labor-intensive, it's just more layer-intensive. You have two layers now to think about instead of one. Okay, so that will be a good Dodge. I'm just kind of dodging around areas to brighten certain areas up that I want to become a little bit more prominent. If I look at my Burn, again, I've already got the white selected, so now I have to click between these layers. It's not like before where we could just press Alt or Option. It's not gonna flip between layers like it would with the old Dodge and Burn. With this one we're gonna have to just manually click on our layers. So I'm gonna darken down some shadow areas. I might even darken down this back area back here. Darken down this, maybe darken down underneath these waves to make them look a little bit more violent. And really when it comes to dodging and burning, it's all up to you. It's what your eye sees, what your eye likes, and how you wanna push and pull the viewer around the image. So now I might dodge this area back here to brighten up that light that's coming in from back there and dodge these waves to brighten those up. So if we press Alt or Option and we look at this Dodge and Burn, that's what I did. I can click on the next one. That's the Burn, that's the Dodge, and they are still just maintained within their curve. The really cool thing about doing a Dodge and Burn this way, though, is that you're not restricted to just pulling the curve down or pulling the curve up. Now that you have the Burn selected here, as we pull this down we can make our dodging, we can make our burning, actually, a little bit darker or even a little bit brighter. We can even say, "Okay, we want the dark areas "of what that's affecting to be a little bit darker," and then brighten them up a little bit too. So it tapers the affect and uses the curve, the curve data, to manipulate that Dodge and Burn a little bit more. Same thing with Dodge. If I don't want this to-- Maybe I want it to be a little bit brighter. Brighter in the darker areas but not necessarily bright in the bright areas. Bring that down a little bit. So it gives you a little bit more control over what happens with the dodging and burning process than just I painted with white, I painted with black on a gray layer that's set to soft light. With this one you're using the curve and the advantage of all of the data that's available within that curve to push and pull that curve around the image. All the while, when we pull that curve all the way up, just remember we gotta invert that mask so it doesn't affect the canvas at all. And then we bring back that effect with white. So black will reveal all the stuff underneath. We reveal what we wanna reveal with white.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Robert Andrews
Blake Rudis is the absolute best in teaching photoshop. His knowledge and how he presents the instruction is clear and concise - there is NO ONE BETTER. Yes, his classes require some basic skills, and maybe I'd organize the order of (or group) the classes in a different order, but, let me be clear - if anyone is to be successful or famous in the Photoshop world, it should be Blake Rudis. I strongly recommend his teaching. I started photography and post processing in 2018, and because of this class, I'm know what Im doing. The energy you get when you create something beautiful is profound, it makes you bounce out of bed (at 4AM) like a 5 year old, to go create. It's a great ride! Thanks Blake, & Thanks Creative live.
a Creativelive Student
Amazing course, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a beginner's course for photographers. The problem isn't Blake's explanations; they're top. The problem is the vast scope of this course and the order in which the topics are presented. Take layers for example. When I was first learning Photoshop (back when we learned from books), I found I learned little or nothing from, for example, books that covered layers before they covered how to improve/process photographs. These books taught me how to organize, move, and link layers before they showed me what a layer was actually for. Those books tended to teach me everything there is to know about layers (types of layers, how to organize them, how to move them, how to move them two at a time, how to move them two at a time even if there are other layers between the two you're interested in, useful troubleshooting tips, etc. ) all before I even know (from a photographer's point of view) what it is the things actually do. The examples of organizing, linking, and moving mean everything for graphic designers from Day One, but for photographers not so much. Blake does the same thing as those books. Topics he covers extremely early demand a lot of theoretical imagination for a photographer who doesn't already know quite a bit about what he is talking about. Learning about abstract things first and concrete things later only makes PS that much harder to understand. If you AREN'T a beginner, however, this course is amazing. I thought it would be like an Army Bootcamp, taking you from zero and building you into a fit, competent Photoshop grunt. Now I think it's more like Army Bootcamp for high school varsity jocks. It isn't going to take you from the beginning, but the amount you'll get out of it is nonetheless more than your brain can imagine. I've been using PS for years to improve my photographs, and even to create the odd artistic composite or two. The amount I've learned in the first week is amazing, and every day I learn something -- more like many things -- which I immediately implement to improve my productivity and/or widen the horizons of what I can achieve. If you ARE a photographer who's a Photoshop beginner, I'd take very seriously the advice Blake gives in the introduction: Watch one lesson, and practice the skills and principles you learn in that one lesson for two weeks. THEN watch the next lesson. You can't do that of course without buying the course, so it's up to you to decide whether you'd like to learn Photoshop and master Photoshop all from the same course. Learning it first and mastering it later will cost more money, but I think you'll understand everything better and have a much more enjoyable ride in the process. As for me? I'm going to have to find the money to buy this course. There is simply way too much content in each lesson for me to try to take on all at once, but on the other hand I don't want to miss anything at all that he has to share.
Esther Gambrell
WOW!!! I've been purchasing CL classes for several years now and have watched HOURS of "How-To Photoshop" classes, but this is the first one I've actually purchased because of the AWESOME BONUS content!!! SERIOUSLY??!!?!? A PLUG-IN??? But not only that, Blake is SO easy to understand, and he breaks down concepts in different ways to connect with different people's learning styles. I REALLY appreciated this approach because I am a LEFT-BRAINED creative that has an engineering background, so I really connected to what Blake was saying. THANK YOU FOR THAT! There are TONS of Photoshop courses out there, but I found this one to be the most helpful in they way Blake teaches concepts so that you know WHY you're doing what your doing. I feel like he taught me how to fish with Photoshop to feed me for a lifetime instead of just giving me a fish to feed me for one day. This is the BEST overall PS course out there!!! Thank you!!!!
Student Work
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