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
Introduction to Filters
Filters can be an interesting topic, you know. I mean this is what we're going to talk about, right? Now, this is how I used to use filters when I first started using filters. (laughs) Yeah, a little bit spiral action, sheer all, yeah. No. There are many ways that you can use filters, and we're going to break it down into two very distinct categories, and also talk about how we can use them in our workflow, in a way that actually makes really nice, conducive effects for us. So, the two categories are practical filters and artistic filters. There are filters that we can use in our workflow that actually are practical and work out very well, things like adaptive wide angle, Adobe Camera Raw as a filter, lens corrections, liquefy, if used with a soft hand, and blur, blur gallery, 'cause there are some things in the blur gallery we are going to talk about, noise reduction and sharpening. Over here on the artistic side we have: liquefy, distort, pixelate, render, stylize and filter gallery.
So, as you open up Photoshop and it has a drop down, you are going to see all of these different types of filters that are within Photoshop. Now some of them, as I've said, are going to be better than others for a practical workflow. Others are more for the artistic side of things. In the past, if we go way back to Photoshop 5, when I fist started, filters were one of those things that was just like you would warp your image and do some crazy things with it, like you saw in the opening slide to this, where we twirled the photograph and made it look like this mosaic tile shooting all over the place. That was the thing to do with filters. People like myself, after we got really good with Photoshop for a while, stopped using the filter dialogue because there was a bunch of stuff in there that just doesn't seem right. However, there are filters that can be very practical and very helpful in your workflow. We're going to talk about those. Perfect example, this is an image that I created strictly from filters and brushes in Photoshop. Started with a blank canvas, drew out the grass, and rendered a tree. I rendered a tree. (laughs) Pretty cool, and then the background was a sunset that was built from brushes, blurs, basically just to see if I could make a landscape composition in Photoshop, using things like filters. It doesn't look overly filter-ly processed, though. This would be more of like your creative painting that you can do in Photoshop. On the flip side of that, here is, this is just around the corner from my house, it had just snowed, beautiful sunset happening, and I needed a tree right here. (laughs) I just figured, okay, I'll just plop a tree there and render a tree and see what happens. Well, because you can't just render one tree that looks like that, I rendered two trees, so that the whole thing looked similar. Now what I did was, I put this out there, I put it out on 500px, 'cause that's where you basically know if you did something well or not. And this got like a 96 in less than an hour. So, I was like, do these people know that I faked a tree there? (laughs) I'm just not going to say anything, just not going to say anything. So you can render trees in your images, and I have been known to do that in my landscape photos. I typically do it, though, if there's a tree in the landscape that just looks, and I'll show you during the lesson here, things that just look gnarly that could have been so perfect with that Little House on the Prairie tree just sitting out there in the background. Here's another image. This was a static display at an basically, an Air Force base somewhere, but I went in and I did the blur gallery on a spin blur on these to make them look as if they were in rotation, rendered some flames, and did some stroke pads to make them look like they were shooting, and even path blurred a static propeller to kinda give it that feel like it was actually in action, doing it's thing. So you can use them, even though they are artistic, you can blend them in with your workflow that still makes them look as if, you would have thought, I'm standing right here with my wide angle lens on a moving--, you know, but I wasn't. I wasn't going to do that. Even if I had a harness, I wouldn't do it. But then something like this, where you don't even know that a filter's being used, but there are filters being used in this, in the workflow, as a finishing touch, to smooth everything else out and give it a nice glowing appearance. So, let's go ahead and hop into Photoshop, and I'll show you how to use these practical filters and creative filters in the workflow.
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!!!!