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
Matte and Cinematic Effects
There is another type of effect that we can go for here that's kinda like a, an artistic matte effect and we see this a lot lately. It's the cinematic matte effect, or the cinematic approach to our photos. And it just gives it an overall kind of more moviesque, picturesque style to the photograph. And a cinematic effect can be achieved by using a curves adjustment layer, just using it in a more clever way and it can also be used, be made by using a selective color adjustment layer. Again stacking all these things up and thinking about how these cinematic matte effects can be used with things like black and white which we'll take in approach here in a second. So we'll go ahead and do this, we'll just grab a curves adjustment layer and with these cinematic effects what we're tryin' to do is we're tryin' to take all the darkest dark areas in the image and just lift them up a little bit just make them, make their profile a little less black and a little bit more on the gray side of things.
You see this in video all the time because video tends to be really contrasty, my couch videos that I do as I made reference to before if I'm wearing a dark shirt and I've got dark shadows in there the video looks really contrasty and gritty and I want it to feel more safe and more welcoming so I'll take those black areas and I'll just slightly lift them up a little bit. And we can do the same thing with a black and white image that might be a little too punchy, a little too hard edged just go ahead and lift those black areas up a little bit. So to do that we are literally going to lift the black area. As we said before with the curves, this is your dark area, this is your midtones, this is your highlights. These little handles at the bottom, you don't see me movin' those too much, but these little things at the bottom and the top can also be moved to pinch in your black and your white point. So when you are working with the curves adjustment layer if you move this curve over this way, you're basically telling all the midtone area in your histogram that this is the new white. If we were to turn this this way we're telling all of that information there in that midtone area from here all the way to here, this is the new black, this is your new starting point for black, forget about all this stuff and that's how we get all this nasty pits and pockets of black in the image. However if we take it the opposite direction we're now telling black to get a little bit more onto the midtones, now we're telling black that the new black is actually a middle gray. If we do the same thing with our lights, come over here to this side, we're telling our lights that the new white is now a middle gray. So instead of clipping in and saying that the new midtones are white, we're now telling the whites to become more gray, so you see how you can maneuver that around on the curve there. So if I wanted to lift my blacks to get that cinematic effect I would just come down here to these shadow areas and lift them up. If I wanted to protect what's going on to the rest of the image, 'cause now what's happening with the curve, it's going here, zunk, all the way up to here, so you can imagine all the pixels that are happening between this area of darkness all the way to this midtone are also getting lifted all the way up until very smallest nth degree of the highlights are also getting lifted. Well if we don't want that we just start to add some points. So I'll put a point here, I'll put a point here, and I'll put point here. And now what that allows me to do is it allows me to lift those black areas and look at how they just, it's more warm, it's more inviting, it's more comforting. Now this is a really big jolt, by lifting those blacks to that area, but it's an extreme so that you can actually see it it might be more difficult for you to see this than I see it on my machine. So if I were to turn that curve off that's the before and that's the after. We're not just restricted there either. We can go into the red channel and what if we wanted to add, while we lift those black areas, what if we wanted to add a little bit of red or a little bit of cyan to those areas? That's what the red curve is for. If I add a point here, I can restrict that from being affected, add a point here, restrict that from being affected, add a point here, restrict that from being affected, and these can all be added in to actions, keep that in mind, okay? And then if I move this over, I'm starting to add some cyan into that black area. If I move it up, I'm adding red into that black area, you see that? So not only are my blacks being lifted up now, my shadow area is being lifted up now, I'm also adding a nice just sheen of red on top of that as well. So let me go ahead and add blue, so I add a point here, here, here. If I lift this up, it's gonna make that a little bit more blue, if I bring it to the right, it's gonna make it a little bit more yellow which kinda gets me back to the original which I don't really want, I'll just bring it up to about here like that. So let's go ahead and open up this image and because this is a curves adjustment layer watch what I can do, I can just take this curve, press and hold shift, move it over onto this one, and now I've added that effect to that black and white effect, do you see that? So lifting up those black areas, adding a little bit of that red, adding a little bit of that blue area to the black and white conversion that we've created here. So we're gonna minimize that. There's another place that we can make this cinematic look, this cinematic matte style effect, and that's gonna be over here in selective color. The point is here is that you don't necessarily have to use that curve if you're not comfortable with it, you could also use selective color, because in this drop down up here, we see blacks right? If I increase the blacks, it's doing the same thing that that curve would do by pinching over the the little black handle into the midtones, if I bring it down this way, it's gonna reduce the amount of black that exists in the color black, so we bring it all the way over here, guess what, black turns white, might be not quite the effect that I wanna go for but. If we wanted to add color to it, I've got those colors right here, so if the curve is a little intimidating for you, just try the selective color, go into the black area, drop the black amount of black that's in there and then maybe add a little bit of blue or a little bit of yellow to it by using this handle, if I bring it down it's gonna add blue to those black areas, if I bring this up it's gonna add magenta to those black areas, bring this up it's gonna add more cyan to those black areas, and now I get something that's just a little bit more interesting, a little bit more artistic, has a little bit more of my flair to it. And because this also is in a selective color adjustment, if I were to go into something like the color yellows I could also adjust the color yellows at the same time while I'm doing that. I could also use it almost like a split tone too if I went into my whites, I could add some color to those white areas, increasing the amount of white that's in those white areas, and add some color to those white areas to kinda split tone that a little bit too to get that cinematic look or that cinematic effect. This is really powerful on portraits. If we were to take our test image, bring this up, drag this over onto here, see what's happening with all of our photos, look at the difference in that portrait down there, just by adding that cinematic effect, notice what it's doing just like in my couch videos, look at that, it's lifting up those darker areas here, it's allowing those shadows to still exist there but to exist in a less contrasty way, to allow my face to come out a little bit more. But then look at what's happening to all the rest of the image too, look at what's happening to the interior, look at what's happening to our highlights and our shadows, look at what's happening to the different colors that we have in our image as we add that effect. Turn it on, turn it off, turn it on, turn it off. It's making a really beautiful looking sunrise look up here, it's really nice. So then if I wanted, if I was working on a sunrise and I wanted to continue with that I could go into any one of these colors, just within that selective color, that one layer is doing so much and we haven't even done anything with blend modes, we haven't done anything with blend diff on that, we haven't done anything with the opacity of that, that's just using the selective color, that's just taking that color palette, mixin' those colors together and getting the effect that we want on our image.
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
Related Classes
Adobe Photoshop