Playing With Temperature & Tint
Lesson 10 from: Capture and Edit Classic Black & White PortraitsJared Platt
Playing With Temperature & Tint
Lesson 10 from: Capture and Edit Classic Black & White PortraitsJared Platt
Lessons
Class Introduction
03:23 2Set Up Your Black & White Portrait
08:35 3Create & Augment Light
08:31 4Backlight Your Model
08:42 5Light for Contrast
13:09 6Portrait - Male Model
16:17 7Portrait - Female Model
06:30 8Shoot In Black and White Q&A
09:01Lesson Info
Playing With Temperature & Tint
So let's we're gonna fill the frame instead of fit so that we can kind of see a bigger version of what he looks like. And then we're gonna go in and start tweaking what we had, because all we did is just kind of apply a basic black and white setting to these images. So now what we want to do is play around with the colors, that air underlying that. So the first thing I'm gonna play with is the temperature intent Now if this was in color. So if I went into color and I played around with the temperature of the tent like I could go really gross with it, right? But when I go to black and white, that can actually be very useful. So if you're trying to get like that skin glow, just bring the temperature way, way up too far up, and you'll start to get a glow from that skin. Because what's happening is all the underlying color is unifying in an orange and an ugly, ugly orange. But because it's all unifying and it's like some of the orange, then the skin can't get any more orange and the other ...
stuff that wasn't quite as oranges getting up there. You start to actually lose some of the inconsistencies in the skin so black and white once you're in black and white, if you take your temperature up quite a bit, you're gonna find that skin starts to glow. So it's a very easy way to make all people look kind of glowing and beautiful in black and white. So we're gonna start with a skin glow for Chris. Okay, so we're just bringing up that temperature a little bit. And then the other thing that I like to do with black and white instead of taking the contrast up, I like to take it down. So I'm gonna take the contrast down just a little bit and see what that's going to do. It's just going to give a little bit less like in the transitions. It will be a softer, slower transitions. It will be a nicer look to it. Eso When I zoom in there, you can see like let's just look at his nose. So if I am so as I bring the contrast down watch the shadow side of his nose just kind of softens that up just a little bit, and obviously you can go way too far. But look, if you take the contrast all the way down, do you see how soft the transition is between the heart, the shadow and the highlight? That's because what you're doing is you're taking that transition that goes from here to here, and you're spreading out the pure dark and the pure light from it. And so it takes longer to get there, so you don't want to go that far. But, you know, just maybe minus is quite nice. It helps to soften things up. Then you can take the clarity back up if you're working with someone who is a man and you want in a beard and you want to kind of get some of that texture, because contrast is the total distance between black and white and how quickly gets there. But clarity is contrast in the midterms, so that's why when you increase clarity, you get more wrinkles. You get mawr stubble stuff like that because that's all contrast in the mid tones. It's from basically from face toned down, toe like kind of a darker gray, but it's not the blacks and the whites. And so what you do is you take that up a little bit and that helps to bring his kind of features back in, right. So I'm gonna I'm gonna bring the clarity up just a little bit, and then we're going to go into the black and white mix. And when we go into the black and white mix, that's where we start playing with all of those colors. Remember, we've got a color here. So if I go back to my if I turn this back to color, you can see that there's a different color here on his on his jacket than there is here. This is blue, and this is kind of a warm orange, which actually has faces orange as well. So going back to black and white. Then once we're in black and white, I can then start playing around with the orange and see what happens to his coat so I can play with his coat and his face. But notice that the scarf is staying exactly the same. Nothing's happening to the scarf, and that's because the scarf is blue. That's why it's very useful toe. Have your client bring a whole bunch of different outfits and then to start putting together all sorts of crazy combinations based on your experience with playing around with blue. And if you want to practice this without a human, just take a bunch of, like shirts and stuff and hanging on a hanger and, you know, like take a blue shirt and then a black jacket hanging on hanger. Take a picture of it and then play with it and watch how that changes so that you're aware of it. Now, one warning is that you don't want to go too far one way or the other with this because if you go crazy with it than the transitional areas between orange and blue will have these weird lines on him, right, because it doesn't know where to transition. So don't go nuts with it. Just generally, a nice s curve inside of any of these types of panels is great. So a nice s curve bringing up the reds and the oranges and the yellows, and then you can take the AUC was and the blues and watch as I bring aqua and blew down. See, I can't find What is that color on that scarf? I don't really know. So if I want to find something and I don't know what the color is, then I'm gonna go to this area right here, which is a it's It's basically the target adjustment tool. You're gonna put a target on something, So I'm gonna click on that target adjustment tool. And when I do that, I click on the target Adjustment tool and it gives me this weird little looking Do you see that cursor? So that cursor is telling you that if you point at something and roll the dial on your mouse up and down or on a track pad, if I just scroll with two fingers, I just pointed at something like the scarf, and then it's going to tell me what it is, so I'm gonna find out what the color is on that scarf based on. So if I point at the jacket, it's it's basically orange. If I pointed his face, it's going So as I I'm gonna point at the jacket and I'm gonna roll up. So I mean, scroll up and watch the movement of these sliders. So, as I do that it's going to slide up. An orange and red are going up together because it's actually part orange, part red. And you wouldn't have known that just by grabbing the orange you would have. You wouldn't have known that there was that much red in there. And so you just point at something and then you point at something else and bring it down. And oh, look, there's actually some orange and yellow inside of that, uh, scarf as well. Probably because it's reflecting off of his office jacket. So I'm gonna look at this. Yeah, there's just this is just a Oh, you know why? Because I warmed it up so much, right? So anyway, but you can play with those colors and bring them up and down based on the color that's inside them. Now, here's an interesting little point. If you wanted to, then target, um, and cool something down underneath because you thought that the color temperature wasn't working right for a specific area. So remember we warmed up this photograph and then we want to play around with other portions of the photograph. We can actually go into the brush tool up here and we can just take the temperature down, and then I can paint the temperature back down anywhere else where I don't want tohave that warm temperature glow. So let's say I didn't want the warmth glow to affect the jacket. Then I would just simply increase the size of the brush, and I would just paint over the jacket as well. And you can see that the jacket is actually darkening back up. So it's not being affected by that warm glow that I created for the face. You could also do the opposite. You could just work on your black and white, and then, if you want to make the face glow, just simply go in and paint over the face and increase the temperature in that area. So watch what happens if I take the temperature up down. See, I'm affecting that, and I'm not increasing any kind of exposure. I'm just playing with the temperature. So all of that is to really give you a good idea of the of what the underlying color is useful for in the black and white. That's why we shoot in color and put black and white over the top of it the old days we would actually shoot in black and white, and we would put color filters over the lens to make a particular red or blue or green pop out right. But now, because we can do this after that, we do that after the fact, you could still do it before a swell, and it'll increase your ability to do that. You could shoot your photograph like, let's say, if you're photographing a, uh, an apple and you want to do it in black and white. So you put the red apple on the table and you put a blue backdrop. Then, if you put a red filter on the camera, the reason a red filters read is that it's letting all red light through and nothing else. And so, by putting the red light of the red filter on their the red light gets through and all the other stuff gets so the blue gets blocked out and the red gets let through so that Apple is no longer going to be kind of a dark red apple in black and white. It's not gonna be a glowing white apple because all that light got through to strike the lens is gonna look real funky. If you leave in color, it's gonna look ugly. But if you turn into black and white, then you'll get even more of pop. So if you have some old color filters or if you're walking through an old photo store and you see some of those colored gel filters that go on front of cameras picked a couple up, you know they're gonna be cheap because no one uses them. But pick a couple of them up like pick and orange filter up or a red filter up and then go out and photograph a beautiful blue sky with fluffy white clouds. And if you have a red filter on your camera, the blue can't get through. And so the sky is going to be dark. Does that make sense? So I'm or of the Reds and stuff are gonna come through and the blues don't get through so that it becomes dark. And if you turn into black and white, then you're going to see that change. If you don't turn to black and white, don't do it, it's not worth it. Okay, okay, so, um, underlying color is very useful. Play with it, utilize it when you're photographing, and then utilise after the fact
Ratings and Reviews
rorofot
This course is a good overview and I love the way Jared teaches. But the course mixes basic lightroom handling with intermediate portrait photography and really expensive gear. Which person, that doesn't know the basic importing and editing in lightroom, has three studiolights from profoto with grid or a calibrating system for the inkjet printer?? And be aware, it's only about LR-editing and nothing about photoshop. But over all it's a good overview for beginners - alas not for intermediate users.
TIm Smith
I usually don't write reviews, but thought Jared did a great job presenting the material. Clear, concise and didn't talk excessively fast. Material was well organized and reasons were given for why something was done a certain way. The fill lighting technique was something different and plan on using. The discussion on tones, textures, clothing and background were also helpful when discussing black and white.
Amy Vaughn
I haven't shot much with the intention of turning the photos black and white, but this class piqued my interest in trying it. This class isn't just about how to turn any photograph black and white, but how to think about the photo as you're shooting for black and white. I especially appreciated Jared's explanations about the importance of texture, creating drama and carefully targeting lights.