Lessons

Lesson Info

Image Selection & Simple Editing

So I've already gone through my pictures, I wanted to give you a bit more of, like a streamline toe workflow, not so much, you know, really time, but I just want to quickly kind of flick through them, um, unfiltered, so I've marked ones that I wanna work with, um, so let's have a look here. I went through a few thes yesterday as well, so I won't spend too long talking about image selection, but image selections really important whether you're applying to do a compass it or whether you're just picking the best picture to present because I feel like with these pictures, I don't want to do that much processing to them. You've already got a lot going on in there with color and lighting, and I certainly wouldn't want to play too much with exposure unless I was maybe bringing out and detail in the shadow areas, but that the exposure ring is very delicate here, we've got her underneath allowing people these delicate spots that I don't want to over expose further, so I chose this one just as a...

simple edit on dh, so I'm in bridge at the moment, it's what I tend to use when I'm sorting through my pictures and I just kind of use a very simple labelling system, usually just green. For I like it or red for I really like it and I want to take that to a particular place that I don't get confused with the other pictures by. So, um, so if I just open this up, so when we're in the raw stage, I really like the raw stage I mean, obviously light room is a way you can kind of like batch process images on dh in the same way, but with me, I often like to do this individual things to pictures, so I like just opening one picture at a time that's just my I guess you could say that's my line, our origin, if you like kind of coming through, but if I did want to apply the same thing, then often what I do is just press previous conversion as I'm going through a series of pictures so that they can start off, at least with the same settings I've set the previous picture. So with what I tend to play with, my first going on is temperature um, sometimes exposure was well depending on the picture at this one like I say is already quite high contrast pictures, so I've been very wary of taking any higher my eyes go straight to this part here, so I'm going to be like, oh yeah, I love the legs well, this part this is something I've learned through experience is watching out for those highlights, and obviously you don't have to just go by I you can actually read the rgb levels if you want, but I trust that we got it pretty much how we wanted it. I'm not even bringing a little bit down what I'd rather do what's the safe thing to do is if you didn't want to bring a bit of detail into the the darker parts you could play with shadows, and this is their function. That's got better, actually, as as the as the camera roll has gone from version diversion, you get these extra features and better functionality are quite like the shadows, so even if a picture is nicely exposed, oftentimes the shadows are a little bit darker than you'd like because you've been watching out for the highlights. So the shadows is something that I would often pick up a little bit, not like too much. What just maybe like here, um, don't tend to play with these too much whites and blacks. These were a little bit like the shadows you, khun bring up the black so that you're bringing in again that detail into shadows temperature is what I like to play with a zoo I showed you earlier with the church pictures temperature can sometimes even at a hole new artistic effect on I really liketo generally send my pictures into a direction with their color identity. I'm not entirely sure where this picture's going, I think of this picture and think about this picture is because tory's so interesting herself and the location is so interesting itself, I feel almost like I don't want to interfere too much with that. I don't foresee myself doing something too crazy to this picture, I think like a white might even work nicely, even though then it loses the color of the murals by phil at the murals aren't so much the point of this picture. The point of this picture is her and her body shape, so it may well be that I play with that later, the temperature might bring down a little bit just to bring down a little bit of the tungsten that was left in the picture that I do off. I do often like in the pictures, but, um, I can always play with color later in photo shop and tin as well. I've bean talking a little bit about that it's not something I changed dramatically, especially when you've got a picture with a lot skin in, because obviously then she starts to go purple, but it might be that I just want to change that slightly yellow look off to a little bit of purple and then you could bring down saturation that he wanted to counter act that a little bit that overall look um and when I mentioned earlier by exposure brushes this's in this section here this is one of the few things that use across here is this exposure brush on dh when it comes worked so it's not just exposure brush it's actually a brush for a lot of things but all of these things I don't tend to play with it's usually exposure because that gives you this nice it's something that you can't do so well in folk shall I find I like to do in the raw stage because then instead of dodging burning you're actually playing with the what's in the file itself in terms of selectively bringing up the levels as in a brush form and I really like that and I found that very empowering the first time I discovered that because I was able to process a lot of fashion images without so much dodging burning afterwards so I don't know whether I'd use an exposure bush here but just as an example of how how you might use it you know you might bring up the shadow here and then you make your brush smaller or bigger then make a new brush taken like knew and then I don't even higher exposure he wanted toa united way brian this part which she wouldn't really want to do but that's how I would use it so let's just go ahead and open this picture I'm just gonna be very honest really about how I would treat this picture I could I could start airbrushing her skin, but I don't even know whether I want to do that because I don't necessarily feel like these are um I don't necessarily feel like these are conventional conventional fashion images there's something a little bit more artistic and dance silly about them, but then again, there is maybe some value to be hard in looking at places like, for example, on the neck weave got these necklines or maybe a little bit of a line on the armpit places that you could use clones stamped all teo kind of soften a little bit I'm not sure whether this is the best picture from what I've marked, what is just one of them, so I just opened my layers up a little bit confusing at the moment in this, but I just I'm sure I'll find out why I'm the tools I use in folk shop generally very simple I don't use extravagant ones probably the most extravagant one I use is a photo merge function, which is going to stitch together a panorama panoramas maybe a little I don't spend too long on this picture because to be honest so there wouldn't be a lot that I would do to it and, uh, I just feel like it's very organically. Good it's a real in its own way already. Andi, if I just I'm just going to click a new layer because I want to tell you about layers as a little intro before I go into other things that I hate command jr get this extra layer or new lave I copy on this layer. I can do things I might want. Tweak s o that is kept separate. We see for the background. So I was mentioning about necklines and armpit lines. I would use clones stamped all on. Probably less than half a pass ity on dh. It depends on what you're trying to clone out, obviously. But I think that this would start with that. Andi just wanna kind of maybe just clean up a little bit because that's a very focal part. The picture. So it's something that your eyes gonna be drawn to and it's not about making a look kind of paulus it's just about having no distractions on making, making her look a little bit drawing out the strength of her, which is this kind of, like, surreally leave creature, you know, kind of flexing over the couch, and you just kind of want to put the focus more on that. So I'm going to talk more about that when I look at the other pictures I've taken because we've got so many options to work through that you have to almost, like, find the strengths in every combination and not do everything at once. Ok, so that for me, I don't feel like I can also hit make, make another layer, and I often plane curves when I'm pretty much doing all pictures, but it does depend on the picture as to how heavy adjustment I do, how great my curves adjustments here so these are microbes so my curves adjustments from home. I like tio have that hand whenever I'm processing, not because I necessarily used, um, as you know, repetitively sometimes, but usually because I like to just flicked not that one I like to just I like to just flick through them on dh and just get on a word. The word inspired is used a lot, but I guess inspired for what direction I want to take the picture in and some time in a month. My processing on workflow is quite I was gonna use the word messy it's not like it's messy it's that I just want to know where I am with a picture, and I wanna take sliders right up to the top, right up to the down to warm again because I want to just feel what? What is? What is this picture one where I want to take it? How do I treat it right? You know? And so I'm just looking through thinking those things think about this picture has got a fair bit of skin in it, so you don't want to be doing something too crazy with the curves because it's gonna um um it's too, is going to just ruin her. So first, I kind of think there's grounds for making the pit, bringing the darks of this picture a little bit ofthe dark but not affecting a skin too much, so I might actually start with one of these curves adjustments that I like the look off, but then go in further to tweak them. I know a question that is going to be probably asked that I've been asked before is where where did these cars just that's come from? They're just things I've I started off, I think historically I started off with a cross processing curve. I just kind of got the internet like it was it's basically just a s curve in each pretty much an s curve in each color channel on, then I from then on, I just tweaked and tweaked and modified it to make a hole a range of different colored curves adjustments that affect pictures in different ways on dh, then just kind of saved them all off so I can re access them and modify them and make a new one. I usually save them off it's a good idea to save them off, because when you apply a curves adjustment to a picture and then you want to you want to again sometime in the future, um, you want to be able to access that same setting? No, same settings. This happened the other week when I had yeah, I don't picture on dh. I was printing out for buyer on I realized when I zoomed into the picture, there were issues with the picture that I didn't realize. So I had to go back into an earlier photoshopped file off that compass it one without the curves adjustment night added on it. And then I redid my compass, it adjustments and thought, ok, well, need the curves. What did I what caused it and add to it. And luckily, I had it saved off in that folder. And then I reapplied it. And it had the exact same look as the original picture rather than me trying to get. You know tweaking tweaking trying to make it all the same so that's why I do what I do find it quite important to save them off quite like the reds in this so for example I would just you know maybe play be careful with this one up here because this is a highlight part of your image so I don't want to be making everything blow now in the highlight part down here is a shadow see what you can play here with the color in each the color channel on the shadow areas of the image on dh when it comes to curves I'm not goingto you know pretend to a very technical about it I like to go with what I think looks good a lot of the time it gives a look to a picture that just goes beyond what is it what's come out of your camera and I were like that you could have a very filmic look a very painterly look a lot fashion images have curves adjustments used to them done on them when you're throwing off the shadows often it comes down to what you're doing down here so you could for example bring this up pull down on you you what you see the shadows kind of throwing off their slightly there's something I'm gonna be using more of these as I go on processing on one closes down relax I want to move on so now I want to just keep going through the picture is a bit more, um I'll just show you this one so here's one that I was doing last night it's nice to be able to just go straight into this because then I'd have to spend too much time just feeling about these layers. So I've added, this curve is just went here I wasn't too enamored with it, I just was playing with it because, again, I don't feel like there's any particular color identity going on this picture, other than just as it is, which you don't need to like usually like to know what's going on what the colors I was green in this picture we got is it? You know, I think of this picture just have some interesting greens and blues and it well, then you've also got the tungsten light, so it's not something that is a process that I've just started since since yesterday, so I don't expect him know exactly what this picture going you're just seeing my initial kind of decision that I would be making on any any shoot and then I played in black and white, so why did hear if I just go backto show I did is making you layer and then go into black and white, and I really love this, uh this function because you can play with the color color channels, so you make a black and white images that image that's a lot more tweaked on a lot more specific, and I get a lot more intrigued by the image when I'm playing with these different these different color channels, because then you can actually access the skin, which is usually in the red and yellow of the image on this yellow want to be careful with because that's going to blow out those highlights has delicate highlights there. So I'm not going to play too much with that, but I like playing with this to bring out the skin against background. Then you got blues and science in the background, and I just find it very interesting to play of images in black and white because you bring out certain parts of an image and sometimes what I've done is I've liked a certain conversion two different conversions I've laid together to bring out, for example, and I want her to look like this, but I wanted the background to look different than it looked on a picture of her than I can layer it so that it's got a half a half have done that a couple of times to pictures, so I really like I wouldn't have thought this was a great candidate for black or white because you've got quite a busy background, nothing she's, she's not necessary against something very clear and stark, but then when you play with the red and yellow channels, you see that you can make her look stark against the shays and the background there, so I don't think it's a half two about black and white image because you've got this very definite shape going on on dh I don't know, I feel quite equal in terms of color or black and white. It might be that starts like like the black and white more and more, the more I look at it. So that's what I did on that layer that I showed you and I also, um you can also take this tin and try with c p a I didn't call a tense to black and white pictures is something that I often play around with and then end up getting rid off because I just find that the color ten ends up just looking too sickly, even though I got excited by a first, sometimes I might okay the black and white, and then play with color balance afterwards just to add a slight bit of warmth. Um or even sometimes it all the way out of coolness but usually I end up going back to just kind of a regular old black and white because I feel like just hits the spot on what else have we got here? That's that's basically it so I just say that offers a pierce defiled to show you I thought process with that I've also marked the pictures on there's some pictures here so pictures where she's sitting up and grabbing the lamp so I thought what I would do is show you uh stitching that I also shot for a swell so first of all you want to hunt for the picture you want to be the focal point of the stitch because you want that's obviously going to be the whole point of it must admit sometimes you might get so carried away with the whole idea of stitching that you forget that you know ultimate you want great picture all the model in there as well as the main thing so it's important to get that right and you know sometimes you might move you come around and you don't quite get a stitch shot for shot your favorite shot that could happen as well if you're taking different options that's just life unfortunately so let's hope in this one here so all the same things I've said I don't play too much of this I brought the shadows up a little bit so that we just get just bring it back a little bit that detail that may have bean just lost in the whole nature of getting a regular exposed image of her but these tools a good because if you are shooting lo fi then you can bring back detail where you might fire d'oh not so much in the shooting that you liked you could bring up back. I'm amazed by the power of roll files these days especially if you've got, you know, half days that dslr you can you can really pull back in amazing detail even anything images you thought were blown out so that's quite nice and also, if you have got this you play around this exposure brush you can, you know, bring a brush, bring exposure down and then actually target a point that's overexposed have to be careful to make it look good and not muddy but anyway, so this image is pretty much prepared. I'm gonna open this so the way that I would do if omer just open up all the pictures that I want to work on um so that one and then this is my thes to images of my stitched ones the rest of the rest of the room so that's really just a kid, could you clarify just for folks who may not know what the term stitching even me it's just you see just basically I'm joining pictures together to get a wider view of the scene on it just means that you're getting the kind of clarity on the model that you want instead of shooting wide um so it's just it's just nice for when you want toe wide a scene either for double page spread or if you want a foundation for something else in the picture that might be going on um so yeah, you just basically I'm going to show in a minute how I do that but it's it's a way to go just a wider view and it doesn't just have to be left to right can be opened down on its use for all manner of things all manner of reasons and it's really powerful tool I think as well because it means that you're not limited to one frame but you can get what you want with the clarity or he wanted that one frame and then get your context building around it by my stitching so I'm going to select previous conversion I think it's always set from what I did last night but that's fine previous conversion means is going to be the same with the picture last opened is very convenient to do that when you doing focus stitching because you don't want to have these different color temperatures going on between shots if you did it's finally khun b rectified but this is a workflow that I'm doing for this particular one, so open that one on, then we want the one in the middle. All right? So I got my three images I want, uh I like to work like this because I want to know exactly what I'm doing. I don't know all the pictures already lined up, and then I'd be an easy way to do it. You might be able to kind of right click them in bridge and do it, but I want to know why I want to see the pictures so I want to automate a photo merge and here's where it all gets experimental, but luckily I I know how to do this one because it's very simple, I've just gone with auto and auto works, so I want to add open files are going to keep on auto, so it's just gonna basically let folks shot figure out how to do itself. If it starts playing up and giving you weird results, then you start going through like a lot of time. Are you cylindrical because I want a model? Ana wants space next to her, but I don't want them to send the model into a strange shape. I want her to be kept full cylindrical often works for that rather than spherical perspective, but here I'm just going to sato I'm going to on chek blend images together, and what that would do is basically allow me to mask between layers rather than that jagged line where it cuts our itself is going to just lay them over so I could have their control to mask through anything that might be a little bit wrongly interpreted my photo shop, but a lot of time I've used blend images together and it works perfectly just depends and then just press ok on this shouldn't take too long to do it basically it's just doing its thing and stitching them together now when it finishes it's gonna look a bit odd because you're gonna have naturally bits around it that, uh, jagged on dh missing, but you can either crop, so who have this sos work quite well, thank god. Sometimes you do get issues that you didn't realize you had, um, which is fine with this image immediately. I know it is a lot of space now. Normally what I would be doing is playing around with warping, so I don't have to lose all of this stuff by cropping down to the lowest jacket edge. A lot of time I would walk, so what that means is, well, first of all, that before I go there let's, just look up what this happened here, so you've got instead of allowing photoshopped to join them on, I've had folk shop, not blend them together, what has put them where they belong. So this means that if I just take that one off, to be simple for a second, you can see there is a vague, a bit of line here, so that's as a result of telling folk shop not to blend them together. So before I do anything, I want to examine those lines on mask, hm, because otherwise I'll have them left in the final picture, so here I could talk about leia masks, which I use for all manner of things. Um, if no, you're not familiar. Thirty simple, so simple that I can do it, so I just basically click here toe, add a lame ass to your picture, and then your brush, your brush automatically goes that is black and white and black is basically where you a raise through this picture and why it is where you bring it back, so I'm selected on the mask I'm on the brush, I press x so that I'm on black car, you can just or you could just them topple it there, andi, I'm on my brush hundred percent, you can make it bigger using my key pattern, my square bracket keys, and then I'm just gonna brush that part out I'm not bothered about down there because that's going to be sorted out so that I know that the line between these pictures is fine um because I want to the extra control from not selecting blend images together and then the extra one here on top if I'd assume in there uh just take it away so I know where that line is what I'm looking for it's not too bad I don't think it's much of a discrepancy between those two um that might be a little bit but again I would do the same thing I always spend too long going into every detail so there's my three pictures why I tend to do here once I'm satisfied with the way they're kind of glued together is to then fix the blue by making hole new layer on top that basically is a flattened version you can just flatten it here if you want but why I tend to do is make a new layer from all of that stuff so I've still got it they're stored in my folks file just in case usually I don't need to ever again but it comes in use when I'm demonstrating to other people in the future that image because then I could break it down and they see how it started that's probably the only use I've had of doing that so I'm going to hit shift old command e which basically means merge all too visible on our entire show where it is in the menu, because I've become so used to using the short cop, which is actually a ready program short cut, not one that I sell myself, so that's emerged old too visible, so that's this layer here, this layer is just fixed now, so at this point here I can control everything is one. So this is where I was saying earlier about warping, where normally I would start warping the image so I don't have to lose bits of it, but I can see straight way with this one that I know she's already very small in the picture, and I've got loads of detail I might not necessarily want. So if I were to warp it, though, I'm going to transform and warp or set a shortcut for it, as I do at home. And I have just diesel acted that so I would basically stretch picture at liberty to fill out the bits that I don't lose. I was a bit tricky down here because I wouldn't want that because you've already got so much carpet. But if I wanted to say the detail up here, for example, I just basically you know, this isn't this isn't following any rules. This is just me doing things, how I like to do that, I'd like to pull them up here. You gotta be very careful because you've got lines going on in this picture, you're basically at liberty to move his lines how you want, but I really like being able to just do that myself, because then I get to save bits of the picture and then I can check it straight later on, make any more adjustments later or indeed, right now, if I wanted to make sure it's straight, so what I'm doing here, this one I could clone that as well, because it's like a very simple thing to clone that dark bit of green over there sort of don't necessarily have to start stretching up like this and lose the chandelier, so I might just leave that like that. And then I'm pulling this bitch out on being very aware that I'm pulling the whole picture when I do that, but that's fine, because there's room to be pulled and I can always pull back it's not something that is technically the best way to do it. I've done it so many pictures, and I'm pleased I did because it meant I could keep all the detail that would have otherwise lost as part of doing that stitching which you can recover if you did take even more state shots, but, you know, if take spending time taking load in those shots, as opposed to just a little bit of stretching, I find that preferable. So, um, also what you can do, I mean, I wouldn't mind losing a bit chandelier anyway, so I'm going to bring that down back to where it was, so I'm not kind of like messing up the picture, the lines of a picture too much? Um, so what we'll do now is just okay, that, like I say, I wouldn't necessarily want this, I just wanted to show you it because it's something I would do potentially to other pictures with this, when I can see that loads of space in it, I don't even know if I need all this space up here with a chandelier in you've already got these lights here. Do you really need this? Did I kind of crop it? So we've just got kind of it to here, so if I just undo the warping that I've just done, and instead, if I just you can use a crop tour, but I like to use the marquis tool for some reason for cropping, because I feel like I'm more in control, so I go in here and just basically go up to the line there, I've got shot cut set for my crop at home so I could just crop instantly like that we can use his crop to as well, but I just feel annoyed when all this comes up because I just feel like it's just it's just my habit so I use the market till I feel like a home fit, so andi just bring I just you know, you can obviously to try and crop it all at once, but I like doing it bit by bit, so I can just see exactly where I'm dragging things down to that I want to go to that list, you do this one on one that's not too much time on cropping, but anyway, when I'm looking at this picture, I see that we do have always space up here do I need it? Do I know? I don't know because I don't really know his picture's going yet I don't feel that there's something amazing I want to do this picture, I feel like it's more about her and just being there, the ambience of the room, you know, I feel like maybe it's appropriate just to kind of like maybe just crop below the chandelier, perhaps or maybe the context of the room's nice I'm not sure if I'm not sure yet, then I'll probably not crop yet and just see where else might well say that one dude his picture before doing anything like that so let's make a new layer new layer is going to be on top of this um so he would go he's got everything's happened on this one layer here so now I want to make a new layer on top of that on then my instinct now would be to think, well, what do I want to do with the colors? The colors are already quite busy in this picture I feel like adding curves adjustments he's gonna maybe like uh because it's quite this heavy contrast going on there's a lot of dark so I wanna play with like I said there's a lot of carpet that isn't necessary very interesting I could crops amore that can't pay out but then I don't want her to be feel like she's left at the bottom. Why have actually done? When I worked on this picture initially teo play around with it and get my initial thoughts so I could relay them to you is to kind of zoom crop it in so it just becomes about her in the lamps on not about all that other superfluous detail and then the lamps kind of punctuate each end of the image there and I feel that maybe is that maybe works a bit better um that's just do a little bit more so what I'm doing here is I'm transforming the image by hitting command tea on dh then holding shift down so it keeps its proportions and this just means I'm basically zoom cropping into that canvas so instead of cropping in my crop for which you could do I just sometimes like to transform the layer like this so that it stays exactly the same dimensions and I see straight away how the image looks in that same no say in the same dimensions whereas if I went I can always go like this as well but then I feel like I could be doing anything um if I want to keep to the same shape of the image and I do that but anyway so let's just do it like this to show the alternate method um another thing about cropping is it crops the entire canvas if I was to transform the layer then it's just a layer that's transformed and you still got the rest of the image in the layers below as part of your process as you go along. So now it the whole thing is cropped and I can't bring back that detail so actually I'm going to go back because let's just uh let's just do it the way that I was gonna do was go zoo outside don't go completely off my screen I got uh you've got bigger file as a result of keeping all the information that's fine for now I'm gonna do what matthew always reminds me to do when I can feel him tell it telepathically reminding me teo uh that that's just on the desktop let's just say this just show could have it. So now, um, just a few more minutes in this picture not long let's just go into the curves, command em on and just do what I do, which is to I usually have more curves than this, but this is just a sample of him. I'm not too enamored by no like drawing attention to the carpet. The attention is I want her, but then I also don't want it. I want to have some context as well. So quiet like drawing out those blues of the image, making it more about her hurst her warm skin on the cool room drawing that out together. Uh, so maybe something like that it's quite nice, but I just think this image is very simple. I see this image is a nice kind of in principle. And I sachin image in terms of the having that space space potentially for text on dh titles and spreads so this is this's a nice example of that I wouldn't want to add anything similar to this picture, it just doesn't for me at the moment at least I don't feel like it's it's a candidate for that this is just a simple shoot where she is the point of the picture she's the atmosphere in the picture and she's kind of interacting very subtly with a prop on dominator of light in the picture and that's that's fine so let's just say that go back in to bridge there was some of the images I could also do the same thing panoramic lee to other images so I could choose a different pose I don't know that would change my direction in which I take a picture I just think it is what it is it's a nice shot of her character shot her um so let's move on to looking at some of the other pictures in the second set up um, I don't know whether I should move on too quickly or whether they're any questions about it was funny because kind of just leaned over and was like, should we? Which has questions about positions so perfect time we do have a number of questions and grab a mic in here if you do so first of all, valentina colleen a couple people want to know why do in this case a panorama composite instead of photographing with a wider lens during a photo shoot? Yeah it's all about it's all about the the effects you're getting on the subject with the lens you're using so you're getting a much you're getting that nice depth of what depending on what you're doing in the show obviously, but when I do it I'm using often fifty millions on dh I'm using up because I'm separating the subject nicely off the background and I'm getting that depths on her or him that I really like on dh it wouldn't be achieved in a wide shot because you'd be shooting further back he wouldn't be getting that same focus and intimacy on the subject and that often you know really makes a shot when you shoot shot wide sometimes you just lose a subject not all the time but I know a lot of the time it is about just bringing that nice separation in which makes a shot a lot more dramatic and just a lot more interesting generally great thank you that does kind of lead into the next question about tilting and shifting and exactly what you meant by your further with the fifty mil tilden shift what does mean shift uh okay for the still from victor was part if you're talking through your process like are you physically like moving to the side? Are you tilting up? Are you what's your process so you may see me doing yesterday, but if you didn't know I was basically my cameras on the tripod I was actually swiveling the camera on the tripod if I was doing it hand held, which I have done, I would just let you go like this so I wouldn't change my position, I would just be the picky or tribal toby, the pivot on which I till left and right are open down andi want toe also kind of make sure you take shots in between as well to fill those kind of triangular gaps that would naturally get when you go from one swivel to another, so to take three like this perhaps in in three below and then three up depending on what's interesting around you but it's good to get more shots than unless because you might find your missing this big chunk of room that you really need so well, that was exactly the next question, which from colleen, how much overlapping should there be when you're shooting to stitch later? Uh so do you, like go halfway through the previous image? Do you leave just a little sliver uh, it's that I'm still learning about my submit? I mean, I'm not gonna pretend to be this like complete expert on it, I'm still also learning about different software you can use to make that you know, really smooth professional panoramas, but generally if if you're when you're when you're tilting and doing this, you you want to be better safe than sorry, so for example, if you take a picture of tory on his couch, I would shift just a bit to see the end of the shays. And then again, sometimes in the past, I've made the mistake of just telling too much on dh the photo shop can't even recognize the two pictures is going together because of a photo shop was trying to look for the same information, teo obviously match them up together so that it's safe and sorry and just just take just two slivers that's better than missing out chunks? I just got the model air just moved to one side a little bit with her that was a shot you don't necessarily want kind of half of it in the same shot that you take next because that's most likely gonna be redundant because you're not stitching the model herself, but if you move just outside of the model, then shoot and then take few more years. So just just as you try out you, you'll become familiar with what's needed. So when you first try out, I would recommend just being doing it very tiny increments and one more quick one from video when you stitch images together, do you have a standard image size that you're then using for the stitch image? No, I don't some photographers do I I find that whatever is most level of intrigue, whatever whatever is interesting going on around the model, I want to keep that that is the point of the image for me. Sometimes I manipulate that area, so it does it can kind of, you know, miss, be wider or shrink it down a little bit, but I don't I don't I don't work to any particular dimensions I like to let my image is just kind of be what they are, which is just part of the process of, um, off building an image it's not necessarily the most convenient thing you know, I think it would be easier in general in life if you had all your images of saying dimensions, but I've I found early on that that was a mistake for me. Actually, I have a little anecdote to go with that eye very early on in my self portrait today's, I was first making prints of myself, poor traits and someone who I was involved with at the gallery, but I was selling prints through kind of a didn't tell me that maybe you should be the same, but the kind of hinted that they should be kind of the same, so I kind of cropped an image to be square tio rather than for it to be midway between a regular to buy free image or and square so I cropped it, so it was either one or the other copped it down to a square. I just wish you never did that because the image was as it was, it was it was off square on dh that's just how I made it, so to crop it, I felt I just kind of, like slash my image just for the sake of consistency, which some people like, but I personally don't, and I'd stick with what I believe is best for my images, they gotta breathe in their own element and that's something that comes with the making of them, and they want to tell you the problem. So what I'll do is I'll spend this time just kind of going over any issues about how I approached the images from the second shoot, because it's best just to get those out the way, so I have more time to edit and more time to talk about different things. So, I mean, I gotta be honest, I'm looking for all my pictures, I was really pleased with them because I felt as if let's, just go through someone I talk, I felt as if we had got a lot of options, we'd also got the technical boxes ticked, so I got the picture without the boom arm in for both off the images, which is really important because it makes me nervous doing all the pictures with this end, but yet that that's easily masked out as I've done that, let me just get rid of these, I'm giving too much away. So, um, yeah, ok, so I've, uh, got a whole range of poses. I've got two different angles and also the images at the end as well. I've got her different positions. I've got her moving your hair, it does you no, I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed of options, but I kind of want to be because in a situation where you know, you're paying for a stylist, you're paying for the services and weii paid for leading to come and do this the location you know, we're paying for all of these ingredients. You want to make sure that you get your money's worth you getting those options, so having a few more images then you need is fine because that's, how photographers generally work it's, how you are the most efficient in terms of then being able to deliver. And just like I said the other day about the going from the low fight of the hi fi and doing that that shoot for the for the book and having having no options to begin with and then being stuck because they didn't like the picture I made and then doing another shoot with tons of selections which felt a little bit like you are going overboard with options but that's what they wanted and that's what fulfilled that job so it's a good mentality to get into? I'm not saying I'm not saying that you shoot tons of pictures unnecessarily I'm just saying that when you get options you are making life easy for yourself commercially because your client might well like a different picture than you particularly like and it's not good to take that risk on just doing one if they're not expect if they're not hiring you is like a an artist and putting your trust to make one image they you know, a lot of commercial jobs expect to get some kind of options to work with um so we've got wide shots of her we've got the closer shots of her that we can stitch there is gonna be some stitching I think in all of the outcomes but in slightly different ways I found myself being drawn to some of the shots we took towards the end when we had her wider uh let's look at what um sayings on this so there's these were done with a twenty four to seventy mil lens but we still got some nice some nice, huh? Intimacy on her we've gotta separate off the background with the help of the light so it's not like she's too lost in the image address is big enough so she's not getting too lost in the image on dh so for me I just feel like it's a case off I described it to matthew as being like when you're playing scrabble and you've got all these letters on dh you can't just like put more together you've got to make a word from all these letters and this is what you're doing of all these options you you've got to make a word and what and what's good about that analogy also is that ultimately it's about that word being some form of message? Not necessarily some great big political message I just mean some kind of something of saying with the picture saying two students earlier that when you're stitching stitching is great because you're getting this extra information of filling out the scene but also if you're doing if you kind of stick to you and you get too lost in the stitching and it's all becomes about stitching for stitching sake, then the model herself you kind of thinking what is the point of the stitching? What is the point of the extra space? Well how does it help the eye when it's looking at it one is what is its purpose? So you also have to get beyond that and get the balance right between having context and having just meaningless space in a picture and that just comes we're trying it so I'm going to try you know, putting different picture together so I I usually like to start for some reason towards the end off when I do a shoot so I can kind of go backwards because usually I take some of the best shots and andi also it means that a lot of the time we get most of the elements into one shot where the beginning we kind of get one eleven one element to a lot of the time we get a lot of elements at the end so I was looking at these pictures of her I also became a little bit wary ofthe things we were doing during the shoot like this one pose and the fog swon post is lovely but then as I'm working on it you know I'm thinking what does it do you think when they see her arms in the air? Does it make sense that she's kind of posing or does it look like he's reaching for something? If she's reaching for something then what is it? Because I don't want her around was just reaching up towards his dark ceiling with nothing there and it's just all a bit odd on also the fog you know you've got the fog coming in but if you're going to stitching a shot, then the fox would be inconsistent between the shots. Is it best to work with images of out fog and outof odd foggers? An after effect in a compositing method that might not have even needed a fog wishing to do that? Because you can get from stock images. All these questions are going from my head. If I did use one of these wide shots than the folk would be usable as one big hole. So the fog was grateful, kind of answer inspiration, but is it gonna be part the image? Or am I going to just end up like leaving out those images? Um, so I like you really like this shop, but then I was thinking, when I start working on it is our hands just gonna look like they're a bit old, but they're reaching for something what's going to be up here because this is like the beginning of a story she's reaching towards something. Is it too much to put something in our hands? Is going over the top and cheesy if I start putting something into her hands or up here? Another thing I'm aware of when I was when I was working looking at these pictures is the quality of them is so good, I don't wantto ruin them by putting stuff into them that could suggest that it could have been shot anywhere or that it could have been shot without all the work that we went into the effort that we went into the exposure on her I don't know if you can tell on what you're seeing, but the quality of hair is so beautiful that I want teo that strength of the image I don't want to ruin that strength by by kind of adding crazy effects to it I don't want to be playing with the exposure so much that I throw off the perfection on close the protection of the skin in terms of the light and we're getting the sharpness you know I want to serve this image I don't want a bird in it with things that even if they put it on the same tangent is my earlier work you know, even if they they even if I want to fit a siri's ofyou that uses paintings for example I don't want to stick a painting in here just for the sake of it it's all about the strength of this picture on what this picture once and ironically might find that you end up making a series of work that way because you're following your instincts but then again it's not necessarily all that case all along that way all the time because I'm somebody who liked to work very individually with images I'm going to be doing the bulk of my processing after the break when we're going to come back and talk about making a panorama out of selected images from this on dh, potentially looking surreal directions, what works? What I think doesn't work where I might be going with his picture on dh, why as well, why an they can't might why I'm adding things are leaving things out and how I'm making this the best it can be, so we'll be coming back to that. Any questions on what I might've said there, but there's lots of time afterwards, obviously, but dallas has a question here. I hope you don't mind it's backtracking a little bit in the beginning of your segment, um, the images that you were showing us of where you incorporated different creatures are animals like the butterfly, for example, I'm wondering about your process or habits of collecting those reference images that those images that you, dan, incorporate eyes, that something you do on weekends, or how often do you do it? Is it a project specific thing you do? Are you always collecting it's something I should probably get more organized with? Because, uh, something I should be spending every weaken dio um, in that case, I in the case of the port flight, I had gone out to shoot those kind of a day or two before that shoot, it was kind of on the same trip, so it was part ofthe that project, if you like on dh. I liked that because it gave me a sense off focus as to these images, these images make me feel the mood off the chateau we're going to rather rather than having this whole bold kel images this whole, you know, million picture for library of images where I could literally be trying one on trying, trying. So I like what you're saying, and I think that I would like to think I'm going to a point where I'm getting a bit of library, but then it's important to not be focused so much on making a library that you forget that ultimately, it's about getting the right picture in the right place and it's about just being kind of always thinking aboutthe synergy rather than collecting a whole load of pictures and trying getting, getting confused, getting overwhelmed, getting feeling like you just lost us as to what to put where? Because that's, why I don't like about the world of compositing, there is so much you can do and so many possibilities, and you do feel under pressure if you're trying to do to do that intentionally. So I tried to be in the moment a little bit as well, you know, shoot things I feel would work for a certain project at the time I'm doing it or just before it, for example, with this, you I was thinking I was looking, I do have a couple of folders at home where I store and pictures that I've taken, like the pictures of the mist on on that beach. I've used a couple of times and pictures, so I'm trying to get more organized to put them in a place I can quickly access rather than trawling through all of my past pictures looking for those folders where I happened to take some nice doc images. So I do recommend being organized if you want to open these doors, but then again, it's nice also when especially matthew and I tend to think alike, we tend to think, oh, yeah, that that shoot we did such and such a place one year ago might work with this because you're you ultimately what you want your brain to do? The computer work. You want your brain to be the one that says, actually, this reminds me off what I did. Two years ago, in that place where I shot this, I find out the most liberating way to work, rather than being so bogged down with all the archives. Because then you can feel like you're putting the pictures together for the sake of it. And not out of kind of that. A moment of passion and instinct that can really make it very enjoyable process rather than a burden, someone