Lessons
Lesson Info
Class Introduction
In this class, we are going to be talking about one of my favorite kind of over arching umbrella of things to teach which is working smarter not harder. That's the thing that I really love to teach about no matter what you're doing. If you can do it faster, if you can do it smarter, if you can do it with less steps, I wanna be able to facilitate that so that you can get out from behind the computer retouching and get back out behind the camera so that you can start making money. Because, we all know, that for 90 percent of photographers, they don't make their money in front of Photoshop, they make their money behind the camera. So, let's make you guys more money. Or let's reintroduce you to your families, right. Who you've forgotten what they look like because you've been retouching an image for the last six hours and you're like, "What do you look like? "Who are you? "Oh, nice to meet you." Okay. So, we are going to talk about incorporating actions into your portrait workflow. So, a l...
ittle bit about me first, I went to college, kind of, for Photoshop. I was a digital art major and that was like an accidental major, just because the photography program at my college was actually film based. And I was like, "Well, "I should maybe try and learn something digital based "that's not film based because I wanna be able to make a living when I graduate and that kind of thing." So, I chose digital art. So, I didn't realize it at the time, but I spent four years full time learning Photoshop and early Lightroom. And, kind of, learning the language and I honestly think, guys, it is a complete language that you have to learn, Photoshop. So, if there's anything that I can do to translate how Photoshop works, and kinda teach you guys the terminology and stuff like that, then I wanna be able to do that. I am a professional retoucher based out of Washington, D.C. You can go to sharkpixel.com and I believe strongly in showing the befores of my work. I think it's important, especially if we've got any young girls out there who are having some issues with body image and that kind of thing. This Shark Pixel website is definitely a good tool for you guys. Anybody dealing with, maybe, a young girl that's having some identity issues, is to show them what the befores actually look like. Because it's important for them to realize that the same way movies have special effects, photos have special effects too, okay. And so not everybody is perfect, especially all those celebrities that we see. Alright, back on track. I believe in enhancing the client's natural beauty and I also believe in working smarter not harder, like I said. So, let's talk about this class, who in here has used actions in Photoshop? Okay, who in here has created their own action? Who in here has tried to create an action but it didn't work out and so they said, "Well screw this, I'm not gonna do it anymore?" Okay, 'cause that was me for like the first three or four years of Photoshop. Okay, so, what we're gonna talk about today is I'm gonna explain what actions are. I'm going to explain when is a good time to use those actions. We are going to create some actions, which are going to be nice time saving tips for you. And then we are going to talk about customizing. We're gonna get... At that point, we're gonna get really advanced and we're gonna talk about customizing actions for specific images that you're working on. So, we will create an action that works for all different eye colors. Okay, so instead of just doing one action for blue eyes, one action for brown eyes, we are going to create an action that prompts you as the user to input your smart brain data into the action and it's gonna work for any image of any colored eyes. So, that's why we're gonna talk about customizing actions, then we're gonna talk about compounding actions, which is basically creating an action to do multiples actions. Okay, who's gonna count how many times I say actions in this class. (laughing) Alright, and at the end, we are gonna talk about a really cool action that I have that I am going to be giving away which is called "Portrait in a Pinch." And what I've done is created an outline for you in an action and what it does is it keeps you on track. It does everything that you would need to address in a portrait retouch in Photoshop, but I keeps you on task. And what I mean by that is I'm sure you guys are like me and you've ended up down the retouching rabbit hole of looking at the clock and go, "Where did "the last two hours just go, I've just been sitting here "retouching this one area of her cheek," right. Okay, so, keeping people on task is important, especially when you can just be like looking at an image and be like, "Oh I need to get rid of that." "Oh I need to get rid of that. "Oh, there's another hair, let me get rid of that." Okay, it like, it will consume you, right. We've all been there, where we've spent six hours retouching an image. Well, I have (laughs). So, at the end, we are going to talk about that Portrait in a Pinch action. So, for the most part if I could get a show of hands, who spends about five images... Five minutes retouching an image in Photoshop? Anybody? 10 minutes, who spends 10 minutes retouching a photo in Photoshop? How about 30 minutes? Okay, so we are going to get that down to 90 seconds. Alright, so I have a little fun task... Not task, but exercise challenge at the end and we are going to find out if it's possible to do a legitimate retouch in 90 seconds in Photoshop using this action.