Lesson Info
15. Composite Tools Q&A
Lessons
Class Introduction
04:41 2Composite Examples
10:58 3Set-Up for Photoshoot
11:17 4Live Shoot: Model Placement
15:20 5How to Choose Images for the Composite
04:59 6Introduction to Selections
08:32 7Selections Q&A
09:40 8Start Post Processing in Photoshop
03:27Lesson Info
Composite Tools Q&A
could you tell us again for shellac To what the name of the light flare tool was that you were using, actually, in the last bit, the light flare toe when you created the light player? When I created the light. Um, was that the camera raw thing that I did? What radius? Filter? Yeah, the radio with Let me find the photo. Okay, that's are eager to go. No, it'll take one second. I'm just setting it up. All right, so here we got our photo, go to camera radio, filter up with that, which, by the way, is the same thing. Like, room has one as well. It's the radio filter. And then I just increase the exposure and the warmth. Then you can rotate it around. Cool. Thank. All right. So this question came in from Charmaine Gray. Can you organize adjustment brush presets similar to the way that you can or organize develop presets into sub folders and expand them? She said I also want to pin frequently used adjustment brushes to the top. You cannot. You cannot. So, yeah, you can. You can organize and t...
hink figure into speaking in light room. You can organize your presets on light room adjustment brush preset. The best you can do is if you make your own, which you can dio name with the one and then a two and then a three in front of it. And those will get stuck to the top because they'll come alphabetically first. Great. Okay, let's see. We got Marguerite White, who is wondering if there's a way to use camera raw over the background you're using so that you can see the exposure, etcetera. That would be best for the background. No, I know if I'm understanding correctly, I and I think I think this was a good This was a good example. Like when I'm going back and forth the camera. The only thing I don't like about this workflow is is I don't see the background. Um, so there is a little bit of guesswork and honestly, guys, you know, I'm using camera raw. You could very easily go in here and add like, a brightness contrast adjustment layer. We're not doing huge moves here. Camera on late room like that's the heavy hitting like my shadows. My highlights, my color balance. I really need to do some work. Once I'm refining, you don't get a whole lot of benefit from it. So if you added a brightness contrast layer, and then there's a little button down here that you can click and it clips it to the layer right below, See a little arrow. Now, when I adjust brightness, I'm just working on her so I can do it that way, and you can do small moves that way. And you know what? We're looking at this photo in the interests of thinking composites. If if I were to look at this and kind of give it a great I'd say one of the things I would have done on the shooting side of things you know, to me it's a little bit too directional upfront. Her face should probably be a little bit flatter and more even without the shadows on there. I think I think just overall probably too many shadows on the side. So if you're thinking of you know what works, what doesn't work big, brightly lit scenes like that? Probably a little bit flatter on the lighting. We have one from Bluebird, who is pretty much what you're the topic that you've just been covering is if you use light room instead of using camera raw, should you go back and forth from Photoshopped a light room to make those adjustments adjustments that you're showing us in raw. So no, no. If you're if you I'm starting in light room looking through my photos in light room, especially for compositing work, I'm probably gonna end up inside a photo shopping. At that point, the only thing that's gonna come back the late room is gonna be the final image, right? So a de shy eyes says any tips for making a selection when the background is busy? Not as solid as some of these examples. Is there some? So some Some top tips are the mistakes that people make. The biggest tip is going to be when When we did our selection with the quick selection tool, you're gonna have to have spend a lot of time zooming in and doing those little edges. And most of my examples I maybe spent a minute going around the edges and cleaning those edges up on busy background. You're going to spend a lot of time going in there and clean it up. But the same tools, same tools, no different tools. Just more time. Great. So that's where that planning for compositing comes in telling you that that's the way to do it. It did give you guys Ah, get your question a second to give you guys a frame of reference. Um, I did. I did a photo shop, a Photoshopped course over on my website, and I went out to, you know, my email list, and I had people send in suggestions and everybody wanted it like a natural light composite. You know, that stopped showing us all these studio composite everything. So, Mike, all right, I'm going to do I gotta do something, cause that's what people are asking for. My wife will tell you it took me almost eight hours toe look through my photo library and find photos that I could composite and make it work. So out of, ah, 100 different attempts. One worked. It was just it was finding the right person with the right background behind them that I could select it with the right lighting with another with the right background. It's just it's an incredibly difficult things into, so if that gives you a frame of reference for That's up. I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just you invest some time in it almost enough time that you probably could have done a shoot the right way to be got. Use it she like. If you don't have the fancy lighting and all that stuff, use a sheet behind somebody. A wall of anything that's going to just give you contrast is going to be the best way. Oh, sorry, you had a question. Great. Do you have any tips for if you're doing a product composition? So like in here, you're talking about the son. Flare in contrast in your legs to kind of give that pop. But what about if you doing like a product that's not a person? Do you have any just tips? Your tricks for making it blend? Well, if it's is it a product, that's probably it's going to go on a pretty simple background. What I'm envisioning is like if you're doing like a food product, maybe like a dehydrated meal or maybe like a hammock in a tree or sees on a mountainside, something in that kind of study where you want it to look like it was naturally there. Perhaps you did. Shot in studio. I think concepts are gonna be pretty close to the same. Uh, you know, some things you can help you do is ah is lighting that some kind of great card, you know, with their, especially with their products with people, we can be a little bit more creative in our coloring, but with your products, it's gonna be if it's too warm. If it's too cold of his to read, that's usually going to stand out a little bit more. So shoot with a great card. You throw a great card into if you're if you are going to go shoot your backdrop through a great card in there. But try to match up your color a little bit more. But pretty close to the same perspective of the product would have to be addressed, most likely as well. I height in the frame, right, so, like top of her mug there shows at the right eye level for the room. But if that showed more of the top of the mug, then that's gonna be lower in the frame if it shows flat. Exactly so I think that would be something you'd have to pay attention to pre plan as well to make those things match up. Yeah, that almost definitely. And we talked about it a lot in the last class. You know, if you're gonna have your and try to fake putting something on the ground or something like that, that's, you know, you really have to pay attention to the angles that you're shooting. Everything carry around, will note, pad, shoot three different versions of it so you can pick. But that's ah, it's gonna be a must have for something like that. And we did have a question about perspective. And I'm wondering, like how you would if there's anything you could do. If you did want the perspective of the coffee mug to be different in this scenario, there's nothing we can do. Impose eso what he had said. You know, if I thought that I wanted a top down view of the room, I would have had to been over her so we could see the coffee in the mug is I don't think there is a coffee in this book, but you probably have to be a little bit higher up afterwards. And Photoshopped? There's not too much we can do to change that. Yeah. Photo shops powerful, but we're not there yet. Said yet, though. All right, this question I had had come in earlier, and I'm not sure if you completely answered it, but if you did, maybe you could just summarize again. Clarify for our 87. Can you apply decontaminate colors only to a portion of your picture now? No, you can't do to a portion. So the only thing you could do would be to basically, if you had select out the portion that really needed it. Go into your selection tool with that, um, just have it on a separate layer, and you could do it that way.
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Ratings and Reviews
Lael
Matt is just so easy to listen to and follow, this course was particularly good to give you a well prepared framework to create a composite. Really fine step by step details on unifying the composite, creating lighting & atmosphere. His tips are clever and give great results.
Justin
The class was good for me as a beginner in this field, it covered the studio shot well and the use of photoshop, lightroom is clearly very powerful. I would have liked a segment on shooting the background particularly getting the angles correct so that the subject fits the background, just the pitfalls and must do's would have been nice. But overall I learnt a lot. Justin
a Creativelive Student
Not a big fan of this class...didn't offer much