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
Selections Q&A
For starters, we have a lot of folks who might be beginners. And could you tell us again, this is from TP Tompkins? What exactly is a smart object, and why is it preferred if you could touch on that again? So a smart object is a It's a re edit herbal layer inside of Photoshopped that lets you it lets you do things to, like reedited inside of camera, raw basically to jump back and forth between the raw environment and back into that layered environment and photo shop, where we really don't get that in a different way. So let's just do things like that. It lets us apply as I did before. Filters non destructively. If you have a regular layer in photo shop, you apply filter. That's a destructive thing. You've done it now to get back. The only way you can get back is to undo, and that might work for this editing session. But once I close up that document and I opened it up again tomorrow, all those history states are gone. And if I've blurred that layer and I decided, you know what I don't ...
like, it may be the client didn't like whatever. Um, I'm stuck with it. So all that to come around with, they also have their place. I think it's for someone who who thinks they're gonna want to go because they're a little bit clunky to work with. We can't brush on them. We can't clone in hell. Um, we can't use content aware. We can't use all these great tools that we have on smart object layers on guy. Think it's for somebody that wants to work non destructive and has a reason to. So who's tell people, especially a beginner. It's good to start working non destructively understand the nondestructive workflow so you can go back. I think as you start to get more familiar with photo shop, you understand when I remove a spot from the sky, I'm probably not gonna ever want to go put it back so I don't make myself a layer and do it non destructively. I'll describe my spot healing brush removed the spot from the sky cause I'm never gonna want it back. I just wanted Teoh follow up on that, because that's what P Tompkins had said. Usually, when I'm in photo shop, I make a copy of the background layer work on that. And so that's why I was trying to understand about using the smart object instead as well as the question was also, are there any disadvantages, too? Using the smart object, which you kind of just went through? Yeah, there are there. They're incredibly clunky to use. And eventually, as we go through this composite, and that's a great inter for for him to is, as we go through this composite, I'm eventually gonna have to pull it off of a smart object to do some of the things that I want to do. Okay, great. I'm at the next step. From where you're right now is you want to save the opposite of that selection. Is there one more step? You have to do their? Yes. If I were to save if I were to save this selection, what I'd want to do is do select in verse. And now I have the opposite of the selection, and I could go ahead and save it. Okay, so I'm very new to the idea of compositing and I do a lot of like, Okay, sweet. Figure it out together. I do a lot of like outdoor adventure photography. Would you ever use compositing to affect the scale of your subject to say, like a distant mountain? But you want the mountain just appear larger and closer Is that a scenario could also use these techniques. So is it more purely for like, I know you're saying Feet is more of a challenge? No, I think I think it's It's great, Remember? I mean, there are no rules board, so it's that sounds like a great a great idea for brains. Teoh start to think about, you know, because we're gonna put her probably in front of a mountainous outdoor type Seen, um, you know, start to think step, the field blur. You know, I'm probably gonna have to blur the background. It's cause some of my landscape photos or sharp Well, sometimes you see, like, for example, you have mere lake on Mount Hood. And so who is in the distance? And when you have a subject on the lake, it looks awfully small. But if you can blow the mountain up to make it look like it is just right there behind the lake, it just makes this grand yes. Image of a mountain. So I'm just wondering if that is something you do and compositing, and that's kind of under that element, it absolutely would. And I would tell you the lighting is going to be the biggest thing. If you can get the lighting toe look good. People will forgive the scale because it can actually look larger than life, and it can look cool, even though it couldn't physically happen. But if you can get the lighting right, it'll look great. Thank you. I do a lot off outdoor photography, and I take a lot of images for future projects that I might be doing. Um, and I find you said before that, you know, when you start compositing, it's, you know, endless what? You can take photos off and I find that very much I have all these photos. Do you have a way off working out what not to take? I suppose eso I take say, for instance, at the moment lots of staircases and bridges and those types of images and I type them it, you know, different focal lengths, different pitches different in where I focus. Would you eliminate any of those? Are you know because you never know when you're gonna want to use one. So I wouldn't I wouldn't What I wouldn't do is necessarily do different apertures. Um, because I think if we wanted to blur the background, we could get a realistic enough blur and photo shop, which again, I think we're gonna end up doing in this example. So witness so worry about the apertures Too much for the backgrounds. Um, but yeah. I mean, I think could you just never know. It's like you never know what you're going to use. What I can give you some advice on how to toe kind of Rangel that all in and that would be try to be organized when you get back from that shoot, make herself a backgrounds folder. And then in that backgrounds folder, you could do some folders of skies, garage doors like I just that seems like a popular composite thing is there in front of her garage door. So skies, garage doors, lakes, mountains, whatever. Give yourself give yourself a little bit of organization. Um, and then that way, when when you're looking for stuff, you can start the pop into those folders. If you need a new sky if you need amount. And if you need a door, whatever happens to be, it's kind of keep it together a little bit more. Thank you. And so we did have a question to that sort of cataloguing and key wording. This is from Tiffany Walker. Do you use light room for any of your basic editing on the subject or merely as a catalogue? And I guess I would say that for compositing. Portrait's too Yes, So I use I like room is my months where I put all my photos. Um, and what I'll do is I'll make that backgrounds folder, and I'll keep that in there as well. Um, it is gonna be all do all my basic getting so, you know, in interests of of time for this class, you know, we started this photo in light room if I had to do if I had to break in her eyes or white and I think there was anything like that, I try to do that with the adjustment brush inside of Late room, try to get some of that work that we would have done if there was any again Shadows Highlights exposure. We're not looking artistic at this point, and my landscape photography is totally different. You know, my landscape photography. The photo starts on light room and we'll get I'll get very artistic with it. But in this case, your your leg room editing part of it's gonna be pretty quick because really, what we want to do is get them into a background as soon as possible. After that, then we can start worrying about all the other stuff. But it's the background that that matters the most right now. Cool. All right, we have another question from Marjorie White, who said, What is the best color background for blondes if you're gonna be compositing for later hair usually like a mid to darker grey? If I If I know like the subject is gonna have a lighter blonde hair, I'll try toe. Get a darker background. So black is tough again because some other wear black. There's a little bit of black and their clothing, whatever but usually a, uh, kind of amid toe like gray. Another. Another question that came in, um, and again I know that there's a many, many different ways to dio the same thing in a photo shop, but a couple of people had asked about channels. So Johnson said, Why do you not use channels for this? And then Aaron Anderson had said, Is there a reason to not save? Or if you would save the selection as an Alfa Channel? The selection. Okay, so the first question is, is wide don't use channels. And that's just cause we have newer, better selection technology. Okay, Channels is just a legacy way to do inside of photo shop, not saying they don't work. They may still work just fine, but we just have newer, better ways to do it on. And then as far as saving that selection as an Alfa Channel, when I did save selection, that's exactly what it did. Remember when I did select save selection? All right, if you were to go over in your channels panel, you will see that's our selection down there. So it actually is saving an Alfa Channel
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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