Lessons

Lesson Info

Interior Architectural Retouching in Photoshop

So the next picture, we're going to go back to our beach house that we visited in the first class. And I'm gonna show you how to take something that looks like this or this or possibly this and turn it into this. And this is one of my favorite pictures. I just love the mood in the field. I keep Grambling about lewd and feel and character, but it's like something I pride myself on is not just using a speed light on the camera and, like blasting flash and flattening everything out but actually creating a picture that you feel like you could walk into rather than just like I want to create something that's somewhat artistic, more so than just a document of the space. So I don't do Xerox. I like to create some mood. So just like in the in the last segment, we're going to go in, and I'm gonna just start getting to it right here. So these are my five or six or seven bracketed shots. As always, I put the camera down. Once the staging is finalized and the you know the competition is finalized ...

to go ahead and bracket a full range of exposures from way over, exposed to, you know, way under exposed. In this case, I love the view that I get in his under exposed bit. But I also like the interior here, and what I'm gonna do is my little method. Add some flash, get some contrast, get some clarity gets, um, you know, snap to the picture. And in this case, the flash also really helps with those true colors. So So what we're gonna do is first things first, we gonna find our base image, which, in this case, let's see, I want, like, a somewhat well exposed in major between overexposing under exposed and life. I'll show you how it wouldn't work if I would have just tried edit in leg room. So this is straight out of a camera, and I can pull the highlights down, and I can pull the shadows up and I can kind of go toe like auto way. See, like him. Doesn't know, um, I go as shot. The camera did a better job in light room. Would I can try to grab a light dropper here. I do have a color frame, but I didn't load it before the class. Shame on me. So what? We're going to do it. We'll just reset this. Well, this is like this is the best thing I could do with only natural light and in light room. Compared to this is the flash picture. Like I love the clarity of the contrast. I like the natural feel out the control that we have the colors in this kind of wonky. The blues aren't crisp, it's just muddy like so we will We set that and start on our way. So here's I'm gonna use this is my base image. I'm probably going to pull some information on this guy here and I'm looking through. I'm also keeping in mind that I want a good view out that I'm gonna treat the view out the window as a separate photo entirely. And I'm gonna edit it on its own and then dropping the view so I'll keep my eyes open for a good ocean view. Here. This looks like it's a bit gross. There's some censored us for the last guy who was asking about it. Um, let's see. And again, I want to the flash to emulate the natural light, so I'm gonna find a frame that has to me. It's just a no brainer, like look at the contrast and the texture that you see on this cushion like it's kind of ridiculous that, like I'm up here and things like the texture and the color. But like when you have an interior designer who's like discerning and they went and spent hours or days showing to figure this stuff out and they're in love with the texture, and it's like a $500 cushion or whatever. And you know, you have this as an option or you have something like this as an option that like, is that the texture is so much better. So I use Flash without reason as well, and I'm gonna pick out, Let's see a frame of me there and I'll use Ah, I see you that one possibly use this because they don't want the left hand side, and here I'm on the right hand side. I'm gonna predominantly draw from this right hand flash pot and use this to cover my tracks. So let's start with views to, and I want to use the used to ambient frames and I'm going to right click and at it open his layers and photo shop, and that loads up any good questions. Come in. When you're going through your selection of photos and you're looking at the clippings, What is that you're looking for? Like the base shot? Because I'm looking at them as you're kind of going through them. And so I'm seeing, like the clippings, stars or a little later that will serve as a foundation that will not be so overexposed to present a problem. We're not be so under exposed like, I guess it kind of comes with experience. But I want to use that base image I want to be able to again. If it comes to it, I want to be able to use that to cheat a little bit and tie everything in. So like, sometimes I'll do all this editing and then I need, like, a middle ground exposure that'll lay in at a low opacity over everything. Mr. Tie together. And so the base image kind of anchors on either end. So I'll build everything on top of that base image, the flash, the windows, masks, whatever. But then they tie it all back together, so it doesn't look Photoshopped. I used the base image, maybe to put like in the last segment, I brushed in some of that ceiling from the base image just to keep it realistic. So it's like a sandwich of realism because it is, you know, a natural looking photo with no photo shop. And they do all this crazy photo shop when I put this one photo shop thing on top of it at a lower opacity just to kind of make it blend seamlessly, I hope that makes sense that someone answer it so I mean, what to start with. Like I just want to be properly exposed. You know what the camera thinks is a good exposure, but obviously there's room for improvement. That's its most basic form. And I'm also going to use that to tie everything together. So it's just it's just a solid picture that we need to improve upon. But it has problems, but it's a middle ground, so I hope that kind of clues it up. But it's like not under exposed, not overexposed, obviously properly exposed but properly exposed in architecture doesn't mean finished, so okay, and what I'm gonna dio is stop saying what I'm gonna dio But what I am going to teach you now I'm actually going toe layer these all into order that I want them. So I got a base image when a rename it base and then I'm gonna rename this. Let's see, um, flashed or words right. And then I'll name this flash towards left from windows and then this will be this is like the base plus one stop, Because again, I like kind of the mood that it has, but it's obviously overexposed in many areas. So first things first, I'm going to turn on my flash layer here, which had so much of that great contrast in depth. And I'm going to I'll click on the add layer math Biden, Get out of myself, select my brush, make it big and soft and set the foreground color the white Been using that white again kind of revealing the flash bits, being careful not to get myself All right, there we are all make the brush a little smaller. Take myself out of there like this looks pretty good, but like obviously there's some gross brownish gray area where I was. Now I can use this flashed image and all click. See how I used predominantly the flash that was coming from the window to keep the natural light Feel there to keep the shadows in front of the camera because all that light is coming from the window. I want to replicate that. So now I'm gonna use just a little bit of this frame, the kind of brush that area back in. And there we go. Now it looks a bit more natural and nicely blended. I am with some of that in. Okay, so now we have a well lit interior and exterior is kind of a little bit out of control, but our interior is looking pretty good, and I will group these together. Yeah, I can see the difference. That little flash ads, right? And it was just contrast. There's texture, there's depth. It just It just feels so much snappier to me. Like, I love that I love the, You know, um, the crispness of the flash ads. And let's see, I kind of want to making a little brighter. It's a beach house, right? To be bright. I'm gonna go curves. I'm gonna name it, Dodge. And, uh, this back corner looks a little dim for me. Let's bring it up till it's good. Stop. And I'm gonna fill it with black. The whole dogs, curves, layer and then selected brush and painted backing only where I want it. Get those nice Christmas lights. Some of this could be dodged a bit. And be careful. I mean, like, you want to keep a good balance between bright and shadow like a lot of people are like, just obsessed with lighting the heck out of an interior because everyone likes bright. But when you do that and you kill the shadow, you kill any sense of realism and mood. So be careful when you're when you're blending. These two keeps, um, keep some shadows in shadows or what adds realism and depth and believability. And when people refer to light is being flat, What they mean is that there's no shadow. There's no depth. There's no texture, mood or anything. So shot it was okay. Be sure to work some shadows, and I notice that only added light on one side of these chairs. It gives the real three dimensionality to them. It gives a better sense of size and scale. So let's see. I see a little piece of myself. What is that? That is me right there in the brush that out. Okay. Interior is looking good. Next stop windows. So I'm gonna go back to leg room, and I'm going to find a frame that has the windows somewhat properly exposed, using flash so I can quickly and effortlessly masters in. I'm thinking this is going to do it right here. See how I've got flash inside. It's too flashy, but I've got a great, perfectly exposed window view. I'm going to edit that in a photo shop. All right? And again, shift, click and drag that onto our working file. And what I'm gonna do is I've used the flash to expose the interior correctly. But now what? I want to just do a quick and easy window replacement. I don't want to use the pen tool. This is a great tip for all those real state guys who, like, you know, I gotta turn around five jobs in a day. I can't spend all this time with the pen tool, so I'm gonna all click set that the black. Remember that flash kind of properly exposed the interior, and I'm just gonna focus on the windows, and I'm just going to brush in our window view. But because the interior is properly exposed, those window frames aren't gonna look goofy. Okay? And see how we just got a great quick and easy window replacement without much effort at all. Because we use a flash frame which lit the window sill on the window frame, then just used a mask to quickly brush it in. And we kept all the shadows everywhere where they're supposed to be. And by and large, things are looking pretty good. So quick and easy. Window replacement tool. If you don't want to do the agonizingly long route of the pentacle or you can get away with it, Papa flash exposed for the window frames and the exterior, then brush it in works in many situations. Sometimes it's too complicated, but something like this should be easy. Okay, I'm going. Teoh, tie this all together with a and being kind of again. I was munching this earlier. I want he's an ambient frame to cover all my tracks and make it look seamlessly compositing totally natural. And for that I'm just going to use this. I think I'll use the Let's see compare the two that is, I'm going to stick with the somewhat brighter image. But this again is a beach house, just that brighter ambient exposure. And I'm going to add a layer mask that's black, big soft brush just to cover my tracks. Low opacity and I started brushing in some of that ambient light, which just makes it look perfectly natural. And for those of you who are using flash and getting big hot spots on the ceiling, one great way to kind of again cover your tracks there. So use an Ambien frame that's just ambient light and brush siding with the mask over the ceiling. Now we get a flash hot spots, cover your tracks. Not to say that you should do it just because you can, but if you do screw up, that's one great way to cover it up. Okay, I see. Um, yeah, all right, I'm looking at this. I feel like it's a little too flashy gonna put our flash layers together in one group in a flash group, and I'm going to just kind of dial back the opacity of that flash again to make everything blend seamlessly. I mean, I just want to get to the point where I have a file that doesn't look like there was flash. It doesn't look like it was all Ambien. It just looks like it wouldn't really life. And by blending an ambient to flash, I can recover the tracks of our flashiness. So I'm going to just remove some of that. I think that's a good, happy medium right there. You can see without it lose some of that contrast in texture like I was living here and you can see again. It gives a bit of depth and clarity there like that a lot. Okay. And there's our ambient, which takes out some of the flashiness that keeps the natural feel to it. Ah, a few different people were wondering. I'm wondering if you have to deal with lots of crazy color cast if the ceiling your lighting up was wooden rather than white, or just a different color entirely with the color caste herbal wooden ceiling be tackled in shooting or in post production in case of a wooden ceiling I dealt with this a lot. When I was first starting shooting up in Lake Tahoe, everything was would. There's two things you can dio. I would have my assistant hold a reflector, and I had bounced the light into that reflector, a white reflector, and then back down Oregon using a shoot their umbrella and literally walk around the umbrella and pop the flash off. Um, in some cases as well, I would just shoot into the wood ceiling. I think I'm not, I think perfect color, like I said, is almost impossible to achieve to achieve on. I always like to mess with the color a little bit like a would a wooden room with wooden ceilings and wooden crosses and everything I personally wouldn't want perfect color. I would want warmth. I might even bounce the flash right into that ceiling, depending on the color of the wood. If it's like a a gent like a cherry, you know, as opposed to like a mahogany or something like that. You guys can't see the floor, but this floor would be, you know, I wouldn't have a problem bouncing light off that because some lights gonna come in, it's gonna hit that ceiling and it's gonna have a little bit of a cast and the room itself. The mood is gonna have a little bit of a cast, so I mean, you can get away with it. But like if it's a mahogany or some wild red thing, you might want to use a reflector or an umbrella to kind of better tame the color cast. And then sometimes you're gonna have, like those off white creamy ceilings are reflected. Works great there. You could even have, like, red wall in the room. And if you bounce, you're gonna get that again using umbrella rather than a bounce. But when you have a white ceiling, utilize it. But if not, there are ways around it, and sometimes it is best just to let it be. You know, as the sun is coming in, it's picking up that color. That's what it looks like. Hey, that's what it is. So it's kind of a judgment call. Okay, so I'm pretty happy with this. I am going to look at all my work thus far. That's what we started with, remember? And here's where we are now. Um, I'm just going to take a minute here and look for problem spots. If you guys see any problems pointed out to me if we pick apart my picture, well, that's That's actually a couple of things that people were bringing up. Not not necessarily problems, but just do you deal with these things? For example, Gerrick is wondering whether you do anything about those dark hinges. You kind of stand out in the image. Are those something you would minimize or just leave? Because that's how they look. I mean, in this I left them. They are what they are. I actually had in this. I actually talked to the designer about these on location, and we were like, We want to show the hinges. Well, she's like, we want to show that their doors that open this way rather than sliding doors. So we went back and forth. You could easily photoshopped them out again. One of the things that you have to talk to with your client and figure out so again, a judgment call like there's no right or wrong. I don't want to sit up here and say, Always do this. I always do that in the back there what is in the water? There's a black spot in the waters and the spot is a little despot. Okay? Somebody was asking about that earlier. Was there a bird in the sky as you assumed in there as well? I had a zoom in closer. Look, there's a bird in the sky Looked like What's that? It looks like there's a bird in the sky as well. Yeah, I mean, it looks way more pronounced on your screen and doesn't mind, but yeah, that's all. Just mix that in light room. And like again, I was trying on the shoot. We did an exterior, and this is right on the California coast and you get these huge pelicans coming up and we were like, get the get the tried to feed him and get him to come. And we're trying to lower the pelicans so we could get this idyllic shot like this flock of pelicans flying over It didn't work out, but, you know, again like it's an environmental thing. Like if you think it will add to the photo on location work with a lot of it. So, um, part of the against the architecture question at first I was gonna ask where their actual windows there and what were you looking for in the windows? But since you said their doors and their open, that would be no window. So my next question goes to the other two windows that are in the room, which are the cabinetry behind it, and then the the window reflection on that side. Do you address those as things that you want to see, or do you bring out the color in the items that are in the back in the cabinetry? A lot of BC production three others. Do you ever try and edit the reflections of the room out of the windows, or do you leave them for more realism? I personally enjoy reflections. I am. I had a client recently who didn't want any reflections, and I had to convince them like you want some reflections? You want a little bit of realism. It's like when you think about product photography like think about Apple's IPhone photographer. You ubiquitous. Everyone has seen it. There's reflections on it. It shows you the depth. It shows you that its glossy like I mean in some, like I will sometimes reduce reflections like when I'm should have a twilight interior. I will turn off all the lights and then mask in the view, with no lights reflecting in the windows. But I only do it to a certain opacity so that I just reduce it. I want, like I want it to feel natural. I don't want it to feel like cartoonish, you know, So I kind of want. I want there to be some sort of when you paste in a completely empty view with no reflections like again. It's one of those things that, like messes with your head and it takes you out of the way. They should be reflections so you can reduce them, but I wouldn't recommend completely removing them. That's my point on that. So it looks like the door opens, like completely out of your view, like completely vertical. What if the hinge hadn't allowed it to be the angle? Would you consider taking the door off the hinges altogether? Or would that be unethical because I don't have that view? I've done it before and you know, it's one of those like I I shoot tethered. I have a bunch of ipads on one of the client and I'll have one and like and we'll play with it. You know, we'll say, Does this look good open? Is this a good close? Look half open, Um, and it's time that it comes down to, like, What do you want to showcase? And in this room, like it's just all about that beach living, You know, this could be like a morning and reading your coffee. Like I think the best part of this picture is is the setting. So we were like, just remove all distraction. Open the doors, show the indoor outdoor living and go with it again. Like sometimes like I've shot for door manufacturers and we're spending 20 minutes. I kid you not like moving the door. Did you get the perfect amount of wood grain with handle with the reflection with the you know? So it's just, you know, it just comes down to, like, what do you think we'll make the best picture? There's no hard and fast rules about it, obviously. But in this case, like most important thing is the view. Let's show So how glorious this view is with doors wide open going back Is that a coffee cup on the table? That is yes. Would you ever put some steam coming up out of that? Or do you want todo you have? Yeah. I mean, we could if he wanted Teoh. Um, you do in your style. Is that something that you would do you like? I've done that. You know, I've I've lit cigars and photos with photo shop, and I've done all kinds of atmospherics and stuff like that. A To this point, I just felt that it was so far away from the camera that unless you're looking at a 36 inch print, you're not going to study it. And again, it's one of those things. Like we had a schedule like a tight schedule of 10 shots over, you know, like a day and 1/2. And we're like, OK, are we going to try to time this perfectly? We're gonna, like, literally make a cup of coffee and get the steam to come out, or we'll just forget about let's just kind of, you know, imply that this coffee there and I'll be fine, right? I've been splitting hairs over all this stuff so you can take it as far as you want. Like I said, like, I photoshopped cigar smoke and everything. But so like I said, I think we're looking pretty good. I think this looks extremely natural. I think it looks, you know, we have an adequate amount of contrast in depth and and texture on the I flows beautifully fuel the image. You see the first things that you see the exterior. So the last thing I want to do is I'm gonna finish up with control option shift, and that again flattens all to a new layer. And I shot this with a 1.4 extender cannons, 1.4 extender and 24 millimeter tilt shift, and the 24 millimeter till shift is the most perfect lens that has ever been made. But the 1.4 extender add a little bit of barrel distortion. So I need to take that out and I'm going to go to filter lens correction and just drawing off experience. I know that I can do it. Bail the social correction of about, you know, plus two point. Oh, and as you can see, like mess with this year and it'll get crazy but I just want to take out some of that barrel distortion, which is the kind of spherical distortion at the edges that that 1. tele converter introduces. So I'll take out some of that distortion, and then I'm gonna drag out my rulers to all the vertical blinds, and I'm gonna go Exuma 100% and make sure that everything is nice and vertical. This looks slightly off. If you can imagine, I think it's gonna be like right here. You can see how the edge of that door gets a little bit further away from that line. And this is one of those things. Got to be perfect, like it drives me crazy. Guy's crazy to see someone go through all this compositing in color correction and toning and adjustments and then the verticals air office, like the number one thing before you even think about doing the lighting and the photo shopping is like, get the verticals straight like that's, you know, far more important than making a cool picture is making sure that the architecture it looks, you know, true, and it's just one of those things that drives me nuts. So be sure that you take the time. It's what it's like. One of the easiest things you can do to make the picture better. And it has to be done for every picture. All right, that's censored. Us is really aggravating me. E. Just see it every time, OK? I think we're looking good. Everything looks straight and true. Very happy with the picture. I'm going to save it, and we're going to go toe light from any questions while we, uh, creep along here. Sure, we sure can. Uh, let's see some Muecke, first of all is saying, What do you do? If the sky wasn't what you wanted? Was it just basically exactly what you would have done or what you did with the excellent picture? Yeah, like I have photographs where, you know, I will have a view out the windows, and I will basically separate the photo into two distinct groups exterior and interior and replace the sky or a shoot like this of the problem. With this, you can lead to a sky replacement because the water you can't change the color of the water and the water is going to reflect the color of the sky. So is so critical that we got this on a blue sky day with little fluffy white clouds in there because, as you know, at the ocean, as soon as the clouds come in, the water starts to look like foreboding. And you can never get that great peel aqua pastel out of gray water. So in some cases, yes, I will replace the sky in the view. And again, it's just like the same way I would do it on a normal photo, but just working within a mask. And sometimes you just have to wait like you can't fake that bright blue water unless again you want to work up a $ CD. I job. So you just gotta wait for the weather to cooperate. Eso back to light room. We have finished and were saved, and I'm going to just do a couple quick adjustments here again. I don't really touch the saturation vibrance, like some people are like, you know, let's crank this up, but it looks goofy, so I just do a little clarity again, the kind of tighten up the mid tones and let's see, uh, I'm the shadows. I think they're OK looking a little shadow boost highlights. I like having those bright highlights. Nothing looks like it's blown out. And I'm going to lastly, at a little vignette again to help the I go. We're supposed to go where I wanted to go, which is under the furnishing and out the window and the last thing with a giant sigh of relief gonna hit queue to bring up the light room clone tool and kill that little sensor dust spot. And that finishes the picture. As you can see. Um, looking at it, just a last last quick look here, and I don't see anything that, but that bugs me. I wish we could do that water, but unfortunately I don't know how that got turned into a J peg. But, uh, what we started with is you know this and I think it's a big improvement. I think the colors air true. There's a lot contractors depth. There's a beautiful view, and again, it's nothing they should get with a single exposure. So that wraps up the second of two images. So any any questions on that are Trevor is wondering, Why didn't you straighten the verticals before doing everything else. If that's a big deal for you, because you could again. And some programs do that, like, you know, capture One does that. Um I feel like I just if you if you working in, you know, many, many layers in light room and you want to adjust, you want toe. So Okay, well, back up. You could do it in leg room. So in light room has the skew and perspective correction. But it's limited compared to photo shop, and you have to batch apply it to, like, 150 pictures or whatever, and it's gonna take a bunch of computer resource is, and it's gonna take a while, so I don't do it without reason. But also, I do it at the end in photo shop, because sometimes the architecture isn't perfectly straight, and it might wobble. You might, instead of skew, you might have to use the warp tool, but you can't do in light green light room, so it's just again. It's keeping your options open. It's the last thing you dio and it just it's a quick fix at the end, rather than kind of a guessing game at the beginning. So it's, I mean, you could do it if it worked with a few. That's fine. But I find that we're leaving it until the end. It's the last thing. It's, you know, it's kind of like the last bit of magic fairy dust, and then we're done. So I hope answer the question. But there's some things that again Lakers can't do that you need to fix like again. Like a wall might be bowed or something and got a warp it a little bit to get it straight. Joaquin and two others want to know. Do you always use normal blending mode instead of lighten or screen for masking flashed photos? I use lightened fairly often, Um, especially when I'm doing Twilight's, because the light changes so rapidly when I'm doing interiors. The light is generally consistent, so I don't have to use light blend mode. But when you're doing a twilight and the light is falling like second by second by second, you know the light is different literally five seconds apart. Um, I used lightened blend mode just to leave the highlight, for example. Yes, I do use lighten, lighten, luminosity, overlay color. Those are my staples of blend modes right there. And they all get used fairly often. One from Rafael, you know, and two others basically saying on the left hand side the sky. Yeah, this guy is drastically a brighter blue compared to the right window. Do you Are you concerned with that at all? Will you try and balance that? Because I used a polarizer on a wide angle lens which you could debate the merits of. But when you do that, I could fix it. If you know you're right, he's got a point. It could fix it if we wanted to get down into it. But I used a polarizer. And if you use a polarizer on a wide angle lens, what happens is you can't get the full coverage of, um I don't in the physics behind it. But what happens is you get the light is like, Does anyone know the directionality of the light? It changes so much over the wide angle that you're not gonna get a consistent, polarized view. So the polarizer has a better effect on, you know, like a longer lens, like 50 or 7200 because you're only seeing such a narrow part of the sky, but with a wide angle lens and the sun. You see such a crazy wide field of view that when you polarise you get a little bit wonky in the sky there. So it's something I could fix and let's see it. Yeah, it's just it's kind of, you know, it's It is what it is, but I don't mind it because it's realistic. The sun is to the left, obviously in the shadows or to the right, so it kind of just follows, and that's ingredient of this guy.