Lessons

Lesson Info

3:45 pm - Making Good Images into Bestselling Images

What we're going to do here is we've spent a lot of time talking about how to keep your attitude in the right place, not just because it feels better, although it does, but also because this is what helps us get bigger sales way see a more positive way to be able to move the situation along where everybody's happy we're controlling any sort of buyer's remorse we're all on the same page we realized we always have a way to choose of course of action we can go with a situation we were say great let's solve this problem or we can just get annoyed and frustrated and buckle up into a little tiny shell and roll ourselves under a table and cry right? So there's always those options, although if we have to look at the whole picture of sales, it has to start with the actual images we are selling. If we were visit our client a bunch of images that air just a little bit off, they're not exactly what we were hoping they were and we leave them and we don't say what other things we can do for them we...

can lose the sale yes, all right, so we did a flicker pool this's from gina maria photography thank you on image that was sent in very sweet I think what age do you think this girl is? Sixteen we're taking a guess we're just going to look at how an image with lovely eye contact, a sweet expression um, that is my favorite color of those flowers, what we can do to this exact image to possibly make it even more compelling for a client to buy. So what? I'm looking at this image, I'm thinking, if I look at this, where would I put in my home? What would I do with it? One of the first things I really want to see is what I'm looking at, images that are centered in the middle of an image in the middle of the frame from a composition perspective, only there are there are obviously a lot of compositional rules, and we're going to talk a little bit about that tomorrow, but often, when you're center composing something, you usually want to have a really good dramatic reason to do that right and the same image if I'm thinking about this, not from any other perspective other than assailable image we did this yesterday, right? We looked at the fact that there's images that we would love in our portfolio that say something about what we go forward, we do our work, I love engagement like this image is something I want in my gallery because it says something about how I do my work there's other images we use for marketing that say something about what we want to pull in from our clients, and then those images that we think are really sellable that would go on a wall that would suit a certain purpose for our client's needs. There did three different things that we're shooting for this image. If I were looking at just because I want to sell it, and I'm thinking about this image as it is on the wall, I'm thinking, I want a totally different orientation that's the first thing I'm thinking, so I'm working with somebody else's photo shop, but I mean, I just do my best and let's think about a way that we converted klay compose this that might be a little bit more dramatic and compelling. So right away you saw how I went from a center crop and to a squared off horizontal. I don't know what the history panel is that I'm supposed to do. And do you see the difference? Do you feel the difference in that? When you look at this image? Mostly I'm putting it so that I've just I'm simply using the rule of thirds here, but I also think I'm doing something that further compliments my subject in terms of where I'm placing my crops, can you see that? And I still have the image the flowers in which I think is really pretty I can make a decision whether or not I want this to the color or black and white aa lot of it's going to have to do with what I think might be a little more powerful this image I think if I'm thinking of it just for the respective of selling to my client and then having it on their wall I think I may have a little bit more mileage in this image of its black and white do you guys think definitely a hundred centigrade lots of nods all right so I am going for the purposes of making this as possible for everybody in the world to follow along amusing no preset actions of any kind I'm simply going to go into photo shop and using one of the four thousand means I have determined image into black away let me say right at the outset please write this down somewhere I know that I could I could take an image and process it into black and white using four thousand means I am not choosing the best means to do it for every situation I'm simply going to do it one of the many many ways they are all correct you tell him top reciprocity before all right so very very simply I'm going to d'oh wait I can look here saturation it is done down I don't ever go in and switch my mode to gray scale from rgb because I'm robbing my image of about seventy percent of its information if I do that that makes sense I want to keep information this file one of things I love to do is a toning a lot of atoning where add um a little warmth and it's just a combination of some reds and golds and then I'm gonna look at her eyes her eyes are a very clear centered part of this image, right? And I see that I have some catch lights here and there's less catch lights here. Obviously, if I were shooting this at the time, I probably have liketo had a little bit more that could have been just twisting your chin just a hint more towards the light or basically determining the phil that you were using but I can resolve that through either bring a little bit more brightness into this I andi again I couldn't do that one hundred different ways probably a hundred thousand different ways, but one possible way is to simply clone it in a way that matches and I would keep working on this. I have a time limit, but I would keep working on this to make sure that this I kind of has a very similar catch light of that I yes then I would do something here where I'd go into curves and then manually pop up a little bit more of the mid tones again, I don't know what monitor you're looking on this are at, but I'm going to go ahead and do this according to what I see on my monitor, and I love the idea here of just doing a little bit of a vignette, I don't want to do it across your skin tones. I actually think vignettes look funky when they're across arms and such didn't mean here I've got some loss of shadow, I still have a separation of detail, her hair separated from this background and I like that do not want a dark and anything in here anymore, but I do want a dark and some of this and some of this to give me a little bit more vignette so that when I'm looking at the image, I go right into her expression so we find edge about one hundred fifty percent radius that popping this up. I don't know what the size of this image is, so do my best to estimate that, and I'm gonna do a little bit of this. Yes, you see that you see the difference on that one thing I might dio because I think it's kind of interesting it's too bad a little bit of contrast and using the dodge tool here it is not my favorite option for adding a little bit of fun highlights but in the interest of time and what I've got on doing it and then I'm gonna just do a little bit when I said earlier you asked me if I give somebody the raw images of the dvd or if I give them the final images on the dvd of that process I had a lukewarm response no I emphatically said I absolutely give them the finished images and partly is because I'm doing all of this including what I'm doing in post that I couldn't do during the shoot what I'm doing right now in post that it couldn't do during the shoot perhaps was make sure that I had the fill in the right areas that I want I see a little bit of a darkness under her eye here that I don't love it's not what I would choose so I'm simply going to take the pain toll I'm gonna drag my capacity to about twenty five twenty three, twenty five percent same thing with flow and I'm just going to make a selection whoops sorry they make a little bit this election and all I'm doing is gathering data from different points again it's very very difficult to do post processing when I don't know the monitor you're looking at and what you're seeing what I'm saying is I want to always be aware that I'm keeping a little bit just a simple skin softening that I'm doing here so I don't have like pours but not so much that I'm like oh my god she's not human there's no pores it's just a little kind of professional touch I believe that separate some of these images out when you see that they're finished versus not finished and again depending on her age I do this differently for adults or children I can do a little bit of if she's already wearing mascara you look here how it's heavier on this side and not as much on this side that could be a hole for a whole variety of factors including where the light hit her because this is a two dimensional image this is light or dark it's just variances between um two dimensional three dimensional I don't do that here just a little hint don't do that and burn bring that down picking my burn tool and I'm not saying the exposure down I'm going to zoom in a little bit go right to this and then again I like the idea of symmetry symmetry to us is a very attractive feature and people were not perfectly symmetrical humans however but if we can bring that in in our imagery it can help a lot so I would probably obviously spend another seven to ten minutes finishing this image but this gives you a pretty good idea of what I would do what I would present to a client versus thiss there's this image which I think is a lovely image it's well shot but if I want to give it to her and show her something that I think she's more likely to buy, I'm going to show her this does that make sense to you? Ok, here we have this image this image was submitted by I'm not sure learning is it learn uh it e I'm not sure if it's with an l a and I okay so there's a million ways to lighten an image there's a million ways to boost the exposure I'm looking at a j peg versus a raw file and that makes a big difference in terms of what I could do from exposure perspective but it's it's an under exposed file so the first thing I'm gonna do is just do a general exposure bump but I have to be careful because this is super super bright on her hairline and I don't want to knock that out of the park s o I'm gonna start was just doing a simple exposure bump then I'm going to select the parts that really need to be brought up which are their faces I want to see their faces a little bit better their faces are underexposed and the way the shot the image was shot the lightest coming clearly from over here if I'd shot this with a reflector right? I'm here this I would have resolved this issue dramatically dramatically I shoot everything with a reflector on even when it doesn't look like it really kind of needs it just a little soft extra boost and feel like could go a long way if you want to sell images to client they want to be able to connect with what they're seeing and often when the eyes come toe life it does that for them so I'm gonna come in here and it's a little tougher because if you can look at this image you can tell there's not a ton of data in this image which is going to make it a little bit more difficult to work with but you guys are with me so far yes all right so I've got catch lights barely and I truly want about fifteen minutes minutes with his image as a raw file but I don't have that so we're going to get over it part of what you get when you have when you have an image that's severely under exposed and you're you're popping it and giving a lot more light is you're gonna have a contrast changes yes knows that you're gonna have a hit to contrast and what do you want to do a little bit? All I'm doing right now is taking my paintbrush selected around twenty three twenty four percent and I'm softening a little bit of this jarring contrast that I'm getting I might go in boost some of this all together, and we're getting closer to something that they can better see right before I do anything else I'm going to go in, and for these intense, you can see actually, this is a lower rest file for the intent of this workshop, with the time I have I'm using the dodge tool, if I were at home, that would not be my preference, because I don't take the dodge tools the best way to manage catch lights because it effects coloring often, but right here, that's, what I'm doing, just we'll see that a little bit better, and I'll continue to work on this image, but do you see how what? Basically what I need to do is better show them I can't really sell this because they can't really connect to it because they don't really see themselves very well. I need to get it closer to something they can see. I'm going to keep softening, I'm going, people working on the catch lights, I'm going to keep bringing up the general brightness, and then I look to it, like, what am I selling? If I will get this image is not got this faces position away like this may be the way I show this image is a lot more interesting leg, a little bit more crops in you know, we're gonna come in down here and maybe sell it like this. I don't wantto crop on next, but maybe going a lot closer. So going from here and we're working towards a bit more of a horizontal panoramic shot like this. Yes. Ok, boom! All right, great. Sometimes the quickest fix is on this are so quick, it's just a no orientation issue it's a crop issue if I'm looking at where the viewer goes first it's the eyes where the eyes they're smack dab in the middle of images that the most desirable place to make eye contact often, especially in a tall vertical like this. No, if I've got an image its crop to right here, this extra space could be a little jarring so I can go in a little tighter to the edge of the hairline and I start seeing a new thing to look at. I'm already getting closer to what I want to see just doing this, aren't I? These are basic, simple little tips without any of their complex actions without anything in the way of a lot of effort that just make this more visually interesting to the client. I think we've got a nice light right here this maybe is meant to be more shadowy my suggestion to you is if you're going for shadow versus life make the shadows very prominent it's a clearly a shadowy part at a light part but if it's vaguely shadow shadowy it can come across is just simply not filled with the right amount of the film light that you need it in that situation so kind of make a call on that either want this to be darker over here and light air over here it'd be really contrast in very interesting or I want this to go ahead and be filled in a little bit more as if I wanted to show the whole thing and I just did it are you with me? Okay it's a little tough because I'm working with lo rez files and I knew I had yep this is the tiny file hilarious okay apparently I am getting said can we show that that's hilarious way can we show that I'm getting a sign I'm getting a big song that is inspiring me to finish up all right right away just just doing that with not even the optimal tools I do's do you see how there's this image and the more easily to connect to more interesting draw me in this image she asked you are saying that okay and the game cropping is gigantic and so many things as this exposure your eye this the point of most contrast the brightest thing I look at when I squint is back here not here I want to be a year if I didn't nail the exposure on that and it's out of range and I can fix it let's bring it back to here I love their kiss though very sexy okay ten minutes to wine thiss once for maggie that was those negative ten minutes to one negative ten minutes. I heard that wrong. Okay, maggie just I'm italian a few seconds is that we have ah, a beautiful expression lovely hug. So cute we need a little bit more brightness here when we're doing production and I actually would love to sell this as a ten by twenty like that that's what I would love to dio and then I'm either going to brighten this up and then start really digging into the color or I'm going to make it a color toning piece and really play with that too but I'm gonna soften the face a little bit. I'm gonna work with that orientation I'm going to give it a slight vignette I'm not a big fan of vignette then you haven't yet, but I'm gonna give it a really slight subtle let me lead my eye in here and here we have this dark over here in this light over here and dark I think it either needs to be really evenly flowing all the way across or knocked out completely so it doesn't feel like something's just a little vaguely off right do you see how we get a lot more into what we're carrying about here? Yes, you do.