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Segment 20 - Leslie's Editing Process

I pull all my photos into bridge, I create a folder for the client so it will usually say something like just their name Kendra. And then underneath that will be so for this purpose. I did Kinder's pre shoot and Kendra on the roof, so that's what I have here. And then in there are all the photos and my process is to go through and coal. And then I only look at the ones I marked as what I want to edit. And then I'm going to go through and edit them, and then I'm going to save them and a folder called Kendra edited. And then I'm ago and Batch rename them Kendra 102 103. That's how I do it. I'm sure there maybe even a better way to do it. That's what I did. So when you're culling images, I honestly just go with a gut reaction. I may look a you know, because there are several, as you can see here, there several in the same syriza. I may run through the series and then go back through and say, OK, that's the one I won't. So that's what this process is So in other words, if I started here, I...

like that one better than theirs. First to someone do command eight Internet green That signals go for me on. And then once you, you know, turn them all you know, started them all or turning them all green, if you will, Then you can Onley look at the ones you turn green. And that helps me because I don't want to see all the ones I'm not editing or just stress me out to see all those photos staring back at me, calling me to edit them. And I don't have time eso anyway, so that is the process that I will see. Let me just call a couple of these. No. And then So I'm looking for maybe a full length and a closer up 3/4 in that same Siris on. Then I have a horizontal in that Siri's. I'm gonna pick the the one with the least amount of hair going through anywhere, because again, I have several of them. So I have the luxury of trying to find the one that doesn't have the most editing. Yeah, I just wanted to re clarify for everybody these are not the images that we just took root, but we're going todo Yeah, but this is the pre shoot that you did the other day. Yes. So Kendra took Indra out around here because, you know, with creative live, we had to shoot on the roof. And I wanted to actually do a shoot that I would typically do, which would be to walk around a couple of different locations. So I gave her boats. I felt like if she was coming here for three days, I wanted to make sure she had, you know, both experiences. Really? Eso That's what these are. And I will show you the ones on the roof as well. I just happen to open this folder first. Yeah. So, again, I'm just like I say. It's a gut reaction. I'm just gonna cut through these really fast. That was really cute. That one's really cute. So it's just a matter of me going. Oh, yeah, that's super cute. Making sure I'm getting a variety, you know, Typically, they might change outfits, so I want to make sure I go, you know, and get enough of each outfit, make sure I get some verticals horizontal zin each in each different look. So that is what I am really doing here is just kind of calling these. That was cute. And it's usually, uh oh, that's cute. You know, a gut reaction. So it's nothing, really. I'm not like, over analyzing them. It's just Oh, I have a reaction to it. I feel like they might have a reaction to it, and I pick it. So I actually like, Okay, so see these air? Very similar. So I might, like, compare the two real quick and same. I actually like the tilted head. So we're gonna start that one. I had a little wind blow there, so I might skip over those, and then we had a no smile. So you might want to, you know, do one of those. Okay, so that would skew again. I was messing with the lighting here so you can see that those airway ever exposed. But then I adjusted it, and that one is a little bit better as faras exposure. So I'm going to choose that one. I love the head tilt on that once I'm going to choose that one and her laughing those air cute However, I'm not in love with the fact that that hair is over her neck. I don't really want a better shot that I'm gonna look and see if I can find something equally is cute. Um, if I have to, I could go back to it, but, um, again, hair on her neck, even though that's a super cute photo that was cute. And there's only that little tiny hair that I can take out, so that one is gonna be a much quicker process and see. Okay. Said this when I cut her hand off so I would go with that one. Um, so just little things like that. Um, of course, there's artistic cropping, and you can make that call. But I don't love that. Her fingers were cut off there so I would just go to the next one that obviously stepped back on. No, that was killed. And see that one's just fun. She laugh in. Those are cute. I like to make sure I include that. Let's get But we got a little too much when they're that one's pretty there. Like that one. Yeah, it's just a prices. I mean, I'm not going to spend too much time on this. But, you know, you can see how you just quickly go through here. Of course, if you were opening this in light room, I think it might be you and quicker. And that's fine. And you can you know, what is it X for reject P for pick. Thank you. That's how little I ease, I e But I do know that. But again, it's what process works for you. I love the yellow behind her. I think that's pretty Okay, that's probably enough. Do you guys just understand the cooling process? Not that you don't already know that, cause I'm sure you guys do that as well. But it's always nice to see somebody else's reaction to photos. And why you pick something other than you know why you took one over the other s. Okay, so then, you know, I just quickly picked 20 images. So that is what is there. So those are all the ones that I would edit. So then I'm you know, no one have how 20 images to edit. Okay. And then if we went to the roof shots, we would do the exact same thing well, quickly go through these and determine which one we are going to at it. Once killed, there's one on here that that would love that one. And again, just quickly going through here. Well, that's super cute. You guys can react. That's all allegedly killed. Just, you know, getting a good variety here. Now, you know what you're you're looking for, but yeah, you kind of verbalized like your friend comes up because you're doing it. Really, Really, Really. Your eyes go all right. No, no, it's OK, but what? What if your eyes doing Were they looking? Yeah, I was looking again. I'm looking for a gut reaction. I'm looking for a good facial expression that I feel like, you know, hits me. To be honest with you, I'm looking to make sure, you know, again, like, for instance, that one Her feed her cropped off. So it probably wouldn't choose that one, because probably I noticed it when I was taking a photo. So I'm hoping the next one has your feet in it. So that's something I'm looking for. Sometimes poses don't pull off the way you think they do. So you just skip on through that and, you know, go to the next one and that's fine. I am looking for things like extra editing. If if something has some elements to it that I might have to edit out, I might see if there's another option. So I'm looking for that. You know, most of the time I am cropping in camera, but there are some that I may have taken with too much negative space. So maybe I just did that. And so I'm a look for that. And if not, I can always crop it once I get in a photo shop, you know, just just really looking for good exposure, making sure the face was bright, like I like them to be. Things like that is what I'm looking for and again after you get used to it, you know? I mean, that's why I can do it so fast, because I've done it so much that I could just quickly do that. Um, you know, I'm looking for one that might really, you know, attract the mom so cute. Smiles, laughs. I'm also looking for the variety to make sure I provide them with not all vertical poses, even their Most of them are vertical, as you can see. Yes, I'm looking for that again. I'm trying to get through like each section. So if I did, you know, outfit number one in this location, I'm going to pick a certain number of those and then move on to the next because we don't want a ton of one outfit versus another. So I'm looking for a variety within each of those segments, if you will. So let's say outfit number one was on the roof. I'm gonna look for verticals. Horizontal, full link, you know, 3/4 close ups and pick a variety of those and then move on to the next segment outfit, location type thing. Maybe we stayed in the same outfit, but we moved locations. I'm going to try to pick the same sort of variety within each segment. So in my mind, I'm breaking this up into where we were, what she had on and then further down to the type of composition it was, if you will. Awesome. You having you? Yeah. So there's that and again, you know, I am doing this quickly. These are cute, but I think this might be Angela's right. Well of that one, that's all. Some That was pretty, too. Yeah, you know, I see that right there makes me react right there. She's smiling. She's genuinely smiling. I'm not saying smile, And she's, you know, so that would attract me automatically. So things like that again, you know, make sure you're not picking one. That that has too many things that you might have a better shot out. Because time is money, and and I don't want to spend already. Do it the slow way. As we all know, I don't use light room, so Okay, So anyway, you get the cooling process, so let edit a few of these. Okay? So I'm gonna open this one already had open. So let me and you can see that, um, patch tool is on her face because I was taken out a blemish. Let me open one from scratch, though, because that when you don't get to see the camera, So let's open that one. Okay, so you see how came were all opens up first. Here's all our sliders. You can tell that this one is over exposed a little bit, but again, I was trying to make a movie day look much brighter. Eso I ever exposed Andi, I don't care that the back is blown out. That doesn't bother. May I care if she were blown out? But that's just my style. So I'm sure that technically, I probably should have taken another one with the sky exposed correctly and put them together. But again, I don't want to take the time to do it. And my clients don't notice that or don't care about. That s so I am. I will pull it down just a little bit just so I can bring some of that back right about there and again. I'm not necessarily looking at the exact same number pulling it down every time I'm pulling it down to my taste. So one image may be pulled down, you know, 10.40 and 1 may be pulled down 10.2 or whatever. So it's just a matter of knowing my style at this point and knowing where I like it to be again. You may want toe adjust the temperature. You may want to adjust the A tent. It does look a tiny bit greens. I'm gonna put a tiny bit more pink into it. And I think I personally think overcast days look green. So that, to me, is probably why it's a little bit on the green or side. So I would adjust that a little bit. I I usually don't adjust any of this stuff too much. I do pull up my clarity just a little bit. Maybe around on the tin is usually what I'll do. And then, you know, if you wanted to add some contrast, you would do that here. I don't want to, but that's what you would do. Um, you can pull it down if you're more light and airy. Maybe pulling your contrast down is probably more something that would fit your style. You get it back toward WAAS. Okay, um highlights. You can, you know, make him even brighter. You can make him darker. Whatever a been it's to taste. I usually leave it alone Shadows again. You can light in the shadows dark in the shadows Woo, uh, again. You know, I don't have to really do this a whole lot or move it a lot because I tend to take it the way I wanted to look anyway. So but Those are things you can do. You can up your whites shaken up your blacks, take him down whatever you might want to do but generally minus just maybe a little bit of the temperature, maybe a tiny bit of the tent on a little bit of clarity is usually what I do. And that might pull down the exposure just a little bit because, like I said earlier, attend over, exposed by one or two stops, maybe that's a little much and so I can pull it down. So and then I would open it. Okay, so at this point, I would do my actually do my sharpened defogger first. No real rhyme or reason. You can do it after, but I do it first. Just run it and then flatten the layer. And then I'm gonna go in and start to do some of the cleanup where I'm going to take out those hairs right there. There's like a little little massive hairs are there and again, there's a 1,000,000 different ways you can do it. Maybe you like the patch tool the best. Maybe you like the clone tool the best. Maybe like the healing brush tool the best. All of those work for this purpose. For big masses like that, I would probably use the patch tool because you can just make a circle and pull it over. That's kind of getting into that area. Yeah, I d select again. That could have been a coming, indeed. But my immediate reaction is to go straight to select you select. So, yeah, I would clean that up a little bit. I might would even take this little tiny bit out right here and again because it's a bigger, a bigger amount. The patch tool really works for that. If it's like a small little hair, sometimes the the brush to make it the exact size of the hair is a better choice. So I kind of just use a little bit of all of them. Whichever, you know, whichever one I like the best for what I'm doing there looks like there is a few hairs on her forehead. So I'm gonna I'm going to switch it to the healing brush tool just so you guys can see how that works, make it a little bit bigger. And then you take a sample here with, um option click and then just kind of go over that. Yeah, can use old man more. So I thought we could see Yeah, totally. Thank you for telling me. Here. Does that help? Okay. Okay. So again, I'm going to the healing brush tool. We're gonna clone out a couple of blemishes here. I might not clone healing brush using the healing brush, but you could use the clone tool. Same thing you would take a sample. Click on there. Sorry, that gets come. Boring watching me, dio. But it takes time to make sure you get everything out. Make sure you do that a quick question. Well, yeah, You can keep keep doing that. OK, but would you you only do this to the images that you have cold down, right? They're not going to do this on all the images before you show them. No, I'm not there. How much do you actually do before your sale session? I usually cut it down to about anywhere from 30 to 60. Is what I end up showing my client. So those are the ones I'm editing? Of course. You know again, it's your business. You can do whatever process you like If you use light room, maybe you just run it quickly through light room. No heavy editing, but maybe you just make manual adjustments and show them more photos, and then they pick the ones and then you do a more intense edit. That's always a possibility, and it's just not how I've always done it. I just call him. I feel like the less they have to look at, I don't want to overwhelm them. They can't make decisions. So anywhere from 30 to 60 seems to be a good amount that they can. You know either near down or decide they want all of them or whatever their purchasing that that tends to be anywhere between there. And you know, 60 would be more for a shoot that maybe had tons of different looks, maybe more, for that top session where they are getting their hair makeup changed and stuff just because about nature that has more variety than than the other one said that's where that higher number might come in. Um, the girl brings five outfits and we can fit him all in. I'm all game for that, but that might me. She might have a few more images. You know s Oh, yeah, but basically, yeah, do the editing first, and they see edited photos, right, But and again, you're not editing everything you're editing. Just what you're going todo What? I'm gonna show you gonna dio another edit after. Are you trying to get a finished image right in this session? Finished image. What they see is what they get. I've already spent the time toe to do it. So you know, if for some reason they were to ask me Teoh change in the black and white just because they had a special request or something like that at night would go in and do that for them. But, yeah, they're seeing a finished image, and that is what they would purchase at that point. That was always something that I was never sure whether I should spend the time up front runner. And I think I would say something like, I'm going to do a light at it. Yeah, and then do a heavier. But then it was always a pain to go back, go back and do it right. Exactly. So it is just you know how you set it up. I want to be done. What's that? Ordering session. You know, as far as the images, I want a place in order and get that done. Have that as fast as I can. I felt I feel like if I had to go back and edit, then there would be another week or two before they had Teoh, you know, before they were able to get it, you know, because you have on the time to do that. So that's what I would do. Okay, so then the next thing after you get all the blemishes and and I could clean up that hair, but I'm gonna just try toe move forward here, I would do an under I clean up the under eye. And again, there's a couple of different ways you can do it. You can't clone it out. Um, you can clone on normal or you can clone on lighten. Either way, um, here's another thing I will tell you all a lot of times I don't create an extra layer, but you always should. But I get so used to no one how to do it, that I don't take that extra step. But you really should, because we mess it up, Then you can get rid layer. So it's a best thing to duplicate the layer and do the these blemished cleanups etcetera on a new layer. So I didn't do that earlier, but anyway, so you could, like I say, you could do a couple of different things, you can actually patch it out. You could just circle it and pull it down and be done. You could clone it out on normal. You could probably use the healing brush tool on that. Or you can clone it out using light. Lighten it. Just whatever you choose to do. So again, I'm gonna take a sample and just kind of come right over here. And if you do it, you know too much. You don't want to do it too much because all of us have, you know, skin underneath there. You don't want her to look like completely like perfect, I guess. Um, so you would just press that, But then you could come right over here and pull that down just a little bit just to bring some back. So it's not too perfectly perfect, right? So you could do that again. You could do the patch tools. So if I were to dio, you know, I already cleaned it up. But let's just pretend that haven't that was terrible. Okay? So that now we just circle this and then pull it down. And then again, if you're on a new layer and it was too much, you could pull that down as well. So there's are a couple of different ways you can do that. It's probably just a matter of what you get used to and how you do it. But, you know, clean up the under eye circles that will give her a polished look there on. Do you know if there's anything in the background that you need cleaned up at this point, you need Teoh get that out. Really? At this point, um, I'm probably This is so blurry. I'm not gonna really probably worry about that. Whatever that thing is. I'm probably OK with that. Um, let's see, I would the cloning I might with did the patch tool earlier to get those hairs out, But that doesn't really look all that clean to me, so I might would go back in here and try to clone it a little bit more. Um, that was Leslie. While you're doing that, that was actually a question that had come in from Megan Mackenzie. Double people in the chat rooms talking about wondering if if part of these backgrounds were distracting for you when there were cars or what have you from the roof. But I wanted to point out that this was as we talked about when we're doing a photo shoot. This was for demonstration purposes in terms of being up on the roof. Exactly. Exactly. So I probably wouldn't choose a place that had all the elements that the roof Adam And we're not only fighting rain, but we had wires going everywhere. He had polls going everywhere. There were definitely cars. But as you can see, surprisingly, the way I took it, you don't really know him on a roof. So that's the way you can handle that. I just really blurred out that background so I wouldn't have to worry about what it is. You can see the space needle right there. So if you really wanted to get rid of that, that might be something you get rid of. Just because the full space needle's not in it, so it doesn't really add any value to this photo, so you could quickly take that out, Clone that out. But the other stuff really just kind of blurred together to me. So I don't It doesn't It doesn't bother me. If I were on a normal shoot and there were cars, I would probably just choose a different location. I wouldn't stand there and take it. No. One. I had to go home and photo shop. There's just too many. There's too many options out there. I think that I could just move to a different place. Or maybe I can strategically shoot it toe where she's covering up something. Or, you know, it's all about where you moved to. So they're definitely ways around that, and I would do anything to get around. Having a federal shop out of car if I can just is not what I wanted A. So anyway, I probably would take this Al, but for editing for you guys purpose, you just clone it out, patch it out, etcetera. A. To this point, I would add the skin softening and I'm going to show you there's a 1,000,000 different skin softening ways to do it. Okay, the coffee shop powder room is the action I mentioned earlier. There's also portraiture. There's also may be a totally rad skin softening, right? I think there's a totally rad one of them wrong. I'm sorry, but I do think there is one of those. So again, it's what you get used to. It's what you do. Um, portraiture is great, Andi, I have that. I can show you that. But also, the coffee shop powder room is great to. And again, it's free. So especially for those starting out that maybe don't want to spend the money, that one will do the job. So okay, let me find it on here. So we're gonna do the coffee shop one. I got a flatten image, the layer that we just cleaned up on flattened that. And then we're gonna play this action, and I you know, I like it because you can really control how much and how little you do right again. If I were taken every bit of time to clean up this image, I probably would have gotten rid of those you little blemishes right there on her shoulder again, patching him out. Easy fix. Okay, so the first thing I would do is self in the skin, so I'm gonna get my brush. Definitely. Watch the opacity. Um, you do not want to do it at 100%. Maybe somewhere around is usually kind of what I do. Let me make it bigger. It's so quiet in here. We need some editing music. Do you add it with music? No ad about with the TV on. Always have the TV on. What's your guilty pleasure? Oh, my gosh. I love tv. Um, love it. It's my favorite thing in the world. Pretty much other than my kids. Uh, and shopping. So reruns of friends. Reruns of Sex in the city. Um, HD TV. Yeah, and then at night, scandal. Oh, my God. Can't wait till scandal comes back on. Right and right is, like, awesome. And then what helps tell my revenge? Revenge is good. So proper type stuff. I mean, truth be told, you are going to really get to know me real good. Think I'm the cheesiest person ever. But I watched the young and the Restless every single that's still on on. I watch it every day and I don't care. You can make fun. I am a mother that stays home and watches the young and the restless. I eat lunch. You're watching the young, the right and you're editing. And you can start watching creativelive light room class. Exactly. Totally. Exactly. Yeah. There's a little tidbit about me. Just what you wanted to know, right? Even though I haven't seen it all week, and I'm like, going crazy here. What happened? I'm sure it would be the same when I get home. Okay, So I'm gonna brush it all. Make sure you are clicked on the A mask there and make sure your brush is white because the mask is black. So you want a person on the flight? It's always the opposite. So I'm just simply gonna brush Known again? I'm not heavy on the skin softening. So you know, if you want more, you can obviously up the capacity there. But I want to be able to still see you. No, her makeup or pores. You know, all that good stuff because that's her skin, that is. And then I also make sure I don't Onley just do it on her face because you don't want her face toe look super like smooth at the rest of her body. Not looks moved. So I would pressure on make that bigger, Make it quicker. I don't know why I'm not using this mouth. It would be easier. Okay? Her legs on in the pictures on a story. But that s so that I mean, it's easy peasy used brush it on and you know she's got a clean look on. But I do use that I define one. But again, do not go crazy on this one because I don't my car look like an alien or something. Make sure your pastie, maybe about the same would be fine and just again is your taste. But I would just go over that. It just sharpens the eyes a little bit. And then another thing is this bright eyes layer. Now this one really can make him look crazy. So I don't actually use it for on the white. But if for some reason, the the blacks of her eyes were not showing up much or if she had eyeliner right here and it may be got smudged a little bit when you were doing the under eye thing. If you turn this black and really lower, this may be like 17 and then get a really tiny brush. It will just add a little bit more black in there again. We'll see how it went down too far. But you can see that it made it black right there. So I'm gonna step back a little bit on that. But that it does that if for some reason you needed it, she doesn't need it her blacks or showing up just fine. But sometimes you photograph somebody with really light eyes and you may want to, you know, just add a tiny bit around where naturally is black. I'm not adding anything that's not natural. I will show you. However, with the white side of the brush does just that, you can see how crazy it can go. Okay, So if I have my opacity up and I it makes it right, a little alien looking right, right? So I wouldn't do that. But, you know, you might just do it on a very low opacity and that would be fine. So I'm going to step back from that I don't tend to like it because I always get worried. It looks fake. So and I wanted to look fake, but you know, a little bit Might might be goes a long way. So maybe let's do 20 here a little bit there, and that gives her a little bit of pop in her eyes. And that's perfect. It has two more layers and three more layers has a white whites, which means the whites of their eyes. I don't ever use it. Ah, white teeth. Very rare that I would use that. I mean, I guess somebody really had some teeth issues I might would use it, but I don't again. I just would be very careful and do it to taste and don't do it to the extreme. And then there's a vignette layer. I never use that. So I was flattened image at this point. Okay, so now is where I add my color. Um, you might would add your black and white, or you might would add driven vintage. We might would add your mat if that's your style. But this is where I would add color, and the easiest way I do that is I get the sponge tool and said it to saturate. And again, make sure that it's not on may be about 25. Well, here, Um and then I just pushed over the color that's already there and have it pop just a little bit more. Ah, lot of times, if you have a white background that maybe has some blue tents in it, maybe maybe she was in front of a Mel metal building that to the eye looks blue and it looks white, but it has some underlying blues. If you sponge over that, it'll bring out blue, which might be something for if you like color, it would be a way to bring out color, so I tend to do that again. I'm just I'm just brushing over it, given the everything that has color, just a little more saturation, really, that I can control it this way a little bit better than saturating the entire image because back when you're using a CR and you might pull up saturation, it's going to saturate the entire image. When I'm brushing it on, I can just brush it on where I think it looks good where it doesn't look good. Also, you can use your dodge or your burn tool if you want to brighten up anything. She's got some highlights here in her hair so you could use the Dodge Tool to kind of bring out some of those highlights if if you wanted Teoh. I think that's way too much. So I go back a step that you can see that But, you know, just pulled down this a little bit and then give her a little bit more highlight if you wanted Teoh. Um and I mean, to me, that image looks awesome. I like it again. I like a bright image. So if you don't like a bright image, that might be too bright for you. But I like a bright, colorful happy to me, it says happy. Yeah, but again, you know, you've got edit to your taste, so you may like a little bit more contrast in there. You may like some darkness and there around the you know, you may want a vignette around there. You can always do that, adding a multiply layer and then painting that on just on the outside of her, and then you would have the background darker than her. You can also at this point start playing with your your layers and your style of layers. I do usually add a soft light layer. Um and then I take it way down, some adding a tiny bit back in their source contrast and stuff. So that is pretty much it of what I do again. It's not a lot. I don't need to do a lot because I take the image the way I want image to look anyway. So that is that is really all I do Onda flatten the image and then I save it into an edited file save as, um so I'm gonna go to pictures. No se, and we'll save it as a J peg. I'll see Kendra Roof will say that there, I'm gonna save it as a J peg and we are good to go