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Lesson Info

Post-Processing Systems

We're going to be discussing post processing and creating a good system for being very efficient in how you edit your images, whether it's light room or photo shop that's what's important, right? It's just getting fast, getting quick but getting still quality that the key you don't want to sacrifice quality for time and I do recognize also that some of you are just learning photo shop so your skills are not as fast you're not as quick and knowing exactly what's needed and where but one of the biggest things I want teo communicate with you guys in this section is consistency, okay? You want your images toe all have the same look and feel that you provide your client's we've discussed in the past few weeks about creating work that clients can rely on so when they see that their friend has a session from you, they want their session toe look the similar they want the same product. Okay, so if you're changing your editing and doing different look, I'm experimenting around all the time that...

's not a system now, do you need to do that when you first start out? Of course, of course, you gotta feel it out, you gotta find your style, you got to figure out what works, you got to figure out what you like, but then over time as you develop more clients and get more consistent in your work and your workflow I want your editing to be consistent to what your images too I want your clients to go oh that's a kelleher image that's a jewel images image I know it when I see it so it means developing a specific style that you love something that's truly you and to find that you do need to play around well been an experiment especially in the beginning I know what I did when I first started is I bought actions from anybody and everybody I could whom I love their work and I would play with those actions and break him down and look at the steps in the action ago. Okay? How can I make this different? What o I like not like about it I would tweak the action according to my liking and for the longest time that's what I would do is just take actions from other people and you and and use them in my work but over time began realizing that it was too much actions from photographers are sold to are designed to sell they're designed to be a quick fix so that their market and such that oh look what we can do to your image which one click kind of thing that's the feeling that you get when you look at someone else's actions being marketed but that's not we all know from working in a shop but that's not really what makes a good image the one click because if you do every image needs something special right and you always I found myself just always tweaking the action to my liking and I went what am I doing? It would be so much faster if I just did this myself if I produced what I wanted and when you're first starting out the other thing that you do is you over process your images and what I mean by that is you look at the image and it looks nothing like what came out of your camera it's there's color tones to it there's funky stuff going on and I've had a few students where I'm sitting here being overhead going less is more or less is more less is more don't over process your images and it's a lot of it is learning to see you need to learn to see what looks good keep things consistent really find a style that you love and don't over process okay less is more if you think it's too much it is if you think it's not enough doubt down a little bit more for less okay I'm gonna preach that two guys throughout the whole month is less is more of course those of you online if you rspb for the course you get the first of five assignments that we're covering in this class for free with the cheat sheets and checklists by the course, of course you get all hundred seven pages of the document, which is the twenty six assignments were going teo periscope chat so ar stp for that and access to our I have a facebook group as well as the jewels you ap love to see you guys and of course, if you buy the class you get the resource guide, the bonus video and the free follow up webinar thirty days after the class and of course you will be eligible for our studio make over giveaway yes it's awesome a ten thousand dollar studio makeover grand prides were so excited to keep promoting this of course, and it comes from some wonderful, wonderful sponsors who have been so generous basically what it is it's an all expenses paid trip to bend, oregon on of course mohr, which we ah love that mohr includes the thirty five hundred dollars in travel and mentoring tuition donated by myself and time exposure, fifteen hundred dollar lab credit from the white house custom color, one year lease of pro select pro cash and a lab credit to asuka book album company maker five hundred dollars in cash and a six month lease of studio cloud pro. My entire course catalog on creative live and of course, since you have to buy this class to be eligible creative life has agreed to credit your account should you actually win the prize five hundred or brandon course brandon complication from jane johnson design branding in design and a five hundred hours social media strategy consultation with sarah daily media and of course we're doing our entire template package everything we use for business tools in my studio studio box is available to you as well. So by the class and you will be eligible to win from these wonderful sponsors here it creative live here's how you enter you need to make a two minute video or less telling us why the ultimate studio makeover why you need it be creative. The deadline's november first. Okay submitted at creative life dot com forward slash ultimate studio make over and you have until november first to get that done. And of course we will be announcing the winner live here on creative live november ninth when I return for our live wrap up so so excited about that it's just incredible, right, guys? I mean, this is ten thousand dollars worth of stuff, so I think it really helped launch you guys to the next stratosphere in your business and I wish you all good luck get get going on those videos so let's talk about post processing, efficiency and photoshopped let me ask you a question, okay, how long does it take you to edit say portrait session weddings are a different animal so we'll talk about portrait sessions for now or a commercial session for that matter and commercial might be a little different too but for the most part let's just kind of take it with portrait sessions today and see how that goes so tell me how long it takes give me give me some numbers shot him out where's the microphone let's talk about it she said sixty to ninety minutes that's pretty good okay what else other numbers two to three hours over here okay I used to be there you know where you're at who else um I would say it takes me probably about two hours but at the computer and I'm getting distracted so it's about two hours with the squirrels you see yes lots of squirrels on your computer I know that feeling anyone else four hours okay been there done that too on were just and when you're just starting out in uh in photo chopper light room it's a learning curve to write so how long does it take you plus or minus the coffee breaks in between ok on the six coffee breaks to be exact me and my bulletproof coffee let me tell you a little bit an addict but yeah the distractions that take hold during the day the get tired you'll be editing a certain frame of images really going after to the parents now put off you know I think the parents the parent images of the harder ones than the baby images and same thing like sometimes outdoor images are harder to edit the studio images so we procrastinate on those sessions the wedding, the bride and groom portrait so the funnest part but then like doing all the details or whatever or the family shot it's like you always have to postpone doing the family shots you like I gotta weed through all these o was like painful okay sometimes editing images is absolutely painful, okay? You dread it, you don't want to do it and you know it's going to take you a couple hours so impressing that's me okay, thank god belinda does most of my post processing now I just do the final touch up in final edits everything, which was the best decision I ever made. Okay, there are ways to outsource your editing should you want to there's companies out there like retouch up dot com? Who will you find somebody good there whom you love and you can outsource it? You're going to pay for it? Okay, like two bucks an image but if you think about it thirty images that sixty dollars to touch up a session is that worth it to you if you build it into a session fee does you know that just saved you a boat little time and you don't have to do it yourself and you can spend that time doing other things in your business or paying attention to your customer. Okay, so these are the decisions, the strategic decisions that I want you to be thinking about in your business to help grow it systems were on the business people run the systems okay, so those late nights exhaustion, fried eyes and carpal tunnel syndrome should be syndrome of the past. Ok, we're going to learn how to get it right in camera as a first step that's what you should be doing to cut your editing time. This took me years to figure out, okay, I've been in business almost ten years, nine years and I probably didn't figure this out until four years ago, okay, get it right in camera cuts your time incredibly pre makes the pope just that much better and it's so much more fun to edit your image is when you got it right on camera. Okay, so think about your lighting angle you're opposing angle and your camera angle when you're shooting and make sure all of it's right. I am such a stickler for details now sometimes my assistance if I have a new assistant, I drive him crazy because I'm like but that figure's not right the light's not right angles not right, I'm constantly fussing in the session and the beautiful thing now is belinda when we have like the blaze across the beanbag if she's assisting me she's in there picking off the little lynch because if I do it now I don't have to do it later you know it's her m o like wrinkles and fabric like she won't even let me pick certain fabrics because she'd be like I cannot liquefy on that fabric that's not gonna happen you can't use it I'm like what is it? No, you can't use that because I can't liquefy the baby if we do that and I'm like okay, so when you learn to become a good post person, you become a better photographer and you a lot of us are at the point in your careers where you should be thinking about when you're about to shoot. What am I gonna have to fix before you click the shutter? Ask yourself what am I going to have to fix in this image that is going to waste time because have to fix it in every single image if you just fix it once here you don't have to fix it five or six times later, okay? Would you rather fix it once now or five times later so I know the temptation trust me, I did it too in the beginning of the hottest fix it later if you're still panicked like something's not going right in the chute or you're not confident what you're doing and you feel like you're taking too much time and the client's getting annoyed whatever so you hurry and when you do that you know there's a mistake there you know there's something wrong and you go I'll just fix it later yeah, I did it too nice to do it every session, okay, but if I can take you to that next level and make you think before you go, you're a lot happier when you get post and your clients actually don't mind it because they realize that you are sticklers for detail and you want it exactly right now can it be too long? Can you annoy them? Of course I mean, if you're no experience doing what you're doing and you're trying to do something and you experience won't be experimenting around. You know, the true definition of a professional is someone who can fix mistakes when they happen on the fly with confidence and can get measurable, repeatable results every time, not just once in a while an amateur gets a good image, a couple good images in a session a pro get all good images in a session okay, so you want to get your work to the point where every image coming out of your camera is high quality every single one mistakes if they do happen or or things that come up that are unexpected you know how to solve them you know how some quickly without any hesitation that's the true definition of a pro think about it let's talk about the surgeon who's about to cut you open and work on your insides you want to make sure every time he could send to you he's doing it right? Right he's a pro and when mistakes happen or when things go wrong he knows how to solve it right then right there with no mishaps and no insecurity. Okay, so make that your standard of getting it right in camera okay, now do we all get it wrong once around? Of course I mean there's times when having a bad day baby's not doing it right fussy throws you for a loop and you take a crappy shot with crappy lighting whatever it happens to all of us even the pros. Okay, but that's the definition between an amateur and a pro a pro gets it right and can handle problems easily every time. Okay? Of course there's new problems that come up that you haven't dealt with and so sometimes you know you're racking your brain but it means being so confident in your technical ability that you can think on your feet reaction is automatic my exposure is not right with my shutter speed I have to think about it it's automatic might my muscle memory is in I'm shooting emmanuel its muscle memory I don't have to think exposure's not right change it open your starter speak close it I'm sorry after what do you need to do to make it right and it's automatic? You don't have to think does that make sense? So when you start getting the pre right pre post that's an oxymoron when you get it right on camera basically is what I'm saying it makes the post that much better so you need to be thinking about what it means to get it right and camera nail your white balance if you're shooting on all white panels shame on you stop it immediately and get out of it you know why auto white balance changes the color tone with every single outs of light it sees differently in the camera so every single image is going to have a different color cast to it yeah or if you just go sunshine mode and you're outside, you're gonna get consistent color and maybe you need to be tweaked but every image will be the same so you can tweak it easier you're not having to go in and like see every single image I shot on auto for years and no better okay, what you really want to do is do a costume white balance so that your measuring the color temperature of the light using an expo discard great card and this is so easy to do in all nikon and canon cameras and when I figure this out I like changed my entire editing he's now also don't touch white balance maybe a little tiny bit because I'm anal but for the most part every image comes out in the correct color okay clothing make sure your clients are wearing the proper clothing if somebody shows up in red and green and blue and christmas colors and it's not christmas you know that's your fault so make sure your clothing that's something that you need to plan in advance and something you need to prepare for framing in camera your composition how are you gonna frame it? Granted yes you can crop later but if you don't have to why would you light direction where's the light coming from and is it pleasing to the eye to the portrait lens choice do you want compression? Do you want one angle? What story are you telling with your lens choice and what are you doing to the person's body by distorting them using a wide angle lens think about these things this is all stuff that yes, you could fix in post camera angle this is something you can't fix it okay have your sat woman you're going to shoot from above slander rises her you need to be conscientious of your camera angle on how that impacts the way the client looks exposure fix exposure and photoshopped no problem do I mess of exposure? Heck yeah you're going to see me kill a session where half of its underexposed okay? It happens to all of us but you want to be conscientious of it and work hard to get every session correct posing can't exposing a blowjob can you help it? Yeah liquefies your best friend but you can totally fix it so those and sharpness focus that's one thing I didn't adhere you cannot fix focus in photoshopped period and, uh statement if of images out of focus it is out of there do I have images out of focus? Yeah, all time hurry got kids dealing with moving toddlers I'm using natural light so you know continuous lights of course I'm going out of focus, but the thing to do is to improve those skills and learn steadiness and how to keep the kids still so you can get that good shot that I think you need to learn pre to make your post better because there's nothing worse. You guys have all been there you all know what it's like it's the money shot and it's freaking out of focus oh so frustrating and it still happens to me this day and I mean, now I'm at the point where if it's out of focus it's out of their period, there is no trying to doctor because it's almost impossible, even with, like, the new shake reduction filter and all that stuff and it's still not quite the same as a beautiful image. Okay. And you think yourself all I could do one in action on it, make it look artistic. No it's out of focus. Get rid of it. Okay, so calling a session, we're going to talk about getting this systematic. So before I get on my computer, I want to tell you what I'm gonna be thinking, what I'm going to be doing, and then I'm gonna talk you through it and do it, okay? So I'm gonna tell you about it and then show it to you, okay? So, first things first, I use a star system in bridge. Okay, when I shoot about two to three hundred images procession, I go through into a first cole it's. Extremely fast. It takes me about under three minutes to do it. Okay, it's literally got instinct. Okay, then the second cole is two stars. Belinda does that now, okay, I used to do it the second call, I'll tell you kind of what I look for here in a second and then the three stars that I give it so basically if your enbridge you could basically press the one two or three key and give it one two or three stars in case you can kind of label it um and I'll show you this in a minute then with three stars those the ones I'm gonna convert to black and white okay so the first pass what am I looking for? I am looking for expression focus posing and the light is the light good basically I'm looking for quality in camera feature so this is a sick my system for calling then the second pass I look for duplicates I narrow the field and I look for that feeling this is more subjective okay so when I have it narrowed down to like seventy or eighty images that second cole which is now what belinda does is we look for duplicates take the best one of the duplicate the one the client will like the one that I want to sell we narrow the field down two for variety and uniqueness of image so I don't show a lot of duplicates in fact very few okay that ah ha feeling that feeling when you look at it as a parent impact in print competition we call that impact okay is every image gonna have impact now? Okay, but if I see an image that has impact that's what? I'm going to be focusing a lot of attention on okay and pre competition images that score well are those that have impact okay impact is that feeling you get when an image turns around and you go oh, okay storytelling as well is another highpoint earner in print competition if it has a story now do portrait's always have a story? No to the parents they do to the family they do to the mother they d'oh so if there's a story there and you feel it now but it gets two stars okay, so when you do that when you narrow the field down so this for example is a serious of six images very similar. Okay, so I need to decide which ones I'm gonna pick for the client I had a picking these three. Why? Why do you think I picked those three over the others? It's a matter of fact, I think I might have changed that now that I look at it closer um these three one two three it might be hard for you guys to see all the way, but yeah, stand up you need to so six images very similar. Okay, I was I had a full cadi running around and I'm over the kid going like this first of all this one there's no connection between the child even though he's smiling okay yeah questions you get the wig was mike behind you felicia okay so I'm looking at this and I'm realizing if this for me I would have taken him smiling and photoshopped his face down into the one where she's kissing him that's not actually what we did that's why it takes me longer that's exactly what belinda she took this image and combine it with that one stolen phrase from here and put it there okay that's what she did very good thinking you know why would do that in this image it's the money shot this is the money shot this is the shot she is going to enlarge to a forty inch campus that's just from experience we know that parents want to see their kids together and it is so parents know it is so hard to get sibling shots that are good when one is done well they're going to fucking buy it okay so yes that is exactly what we end up doing good thinking my dear but in the meantime if I didn't have that skill or I couldn't do that I'm stuck with what I have here a correct so I didn't even though he's smiling I didn't pick this one because there's no connection I have other images is that what this was all I had you betcha but since there's other images where you see this beautiful connection between the child and the and the two children yeah this one here is pretty cute. I almost decided I should have picked that one but parents love it when the family when they're looking at the camera okay, but I decided that this one with her kissing the child is more emotional than this one to the client that's why I'm picking this one of her not looking at the camera over this one because I knew mama wants to see those kisses and you know why I know that because in the session when I was telling this little girl to kiss her brother mama was going okay so I was aware aware enough of my environment to know what mom got excited about she's gonna love that image I know it she's going to love the one this one here that we picked where I think we think was this one remember I'll look at the finals but we took the smile and superimposed it on one where the little girl was smiling and she's gonna have a really whole hell of a time trying to decide which one she wants and that's exactly the way I want it okay what's cool about bridge is that once you start everything so this has one star that has two right? So this is a pick I can go to view sort by rating and bridge will put all my two stars down at the bottom so I see him all at once and then over here on the last look at my screen is cut off about here but over here on the left you can click and on lee show the two stars and I'll show you this actually in bridge so let's go ahead and do that so I'm going to switch over to my computer here and I'm basically going to call the session with you guys sound good over here on the left you can see I have two hundred fifty two images ok that I shot in the in this session I took a picture of my why balance card right here in case I need to do any white balancing but since we did a custom why balance is the color's pretty much accurate on every single one exposure is not okay. I know that because when I got down here to the mommy and I see how they heard doctor they need a little help. Okay? One of my issues is in my studio which my husband has not fixed yet maybe now he doesn't have a job he'll actually fix it. Um I hope he's not watching um hey there's a skylight in my studio above the shooting area and since I shoot with continuous light at certain times the day that skylight like shines down on my backdrop and creates this funky line and it drives me crazy but I can't light enough to fix it yet so I need to have it covered so you might see that issue and a few of these images because that that light is attacking my my background okay so you guys want me to do this slow or fast my speed I'll just talk through it sound good ok cute cute cute press one start see me do that not at the bottom I like it oh that well expressions pretty cute like that one now I'm kind of passing over these good ones because I know I've got it I know I've got one that looks like that okay this is adorable gonna go and click that who kisses like kisses babies little dark so here now she took off her glasses oh my god she's just a little darling isn't she I love that one see it that one gave me the little uh feeling that fake smile that happy okay she's laughing at me pretty cute but I know mom's gonna want the smiles there we g o getting more connection that's pretty cute that's pretty cute but I don't like her hand her left hand so I'm gonna wander around a little bit that's a cute smile but there we go super cute little fake smile but I love that and that's where babies smiling okay so that's even better smile on baby so we'll get that one sometimes children kiss so awkward something oh that's sweet yeah see you went all that's a keeper yes I know my toes are in there yes yes shoot barefoot I need a pedicure now these air cute but notice the connection in her hands it's not quite quality enough so I know since I shot it that I asked her to hold her hands better so we have a little bit better that's pretty cute a little bit better of a connection okay so that was kids mama that's pretty good that's pretty good that's pretty good I like the smiling ones better there we go I knew she smiled in there mama's face is hiding and I fixed that so I'm going teo I'm going kind of back and forth here she's not looking at me uh not really a fan of hairs in the face and I know we fix that so I'm going to keep moving on I haven't called any there we go I haven't called any of these yet because I don't want the hair on the ice and I knew we fixed it okay so here's where I started asking them funny questions I asked mom and dad wasn't he fund to make and I get some pretty fun reactions from the family they're like oh my god let's get redd's seo daddy's getting all red that's because I might have to fix that photo shop but that's because I asked them that question wasn't he fun to make but notice how genuine my smiles are okay okay this is pretty cute of debt no actually I don't like it cause dad's looking in the funky directions I'm gonna press zero and remove it there now he's looking down in a re away down it baby and there he looks up one grab that one got it got it okay so we start to get a good smiles out a good one or is that that's a good one okay now daddy's holding baby and all the rest of them go in mom's expression is not very good ooh there we go daddy's forehead is a little high ah I like that better do you see it out of focus see it it's pretty good I love that them all looking at the baby see the lines to see the composition circular you started mom you read from left to right started mom the arm line fall is you have to baby and then you circle back down to the little kid so it's just like the spiral composition see it so that's what I'm shooting for cause and that stuff you can't fix later right ah that's pretty cute were like that one better with her smiling baby versus kissing she's got a funky face but here she's just smiling at the little baby like she's kissing him and everybody is happy ok, now we're going to get into images of baby far medium close like that one that one that one right now I just I don't care how many I'm doing I'm just calling for the best of the bunch that one's good who faces who faces are like faces there's belinda's hand face cute do face I have hard time of faces I call a lot when I see good faces bubbles bubbles oh grumpy face lovett parents love grumpy faces double t o that's a winner right there kill that baby I was gonna get one now the bear notice how the bears all messed up now arms forward so I'm fixing it little underexposed but I'll take it because that's a better image bull shot that was nice medium close in macros macros I look for the highlight to be sharp the highlight their sharp that's what I focus on what I'm shooting is the sharpness that little underexposed but the fingernails are sharp toes ah that's a good one and that's it ok, that is a cold session if I hadn't been talking teo it would have been it would have taken um just a few minutes what? I called it down to fifty two images. Okay? We're actually pretty good for me but it would be like good job yeah, so I have a question about the family shots with us when the baby when the dad's holding the baby his head is a little down how do you stall yeah, I'm not the dad, the baby like, I guess. It's what? The mom. I was with the mom, I think. Yeah, so right. Yeah. Those chin's tucked. Yeah, jim tucker. A lot of babies or ten tucker's. Yeah, try. And sometimes I try this baby was when we got to this point, the session was little sensitive on I knew that and I tried twisting his head a little bit and he got a little bit. I'm like, okay, I need to get the shot so you slit it some things I do let go. The important part is that you see it so and yes, he's all frowny like here's the thing I unless it's a deliberate frowny face like the one we just called, um, I will get rid of a frown on a baby because parents know this is such a pretty shot in the baby's. Like, uh all mad they won't buy it. I've had this happen so many times over and over again, so if I could do it without changing the appearance the baby too much, I will literally patch to allow out all their little frowny faces because you can't get a baby to do what you want all the time. When it comes to expression you can try to rub up here and calm him down but sometimes their muscles are just involuntary and they'll just you know frowned at you all the time so yeah there's flaws in this image totally but you have to determine what's a sellable image what's not what you willing to sacrifice what are you not the family will love it you know the family will not look at that as a mistake but you and I do but I think that just comes from experience and learning what clients want what they don't the fact that she's smiling everybody's looking the camera everybody's happy mom's face is out from behind the baby where is the other ones were not that way her hair is out of her face I'm going to liquefy her down and make her feel like amazing and run for teacher on her and get rid of all that stuff on her face the wrinkles in them and the freckles and the acne and stuff we're going to reduce the red and his skin we're going right in the eyes and this image is gonna be like ah we love it forty inches please I hope okay that's to answer your question okay bolin and I were talking about this this morning not every session you d'oh is a portfolio session be picky about what you show the world with your work sarah daily our social media gal she works in my office so she's constantly asking me for images and there are times and I make sure I'm the one who picks the images that go out on social media because I'm picky and that's my brand and I'm not just going to put anything out there that doesn't represent my best work so sessions don't always go perfectly this is a typical session for me this is every day for us so and I wanted to show you guys that what every day is because yeah of course their flaws and others mistakes and it's not quite perfect hearing they're not every image is going to report fully image not every session is gonna have a competition winning image out of it okay so be picky don't just put anything and everything on your site because you happen to have shot it because you think you need to show mohr I would rather you show the incredible things you d'oh then show half ass work okay makes sense so yeah I mean and this also comes a personal opinion it would really bother me that the chin's tucked a little bit but if I was sitting in competition you betcha I'm like now this is not a competition in which you work for the image at all but as a client based on experience of knowing what sells and what clients want I look at this and go money shot okay and that's to me is went on a day to day basis is more it's more important what's gonna sell me money okay answer question okay okay so now it's down to fifty two images here's where it gets interesting we have to really start nailing this down to thirty to forty images I only have a few to get rid of okay because I called it pretty good the beginning and as you do this more and more you'll get good at that first cold like okay, I know this one's not going to sell I know it is I know this is variety etcetera etcetera so I have got six of these with a little girl and baby okay, so what offers the best variety with the best poses you think the bottom three those glasses she wears everyday three four and five okay, good options honestly I don't think you could go wrong I just don't want you show all three the top because they're the same as the client has to weed through that when they all look the same you're not doing your job okay so let's look at these uh back cold let's look at these one by one one, two three one, two three like one to her smile's more natural to she's a little three is not quite there it would be one or three for me let's go one we'll put give that two stars okay one two three mama liked too baby's faces dark could have fix that because when the child bent over there she blocked the light okay yeah so I'd say two and three so it's four images of her sitting down with the pit with the baby that's kind of a lot I might call it down even further now we have with the's er wind down past same thing six images I would do exactly name again amanda sorry do exactly what amanda said I would superimpose a smile onto a different pose okay if I don't have that luxury because I don't have that skill the first three images now the first two images are very similar in effect one two and six are very similar correct let's look one, two, three four five six I don't like the smile two I like one I like tio baby's a little bit but I was going to superimpose that one and there's this was sharper so that was out of focus exit sharper take it and three okay so this is how this goes and it's a little slower ulises belinda's job att this point she's the one who kind of weed through this but parent images I show maybe two at the most you know one of mama's baby one with dab baby maybe to each and then family I tend to show a little bit more as long as their difference one two three, four two, three and four are the same image I don't show all those I would show that one because it's kind of cute too three one of these is fine it doesn't matter it's kind of six on one side have doesn't either so let's do that one you see what I'm saying? You want to look through these and ask yourself what is the client gonna love? Same thing here family image I like that one because everybody's looking I like that one because everybody's actually I like that one better I'm going to take that one over that one daddy smile is funky little girl is a little bit awkward that one there they're all like looking down his little face and it's darling, this is the one I would push for for the forty inch campus I don't like it everybody looking at the camera but they may buy the one with people looking so I have to be okay with selling it okay so that you can see how the second cole is a little more subjective I'm looking for expression I'm looking I'm looking for that ah ha moment I'm looking at it from the client's perspective or is the first pass I'm looking for technical quality follow okay? If you do that you're gonna marry yourself down to a nice thirty to forty images without any sweat, okay so that's basically how I end up calling a session. Okay, so, um we're gonna go ahead and go back to keynote really quick if that's okay, I hate to like, make monika jump back there, but, uh yeah. So really, when it comes down to it, I used photo shop guys. Doesn't matter? No, I used photo shopped for a very specific reason. Okay, um in fact, I'm gonna totally make monika jump again. Monica let's, go back let's see? Let's start. Okay, so first thing I d'oh this is creating a system. Okay? I do the same thing every time to an image bridge allows you to do pre set, so I haven't preset set up in here. I'm not sure if it's the right one, I can apply a preset well, that's not the right one. Let me go ahead and make a preset. We'll go ahead and do it the way I would do it and I do the same thing with every image. First thing I do is go into labor lens profile correction that immediately takes away most my problems because adobe camera is seeing which lens I use and it's making automatic corrections for the lens so without it you can see my lens my fifty millimeter loves to give a good old fashioned than yet on everything so and it distorts a little bit so the minute I press send abel lenz profile collection it reads my lands and fix is about a lot of problems right there. Okay then I'm looking at color and exposure so I take a look at my history graham asked myself if I can bump things up just to touch and baby is really yellow and kind of john just so I can see that bring up my shadows bring down my blacks too brute for increase the contrast I it makes that give it the soft look which I love so much okay the color's pretty good because we oughta white balanced the way I'm looking at color is not on the baby it is on the background I know what color I shot the background as a matter of fact that cooling it off slightly that is a slightly better tone of what the background looks like in real life so I am comparing the background into my head what? I know what color it is to what I'm seeing in adobe camera okay, so I will make minor adjustments to color because no cameras absolutely perfect when it measures color temperature okay then I'm going to go over to my huse saturation luminant scales you could see the baby is pretty yellow littlejohn dist actually quite orange do see it I'll show you orange baby okay dead baby so there's a lot of orange in that skin so I'm going to just bomp that down just a touch okay this is what it was before now just take away the orange slightly not too much he still needs to look like a baby now what I can also do is bring up the luminous and the oranges which helps me bring that skin tone to that creamy look we all love so much ok, if I go back to fit view you can see that it looks pretty good so this baby has a lot of orange in his skin. If I want to make this a quote preset in adobe camera raw I simply go up to my little icon up here press save settings I can save everything associated with it or just a few parameters press save ash off newborn is what I will call it I'm gonna make a preset specifically for this child press save and that's how I would open it in photo shop. Now, the next time I go in I can apply that same preset to any image. Okay, what I usually do is open several images at a time and sink the settings which you could do in light room as well fix one image sink the rest they're all shot the same background the same lighting pattern okay oh my goodness, I'm sorry you can sink them in photoshopped foreign camera camera yes I'll show you how I do it so I have an image here not doesn't need much I want this straighter so I'm gonna go ahead and just give it a quick crop reset my so I straightened it out just a touch see that I want the blanket to be a little straighter now I just need to go in and fix little spots here and there healing brush tool put the dodge to on those highlights to make it pop and that's pretty much that would be pretty much a finished image you guys want to see me do that like welcome tablets sitting right there why don't you use it jules so I would basically do patch tool right there hope too much and going spot healing brush tool fix all this stuff so yeah I'm just using the hot spot spot spot healing brush tool to take away things in content aware mode is usually what I use giving me a hard time over here taking all of this little crusty stuff out of the eyes and that's looking pretty good to show to a client there's other things here's some of some babies have like what we call angel kisses so it's little red spots on their eyes are on their forehead like right in here kind of thing and uh this looks like it could be one see that right there so sometimes I take it out and sometimes I don't so I will use a combination of duplicating layers and then reducing the opacity of it to kind of soften a little bit but not get rid of it completely ok he's got the hugest little expression here now a selective color is one of my best friends I use it all the time and this is one of reasons I don't use light room but photoshopped lightning will not allow you to do this um selective color allows you to take just the red channel so only the reds in the image and play with sion magenta yellow and black within that red channel. So this is how I work with skin with newborns it's fair really john d'este if they're really read, most babies have like magenta there like hot paint compared to their family and you have to correct that so that they don't look hot pink anymore so I will go into the red channel and reduced the magenta see how it's like I'm taking it too far just to show you but you see how the baby's I'm taking the magenta is out of the red channel which ultimately makes the baby skin a little creamier and this is it to taste thing sometimes I mean this baby's not that red he was super orange the beginning that we corrected that with a global adjustment first in adobe camera this is where we're getting into the nitty gritty details of the image okay so basically honestly tell me about it I might liquefy the hat shift command x to get into liquefy for the hat just straightening out a little bit and I guess my point in telling you all this guys is don't overdo it don't obsess belinda used to obsess over every single detail because she's a detail person but it would take her for our state of the session so she had to really learn to you even though the images were pretty good in camera so she had to learn to like go it's okay it doesn't have to be perfect perfect is not a competition image we're going for it's for the client what is the client going to notice okay what is the client not going to notice that you need to fix in other words what is the client see that's wrong with the image but they can't pinpoint what it this you need to fix those things okay so I would sharpen and go in this image that's done no actions no fancy things fix it retouch it correct skin tone and bam we're done okay so the goal is with this kind of thing to edit each image in under two minutes it's not easy I don't even really do it all the time either but I want you to challenge yourself for this because it'll give you huge satisfaction hammer one and it will help you understand that editing can be a system okay so we're going to try a little challenge here how fast can you really edit one image so we're going to do the little hourglass test okay I want you to edit one raw file from adobe camera two final psd in under two minutes and don has agreed to be our hot seat gal so don why have you come up we're going to change out of plug in your computer and see if uh you can do this put you on the hot seat don't worry if you can't ok not a big deal but let's try it ok I'm gonna unplug my system here and I'm gonna let dawn and I'm letting dawn use her own computer because I want her you know how like because I'm not used to getting in my laptop I don't think you are either usedto ending on your laptop now so there's forgiveness tolerance solar it's there but john is going to try this and see if she can do it so let's plug you in you in my same you live up here so my computer's really all you're gonna be out of a really old but look creative lives prepared they have this cute little doctor found nifty you and you have a wireless tablet fancy shmancy okay so don uses a combination of light room and photoshopped, right? Yes use both so I wanted her to use her own stuff right because of the affair she goes on my computer and has to edit that's like not her normal deal and she's using one of her images which I think is good too because she knows how she shoots she knows what she did wrong in each image and she knows what she needs to fix right? She's like sure. Okay, so we're gonna let monica get everybody switched over there so everybody can see your screen so this is like, seriously putting on hot seat and of course it's dark I did pick a dark I picked a hard image for you and I'm going to bring out the timer no, so there's a little hourglass timer here and she gets its on the ipad so you know if you can see see that they're so I'm basically going toe press start and tell her she's got to do it in under two minutes she's like analyzing the image right now. Okay, what are you doing? I'm making sure that works okay? Are you good to go? Does everything he thinks and if there's technical problems we can start over okay she's like oh, excuse oh, okay, are you ready? Okay, set okay, two minutes here we go, come on to it I really am shake a not that I didn't put you on the spot or anything but just do your normal thing what you would normally do edit in photo shopped there we go see I don't even use light room someone like me so take some questions well so we don't watch her because I know that's got to be even more intimidating do you guys have questions while I watch the clock here and she's watching it I know for sure no that's not opening, huh? She's like trying that again oh, here we go there we go little that's anything to is when you go from like your heavy duty computer to your laptop on your laptop doesn't have that much meat in the engine yeah it's by about a better come pewter so and I picked this image on for purpose because there's a few problems with it her lighting angle with a little off she has a background that needs to be fixed you know so or cropped out for that matter but she's got a few wrinkles in her fabric and I think it just depends on how much she really wants to make the image perfect ok, so what I'm teaching don to dio is too system eyes her work flow so that she has solutions to problems with every single issue that comes up in her image is okay so he's doing awesome she's fixing her background doing a curse adjustment to fix their exposure. See how under exposed. That is a little bit, but she's got no lighting. It was a little off. So she's got some hot spots on her skin. And that is I did pick a very challenging image for her. So I would be going in there with some dodging and burning modes to help fix those issues. She's got baby with a lot of skin tone problems and she's got baby without a red feet. Okay, so I don't blame her. I'm not sure I could do. You got seven seconds left, far three a year. She got close, right? But I want I think the biggest thing that I wanted you guys to learn from this. Thank you so much for anyone else. Want to try on dawn's computer? I know, I know. I have a huge screen. I totally get it. She's, your honor. What a thirteen inch that's. A thirteen. Thirteen inch? Yes, it's. When you're not doing what you're used to it it's even more challenging record. You did it. You know what? Another minute. And you might have had that image. Oh, yeah. Done so, but I think it's a good, valuable lesson on how long it really takes you to do one image, right? Yeah, because I remember thinking she's like, yeah, I can do that in two minutes and you don't realize how long it takes to just open stuff in photo shop and like crop, it takes a long time. Thanks, son. Let's, get some plug so you can get around so awesome. And I she is a trouper for willing being willing to, like, get up here and do it. But I want you guys to challenge yourself with that challenge yourself to do it in under two minutes. Okay? And that's pretty fast. Now, granted, I could only do it in two minutes if I've got a really clean. Good out of camera image. Okay, if there's stuff like that, that needs to be fixed and problems and issues in the image, it takes a lot longer for may up to five minutes. An image. Okay. And family images. Of course they're going to take longer. Ex. I'm liquefying mom and mom needs to be retouched and is under eye circles. I mean, that's a lot to go on, but if you can get your stuff good out of camera, you're going to shorten that time and it had up it really adds up, you can see how it would okay, you don't realize it when you're actually sitting there in front of a computer all of a sudden two, three hours gone by and you're like eyes take me so long I can count the number of times belinda said that you haven't got a family which is you have been doing this for two hours it's frustrating but if you systemized everything that you do in your work flow so you have a solution for every problem that comes out of camera backgrounds a common problem for us redskin common problem retouching flakiness little pimples on babies liquefy these types of things are stuff I do every day every day ok? Some of it can be customized into actions to create that consistent look but really what I do on a daily basis is curves selective color liquefy color balance hugh saturation blend modes and mask those are the on ly techniques I used in photo shop every day for every day minutes obviously for compositing it's a lot different for what you're doing fancy you know artwork type things but these features in photo shop if you create actions for this kind of thing can really speed up that work now can you just by actions from other doctors? Yes, but it's not your style it's not you and usually those actions are so strong that they make your work just look kind of washed out and over processed okay for me it's about clean crisp classic images now if that's your style and that's your brand that we want to go awesome sauce make it happen it's it's great okay I'm not discrediting that at all but I want you systemized I want you systemized I want you having solutions to problems in your image that you saw the same way every time so literally I have to say these are the on ly things I use in photo shop for everyday post processing I stopped using actions that come from other people because I want my own spiel I want my own stick and the art is in how I clicked the camera not in the action I applied to it okay but when you do have these everyday processes that you khun to you can batch speeded up and prevent you know carpal tunnel syndrome from getting the best of you of course a walk I'm tablet always helps with that as well so creating actions is pretty easy you just go up to the little on the actions palate you just go up to the little icon appear and say new action and you give it a uh a name okay settle this window will open and say what I want to make an action for what I just did which is selective color reducing the reds by certain amount ok, I say that in my set of actions and press record then I simply conduct my steps so I hit the adjustment button do the do the the percentage that I want reduced the reds and when I'm all done with it, I simply press stop over here on the lower left and that creates a new action. When I apply that action to another image, it will reduce the reds in that image by the exact same amount of what I just recorded. The problem is is baby skin is all everybody's different. Every child is different so that action doesn't work on every single baby. So I may if I have a baby that's really read, I might batch through and do one pass with that to make it quick. But then I got to go back and teo do it to taste for that specific child. Ok, so there are some customization sze that just can't be that's systemized. But there are some things that you do in photo shop everyday, like sharpening. I mean, most people sharpen the same amount, every image, that kind of stuff you can do quickly and easily, and then batch process, which is a system which makes you faster, okay, so the two minute challenge make try it and make actions for the things that you do all the time, it will make you faster and then you can batch process at all okay, I should probably show you guys how to do that do we want to switch back to my computer? She wanted to see the sink thing didn't you okay, let me plug back in really quick and try to do that if they're ok with me doing that they're probably going she's switching back and forth like crazy but I think it'll be worth it so I'm gonna plug in here it's pretty quick and dirty teo to do that um so when I'm in bridge and I wantto do several images at once this is kind of how it goes you highlight all the images that you plan to edit ok same look same background same pose kind of thing double click to open them in dhobi camera this is the image that I originally edited and fixed right? Okay so you just make sure it's exactly what you want or the exposure is then you can highlight all and press synchronized and when I press ok bridge will apply the settings to the last to all the images the settings that were the previous image I added it semi sense so it takes the settings from the image that I just edited and applies it to all the other so when I press ok you can see it just put the same settings on every single image I can select all and more all select all one more time. Open images and all my images are now have their global raw adjustments applied and then I can go in and do the fine tuning and photo shop on each one. Okay, her ring. You're wrong. Adjustments. So destructive. No, no, no, no. She asked if that was destructive. No adobe camera adjustments are not destructive at all. Do I edit destructively? Yeah, totally let's destroy those pixels. I flattened and smash and and use the dodge tool. I mean, my classic of let's. Just do one here. One of the classic things that I do, that air really destructive is when I open one eye. I always want to make these highlights pop. So I will take the dodge tool the good old fashioned dodge to will talk about destructive pixels around ten or twenty percent, and I'll just go oh, it's brighton, that nice and destructive on top of the image. Okay, sometimes destructive editing is faster and more systemized than doing it on layers. Now, if I'm doing a huge artistic composite, you betcha. Every layer has kept it's all organized in groups, and sometimes I have a thousand layers in a piece, okay, huge amount of data and information, but if it's a competition piece or something incredible for for a client I wanna make sure I can go back and fix everything and the money that's being guarded from that type of image is worth the time okay so what else is going to show you was gonna show you guys oh and then matching so for example if you want to batch a bunch of images it's actually pretty easy once you have those actions created you go up to file automate batch I can select the action produce reds where's my reduce rights mmmmmmmmm thought I saved it maybe I didn't okay so it's just to remove magenta I can put it I can choose the images where I want them to be selected from so I can either do open images images that are already open and photoshopped or I can go into my client images folder uh ash of images select the ones that I want to do press choose and then save them either over the top of themselves or I can put them in a separate folder which is usually what I do I put him in a separate folder okay and then I can apply stop for errors I can make over over the file name is what kind of stuff you could dio and then when you press ok photo shops going open each one those images imply that action to every single one and then either leave it open or save it wherever you determined you wanted it okay I don't use actions a ton in my work flow but particularly for like images that I need to put online with a watermark oh yeah constantly running actions on that kind of stuff to get it done quickly easily and effectively okay so I think what it's coming down to it I just want you to come up with a good system for your images so they look the same every single time that's quick and easy and most importantly that you systemized you're shooting so that you're getting it right in camera so your post time is less as you grow in business and start doing this more and more time is your enemy everything is about making it time efficient now when you're first starting out I got all the time in the world only a few clients the more you system isat now the more time you have to grow and work on other things you want this efficient and some people say to me there like that I just don't feel like I'm doing the work I mean like I should be putting more effort into this to be paid for what I'm doing why klein doesn't know how long it took I charge fifteen hundred dollars for an album that takes me an hour to make a completely custom album they think it takes me days we'll let them think that sure you can think that you don't have to know right, there's? No reason. Do you think that companies out there like nike who charge one hundred dollars for a pair of shoes? Do you think it takes fifteen minutes to make a shoe? Probably not it's. Probably more like a minute or thirty seconds. It's probably. Wham bam! Thank you, ma'am. Done. I mean, I'm exaggerating, but its trust me, they've got their time efficiency down and you need to to okay, I see hands going up there and microphones being passed around and somebody wants a question. Yes. So you said that you flatten your psd files when you save them before they go into pro photo. So do you not keep like, your workflow ps d's anywhere. So if you had to go back and see like what steps you did to skin for a reason, you don't commit and go baby that's pretty much what I d'oh, andi. I used tio spent. Well, I should. I should say that with a caveat. Belinda used to keep all her steps when she was first starting to do this because she wanted make sure she was doing it right. And I need to go back and adjust in tweak. Sometimes the mistakes that she was making on dh you know she made mistakes a lot in the beginning but that's how she learned and I would sit down with her with a session and go okay, this is wrong with this I want I was training her eye to see it and now she flattens everything you know hunky dorey smashed because I've given her I trust her enough now and she is skilled enough now that I don't need to keep the layers and the layers are so huge and we're transferring back and forth from our our network attack storage device are ray device so it needs to be fast when we have those huge layered files it takes a lot of time to do that so now that she's trained everything is flattened and those files going into pro select are a lot easier to import because they're flattened and they're not so big okay that answer your question someone else have one yeah earlier said that like each session might not be a portrait where they showing session and a portfolio like yes so my question is because you do in person sales do you do online like a sneak peek for the clients? Do you ever put that up on facebook because that's what my clients will want but sometimes I don't think there is something that I want to show to put online but then I know that they're waiting and so my question to you is, do you show a sneak peek? And if you don't think there's something worthy of it, what do you do? Hell, no! Hell, no, stop that right now. You're giving away your product. Will you do that? I know it's fun. And you want that, like, satisfaction is the client's so excited and you want them to, like, give you that external validation? Trust me, I wanted teo. Just wait until after the sales appointment. You're gonna get justice much validation after the sales appointment. Then you would before, when you give a sneak peak before the sale session, you kill your sale. You really d'oh no image. I repeat, no image leaves my studio online or otherwise without being paid for period way. Cell emotion. We do not sell on elektronik dot j pg we do not sell a piece of paper. We sell the experience and the emotion tied to the image. When you put it out before the client has seen them, you are destroying your product and giving it away for free. Yes, I feel strongly about, but I've tried it. I've been there. I've seen a lot of photographers do it and they think it works, but once you stop doing it and you get the full satisfaction of them seeing the images in person, a slide show, there is nothing like it, and you always get an amazing sale because they are buying on emotion, and that is exactly where you want him because your sale in the ipads appointment is going to be so much higher if that is the first time they're seeing the images, and it may be just a tiny notch in the fact in the emotional factor that comes down because they're still excited too, the rest the images but it makes a difference. It really does. So I hope, is that you'll switch to I p s by the time this whole five weeks is over my mission to make her switch to no, I'm kidding. You can stay with online, it works and there's a lot of doctors out there who do who make it work, but once you realize how much easier it is to do it in person, people think it's harder and it's actually easier there's a funky like, weird, preconceived notion about that. Ah, but once you realize that it saves you so much time to do in person versus online, you will want to switch it's scary to switch, trust me, you don't know what to say. You know what your words you're selling your work it's awkward and comfortable you feel like you're selling yourself you're not a sales person I totally get that it is uncomfortable at first but if you train yourself on what to say and how to say it and you be a marketer and spin it to be advantageous to the customer take what you think is a limitation and turn it into something positive you will see your customers go I mean every single session this was so easy I can't imagine too I mean I have clients who've been with online galeries before with other photographers there like this so much better got it done full on thirty page album with custom work make decisions yada yada yada they leave and they think this was so easy thank you what a witness is such a much better way to do it they literally say that to me yes follow up to her question how long does it take use from the session tio the I p s appointment about were long we're about two weeks ten days to two weeks we shoot the session and then we spent about ten days to two weeks editing getting everything good and then they come back I would like to shorten it bulling the like what she looked like what what do you mean you has shortened and I would like to get it in the seven to ten day range but with the amount of education I do and the times I'm out of town it's really challenging for us to do that. But the product delivery is very fast product hillary's within a week to two weeks so I feel like that makes up for it a little bit. You have to do what you feel is right. And you have to do what you feel you can accomplish. Does that make sense? Yeah. Do you get parents asking for it faster? Because they want to order birth announcements. Yeah, get those out. Yeah. How do you deal with that? Yeah, I know what I not so much it's. Not so much from the time that they shoot the session to seeing the images it's usually when they see the images, they want the birth announcement fast and there are so many great labs out there that will produce and ship in twenty four hours. I say to them and make sure that it thean person ordered appointment. We have approved the birth announcement. They know exactly what's going to go in it. They like it. They're happy with it. And there's no back and forth approval b s going on, so you designing right there, right there in pro select right there, bam done it's out of there, they don't get to approve anything after that so we make it that day it takes me as you saw previous lessons it takes me thirty seconds to make a minute to make their birth announcement sent it off the lab asked for overnight and its there in two days and we call him ago well, your other products aren't here yet, but your birth announcements are so if you'd like to sit get those sent out there ready so within the session within two, two and a half weeks of the session they've got birth announcements makes sense yes, thank you. Ok, any other questions? We got one more? Yeah. No, no, no please. When you're doing your pro select presentation to them are all your final edits done? I know some photographers only do basic ones and when they've chosen their images they go back in re do things are yours completely done to that they're ready to go or would you go back in and eta aeneas little tweaks? They're all edited there's lots of schools of thought on this and no one is none is better than the other they're just different I you'll see when we talk about pricing and the way my create a collection is laid out I want my clients to go home with their files the day of the order appointment it solidifies my sail, it makes it non returnable it allows me teo give them something with instant gratification and they get teo they just paid me about a lot of money so they get to walk out with something when we switched to that that was huge in my customer satisfaction in my brand everything okay and client happiness and client return rate really so those images need to be ready to go nine point seven or eight percent of my ninety nine point eight percent of my clients do create a collection which means when you see my pricing structure they get all the files so I know nine and a half out of ten clients are going to need all those files the day of their ordering appointment so we pre touch and make a finnish file for everything the other thing is is I truly believe that clients cannot see it they do not have what I call visual literacy you do your photographer you see it okay it's natural and you so when I I do not want to show an unfinished image to a client to me that is not the the final product is what is it and I want them to see the final product not something half ass because I need to edit what they purchase later now the other hand there are many photographers who have a much different model than me pricing model where they are on ly selling prince client has to pick and choose they don't get them all so, yeah, if that's the case, then why would you waste a bunch of time on the front end editing everything when you don't know what they're going to order you on? Ly want to order what they only want to retouch, what they actually order makes perfect sense. So I think it highly depends on your pricing model, your product model, what you're selling, what your clients want, how you are making them happy, really, is what it comes down to sentence your question. So I think it's different for everybody, okay, so let's, talk about the homework. I want you to try the two minute challenge, okay, I want you to see if you can do it, and I want you to make actions for that. Okay? So as it's listed on the keynote post, processing is an important system, so take the two minute challenge. Make your actions to get yourself there. Don't sacrifice quality but know when to quit.