Lessons

Lesson Info

Initial Editing in Adobe Bridge

I already know I like these two, but this is one of, like, the most. So when I color an image before I do all of them and picked my absolute favorite shot of the entire shoot. And I'm gonna start there because that will probably define the look and feel for all the other images that air, like maybe, maybe not. But chances are from in a color, correct this imbalance it in a certain way, I'm probably going to do it with the one I like the most. So they just said I wanted to go a little warmer Hopes. So I'm actually just gonna go a little warmer and move my color temperature up first. All right. Not bad. I'm going to go through all these settings I'm gonna edit right into the raw file. Creates a sidecar file not permanently doing anything to this image. Right now, I'm just processing it up to get to a usable point and figure out where I want to be with this image. So it's images. Nice. It's super sharp. You know, her hair's looking good. I'm not seeing any issues in the frame once. It's a...

little larger. Pretty nice. I want to open up my shadows a little bit as well. I want her to be more defined. Um, you know, we're losing a little detail in here. I'm not too concerned about it, cause that's not really our subject. And a paying attention, the highlights. So I just warm it up a little bit. Just I don't want to be all the way in this end of spectrum, this just feels like, uh, forest fires in the area or something like that, right? So I want to just give it a little more warmth, then the scene actually had, and then I'm going to just take a look. A lot of times I like to just slide this up and then take a look. And I'm not looking at the highlights that air peeking out right now. I'm just taking a look at the details. We'll see what's going on out there in the mountains and then bring it back. So, really, at this point, I'm just kind of taking a look. So I feel like in general, by looking at my levels up here, I've got a little bit of room on my hissed a gram to go a little bit brighter now. I could do that afterwards. You know, I'm pretty close to the edge, actually. Remember to bring your glasses too confusing. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty good, actually. So I'll just wait until I get to levels. When I open this, I'm not gonna bother within their. So the exposure looks pretty spot on, For the most part, my highlights. I'm gonna bring down and take a look. Okay, so there's a lot of good detail there. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about, like, hdr and this is the look you don't ever want to see. You know, this is just the horrid, um, another wrong with opening up your shadows a little bit and bringing you highlights down a little bit as well. Um, you know, brings in a little bit more detail, you know, in the shot. Uh, remember if I used the filter or not? I don't think I waas using a filter. Um, so, you know, bring your highlights. I might bring my highlights down a little bit just to give a little detail in there, but I'm actually use and in, uh, going to use the nd filter here in the application itself and show you how that works. Um not worry about my whites. I'm not really seeing anything. They want to boost up a lot of times rather than doing the whites here. I'll actually go to the next panel and I'll take a look at the curves here and control highlights, lights, darks and shadows for makes them a little more punchy, but it's still a little flat. But typically what I might do then is give it a little edge. I don't use contrast the whole lot. I find contrast. Just over does the scene. I want contrast. I simply bring the blacks down a little bit. I might even bring him down more. When I do that, I might then take another look at my exposure. And then I might take another look at my highlights and bring those down. So now I'm starting to see I'm kind of moving back and forth and adding, um or contrast, giving more crisp direction, clarity in line. I'm gonna add a little tiny little bit of clarity. Don't overdo this. This will really make your stuff get over processed looking, a little bit of vibrance and a little bit of saturation. I'm not going all crazy in here. At this point, I'm just trying to bring a little in. And the reason is that I've got a very neutral file. I'm shooting a raw file. I'm not only just shooting a raw file, but from the class in the field when I was actually composing this, I've got all of my color settings and everything set at neutral. So I've got very little contrast. Very little color, very little bit of I've got toned down my sharpness a little bit, so I need to bring all that back in. If I was shooting a J peg in the field and all this stuff would probably be a lot better be already done for me by the camera. But I want to make those decisions. I want to make the color, contrast, sharpness, all that stuff. I want to bring that in myself. So I'm bringing these back in, and because I'm shooting neutral, you need to bring ah, lot more in than if you were just shooting like a J peg or even a standard raw file. If you just shoot standard. You still have more color contrast and things in there, so I want to add those in. So I'm gonna I'm gonna stick with this for a minute. And now I'm actually gonna start to work the shot a little bit more. I'm gonna try and nd which is that panel right at the top. Looks like a little looks like my filter. Um, and I'm just gonna drop this down. And very, very little as you could see the settings in here that I used last when I was tooling around. Um, I'm just going to bring these back a little bit. Gonna be careful of your setting. Sometimes you'll do it. You don't realize like your color is way off or something like that. Um, but generally speaking, I'll try exposure a little too much to me. What I'll do is I'll just try and bring the highlights down just in the sky a little bit further, but I don't want to bring it down so much, right? We don't want to have it like this. Second, it's like this. You're taking me out of the shop. I just want to try manage it a little bit more. And that's because I'm guessing I might even go brighter on the exposure, which means those highlights. And again, I'm thinking through this in my head, like, what do I want to do? I'm feeling like it's a little muddy. It feels still feels a little dark to me. The shot, Um and I don't feel like there's a whole lot of color in here. And I also feel like my greens and my blues or maybe getting a little too yellow. But that's cause I introduced the warmth. So what I'm gonna maybe do here is I'm gonna try another one. And in this one, I'm not going to use any of that. I'm going to simply go and zero thes out. And in this I'm actually gonna go and try and bring back the blue a little bit and see if I go. I like to go to extremes. So you see what area is really being impacted? Because if you just do these little subtle changes, you may not really see it as much. So okay, it's feeling a little better. Still getting the blue, but I kind of like it a little warm. I'm not loving it as much, but I'll just put a little bit more back in there. Leave it as such. All right, there we are done. This is a great little tool. If you want to just boost saturation and particular colors, you grab the color and you just slide it over. So if he wanted to just work that area, see what it's doing? Pretty great. Little way to just do a quick boost of color in a certain area. You want to bring that wake up a little bit? Potentially not too much. Looks pretty good. Taking a look at my levels Color balance is looking pretty good across the way. My history is not out of whack. I've got this one blue spike up here, Um, so I want to take a look at what's going on. There it is that's happening in there. So it's just simply dropping off in the shadows. I'm not too worried about that, All right, So for the most part, I think I'm good. I only have one more thing I wanna do, and that's I want to open up the shadows in very specific areas. I don't like to overdo it because I don't want an HDR. Look, at the same time, I really want to make sure her hair is brought up a little bit and that the back here area is brought up a little bit something Zoom in and I'm gonna use the brush tool right here. The adjustment brush can also use a hot Keefe. Want? OK, take a look at the size. I'm gonna keep it relatively small because I wanna be able to work in here. And the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna boost this up so I can actually see the changes being made. And make sure I know where I'm hitting. What areas I'm hitting in. Right? So you can see the changes happening in here. Now, this isn't necessary. What? I'm gonna have the setting on final, so I'm just gonna do the hair is its own thing. And then what you could do is you could go and open up the shadows. You might want to warm him up a little bit. Shadows tend to be a little cooler. Okay, so So you don't see that right? You wanted to blend, So go to the extreme and then I back it off? It's a little bit more. Okay, not bad. Now I'm gonna do a different one. I'm gonna work the shadows in here. I'm not putting in it. You could spend all day doing this doing super super close attention in detail. This is the down and dirty way right now, right? So I'm not gonna go all the way in there, but I want to keep it blending. I don't want the bench to suddenly fall out, so it's too bright. I'm going back it off. But you see what it is, All right. You want to back it down? I'm barely opening those up, barely touching that. All right. Your shadows give you a little bit more subtlety. I want to make sure that she's clearly defined. I want to know that this is my subject matter, and this is going through. So now I'm gonna take a look and see how natural it looks. Turn off the pins. Not too bad. Now, if you want to just double check, you go back. You hit the area. This is the area that we dodged it burn. I wanted to back it off or doing a little bit more. Maybe just a touch more in the big scheme of things. Not too bad. All right, so that's looking pretty good. Same thing I'm gonna do up here in the mountain. I want to bring that up a little bit, and I probably want a little bit of a larger breast size. I want to just blend right in and I'll take a look. Well, so what's happening here? It looks like I'm getting that glow on the edge. Hate that. Clo. I want that glow that's happening naturally. So this isn't really working for me too much. That glows already. Kind of almost their natural. Could be from the N d, the haze, all the other things. So I'm not gonna mess with that too much. I could just go in, zoom in on that one little area if it's really important, Even honestly, more or less. I'm pretty good on this. I'm gonna ride it out. Open the image. Take a look. Bring it up in a photo shop. Now, from here on a further fine tune the image, check my levels, gonna sharpen it. I'm gonna look at my saturation and look at my sharpest. I'm gonna take a quick pass on dust as well. So the first place it shows up is in the sky. But I've got a pretty clean sensor. So and I keep the front and the element of my lands pretty clear, so looking pretty decent. So first name Just pop up my levels Apple l take a look at my history, Graham. I've got a little run up in here that I can dio very, very little going to go up with that I can add a little bit more contrast to the scene by bringing down the mid tones. Just a touch double check my results Very, very subtle. But I'm feeling good about that. Your levels are important. They really are important for the reproduction of the image and print and so on. I'm gonna go and just give this a big boost, a color saturation. So probably right around there. It's not looking unnatural. It looks very much like what it was. The only thing that's making that's slightly different from what it was is the warmth really gonna notice. That warms that's happening in the foreground, on the image right in here. That's the only part that's just slightly more. But the truth is it was late day light was evening. You know, we're not getting too much of it in their keeping the blues keeping the color together. There's not a whole lot more I could dodge and burn. I could sit there and really work the scene working here. If I really wanted Teoh, you know, put a little bit more into the mid tones of the shadows. It really is up to you on how far you want to go with that. But my last step would be to sharpen of sharpen, smart, sharpen and typically my smart sharpen settings for my images or somewhere around here. I have this weird thing. I even set my alarm. I don't do it at like 7:30 a.m. I do it at 7 31 So I don't know why something weird about it, but these are the percentages. I mean, it might do around 60% to pixel radius, 10% of reduced noise. Remove lens blur. This is the setting I like. I hit OK, It sharpens the image, and that's all due to it. Ultimately, Um, now that I've done those settings, My image of get updated. I'll get a notification that I've got these changes on here. I'll go and highlight the other images and rather than have to go redo. Oh, I have one step I skipped. I apologize in the raw file. It's an important step. I do lens correction. I enable the profile correction, and this is a good one because it removes the distortion from the lens. If you have a really wide angle lens like I'm shooting at 16 here, look at the difference. It's just getting rid of that. I really want to encourage, and I apologize for skipping. That's kept. Everything is. You'll notice the image gets brighter a little bit as well. It gets rid of that vignette ing and distortion that you're seeing along the edge that will really impact your settings is over here and the exposure, so I'll end up bringing that back a little bit more because I did not have the lens correction very often. What I have is some sort of set of standard adjustments that I'll make and apply them either to the whole shoot or to all the images that I've selected so I wouldn't. Wouldn't go through this step every single time, so I'm gonna hit Done. Now What I would do is I go to the whole shoot or all my selects. I'm gonna highlight them. Hit control, Click. I'm gonna go to develop settings to go to the previous conversion. Now it'll do the lens profile correction. It'll apply the color balance changes I've made. It'll apply all of the Here we go back up, it'll apply all of the main panel marks. The only thing it's not gonna ply. And it shouldn't because unique to the image are the neutral density filters. So this stuff up here in the sky and you're dodging and burning that you do with the brush now, does it work on the shot? The settings? No, not really. But I'll start here because I want to make sure I have those contrasts and bring those highlights back. Really? The only big difference here is the exposure is just a little hot from the settings, you know? So I might want to bring back a little bit more to get there, and I might want to bring in a little bit more contrast at a little more of the blacks or control the darks in here to get that shot there. But it gets me pretty close. It also keeps my images looking more or less the same. They're not. I don't to sit there and write down all my settings. I know if I'm gonna keep them all warm and I'm gonna provide eight or nine images from these different various setups to an editor, I don't want them all to feel different. You know, occasionally I might produce something that's a little cooler, goes a different direction, but I don't want them to all look and feel differently so I can apply this based settings Did this particular set up or this particular scene And then I'll work each shot individually to get it to where I want in this particular shot. One of things that really annoys me actually is the way these clouds came up. So I might actually consider going the other direction, actually blowing them out entirely or warming them up, subversive, doing, bringing them back. I might actually even consider going a different direction and brightening it up and warming it up versus cooling it off and maybe making a whole scene feel a little more warm and go Ah, brighter, happier way. The neck is the texture of the cloud. Just isn't isn't necessarily working for me. There's two different ways to do that again. No. Right or wrong personal choice. Both could work. Yes. Question. Well, my question is about this in a couple of the other pictures. And when I am bothered by in this picture is that tree that's in front of her face right here, Uh, in front of her face. Right here. Right. There are some of the other ones. It would be where she just would come up to the edge of the mountain rather than being somewhat lower or somewhat higher. But meeting the edge I mean, like, rain here. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't choose the shop for that very reason. It's just her posture in position in general. I'm looking at the back of her head and also for the other thing. For stills, you're shooting the back of somebody. Try and get a little bit of the profile. Um, most buyers won't by the back of somebody. As an agency, we won't take a lot of shots in the back of people in where we will, especially if it's about backpacking. Um, you know, there's exceptions, but for the most part people are going to look at the eye and connect with that. I think your observations a good one. Um, the tree here doesn't bother me as much because the highlights on her face or stronger and it's it's blending in, but probably would have been nice to have a little bit more of an adjustment. You can also, um, you know, keep refining and looking at that. That's why they're shot for me. Works the best. If I were to really be selective, this is the only one I would really take. The other shot is like a secondary option in case I don't want to just have one. It's tighter. It's closer. You know, Maybe somebody would like that. You know, same thing here. Like she's right up in the middle of the wake shells a little stiffer, this one, you know. And the reason honestly is it took me so long to teach the class in the section about how I shot this. The longer she was there, the more she relaxed you know, and that's what you're going for and spontaneity that you should be going for in editing, um, the end of the day. This is not a complicated image. It's not a complicated post process. There's not a whole lot to do here. I'm just bringing in the contrast, the color of lens corrections, checking for dust, sharpening it In a way I go. But really, the more complicated process is whittling it down from 135 shots to get it down to the one image that I like. Um, and ultimately, I do think it's It's a great observation and you're right. And and that is why on social media and everywhere else for this class, this is Is this this? This is the image that we're using, not any of the others. Um, it's just because it's the one that sings, you know, And it worked Great was the lead image for the Sunset magazine Instagram takeover. Um, and and I'm sure, uh, somewhere down the road we'll see licensing opportunities for but yeah, very good observation. There. Any other questions about this particular set up shoot or any feedback? As I said, this process You know, dodging burning and managing images is one that could go very, very deep. You could sit there and tweet this all day long. I don't spend a ton of time. I don't like to over process my work. You know, for the most part, I'm a stock shooter, some focusing on volume. I'm looking at quality. Of course, one might argue. Well, if you spent three days working on this, would you seem where sales? Honestly, probably not. I don't think so. I don't know. There's so much more I could really do on this. Anyway, um, you know, maybe manage the highlights a little bit better, really, with a fine tooth comb going and blend and feather the edges and the dodging and the burning. But just like editors, you know, I'm moving at a good rate and I want to be able to make those decisions. The more important part is really making the right image selection. So this is also something that's just really a field that it right? This is what I'll do at night at the end of the day, um, you know, or first thing when I get back, Um, and similarly, So these air, You know, I tweak this a little bit. This is the end. These are the end results. Why? My screen keeps doing that over here freaking out, right? I would agree with you on that. Um, you know, the color balance and the processing a little more rich, but trying to choose the images, you know, same thing here. Like I took two different images from the shoot. Um, you know, one had a person One didn't you know? And the one thing that really, really was a challenge for me in this was the trail itself, you know? And so when trying to choose, the only real difference for this was more or less all the shots of the same as long as they had three peaks in their un obscured by the wildflowers. Really? It came down to whether how much of this trail I could actually see. I don't want to see the whole trail and not have somebody on it. If you have a trail in the shot you use, you want to see somebody on it as a stock shot. Unless it's just a beautiful, you know, I mean again, No, right or wrong, there's no yes or no, this is how it should be. But personally, I'd rather try and blend that in. And my eyes not drawn to that. It would be drawn to an empty spot. I want to see the flowers in the mountains. Um, that's the process of the editing on all these things. You know, same thing when selecting images like this the end of the day. This came down the one thing sharpness could not find, one that was sharp. I still don't love the sharpness all the way through on this, you know? And that's why I look at images. You know, this one same thing. So if I was here for a couple of days and I could go back and redo different shots like this, I would absolutely redo the shot. Drives me crazy because I did not see it in the field at the time that this had a slight vibration or wind. And at that time, that's how meticulous it is in the editing process. But this was sharp. This is where I was going for anyway. You know, this wasn't as sharp to begin with, but it was moving more, and it's the only thing that's blurry in the frame that's not completely blurry as a design element. These air design elements this should be sharp, and this should not be moving and still be just softer. That's my opinion. But that's how I am when I'm editing images and very, very, very brutal. And you have to be brutal. I mean this. This is this is almost less about color management. Post production is about editing. Um, you know, and that's why I highly recommend working with somebody. Um, until you get a feel for submitting to an agency, If your work is good enough and you get in, you know, that's a great way to have somebody curate your work and say, This is what we think we can sell. It doesn't mean you're good, because, I mean, you're bad photographer. If they killed 90% of your images, it's like this is what we think we can sell. We don't wanna have extra stuff. So you need to think about that, Aziz. Well, when you're going through and editing your work,