Joanna Kustra on the secrets of colour grading and how to achieve an individual style in photography

hello everyone my name is joanna kustra and today i'm hosting a webinar about the colors and more specifically on how to use color harmonies in your photos and how to develop a unique color style in your photography first of all many thanks to the benky company for organizing it originally i did this webinar in polish which is my mother tongue and since i had a great feedback so we thought to run it for a bit bigger audience you've probably seen this picture of beautiful series advertising this webinar and it was there for a reason not too long ago i won a competition organized by benq called true colors right before you and this is how my journey with bank you started and thanks to that i can be with you today another company i want to mention today is park cameras it's the uk's largest independent photographic retailer they will have some nice discounts for you if you stay with me until the end of the seminar let me tell you a bit about myself this will reveal some background to the whole story as i mentioned previously my name is joanna and i'm polish i'm both a photographer and a retoucher i specialize mainly in fashion beauty commercial photography and in general i do love to take photos of people about 15 years ago while studying german philology in krakow i developed a passion for photography which very quickly became my way of living and what i really wanted to do i worked as a photographer and retouching krakow for a few years then i moved to london where i was building my portfolio also working as an assistant to many big photo productions and in the meantime i had my own commercial clients at the moment i live in southern spain where i mainly shoot fashion in sunny locations if you're familiar with my works you must know that i love experimenting with colors which has always been so important to me to tell the truth not too many of my photos are actually in black and white since the very beginning of my adventure with photography i felt that color has an immense meaning in photography then i often chose the colors intuitively sometimes it worked out better or worse for a long time i didn't understand why some color combinations work great while the others are far less impressive i always liked experimenting with colors in post-production adding in shadows or lights playing a lot with color grading when i moved to london i became interested in arts especially paintings from the 17th and 18th century i jumped at the great opportunity to go to the national portrait gallery and see paintings live i was absolutely fascinated by colors light and textures inspired by these discoveries i simply decided to copy it and make a project in a painterly style that was more than 10 years ago my technique was leaving a lot of room for improvement but i managed to get the atmosphere and color of the paintings of course i did not copy anything specific but i was loosely inspired by the colors and lights this painterly project turned out to be very well received it won a lot of awards and it was published in all sorts of magazines covers interviews and so on and so forth all around the world why was it liked so much in my opinion although it will be a subjective one the colors played a crucial role there and because i copied them from the classics nothing could have gone wrong today i would like to tell you what i've learned about the color throughout all these years i will tell you about color harmonies and psychology behind it i will show you some of my works before adding color grading and explain why the preparation before the photo shoot is so vital what to look for when choosing clothes location background and above all how to use color theories at the end i will also show you my step-by-step color workflow in photoshop before i get to the main topic i'd like to tell you a few things about my equipment as i know it also might be a point of interest for some of you i need to emphasize that i'm not a technical person i approach these topics quite intuitively for a touching i use wacom intuos i can't imagine working with a computer mouse for me it's like editing with a brick if you still don't use tablet i promise that after two weeks of retouching there is no way you'd like to come back to a computer mouse in terms of monitors i use benq sw270c which i won in a photographic competition organized by benq this is a very reliable screen dedicated for photographers and compared to the competition in the market it's a very affordable monitor when it comes to the size and specifications winning the benq competition drew my attention to their latest monitor sw 321c which i've been testing recently and it's obviously my main screen for retouching as i mentioned i'm not a very technical person and i won't get into details but i previously work on a monitor of a high class competitive brand and i have a pretty good comparison the latest 32-inch banking monitor is absolutely what i was looking for great color reproduction size resolution easy and intuitive interface it has also a print preview function which i use pretty often so why it's so important to have a reliable monitor if you invested time and money in quality equipment to capture your photos then you also need a high quality and high performing monitor to use when you post process your images because without that you won't be able to see these colors and that's like almost closing your eyes and guessing what's in front of you calibration is just as important no matter what monitor you have calibration is an absolute must i use i1 display pro from x right so that's all about equipment let's talk about color psychology more than 200 years ago johan wolfgang fongote wrote a book about color theory as the face to state that colors affect people they can evoke emotions and are rooted in our cultural and personal experiences color psychology is now a basic and indispensable tool in neuromarketing color is more than an optical phenomenon it has a special effect on our brain as photographers and retouchers we ought to know the meaning of colors red is associated with love and passion but it also can mean danger blood and aggression blue suggests the sense of confidence and trust this is the color of harmony loyalty and compassion studies show this is the most popular color yellow represents both good and evil optimism and jealousy understanding and betrayal these three colors are so-called primary colors green is associated with health nature freshness and peace but also it conveys feelings of jealousy and envy orange reflects emotions and warmth it is connotated with fun and youth purple has a calming effect but it also means fantasy science fiction mystery and things unattainable these are called secondary colors black is a strong color durable elegant in some cultures black is the color of regret despair and it's overwhelming white is the color of innocence delicacy purity or virginity it is also an elegant color which however in some cultures has the role of black in ours along with the intensity of colors we can distinguish moods pastels bring calmness while a saturated palette usually indicates dynamics and passion colors can be also divided for a warm palette and a cold palette everything i just told you about the colors based on my photos is not just a theory it's a scientific fact hues and saturation greatly affect the emotional perception of the picture so next time you're going to decide about your color palette keep this in mind think about what sort of emotional impact you want your images to have and how choosing a main color can help you achieve that aesthetic now i'm going to tell you a bit about color harmonies what are they they're simply color combinations they're easy to pick up nice to look at and they work together very well you can tell it's a cheat sheet for artists how to choose color sets to affect emotions catch viewers eye and drag it to a specific thing every day we browse hundreds of photos but only few attract our attention most often it's thanks to its impeccably selected colors the good news is that it's not only possible but also necessary to learn these combinations let's break down the different ways these sets can be selected i'm going to show you these based on my photos monochromatic harmony this color scheme contains of different tones shades and tints of the same hue this method is very pleasing to eye because of the cohesive look it's very often used in cinematography so all the black and white photos with a certain visible hue will be monochromatic here's another example of composing a picture all with the orange hue with different shades and this picture which i've taken quite a long time ago is also an example of a monochromatic harmony the next harmony is called analogous colors sit next to each other on the color wheel they are related a kind of family of colors that creates pleasing and relaxed visuals the green picture is very close to the monochromatic harmony but because the skin tones are more towards the yellowish that's why it's analogous scheme but also with very limited amount of use the next example of two beautiful sisters has a bit wider spectrum of colors but still they are all close to each other and because of the closeness they are enjoying opposite or clashing they also don't stand out from one another and that's why the analogous harmony is so good for any family pictures where you want to focus on emotions rather than on some distracting colors i think they can create subtle and beautiful content and the last example which is even wider in terms of the huge i decided to change my model's skin a bit cooler in order to fit the harmony and also i emphasized and overlooked by adding purples to my blacks our next harmony has a tiny twist to the previous one you have all these really huge lying adjacent to the color wheel adding a hue directly opposite to this it's called analogous complementary or accented analogous scheme because you're adding a tiny accent this scheme is frequently used to put a warm accent color with a cool color palette or the other way around let me show you an example majority of the colors are purples reds and perhaps a bit of oranges they're complemented by a tiny accent a green ring and earrings exactly on the other side of the color wheel here's another example generally warm picture is accented by a blue color in the windows and the next one the colors are exactly the same as on the previous one but darker and deeper shades complemented by the blue window the next harmony complementary has two colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel and considered to be complementary colors the high contrast of the pear creates a vibrant look especially when used at full saturation here's my photograph with a complementary scheme this particular color combination is one of the most popular in the cinematography so called teal and orange here you've got a pink color paired with the yellowish green and deep red complemented by the cool greens this color harmony seems to be quite simple and very effective you will learn later on that's very commonly used but you need to keep in mind that it must be managed well so it's not too jarring the split complementary color scheme is a variation of the complementary one in addition to the base color it uses the two colors adjacent to its complement this color scheme has the same strong visual contrast as the complementary one but has less tension this picture of stunning hana at first sight seems like a complementary harmony but there is no hue which is exactly opposite to the fiery red hair only adjacent blue and greenish on her shoulders and eyes again we've got red color in the skin flowers and fields in the background and two adjacent colors to the complementary one very warm yellow and blue and the last picture is another example of this harmony when i saw the model with these colors pink feathers and brownish outfit i instantly knew that i need to add a color gel to my background in order to create some harmony i tweaked the blue in the camera raw in order to get this particular scheme the split complementary color scheme is often a good choice for beginners because it's difficult to mess up triad or triadic it uses three colors that are evenly spaced around the color wheel this harmony tends to be quite vibrant even if you use pale or unsaturated versions of hues and here's an example you've got blue everywhere which is accented by two colors evenly spaced on the wheel yellow eyeshadow and deep pink lips next one there's also three colors evenly spaced red very warm green and blue i'd say it's a vibrant mixture and the last one and everyday makeup again you can see three colors evenly spaced on the wheel double split complementary scheme consists of two pairs of complementary colors forming an x on the color wheel here you can see blue with its complementing per orange and yellowish green with a purple hue this complex color scheme provides a lot of contrast in color while still blending harmoniously i will show you three examples from the same shoot here is a picture where you've got all these four color presents i enhance a bit purple hue in the shadows and it's nicely complemented by all the greens and another pair is orange skin with the blue hues on the picture double split complementary color scheme is very commonly used in the fashion industry here is another example from the same shoot again orange with blue and purple with green if you don't have specific hue in the picture and you need it for your harmony then you can just add it and create it for yourself i will show you later on and the last one again four same colors but with different proportions in comparison to the two previous shots i didn't have any purple hue present on the scene so i added it in my shadows that's why all the pictures even if i took them in different locations they've got a very similar feel also keep in mind that these color couples can be moved up and down the wheel as long as they keep its complementary companion and also you will find some other names for it like quadratic tetrad harmony because they will create some shapes on the wheel out of these four hues but the idea is always the same i prepared also one more harmony to show you which is not that popular and you'd usually see it in the nature rather than portrait it's called diet color harmony or dyadic it consists of two colors which are quite close to each other but separated by one or two hues here's an example of greens paired with the oranges so there's no yellow hue in between orange hues paired with an accent of very warm green and here you can see pink and blue these are basic color harmonies keep in mind that there are no good and bad ones however if you're beginning with the color theory the rule of thumb is the less is better so perhaps start with the ones consisting of fewer sets of colors combinations and build it up while you're more confident so we've got these ready-made solutions for a neat composition sounds easy right so let me complicate it a bit there are two more things to remember while using color harmonies the concept is that our eyes can recognize the relationships between the colors and if the relationships are organized the scheme looks consistent to us the problem is that this method only speaks about hues and color is so much more than a hue for example these three rectangles are exactly the same hue but your eye recognizes it as a different color and here is another example of the same hue but again it seems like three distinct colors now take a look at all these photos they all consist of two colors blue and orange or so called teal and orange the thing what differentiate them is saturation and brightness of these two hues so sometimes when we see let's say a brown color it's not necessarily obvious for our eyes that you're actually dealing with an orange hue what i want to say is that in order to have a certain harmony you don't need to have very saturated and bright colors sometimes only a small tint in black or whites of a certain hue will make a harmony there are ways to check the exact colors what you're dealing with and i'm going to show it later on in photoshop but here's a preview of our colors here there's also another thing to remember while using color harmonies optical weight of the colors let me visualize that during my previous webinar with benq i color graded this photograph which i took during my workshops in spain there are four main colors and they create a double complementary harmony or so called quadratic color scheme because their colors are evenly spread on the wheel we've got the pink dress it's more saturated blue sofa and walls brown orange doors and a bit of green behind the door let me show you what would happen if i decided to saturate other colors besides the pink dress colors are clashing with each other so it's almost painful to look at the picture why is that because in every harmony there should be a dominant color in this case the pink dress it's a very common mistake among beginners that everything in a photograph is very saturated let's say you've got a blue sky and green grass and a model even you have the right harmony the clash of colors will be too much to bear for everywhere and the eye will be wandering around the picture instead of focusing on the model what determines the weight of each color there are three factors the size of the area of the color the saturation of it and the brightness there are some examples to show you how weights can be determined based on two colors so 50 50 percent both colors are equally bright and saturated the blue area is bigger so we tone it down to keep both colors the same weight if the blue area gets even bigger so either brightness should be increased or saturation decreased further to maintain the balance so let's have a look at our harmonies again and let's give them some proportion and weight diet and complementary will have 70 percent of the main color and 25 of the other one complementing one analogous split complementary and triadic will split into 50 25 25 and analogous complementary and double complementary will have 30 of main color and 20 of the rest of the hues so this is a recipe for a perfect color in photograph but art is not a science and i believe that these guides were made to help us but not restrict us i totally broke this rule here by saturating both sian and orange equally and they roughly are the same size i did because i wanted the viewer to have a bit uncomfortable feeling of closeness and unreality of the macro eye surrounded by the saturated and unrealistic for the skin colors however if you'd analyze some famous work which will later on you will see they will follow all the harmonies in proportions rules and i guess that's why they're so famous and that they appeal to the majority therefore the important principle is that this harmony with other colors causes an undesirable effect while harmony causes a desired effect this is due to the one of the most important psychological needs which is the need to maintain the balance where to find a color wheel there are three places which i can recommend one is from adobe you can just google adobe color the best feature is that you can upload your picture or any art and easily analyze it in terms of color schemes and palettes my favorite one which i use is palettoncom because for me is the most intuitive and finally there is also pop-up window in photoshop you go to windows extensions adobe color themes and you can actively work on the color schemes while retouching let me talk a little bit more about theory i promise i'll be quick all color systems are based on three parameters perceived by humans as distinct qualities and if you use photoshop or lightroom you will be familiar with them here the term is used for the pure colors saturation the richness of colors and luminosity brightness or lightness adding gradient your basic q will create tones adding white will create a tint adding black will create a shade these values make up so-called hsl color model this color model is very intuitive you can say it was created for the needs of artists because it's often more natural to think about the color in terms of the hue and saturation than in terms of additive or subtractive color components another color model is rgb used largely in a display technologies that use light modern video display screens the colors red green and blue are added together at different intensities to produce millions of different colors there are three distinct spaces which will be interesting for us as rgb adobe rgb and profoto an alternative model to the rgb model is the cmyk model which is used for color printing it uses the color cyan magenta yellow and black whereas rgb is additive cmyk is subtractive and there is one more which i wanted to show you lab this color model has a range of what human eyes can see so it's scope so-called gamut it's larger than either rgb or cmyk experts estimate that we can distinguish perhaps as many as 10 million colors these millions are part of so-called gamut which represents the complete range or scope available in a certain color space each color model will have its own gamut and its limitations obviously there are more models than these i showed you and if you want to explore this topic deeper you can find quite a lot of information about it which i'd say it's closer to physics into art and why do we need to understand the concept of color models as photographers or retouchers let me explain it this way have you ever worked on some photograph for a long time you perfected your colors just to realize that while you posted it on social media the colors look washed out and desaturated in comparison to your original photo or perhaps your client asks you to print out a photograph and on your screen it looked perfect and vibrant and while printed the colors were kind of different and they disappeared that's exactly what color management is all about it's essentially the process of controlling the way colors are represented across various devices such as cameras computer monitors and printers we don't necessarily need to understand everything but some of it is a must there are a few stages where you need to choose your color space first of all there is your camera i shoot both on jpegs and raw files at the same time that's why my color space in the camera is srgb this chosen color space applies only to jpegs which i'm using as my previous for my clients basically only for the selection and in that case it's better to keep the color space smaller and dedicated to their web browsers as hues will be more vibrant the raw file is not yet color specified i will choose it later when editing there is also a profile in your camera and most of the people will work in adobe standard and it's absolutely fine just keep in mind then if you do any type of product photography and when you use more than one camera you will want your colors to be consistent and then you need to assign your own profile and that's what x-ray color checker is all about color checker helps you to bring the colors from each camera to the same basic output and starting point another stage is your monitor if you are serious about photography you need to have your monitor calibrated ideally you work on a screen which is dedicated for photographers and its working space is adobe rgb which allows for stronger saturation in particular of green and red the whole series of sw benq monitors will work in this color space so you can see all these details next stage is your working space in adobe photoshop if you go to color setting you will have this panel i'm using srgb color space but to tell the truth it doesn't really matter this is the most commonly misunderstood aspect because it's not what you choose here will be your default color space for your files this information will only tell adobe to assign srgb color profile to files which don't have any profile embedded and it's usually matters for files downloaded from the internet your pictures properly saved will have embedded profile the only important thing is to keep the default preserve embedded profiles at the beginning i had all three boxes ticked so the ps would tell me while opening a new file in which color space my photo is but after some time when i felt comfortable with recognizing these spaces i decided to switch majority off just to speed up my workflow then you are opening your raw file for an edit it applies to camera raw lightroom or capture one i select bigger color space adobe rgb because it's better to work with more colors and also i do print my photos in magazines so i'm not limiting myself with smaller color space i usually keep my edited files in adobe rgb space either in psd or tiff file just in case i will have a need to print it later there's also another color space which is even bigger profoto rgb but since most of the devices are not supporting this amount of colors and it's not easy to convert it later for the web i stick for the moment to adobe rgb but you can explore this topic next stage would be saving for internet but unfortunately web browsers don't read and support adobe rgb nor profoto rgb spaces because we've chosen to work on a bigger color space in photoshop we need to convert it to a supported color space as rdb to make your colors display well across any devices there are three options how to approach this the first is to export s you have to tick both of these boxes convert to other rgb and embed color profile why do you need to do that some of the browsers won't know what color profile to assign to your photo when one is missing and this will produce a photo washed out of the colors if you embed the profile every device will know how to read it second option is to use convert to profile and basically you need to change destination space to srgb but when you're saving file with the command save as do remember to tick the option embed color profile and third option would be to save for web and also these two squares should be ticked this is exactly how i do it and it works perfectly but as i said there are other options to do that for example if you never print you can easily work with only srgb color space to avoid all these mismatches and conversions obviously it's a tip of an iceberg in terms of the color management this topic could be easily a whole session for a webinar are you still with me okay so now let's talk about a different thing color relativity one of the hardest properties to understand about color is that it changes depending on what it's next to our perception of color is relative without a reference you can see the same orange square it looks different depending on what colors it's surrounded by the orange on the left looks darker and less saturated while on the right it's lighter and warmer next example is even more prominent both squares are obviously the same hue here you can see a face close up on the left hand side saturation seems to be fine while on the right side surrounded by cold colors skin appears over saturated and talking about the skin i need to clear something out as during my workshops i'm being asked this questions quite a lot of times what is the right hue of the skin so there is not such a thing like the right color of the skin both in real life and color grading and unfortunately there is no recipe for that it will depend on the surrounding neighboring colors whether we decide in the photo to have cold tones or warm tones skin color also plays a role in the color harmonish you can add a blue tint or even a green one if it only fits the overall image and its chosen harmony and it will be received well if you compare colors of the cropped faces they will look all right but if you see the whole image with the context it doesn't bother you anymore so don't be fixated on the right color skin especially with strong color grading if you want your picture to pick the reality then a good method would be to place your hand in front of the screen monitor needs to be calibrated and compare the tones to your own obviously skin tones differ but in the most cases this will be a good start so here's another interesting aspect of the color relativity take a look at these pictures what's the color of her shirt and trousers it's white right how about now well it's also white your brain interprets the scene as a whole it doesn't recognizes the color as photoshop's color picker would you see all these objects as white even though they aren't let's take a closer look at these colors we see the world in various light conditions during the day and night and it doesn't change that much to us that's because our brain makes sure to cancel out the effects of the changes making us see something constant as long as the whole environment is affected by the same light our brain knows how to subtract this effect you see her outfit white even if there is no real white there this feature of our brain makes working with color a bit tricky a color picked directly from the color wheel may magically seem to change when placed in the scene let me give you another example the purple here on the right hand side must be darker shade than this on the right well actually it's not it's the same brightness for me this brain phenomenon is super important because i mainly photograph product campaigns on locations different lighting scenarios i've got color cast from the sky grass buildings and if the client asks me to color correct the dress accordingly to the studio shot i know that they can't simply take the color picker and sample the hue from the studio dress because it won't work i need to use my eyes to get the right colors so that's why it's so crucial to have a good monitor let me tell you about another interesting feature of colors and this picture is a great example dominant and receding colors some colors simply demand more visual attention than others red reaches our eyes before the greens like here on this picture warm color advance and cool colors recede affecting the perception of depth so take a look at this example you would be more likely to perceive this orange circle as an orange ball in front of the blue wall while here blue on worm can appear as if it is receding into the background it appears more like a blue hole in an orange wall right so these warmer colors not only dominate our visual attention but also appear to be closer knowing this feature you can use it in your composition to your advantage positioning a warm colored subject at the foreground against a cool color background can emphasize a shallow depth of field or make it pop out more this technique can really make your warm saturated subject stand out like this case the first you can notice would be her dress or like in this case the first thing you'd notice would be her red hair and lips let me give you a tip based on these two cool features of the color i often use this trick to add a cold hue behind a person or at least a colder than her skin in order to bring and enhance warm skin colors this is a dramatic example but it works great i want to quickly touch onto another interesting feature of color which is equal luminant color those who studied art will be familiar with the concept color can be measured not only by the hue but also the luminance equilibrium colors differ in hue but not in brightness remember these two squares i showed you before these colors are quite distinct blue and orange now if the hues are discarded the foreground and the background colors are indistinguishable these colors are so called equilaminant because their luminosity is exactly the same let me give you another example this time from art claude monade and poppy field just fix your eyes on their poppies and take a look at the same painting strip out of the hue if you look closer the puppies disappeared in the grass and they are almost exactly the same luminosity as the green grass another example by the same painter now fix your eyes on the orange sun which is strangely dark and bright at the same time and without the hue it totally disappears as the brightness both the sky and the sun are exactly the same and here side by side why is this important for us there is a long evolutionary story behind it but just to keep it short apparently our brain processes luminosity first the color gets to our brain later there is this theory that human brain has two separate pathways in the visual system one is colorblind and processes just the luminance information and it's quicker and the other one can process hue information but it's slower if we see monet's painting it takes us longer and requires more effort to process visual information because it's only encoded using hue but not the luminance is it good or bad to use equilament colors well neither you just need to be aware that both will have different effect on the viewer if you use equilaminant colors like most of the skin here it's a trick in a sense that it gets people to exert more effort interacting with an image that they might have wanted to it may also help to get some extra attention from the reluctant viewer but at the same time the visual has this very jumpy jittery quality because part of our brain can't see the difference in luminosity while when the luminosity varies on your picture like here it's much easier to process the whole image quickly your eyes don't wander around it surprisingly this knowledge also helps you when you want to shoot in black and white as apparently viewing the scene in color only distracts your eye you need to view the world in black and white in order to truly see all the shades of the luminosity let's talk about color inspirations regardless of the type of photography you do i encourage you to study paintings both those made by classical masters and model painters what does a painting have to do with photography and what can we learn first of all artists spend years and years studying theories of colors composition and all sorts of theories in order to achieve beautiful harmonies and evoke emotions painters need to choose their colors from scratch which means that the creation process must be thoroughly studied there is no random color selection back then they didn't have the concept of shallow depth of field in order to separate the model from the background they needed to do it with the color and composition there's also another reason why it's good to look for inspiration in arts something that has proven to work out people love it it evokes desired emotion and it's epic it seems to me like a ready recipe for your success communing with art and browsing loads of valuable things train and educate your eyes to see the correct harmonies i encourage you to visit an art gallery museum because there you will be able to truly appreciate remarkable use of color the works of old masters are in the galleries today and some of those paintings were painted hundreds of years ago yet we still enjoy and contemplate them today in the world where some images last mere seconds at most it really is worth visiting what makes those art pieces so important to our visual culture today another place where i would look for color inspirations would be the cinema obviously lots of people are working on the set on the movie locations light colors closed camera angles and all these elements are thoroughly considered so the final image is consistent and evokes specific emotions my favorite place where i reach for inspiration is cinema palettes which contains screenshots from movies free stream and below them you can find a color palette in of a specific scene thanks to ready-made patterns you can easily copy the colors so that they reflect the atmosphere of the specific film cinematography apart from advertising is an absolute master of color harmonies keep in mind that if you make a conscious effort to understand and repeat cinematic techniques you can truly achieve amazing effects another source of color inspirations would be advertising the usage of color in advertising is often a very important choice since color can have a tremendous psychological impact on people today's brands and marketeers understand that when it comes to images the right hue often makes all the difference in the eyes of the consumers one study suggests that color in ad images would even encourage us to pay more for products with extra features when compared with black and white colors speak a language words just can't replicate there's even such a thing like color of the year released by companies like pantone bear sherwin williams and benjamin moore and this thing influences product development and purchasing decisions in multiple industries including fashion industrial design as well as product packaging and graphic design it's huge by the way in 2020 color of the year are verdant greens deep blues and soft pink i think for us photographers regardless whether we are into commercial photography or not it's beneficial to track the trends keep our eyes open for the changes obviously there are many more sources of inspirations for us i didn't even mention other photographers which is kind of obvious right but i'm also going to tell you one thing which might be not so popular don't spend your time browsing mediocre photographs on some social media or photography groups i know it's very tempting to guide beginners with your hints and feedback on photography i've been there and it's absolutely fine to help others just keep in mind that if you're surrounding yourself by mediocre and bad photography you won't progress in other words constantly exposing your eyes to the valuable great art and photography will help you to improve before i tell you what can be done with the color in post-production i must mention all the things that should be kept in mind before the photoshoot and during the photo shoot why because if our photo straight from the camera is not good enough certain things can't be done in post production i personally like to spend as little time in post production as possible so let me give you 10 tips on how to achieve a harmony first of all you have to make a plan if your eye is untrained it is not enough to take the model outdoors and hope for the best and here you can see some examples of my photos where before the session i scouted places knowing exactly what clothes i will have prepare yourself in terms of color harmonies you'd like to achieve if you know what clothes and props you will work with you can search for locations in advance that will match with the model's outfit a good practice to prepare a so-called mood board with photographs from internet as inspirations and as a visual guide not only for you but also for your team another thing if you improvise do it wisely if we do not have opportunity to see the clothes or the location beforehand i encourage you to always have a color wheel with you and to keep an eye on possible harmonies around you i usually look at the clothes before the photoshoot starts i analyze the colors and while the model is being prepared i try to find the best possible locations in terms of color the color wheel can and has to be learned and having it with you on the shoot will teach you to see the color combinations and harmonies around you i know that most of you do it intuitively not even knowing why you're choosing specific sets of colors but knowing the rules you can do it even better what else i encourage you to experiment with mixing different light temperatures the photos you see right now we're taking with constant light the so-called modeling light with a strong yellowish orange temperature all the blue light that appears in the background model's eyes is a natural light coming from the window if you set the white balance well without the additional color filters you can get a very interesting and surprisingly pleasing effects basically with only one continuous lamp remember the mixing orange light with blue one is on the color wheel on the opposite sides so it's always going to work perfect together the so-called teal and orange color gels is another great opportunity to add some color to your photograph and some drama you can either do it in a strong way as a main light or just add a bit of color as additional light sometimes i'm coloring my gray background with the gels or bounce it from the ceiling to fill out the shadows with some interesting color keep in mind that color jars are very powerful thing and if you mix the hues which are not harmonized you can easily destroy your photo an easy trick to enhance your model's eyes color especially when you do close-ups by choosing the right color of your background you can create a nice harmony so the eyes look more prominent so either select the same hue or go totally opposite on the color wheel which will nicely complement the hue of your model's eyes this works the best with the brighter eyes if you plan to do a photoshoot outdoors make sure you choose the right time of the day depending on what you want to achieve in the direct sunlight you will have strong and saturated colors and obviously very high contrast on the other hand sunrise and sunset colors will be more pastel and softer but with an orange yellowish tint towards the end of the day if you don't want very saturated colors during the day a good compromise is finding some shade if you're shooting indoors and you've got only neutral color backdrops you can easily change its hue while developing from raw file all these pictures were taken without any color gels on gray white and black backdrops people are often asking me where do i get these color backdrops from the truth is these were photographed on neutral colors or even on plain white wall there is one thing which i need to add here remember that there is never pure gray or pure white or pure black on the photo it will always have some coloring and do use it to your advantage while choosing harmony why not give a slight tin of cian to your background if you've got a red hat background is such a big area and it's often forgotten by photographers if you've got a plain photo with not much color add textures my favorite type is poker and all sorts of lights and glares you can do it either on the shoot holding some crystals pieces of glass or prism in front of your camera or you can buy great set of special crystals from lensbabies or added in post-production take your camera during the night to the city snap some blurred pictures of interesting bokeh and add it as a layer to photo with the blending mode overlay screen on others it's good to have your own texture library team up with makeup artists and try shooting some bold and unusual makeups make sure you work with someone who knows how to pair the color though makeup artists are usually trained on the color theories find some makeup school in aria and look for creatives eager to build their portfolios and cooperate for free but consider that paying for a professional makeup even when we do testing it's an investment in quality of your portfolio and the last thing in most of the cases the simpler the better especially when you're a beginner because unskillfully mixed colors will simply break your picture if you have an influence over the choice of colors of clothes the safest ones will be beige white general neutral colors because any color on the photo set will suit them patterned and colorful clothes will work best on solid color backgrounds shooting outdoors i often look for a background color that also appears in the model's outfit or as a complementary color so exactly on the opposite side on the color wheel and even if you shoot with their very shallow depth of field separating model from the background do keep an eye on any distracting colors in the back they might take away the viewer's eye from what is important just to sum things up i gave you 10 tips on how to be better with managing colors before entering a photoshoot it might be a bit overwhelming for some of you and at the moment it seems complicated thinking about all these color harmonies and elements but i promise that if you take a color wheel study it and plan a small photoshoot based on each of the harmonies you will soon discover that everything goes into the place practice practice and once again practice guys how are you so far are you still with me i hope you are because there is still more to come do ask your questions in the meantime i know i am speaking quite quickly as i want to squeeze as much as possible in this one hour seminar if you missed something do not worry there will be recording of this webinar sent to your email so let's move to the topic that's probably interests you the most color correction and color grading are an integral part of post production color correction refers to adjusting white and black levels exposure contrast and white balance to give you an image with accurate unprocessed seeming colors and to create visual consistency for a series of photographs color grading on the other hand is a creative process it allows you to add a mood atmosphere and above all emotions to your photos this effect can be super extreme or very subtle i will show you now some of my photographs before and after color grading and i will try to explain as good as possible why i went for this specific color mode because keep in mind that this can be very personal thing and what is attractive to me might not be your choice and the other way around so here's a picture which i've taken during my workshops in spain and on the right before any color grading or actually before any retouch why did i decide to make the photograph warmer you can say that it was my personal choice so-called style and sense of aesthetics but it is very possible that if i was color grading on another day i would have gone completely different way but i'll try to describe my way of thinking as precisely as possible based on the color wheel you can see here on the original photo and the color wheel is showing you all the present colors at the moment we mainly have cold and warm greens in the dress in the background a pink shade of skin and yellow elements of this gold leaf looking like an oatmeal makeup and when we analyze the color wheel we have actually a quite nice harmony at triad you could change slightly the hue of yellow and enhance the pink shade of her skin and this photo would be correct in terms of the harmony but i decided that the skin tone is too cold for me and looking at the pose an intense look from the model it felt to me that i need to warm up the colors so the overall image will be more friendly remember about the theory of colors right so let's see what i've changed on the collar wheel you can see that i complemented all the greens in the dress with much warmer red hue on the skin so we don't have a cold pink anymore i added green in the background so it's definitely a dominant color i enhance golden leaves akka oatmeal and added a purple color to directly complement the yellow so i've created two complementary pairs and this scheme is so called double complementary or quadratic harmony so where is this purple you might ask here is a preview of separated hues on my picture and you can clearly see that in the shadows in the hair and overall i added purple shade only to my blacks and that's exactly how color harmonies work you don't necessarily need to have on the picture a very visible object with that color in order to trick your eye into a nice harmony and all the whites and blacks are the perfect place to add any hue possible in order to have your harmony working okay so let me show you another example so here is after color grading and here is before and again let me break down existing colors you can see red orange hue very dark blue green behind the windows and a bit of yellow in the model's top if you look at the position of the hues on the wheel you just need to push them this way or the other to get a nice harmony can you see that so what i did i added a complementary color to the greens my favorite purple in shadows and you will see it a lot on my pictures you could say it's a part of my style what else i generally lowered the contrast to get a more dreamy look added a purple gradient in the shadows on the left hand side and tweaked each color slightly so they roughly fit to the double complementary scheme but since i added so much of purple this became my dominant color so here is a third example the photograph i've taken during my workshops the backdrop was actually a gray roll paper and here you can see how it looked before the edit okay so let me break down these colors again for you on the original photo you've got four colors red face orange hair yellow backdrop and blue sleeves and color there is no green perhaps it look greenish to you but it's an optical illusion now take a look at the wheel we've got three colors on one side and then on the opposite there is this blue hue i think if you'd only tweaked this color slightly the oranges i mean i could have a nice analogous complementary skin so three hues on the one side close together accented or complemented by a blue dress but i felt that i leave this gorgeous red hair on the yellowish background it won't have too much contrast people are asking me why some of my photos seem to have this huge sharpness it's basically a color contrast which creates illusion that the picture is sharper so what i did i kept a blue dress perhaps slightly adding a green tint to it it was the only color i really couldn't change too much then i almost totally got rid of yellows and these remaining i tweaked towards the orange and obviously i'd added green background to get a nice color contrast for the red hair this way it just stands out much much better i added a lot of contrast and i darkened all the hues so i ended up with the double split complementary scheme two pairs of colors which are complementing each other with this particular picture i didn't work with the color wheel at some point you do these color changes and it seems right for your eye i choose a color scheme and color intuitively because it's part of my style my own aesthetics what i feel is right and beautiful so what is your own style and how to achieve it first of all you have to answer the question what color schemes and what colors do you like do you prefer muted soft combinations or strong and contrasting ones remember that there are no good and bad harmonies the fact that we pick specific colors over the others is because of our intuition aesthetics experience but what if you don't know what colors to choose and where to start well i encourage you to study photos of other photographers in terms of the color palette saturation and harmonies and decide what you like and what you don't and just try to emulate that you have to take their photos under the magnifying glass study how they choose colors and just consciously practice it one of my favorite photographers is annie leibovitz notice that she mainly uses green gold orange juice and this green tint to her photos is reoccurring theme whoever does her retouching is not afraid of the greenish skin and shadows remember when i told you that the skin can be and should be actually part of the whole harmony she obviously uses also different colors and schemes but again it's usually very monochromatic like blue one with penelope cruz and woody allen i absolutely adore her works the fashion photographer stephen klein has a completely different style he chooses very saturated and bold colors usually those that are on the opposite side of the color wheel strongly contrasting with each other but even if he mixes a lot of hues at the same picture they create beautiful harmonies with each other do notice all his shadows blacks and whites have always some tinge they are never pure black and never pure white this is a perfect example of color grading and here's another photo ever whom i admire ying nazang is a photographer who is not afraid to use a very saturated palette but in combination with softer light she's somewhere between annie and steven in terms of her style the best way to learn is to emulate and copy a bit this is how you find your style obviously by saying copy i don't mean exactly recreating someone else's work but here is a trap that many beginners fall into they try to emulate the colors forgetting about the light the quality of the light has a tremendous meaning on how your colors will behave whether the light is soft like any lip of its pictures more defined but still soft lagging nazang or very harsh in steven klein's work you cannot separate only the color you need to look at the bigger picture in order to emulate it well at the end of my theoretical part i'd love to show you something what should prove my theory that the colors actually play a huge role since i'm very passionate about this whole color topic you can clearly see that i took some of the most iconic portraits from few artistic fields in order to convince you that this whole thing about harmonies is actually a thing i don't have any degree in arts and unfortunately i won't be able to tell you why or how but i will show you what i discovered and let you decide for yourselves i don't even need to introduce you to this lovely lady and her painter as i know as a fact this is the most well-known portrait ever taken well painted to be exact leonardo da vinci painted this portrait of mona lisa a half century ago and it's still absolutely epic unfortunately we can't exactly be sure how the colors looked 500 years ago and they obviously faded since it's such a precious painting no one ever took risk to restore it but they did a digital restoration taking into account many factors and they think this is the closest to the original version as i said i'm not an expert i'm going to show you only this colors can you see it it's a classical complementary scheme neat isn't it then here is this photograph done for national geographic by steve mccurry and it's another example of an epic portrait in terms of the colors it's a masterpiece it's so simple but so effective you can find a lot of analysis why this picture became iconic and i don't have time to go deeper into this but only look at the colors bum another beautiful executed complementary harmony now i will show you something iconic from the fashion genre and if you're into fashion you will definitely know a cover of vogue photographed by erwin blumenfeld since color photography it's quite a new thing in the 50s they were still using black and white films so this is the original picture of john pachette and they simply well retouched it and colored it to get this effect i have no idea whether she had green eyes or green makeup but the choice of colors is definitely not random here we go another complimentary harmony can you start to see a pattern but just to prove that the best portraits don't come only in the complementary scheme i dissected for you few more any liberal weeds a warm and intimate portrait of mother and daughter analogous scheme very typical fanny here is a beautiful shot of kate moss and it's remarkably executed by both makeup artists and the photographer mario testino a double complementary harmony girl with the pearl earring by vermeer you can see analogous complementary or so-called accented analogous scheme here's another amazing photographer for following team walker and a complementary harmony but this time very soft and subtle again any liberates with stronger colors and absolutely spectacular palette obviously a complementary scheme i hope this gives you a proof that color has an immense meaning in visual art and in front of us there is a ready recipe and if we only follow it train our eye to see these harmonies learn to apply them we will succeed i think it's absolutely phenomenal and this is all what i wanted to show you in my theoretical part or shall i say this is all what i've got time for as i could talk about this topic hours and hours i hope you enjoyed this part as much as i did preparing it for you do not worry if you didn't catch or saw everything this webinar is recorded so you will be able to re-watch it later and analyze everything i have shown you you can clearly see that i am very passionate about this topic you've seen around 300 slides that i prepared for you if you liked it and you want to support me please follow me on social media share your feedback attend my workshops or book one to one virtual session if you want to work on something specific in the meantime i'm waiting guys for your questions if you stay with me until the end our partners thank you and park cameras will have something special for you so now let's move to the second part that will focus on applying the theory in practice while working in photoshop are you excited great [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the short video you've just seen i showed you for a reason because the photograph we're going to color grade today comes from these workshops so you had a glimpse behind the scenes first of all let me show you how to extract these colors so we know what use we are working with you need to create a 50 gray layer the same one as if you were going to do the dodging burn so 50 i'm changing my mode to luminosity and i can see all the colors on my picture so basically what i do now is i sample them copy them copy the exact number what's on the picture put them into color wheel and see what kind of harmony can i make out of them so i've just checked that i've got three main hues oranges pinks and blue hue and i've got few possibilities i can either go for complementary or analogous accented depending which way i tweak these hues i can achieve different harmonies so i'm looking at the color wheel and analyzing which way shall i push the colors in order to get some nice harmony for sure i know that they want a nice complementary color for the oranges so i need to tweak a blue background a little bit towards sean to have it on the opposite side however if you look at the pink feather it just doesn't fit any harmony i could either add some greenish yellowish tint to let's say the headpiece to create complementary for the pink one or what i'm probably going to do i'm just going to push this hue towards the red to create on one side analogous scheme so all the warm colors close to each other complemented by the cn background now let's open the picture in camera rom i'm usually editing pictures one by one however the same rule will apply in adobe lightroom and capture one so what am i doing here since this picture doesn't need to have the right color balance i'm tweaking all the bars accordingly to my taste and i'm doing it visually whatever looks right to me i'm making sure i will recover all the information in the highlights i will go through all the visible colors and tweaking them this way and that way in order to fit them into the harmony if you want to do some big color changes so some dramatic hue changes let's say from the blue background to the green one this is the best stage to do this as your raw file has a lots of information and you shouldn't have any problems with so-called color bending on any big surfaces so as you can see i will try to tweak roughly all these colors into the analogous complementary scheme warm tones close to each other and see on background exactly on the opposite side i often also do split toning it's a nice tool to separately add a color to your highlights and your shadows by holding a shift key you will have a preview of where is it going to go with the color i may perhaps add some warm tone to my highlights however i feel that whatever i add here to my shadows will also affect the backdrop because it's quite dark there is also this calibration panel where sometimes i'm tweaking these bars this way or the other one of my cameras tends to have green cast so this is the place to correct it as you can see you need to tweak all these colors accordingly to your chosen harmony and in most of the cases i'm relying on my eyes and monitor so you will definitely benefit from benki's range of color accurate screens because you will see all these nuances and color details because we've got only time today for color grading so i slightly retouched this picture beforehand what i retouched here is i added some more background on the right hand side and straightened the garment also dodging burned and slightly retouched the skin and here you can see all the changes we did until now so all the colors we tweaked in camera row and this is our picture straight from the camera before and after so now let me show you again on the color wheel what color scheme we want to achieve i want all the colors of the skin feather and clothes to create an analogous scheme so close to each other and then complement it by the cn background since i'm not planning on any major changes i'm not going to do any channel masking i will just use adjustments layers to tweak these colors my favorite one is selective color and i'm going through all existing colors i will try to push these colors visually to get my skin working so i'm tweaking my blues and seans in order to get them as close as possible to the and the scheme and then i'm also slightly changing a hue of my magenta i want to make it warmer as you can see i'm going through all these slides and i'm just you know visually checking and tweaking and seeing what works what doesn't usually in the skin there are three present colors yellows reds and whites the great thing about adjustment layers is that i can always come back to them and tweak them again the most powerful adjustments you will do with the black ones and white ones because they will add a character to your photo i'm usually adding a magenta tint to my photos however here i'm not sure it will work out the best for this picture both blacks and whites you can basically treat them as a potential place to add a harmony so if i add any color to my blacks it will basically appear on the color wheel the next step will be curves i'm going to add some contrast and i will do it separately for the highlights and separately for the shadows so i'm just going to apply image and then it's going to affect only my highlights and then i copy this layer command i i will invert the mask so it always applies to the shadows be careful with with applying curves so any contrast changes because it will also affect your colors if you don't want to affect the colors then then change the color mode to luminosity i will go through selective color again because by changing the contrast i added some more white and black to the picture i would sometimes go with selective color a few times over the course of color grading tweaking and adjusting these colors i am not sure how good you see these tiny color changes they do and they're not too dramatic but they obviously add up to the final effect and now i'm just going to brighten slightly up the right side of the face with curves with soft brush i will paint on my mask revealing the effects again i want to see my magentas reds and perhaps yellows and see what else i can do there the difference between working on one adjustment layer and building up these layers like i do it's huge because tweaking colors only on one there is a certain limit what you can do to them because they affect everything what's below basically i'm adding up the color and every time i'm working with more color i'm doing everything very quickly as i know our time is limited and i want to show you the whole process and in the meantime i can see that my adjustment layers are piling up so i will create a group for them just to keep things tidy keep in mind that eyes are adjusting very quickly to changes so it's good to see before and after from time to time now i want to remove a contrast from the edges of the picture so so the main focus is on the model i created brightness contrast adjustment layer and with the gradient i'm going to reveal original photo a good practices during retouching to take a lot of tiny breaks from the screen i added another adjustment layer this time it's color balance and um i will see what i can do with with that tweaking both highlights and shadows not too much just slightly i will add some more contrast to brighten up the right side of her face and this time i'll do it with levels again i will do image apply image by adding all the contrast to my picture locally my picture will look a bit sharper as you can see i'm relying on my eyes and my screen good quality monitors can make a world of difference for retouching so if you're able to i'd highly recommend you invest in a monitor and a device for calibrating it regularly and surprise surprise i'm again with the selective color this time removing a bit of blacks from the hairline and so i'm just pushing it towards the left of this soft brush and low opacity so let's see before and after all the changes there's a couple of things i still want to do mainly darken and adjust the color of the yellowish hairpiece and adjust the garment also locally and i will do it again with a selective color so i'm tweaking reds and yellows ctrl i or command i to hide the effect under the mask and then with the soft brush i'm painting the areas where i want to have the changes applied and obviously the good thing is that working with adjustment layers i can always come back and just tweak them again now i'm going to de-saturate slightly the hairpiece i'm creating a hue saturation adjustment layer and clipping it to the layer below by holding an alt key so i just created another layer and this time i will just apply to the hair my changes maybe i will add some more oranges to them and then i will do exactly the same with the clothes i am pretty sure that i have over attached this picture normally i would leave it for the next day and see it with the fresh eyes as i mentioned before the great thing about adjustment layers is that i can always come back and tweak them the next day or well anytime and sadly that would be it what we've got time today for so let me just compare our final picture with the one straight from the camera and again full screen with the final picture as i said i would probably need to do a few more changes but we don't have time for that probably i de-saturate everything because all the adjustment layers are usually saturating the colors a lot to have a fresh look at your photo you can flip your picture horizontally so for a split second you will see it is a new picture and that's it thank you for staying with me until the end of my seminar i wanted to pack as much as possible so perhaps i rushed here and there especially with the second part but i think you've got a general look at my color grading process obviously there are other ways to work with color which i didn't show you here some more precise masking and curves remember if you want to explore any of these topics or you've got any questions on retouching or photography i'm doing one-to-one online sessions i can also show you how to create your own presets and how to speed up that color grading process because there are some ways to use the same adjustment layers on your other pictures and create your own library and the most important thing i hope that i revolutionized a bit your way of thinking about the colors guys do remember to ask your questions now i will answer them in a second and because you stayed until the end thank you and part cameras has prepared for you a nice discount for banky monitors right now you should see the products available in the special webinar offer five percent of the listed price uh you need to apply the code thank you five at the checkout and offer is valid only until 20th of august you can find more info on their website partcameras.com thank you and smart cameras has been operating for almost 50 years they've got two store space in central london and burgess hill but they are also operating a free virtual experience where customers can talk face to face with their team and you can easily see whatever products you're interested in without leaving your home i've got two monitors listed there the first one and the second one and i'm very happy with them so if you're thinking about buying a monitor just make sure you'll take advantage of this offer i will just leave this slide for a moment to sink in and will read your questions in the meantime just see you in the second so i'm reading your comments guys thank you so much for all your positive feedback uh since my camera is on now you can you should see me smiling wow thank you okay so thank you great very happy that you liked it okay i've got some questions coming and they're actually coming now okay make sure you type them in okay question from elena brilliant seminar thank you uh thank you can you plea please give a tip on how to change skin's color and there is similar question from nicolas when skin is part of the color harmony and needs to be changed how to alter the hue of the skin without making it look colorized losing natural blood etc so these two questions are kind of the same so let me answer them so in the skin there are usually these huge presents red pink orange yellow and in the highlights there are usually white there is usually white so depending on the harmony what you want to achieve you need to push the sliders of these colors towards this side which actually fits to your harmony so you never actually colorize the skin you would never take the pen can you see me yes you would never take the pen and actually paint it you would rather use selective color or curves of each of these colors and tweak them to make them warmer or colder also remember that there are they're always um there's always space in your shadows where you can actually add let's say a color which is not so popular for the skin well green blue for example shadows it's a great space it's a great place right okay questions are coming guys okay next question from mark how do you change the background color in your post-production good question so there are two ways to do this so basically you can develop your photograph with the wrong color balance so let's say you're looking for a blue tint of your backdrop background and then in a raw file you push your sliders towards towards the um well blue tint and then you develop your photograph again so the skin looks natural so you've got two separate layers and then with the soft brush soft brush no no cutting out nothing you just um well you just um do i i lost the i lost um i'm lost a bit so what you're doing you just deleting one of these um layers yes so let's say you're leaving your background blue and then your skin is pink and natural right so this is the first way the second way is with the selective color as i showed you before so you're either adding with it to your blacks or to your whites um well any color possible and the same thing you just with the soft brush you're removing it yeah from the skin or the parts which you don't want the color to be present okay next question okay let me just check this can you from donna maria can you elaborate a bit more on the quality of the light effects affects the color thank you this isn't good thank you very much well it's simple well the stronger the light the harsher the light the stronger the colors so uh it's always like this when you see when you use soft soft big light you will you will get these soft colors obviously you can push them in photoshop right you can you can push them with a selective color or curves but you'll never do the same thing with you'll never do achieve the same effect with harsh light the same colors as with soft light that's it this is simple okay next question i hope it answered it's very weird talking to myself okay question from jason do you use capture one at all does it have better color control so i use capture one for tether to tether my photographs and um i just well at the moment i've been using all uh well usually photoshop but i i have the feeling that it has a better color controlled a control yes definitely i do agree with you um i'm learning that so maybe next women webinar will be about about capture one and um for the moment i'm tethering the photos i'm opening them in photoshop camera raw and i do as you as you saw me doing yeah i hope it answers your questions so what size of tablet do you use question from oz is me i use medium one i'm not sure if you can see me here but it depends on your preference because some people will have the move they will move only their fingers and there will be enough for them to have a small one and some people will have bigger moves so then medium and artists would move their hands they aren't the whole arm so then they need large one doesn't make sense i hope it does okay next question lots of questions are coming right now um [Music] okay what is the best way to learn how to use the color wheel a question from ryan so ryan just think about some harmony take the model and just put it into practice so what do you do now you look at the present colors so let's say you're looking for the complementary harmony and let's say you've got the skin skin well it's or usually orange so we're adding a complementary color yeah and you just need to practice you just need to practice take take the color wheel and one by one every single harmony you just need to practice that's it question from kelly do you have any other courses available online at this time unfortunately guys i don't have any tutorials available now there was a plan actually for this year but the pandemic happened and since i've got two little kids for babies so no time but hopefully at some point i will so i will do so keep an eye on on my social media and well if anything will be happening i'll be announcing it there okay okay questions are coming and coming coming i'm reading reading i am a bit lost thank you for your lovely feedback uh what's the color wheel app that you use again please thanks question from well all of most of you so so there is this palette on cam which is the best i'd say you just type palatine.com and google will tell you exactly what is it and there's also adobe but i'd prefer because i started to work with paletton and i kind of like got used to the um well the look of it also it will give you proportions there on the right hand side i don't know if you've seen it but roughly you've got proportion of the color so it's kind of like better for me but it's a personal choice so palette and comm question from people okay from peppa do you have a favorite color harmony i think it will be complementary yes i think so oh lots of questions are coming thank you thank you for your lovely feedback tablet okay i've said already um do i have any tips for underwater photography well actually it's the same it's only the model's model skin will be well bluish so no oranges this the same rule applies to any type of photographic guys so whether you do well landscape photography um any type a landscape landscape photographer is for a reason photograph early in the morning or in the afternoon because the colors and the harmonies are basically the best yeah so any type you do [Music] basically is the same the same rule so we just look at the wheel look at the color what you've got present on your picture and then um well just dissect it and think what color harmony you want to achieve or what color already you've got and then accordingly accordingly you tweet you tweak these colors right i hope it makes sense okay and there's one more question about the gear so what i'm using so uh guys i'm using nikon cameras um so i started with t3 nikon d3 then for a long time i photographed with and and now i'm using d850 and i usually go with prime lenses i've got a lot of them so it's 35 millimeters 50 millimeters and 85 millimeters and i think there's also 105 yeah 105 millimeters macro and these are my favorite they've got all um they've got all light 1.4 so i'm always going for the very shallow depth of field okay and i think i'm looking at the time oh it's already yeah late so uh we don't have time to answer more questions what i'm going to do is i'll write the remaining answers on my blog and i will make sure you will get these answers along with the recording of the webinar right uh so i hope you liked what i've prepared today for you and um well you will think more consciously about these colors and harmonies i'm laughing because one of my attendees from the polish version of this webinar wrote to me that she couldn't sleep after the seminar she had all these harmonies in her head and was she was so inspired and eager to take the camera and to try to put all these theories into practice i hope this will be well you will be as inspired okay and it was my first webinar english i can't tell you how happy i am that so many of you came today to support me and see my work so thank you very much and thank you for staying with me until the end hopefully see you somewhere whether in real life or on social media enjoy the rest of the summer and i guess bye bye ciao adios

Channel: AQCOLOR by BenQ Europe

Views: 52,491

Keywords: benq, BenQ, benQ, webinar, Joanna Kustra, free webinar, photography tips, photography webinar, color grading, color wheel, how to choose colors, personal style, personal style in photography, color harmony, color harmonies, color inspiration, color theory, before/after, Photoshop, PS, PS tutorial

Id: RfQX4w711MI

Length: 91min 29sec (5489 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 01 2020