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 BenQ 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 Cerys 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 BenQ 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
this 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
retoucher in 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 had 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 it 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 light. 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 retouching 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 worked on a monitor of
a high class competitive brand and I have a pretty good comparison. The
latest 32-inch BenQ 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 it 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-rite. So that's all about equipment. Let's talk
about Color Psychology... More than 200 years ago Johan Wolfgang
von Goete wrote a book about color theory
as the first 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 a 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 with very limited amount of hues.
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't jarring, 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 hues.
I decided to change my model's skin a bit cooler in order to fit the harmony.
And also I emphasized an overall look by adding
purples to my blacks. Our next harmony has a tiny twist to the
previous one - you have all these related hues
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 round. Let me show 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 - a 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 to each other on
the color wheel Are considered to be complementary
colors. The high contrast of the pair 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 Hanna at first sight seems like a complementary harmony but there is no
hue which is exactly opposite to the firely 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're also three colors evenly spaced; red,
very warm green and blue. I'd say it's a vibrant mixture.
and the last one - an 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 pair -
orange and yellowish green with a purple hue. This complex color scheme provides a
lots 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 present.
I enhanced 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 on 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 at 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 colored 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 dyad 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 is 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.
Aow 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.
Aometimes only a small tint in black or white
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 the colors are evenly spread
on the wheel. We've got the pink dress it's the most 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'd 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 if you have the right harmony the
clash of colors will be too much to bear for the viewer
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 % 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. Dyad and complementary will have 70%
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 40% of the
main color and 20% of the rest of the hues. So this is a recipe for a perfect color
in a 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 cyan and orange
equally. And they roughly are the same size. I did it
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. If you'd analyze some famous work - which
we'll do later on - you will see they will follow all the
harmonies and 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 disharmony 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 favourite one which I use is paletton.com because for me
is the most intuitive. And finally there is also a
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.
Hue the term is used for the pure colors. Saturation - the richness of colors
and luminosity, brightness or lightness. Adding a grey your basic hue 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 sRGB, 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 The human eye
can see, so it's scope - so called "gamut" is 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're going
to find quite a lot of information about it.
Which I'd say it's closer to physics than to 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 asked 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 preview for my clients,
basically only for the selection. And in that case it's better to keep the color
space smaller and dedicated to the 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-rite 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 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 a 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.
sRGB to make your colors display well across any devices.
There are three options how to approach this. The first is to
"export as" you have to tick both of these boxes
convert to sRGB 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 the
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 is 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 oversaturated.
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
neighbouring colors, whether we decide on the photo to have cold tones or warm
tones. Skin color also plays a role in the
color harmonies. 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 odd, 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 of the skin, especially with a strong color grading. If
you want your picture to depict 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.
Ss 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 I 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 colors 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 warm can appear as
if it is receding in 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
equaluminant color. Those who studied art will be familiar
with the concept, color can be measured not only by the hue but also the
luminance. Equilaminant 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 equiluminant,
because their luminosity is exactly the same.
Let me give you another example, this time from art.
Claude Monet and Poppy Field - just fix your eyes on the poppies
and take a look at the same painting stripped out of the hue.
If you look closer the poppies 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 of the sky and the sun
are exactly the same. And here side by side.
Why is this important for us? There is a long evolutional 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 equiliminant
colors? Well - neither. You just need to be aware
that both will have different effect on the viewer.
If you use equiluminant 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 modern 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 a 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 cinem.a Obviously lots of people are working on
the set on the movie, locations, light, colors, clothes, 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, freeze frame
and below them you can find a color palette 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 is even such a thing like color of the year, released by companies like
Pantone, Behr, 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 colors 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 valuabl,e 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 photo shoot
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 is 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
photo shoot starts. I analyze their 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 were taken 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 that mixing orange light with
blue one is on the color wheel on the opposite
sides, so it's always going to work perfectly 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 gels are very powerful thing
and if you mix the hues which are not harmonized, you can easily destroy your
photo. Here's 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 a 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 tint of cyan to
your background if you've got a redhead. 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 bokeh 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 add it 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 or 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 colors though. Makeup artists are usually trained on
the color theories. Find some makeup school in area 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 unskilfully 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, generaly 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 a 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 and during 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
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 mood. Because keep in mind that this can be a
very personal thing and what is attractive to me, might not
be your choice and the other way around. Ao 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. Ahy 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 will 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 - a 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 and intense look from the model it felt to me that I need
to warm up the colors. Ao the overall image will be more
friendly. Remember about the theory of colors, right?
Ao let's see what I've changed on the color 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 enhanced 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's 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's 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 collar. 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 tweak this color slightly -
the oranges I mean, I could have a nice analogous complementary scheme.
So three hues on the one side - close together, accented
or complemented by a blue dress. But I felt that if 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 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
As 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 palettes, 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, oranges
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.
O 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 photographerr whom I admire - Yingna Zhang
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 Anny Leibovitz
Pictures more defined, but still soft
soft like Jingna Zhang 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? Ut'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 -
booom - 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 Jean 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 complementary 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: Annie Leibovitz
a warm and intimate portrait of mother and daughter - analogous scheme.
Very typical of Annie. Here is a beautiful shot of Kate Moss
and it's remarkably executed by both makeup artist 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 worth following - Tim Walker -
and a complementary harmony, but this time very soft and subtle.
Again - Annie Leibovitz 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 Iam 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 BenQ
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!!! 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 hues we are working with. You need to create a 50% gray layer - the same one
as if you were going to do the dodging burning - 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 gotfew 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 I want a nice complementary color for the oranges so I need to tweak
a blue background a little bit towards cyan
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 are
complemented by the cyan background. Now let's open the picture in camera raw (ACR).
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'll 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
lot 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 cyan background exactly on the opposite side. I often also do split toning. It's a nice
tool to separately add the color to your highlights and to 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
BenQ'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 & burning 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
RAW And this is our picture straight from
the camera "before and after". 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
cyan 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 am going through
all existing colors. I will try to push these colors visually
to get my scheme working. I'm tweaking my blues and cyans in
order to get them as close as possible to the and
the scheme, and then I'mm 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. 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 Or any
contrast changes because it will also affect your colors.
If you don't want to affect the colors then
change the color mode to luminosity. I will go through selective color again
because by changing the contrast I added some more whites and blacks 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'm not sure how good you see these tiny color changes I 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 a 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. Bsically 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 contrast from the edges of the picture 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 practice is, during retouching, to take a lot of
tiny breaks from the screen. I added another adjustment layer, this
time it's color balance and I will see what I can do 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 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 with a 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-retouched 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. Ao 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'd desaturate 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 As 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 is I hope that I revolutionised a bit your
way of thinking about the colors. Make sure you subscribe to my channel,
support me by following me on social media
and THANK YOU for watching until the end.
Thanks, I'll check it out. My left ear will love this.
Adobe has a tool online that's been out there for many years now that's really helpful. I used it a lot when I was working lightning design.
https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel
Worth a watch if you're interested in the basics of color theory and color combinations.
I wish photo editors had color tools like those for video, as they feel a lot more nuanced and focused. A lot of photo editing techniques are just "keep brushing on stuff until it looks good".
James Popsys just posted a simple colour theory video on YouTube, it’s worth the watch!
Honestly, I feel more upset about photography after watching this. She discusses color theory and then essentially throws it out the window while showing an editing example at the end. She's just going by feel, never referencing color wheel tools again after an initial check of the image.
She's got a great eye and puts an extreme amount of detail into a single photo but most of us don't live in a world where one photo is worth days' worth of work.
I truly respect what she's doing but don't think I can really introduce this into my own work without studying for years and years... which is ok, this is what separates the pros from the wannabes.
This may also be worth a watch too: Youtube
AAHHHH TEAL AND ORANGE NO MAKE IT STOP
thank you for sharing. There is quality in her instruction.