This is part two of incorporating motion with
flash photography, and what we're gonna do
is jump in a light room, grab our exercisr
files and process the images, then go to Photoshop
to show you some simple compositing techniques
on how you can take these six layers and quickly
combine them into this final image that you see here.
My name is Pye and I'm one of the founders
of Lynn and Joseph Photography and SLR Lounge,com.
We're teaming up with Adorama to
bring you a new series of photography tutorials
called Master at Your Craft right here on
Adorama TV.
So let's dive in.
Welcome back. We're here on Adorama TV.
And if you've missed Episode 1, well be sure
to go back to Part 1, because that's where
we talked about exactly how these
frames were captured.
So this is the final image, but
there's actually six frames that went into
this image, and that's what we're working
on here.
So to learn how they were composed,
how they were lit, how they were shot.
Go back to part one. We're going to focus here
just on the post-production of these images.
This is a great place to pause by the way,
and go ahead and make sure that you download
the exercise files.
I'm going to include the
RAW exercise files with this tutorial.
You guys can download them for free,
and follow along as we work through and
create the final image.
OK. So let's dive in.
You should have six different raw files.
And I'm going to break this process down into a simple eight
step kind of process and framework.
It's, it's really going to be quite easy and intuitive.
But step number one is to dial in your look,
and you can do this how ever you like.
You can use presets.
You can process by hand.
Fine tune it to what you like.
Let me just show you how I would quickly do it.
I'm going to run through the settings as well.
I'm going to grab one of the images that
has kind of my subject's lit appropriately, and has the
right expressions and everything.
So because I'm really processing this for
skin tone. Right.
So I'm going to press D to jump in the
developed module.
And from here I'm gonna use a preset
from the visual flow library.
Now, granted, if you don't use
this, that's totally fine.
I'm going to walk through all the settings
in just a moment.
So in the modern pack, which kind of has a
nice warm look, I'm going to apply flash.
And what this does is it kind of
compensates for incorporating
flash into a photograph while adding the warmth
and kind of final look to the image.
But let me show you what it's doing.
It's pulling the highlights down a bit while it's pulling
the whites as well, because we use a hard
edged flash we often get a lot of
highlights and whites that can be kind of
a little bit overly intense.
So it's pulling those down a bit,
while also balancing the shadows a little
bit.
It's going to go in and add a nice tone curve.
This S-curve is going to pull down
the shadows while raising kind of overall exposure.
And in the highlights and then we
go down and we start tweaking HSL, all
of these tweaks are to help adjust colour
a little bit to get to more natural skin tones.
And the primary ones are really down here
in the saturation.
So you'll see that the reds and orange are
being pulled down a little bit.
This is because, again, oftentimes when we
flash an image, we end up pulling down exposures
and it can end up with a lot more dark and
rich skin tones.
So we're kind of muting that just a little bit,
muting some of the overall color.
So we don't end up with something that's
kind of over the top.
And you'll see a little bit of luminance
adjustments.
But again, if you guys want, you can
pause the video, dial in all these settings,
if you want to follow it to the T,
or if you just want to kind of
dial in your own, that's totally fine, too.
The main thing is get to your final look.
A big part of this look is creating the split toning,
where we're adding a bit of warmth into
the highlights and a bit of warmth as well
into the shadows.
And these are kind of these
orange tones over here on the side.
Just a little bit that's balance over the highlight side.
That's really it for most of the work
that's being done with this preset.
So from there, all I'm going to do is just kind of
adjust my temperature.
I'm going to pull temperature down maybe a little bit.
I'm gonna add a little bit of tint to it just to
get a little more magenta, I'm even
gonna close off this left
side of the panel, just for one second so I
can see the image a little bit larger, OK?
And I have a fun idea.
So check this out. I've created these little
presets for dodge and burn filters.
They come inside the visual flow tools,
but it's easy to create your own tools.
All this is, is if you click this button, it
ends up dropping in a radio filter.
If I press shift M, I can
select my radio filter tool.
And if I press that, it's just a point five
burn that gets dropped in.
And we actually create another
video on kind of five things that you can
do inside of Lightroom that you might not
know.
Check that one out because we detail
out all of this, fun stuff, easy things you
guys can do for your workflow.
But the nicety about this is, now, I don't
have to go and go to the radio filters,
and kind of do this manually,
and dial the exposure.
All I do is click a button.
This is for a full burn where it's going to
burn he whole image, this is for a narrow
burn, which is going to burn just a small section.
And now rather than doing all that
manually, I'd kind of just bring this over.
And here's a fun little trick.
I can hold down alter option while I'm
hovering over this pen.
And if I dragged the left, it's
going to strengthen the effect if I dragg to
the right it's going to reduce the effect.
So I'm going to strengthen effect a little bit.
And here's another little fun tip. If I actually
go up here to my temperature, this is where
the image is being affected, right?
It's it's pulling everything and the exposure down and
it's not affecting the center of the image.
So if I actually lower my temperature outside,
what ends up happening is it sort of cools
the tone outside the image.
And then as we drop into the center, it's a
little bit warmer.
I usually like to keep this a little bit on
the more subtle side.
So I'll probably keep this between-10 and -20.
But it has a fun kind of look to it.
And if you apply this in a similar way that the image
is lit and it's subtle, it's not going to
look like it's kind of standing out in any way.
It's not going to look unnatural.
So let's say that I like this right here.
I might add a little bit of clarity, maybe a tiny
bit in my exposure just for my subjects.
And I'm pretty happy with where this is at now.
So now I've got my look dialed in.
Let's go to step two.
Step two is to sync that look
or the process settings across all of the
images, including the plate shot. OK.
That shot with the tripod and everything
removed.
Sorry, the light stands.
So we really haven't done anything too crazy.
The image and the cool thing about this is
we can also process the final image just a
little bit further how we like. OK.
So for right now, this looks good.
So what I'm going to do now is press
control A or command A
with this image highlighted.
So it's funny.
I think the technical term for this is these
are all these selected images, right?
The one that's highlighted is the most selected image.
I was like, maybe we can call that
the key image or the key select.
But it's the most selected. OK.
So with the most selected image highlighted,
I'm in a press control shift.
S or command shift. S on a Mac.
You're going to press check all.
We have the identical shot setup between
every one of these images.
Right. So we can check all and press
synchronize, because we're on a tripod.
We don't need to worry about movement.
We don't need to worry about anything.
We want that same exact setting.
And we shot this manually.
So we know that as we work from image
to image, the shot is identical.
We don't have changes and exposure, nothing.
That's the goal here. And that's key
because with that, we're moving to step three.
We're going to select all images again,
control A or Command A to do that. Right?
Click and you're gonna go edit in, and we're going
to stay open as layers in Photoshop.
Now, this is where depending on the
resolution of these files, depending on the
speed of your computer, it might take a
couple of moments as Photoshop opens
up and loads these into individual layers within Photoshop.
OK. We're in Photoshop.
The images have been layered.
Now we're gonna go to step 4.
We're going to select all of our layers.
So this is just a good practice, even when you're
shooting on a tripod to select all the layers,
you're gonna go to edit.
And then we're going to go to auto align
and we're gonna align those
layers automatically.
Because even when you're working on a
tripod, there's sometimes subtle
shifts, especially when you're pressing the
shutter button.
There can be subtle shifts from image to image.
I want Photoshop to take care of the work
for me, and just automatically align
everything.
You're gonna see why in just a moment.
The better you kind of shoot this entire
series, the more it's gonna be
just a matter of simply masking and just removing
certain things.
You don't have to do any other Photoshop work.
It's gonna be really easy.
It makes your simple composite very simple.
OK. So that's just gonna take a moment.
So it's done the work and it's aligned my layer.
So step five is to find the layer.
Again, if you know the number, that's great.
But find the layer that has the ideal expression.
OK. So usually if you just hold down alt or
option, you can actually click the eyeballs
just to solo or select that individual layer.
And usually I'll just kind of flip through and
see like, which layer do I like the most?
And I'm going to say probably. Yeah, I think I
don't like this one with a person right behind
him, her because it's gonna get a little bit difficult.
I think this layer is probably
the one that I like the most.
This one right here.
So we're gonna do is with that layer
selected, we're gonna drag it up to the top.
The next step is then defined, the plate layer,
and put it right underneath.
OK, so again, we're just gonna grab the
plate layer, which is this bottom one, and
we're gonna place this right underneath.
I'm gonna show you why.
Because in step 6, what we're gonna do
is actually remove the light stands from the image.
Okay. This is where I do like working
with a Wacom tablet inside of Photoshop,
but with simple composites, if you want to
just use your mouse, you totally can.
All we're gonna do here is, you have a
couple options behind them.
We have this shot right here where we can
just paint in if we wanted to, we could
paint in them or we can essentially
paint out everything that we don't want in
the frame. Right.
So let me just show you with how we have
it organized right now.
All we're going to do is add a mask and you're
just going to select a black brush.
So press B to select your brush.
You can press D to flip your palette back
to default, X to flip the the default palette
to black and with normal and apastia at 100%
flow set to 100%.
All you're gonna do is paint black where
these stands are.
This is where you begin to see the magic of getting
this right.
Because with our tripod, with
shooting this right, with having our layers
aligned, well, removing the stands becomes
literally a five to ten second job. Right.
We've just removed the stands, and we're good
to go.
There's a person right here and actually
want to keep him in there. OK.
So if I want to remove this car, I totally can as well.
So I'm going to remove the car just to give
me kind of a blank palette to work with.
And as we're doing this, we're just
revealing the underlying layer behind.
Right. And I kind of liked on the plate layer,
there was also these other people walking.
I that that's cool.
So let's just kind of show the plate layer.
So when we look at this mask, if I
press alt or option and click the mask,
what you see is, we're basically just
showing this layer in these select spots
where it's black. Right.
Black will conceal the existing layer.
White will reveal. Right.
So black is concealing the existing layer
and showing the layer below, which is this one.
So all you really need to make sure is
when you click this mask, hold alter option
to click it just to see it.
Just make sure the areas that should be
completely blacked out are blacked out.
If you want to zoom in, do a little bit fine
tuning. You totally can.
But now this is as simple as it's gonna get.
All you do is all click wherever you want.
Let's say we find an area of motion that we
kind of like like, oh, I like that motion
right there.
There's more people in this shot.
Oh, there's a cool car on this one. Right.
So what I'm going to do is grab one of the
motion layers and throw it to the top.
So step seven as desired.
Grab the motion layers and put them on
top of the image.
And what we're gonna do is the exact same thing.
This go around.
I'm going to hold down alt or option.
When I click the mask.
Because now it's gonna invert the mask to black.
So we're not going to show anything.
And then this is where I usually like to dial
down my flow just a little bit.
So I'll bring the flow down to like 30,
40 percent and I'll start to paint white.
So press X to bring back the white, and you
kind of start painting in motion where you
want it over the image.
Now, remember, everything's aligned, right?
So with this opacity and kind of the way we're
doing it, we kind of just nicely drag across.
And if we get a little bit too much in one
area, I can press X and just kind of remove it.
And we kind of just nicely paint this
in in layers, as we kind of add the motion
to our shot.
And because we're doing it this
way, it has a very nice and kind of natural
look to the way that we're adding motion to
the image.
I'm going to go down and grab another layer.
So I like this layer. I'm going to
go ahead and throw this layer on top.
Same thing.
You're gonna repeat this step seven
until you've added whatever motion you want
to add to the shot.
So now I'm going to go
ahead and reveal the layer by pressing the
eyeball hole. Hold down alt or option. Click
the mask with white.
I'm going to go ahead and just paint.
And we're in a kind of a kind
of like keeping some of these people in the
background a little bit, so I'm going to keep
the people in the background.
I like having that motion in there.
Now, as we get over here, we start to see
the stand, right?
So press X and conceal the stand.
We can press X and kind of reveal this
person walking by a little bit more.
We can press X again to kind of show this
layer where it's going to flip back and forth
between these layers to kind of get this perfect motion.
Now, remember this kind of screw up
shot, right?
So look at this.
In this one, we had this screw up shot
where the cars just driving right over.
Why the heck would I want to keep this?
Because you can still do fun things with this.
So if I hold the alt or option
and click this layer again.
So now I've created a mask.
It's blacked out.
What I'm gonna do now is just bring my
flow like all the way down. OK.
And then I can sit here and paint
just with a very light flow kind of across
the whole image and areas that I just want
to add a little bit of extra motion to the shot.
Right.
So it doesn't have to be like if I go aw...
that's too much.
I mean, I'm just going to erase this off. OK.
And this is super easy and just fun to do because you
can kind of tweak exactly how you want this.
And just keep playing until you get to this
perfect level where all the motion is out
of the image.
So what I think I want to do
for this one is actually I'm going to just
select this entire layer.
Or you could just delete this.
Actually, it's probably easier
to delete it and add another black layer.
So just add another black layer.
And what I'm to do is make this motion
that actually extends across the bottom of the frame.
So like kind of across there, there are bodies and
areas that I want to have like a little bit
of of blur. Right.
So we can kind of have this be right
across the bottom and make sure
that we're not covering them up too much.
And then maybe hav e it extend like over here.
OK. Wherever we feel like, I could just like
look across the bottom, I think I'm on edge.
Keep it there. Let's see this last layer.
If there's anything here that we want to add
and I don't think so, I think it looks pretty
good where it's at.
So we can choose to leave
things off or add things the way we want.
But now we're just gonna save this out.
And my last and final step.
Step 8 would be go back into Lightroom.
And if you want to do any other tweaks to
it, you totally can. Right.
We can essentially reprocess it, if you want to
make it a little bit brighter, you wanna make
fine tuning and tweaks, rebake it.
However you'd like to do, you can make
those final tweaks right here.
So that's it.
Now, let me show you the fun of these
types of advanced lighting and
photography techniques, especially
when it comes to working with clients.
The typical photographer is going to walk
up and they're going to shoot this image. Right?
This is the natural light shot.
Granted, you're going to have the flashes in the shot,
but this is the natural light shot of what
this scene would look like.
But when you take these techniques into a
shoot and you come back to your clients
with an image like this,
it's a standout image.
And for clients that appreciate dramatic
images like this, it really
makes your work stand out from every other person.
I'm not saying, by the way, to not
shoot the natural light stuff, and not shoot
everything else, but to have these types of
images and these skills in your toolkit makes
you stand out from everybody else who is just
shooting kind of that same walk up shot.
All right.
So hopefully you guys enjoy it.
If you guys enjoyed this two part series again.
We have more of the best A-to-Z training in photography
from everything from learning the camera,
to mastering lighting to post-production.
All of that, shooting weddings, portraiture,
engagements, posing... all that stuff is on
SLRloungeworkshops.com
In the meanwhile, you guys can follow
us here on Adorama TV.
Be sure to subscribe to the channel like
the video, comment below.
Tell us what you think.
You can also follow us on @Slrlounge
or me personally @PyeJirsa.
I'll see you guys in the next video. Peace.