(speaking in foreign language)
- In this video I wanna show you my six secrets
to really get the best possible sunset in camera
and then retouch it the best possible.
Now, if you stay until the end, I have a bonus video,
where I'm gonna show you how you can
take a sunset that's not incredible and just make it nicer,
but in a realistic way, so stay until the end.
Also, last week I did a video about faking long exposures
in Photoshop instead of using an ND filter.
And I made a challenge, I have a winner.
The winner will be announced at the end of the video
and he's gonna win one of my color books signed
and I'm gonna promote him to a hundred of thousand people
through all my social media.
So if you're interested I'm making a new challenge,
stay until the end.
Are you ready for my six secrets to get awesome sunset?
I mean while we're stuck at home, let's retouch some photos.
So this is a photo I shot in Paris a while ago.
I just wanna show you because I get a lot of comment
about it in my sunset and there's really a few things
that I find that works good for me.
So let's look at the settings of this photo.
This is the Pont Neuf taken from the Pont des Arts in Paris.
Absolutely beautiful city.
And I shot this, you see here?
I shot this at 100 ISO, 125th of a second at 5.56.
So I was not on a tripod on this one
and there was a lot of light.
Sometimes when you have something there was a lot of light
but you see how it is underexposed
and if you stay until the end you will see
how this one comes out.
The next one I'm gonna show you is this photo of the Louvre.
Look how underexposed,
and this one is a little too much underexposed.
Usually my rule for underexposing because
it's like this one is f8 320th of a second ISO 100
it really depends of the light that you have.
But I wanna make sure, you see I always expose
for the highlights I wanna make sure I don't blow
any highlights here because I know
when I open my shadow I'm gonna get a lot of things back.
this one is a little too much but you will see
it's still gonna work.
This one basically is a rule that I use is
I look at my photo, I don't look at the settings,
I don't look at the histogram,
I look at my photo it's gonna look a bit dark and
I gotta be able to see details in the shadows that's my ...
Oh, this is a perfect example I gotta see details.
This one, the deals not so much.
This is how it look, I look in my viewfinder
and this one is a little too much also
but it come out alright but I wanna preserve the sky.
by underexposing the sky the beauty of the sky
and this are all great moment of sunset.
The beauty of the sky is gonna be there fully
but wait till the end you see the final result.
The next one I'm gonna show you is this crazy panorama
that I shot from Le Pantheon it's department store in Paris.
And I didn't have clouds but I had the Eiffel Tower
and I had this incredible gradient and I'll show you
how I do this one,
but I just want to show you the house first
okay they're all very underexposed.
This one is kind of ideally exposed to me
because I can see the entire gradient in the sky
it's not white and I can see here it's dark okay.
now every brand really handles well opening up the shadows
in low-light except canon, so if you're a Canon shooter
I would expose this a little more
I would get more details in the shadows I'm just saying.
But most brand now can really really do well with shadows.
Okay so that was tip number one, tip number two
try to shoot at 100 ISO because when you're shooting solo
if you can see all my photos we're at a 100 ISO
except this one is 100 ISO this one is 125,
but that's a mistake should have been 100 ISO.
Well, it's not really mistake here is what happened
on this one it was getting really dark
and I wanted to make sure the photo was sharp
so I always go around 140-160th of a second
I'll talk more on that later but anyway
so that's why I bumped it up to 125.
I just really wanna make sure it's sharp.
and this one I shot at 500 ISO, I had no choice on this one
because there was tripods were not allowed and you will see
it comes out right but if you cannot put a tripod on
like in a department store that's my tip number three
is you got to make sure your speed
is at least 140 of a second.
on this one it was 140 second
and on this one it was 160 of a second
and what I do is I put on the self timer
so that when I press it waits one or two seconds
and it takes a shot okay and 140 of a second
is gonna get you a sharp photo.
of course I go into the viewfinder and I look at 100%
making sure it's sharp.
I try to not go over 500 ISO but you're better off
getting the shot you know at 500 ISO at 147 second
than not getting the shot.
So this lens I'm using can only the maximum make upon
is FPon 0, 4.0 sorry, so I open at 4.0
I went to 140 of a second and I took a shot,
it was way too dark, okay so I bumped up the ISO
until I could see the sky and could see detail
so that was that was the end result same thing on this one.
This one the reason I went to 125 ISO is that
I wanted to a fast speed to freeze the water a little bit
and I couldn't open more than a 4.0
so the rule is be on a 100 ISO a try but if you can
and if you cannot be at 140s of a second
and then do whatever ISO is needed.
but you know a sunset is a sunset,
this is like a really late sunset but you will see
how amazing it looks if you stay until the end.
Okay so of course you wanna shoot when there is clouds,
clouds Redeem X and that's my tip number four,
is either shoot when there is really some nice clouds
like this ones or this ones
or when there's a beautiful gradient
sometimes when the light is very clear
you're gonna get a beautiful gradient like this photo here
okay I mean sometime, and this is a little bonus video
I'll keep you at the end, I'll show you how to
bring back a sunset that's gone.
this is one of my most favorite photo ever.
it's the most semi shell that I shot.
And the man is walking here is Scott Kelby
shot this many years ago it's a crazy panorama
and I'm gonna show you how you can bring it back to life
so I have for shooting now when it comes to post-processing
the most important about sunset is getting
a really cool white balance now just below this video
I have a pack of free presets that you can download
you just put in your email you're gonna get them by email
in four to five minutes just make sure
it doesn't go to your spam a lot of people last week
had the thing going to their spam.
Make sure it's not in your spam you will get the opportunity
to get all my 280 presets and if you do I thank you so much
it help me support this channel and also you're gonna get
the best preset that was ever made planet Earth
I am not kidding but anyways so I'm gonna import the presets
I have downloaded the preset there on my desktop
and it's...
so I'm using a very, the latest version of Lightroom
so all you have to do is take the zip file and you're done.
And the preset is here it's called photo search free preset
and we're only gonna be using one preset
for this entire video called wait for it, wait for it,
Sunset, so check this out, when I click on sunset
I press I this is just a starting point,
okay it's a little too dark for me so the first thing
you should do once you apply the preset
is hold on the option key on your keyboard wait for it,
you click here and you're gonna determine
how much black you want.
Now on on the sunset I would go something like this
you want about 1-2% of pure black.
what you see here in yellow and orange is pure or black
there's no more information,
so white you move the slider to the right
until you start seeing some dots okay
and then once you see some dots you go back
and then you lift your finger of the ALT
and then you just eyeball it to what you like.
So something like this, but you see that preset
applied 27 different sliders to one photo in one click
it's gonna really help you get the right white balance.
the next thing you need to do when you use these presets.
You can adjust the exposure and the contrast
so maybe I make it a bit brighter
maybe I'm gonna add some contrast and then I'm gonna take
this slider here which is the because the preset has
a gradient on top and at the bottom and you can just
move it around how you like it.
On this one I'm gonna make it a little bit bigger
and make it move it up a little bit something like this.
You can even, you know it adds some minus exposure
it adds back some blue because I like my sunset to go
from sort of cold to warm so I'm adding a little bit of blue
you can you can tweak that off if you want.
The preset is just a suggestion for you
but I've had over a thousand emails people telling me
that this preset they use every day and it really helps them
so I thought I would share them for free with you
and I wanted to show you on many different things
cityscape, landscape all over the world.
So okay this is kind of cool the next thing you need to know
about that preset is here the circle.
there is a circle in this which is hidden you, can see here
and that circle is supposed to be where the Sun is.
Now check it out without a circle how it looks
with the circle huge different.
Now what I usually do is I put the circle but you see this
the color is all over the buildings it's on purpose
that's it's a little strong so what you do is
you go to ranch mask and you go to luminance
and if you don't have that setting you just better off
I mean what you can do if you don't have this setting
if you have like an older version of Lightroom
you can just lower the value here and here
you can just make lower but I don't have that problem
because I'm using the latest version
so I go to luminance mask and I just go to the right here
and why that's gonna do, is gonna make that circle
go behind the buildings check it out, circle is in front,
behind, in front you see everything is like behind, in front
behind you got the concept and voila
I mean let me show you the before.
So that's the before and that's the final result .
(speaks in foreign language) I love it.
I forgot a little some people's gonna complain
I forgot some of that.
Yeah I guess you guys are like me,
you're like quarantined at home.
I'm retouching all my photos going back to old photos
you should use my preset on your photos if you're quarantine
you'll love it.
Okay so next one is The Louvre.
Now this one was way under exposed but hey
let's see if it works so let's use the sunset preset
okay it's soo dark so it's the same workflow
and again it's a starting point you can do whatever you want
on top of it but this is gonna give you a good base
so you hold on the option key, this one is way too dark
so I'm gonna back down like this and then I'm gonna do
the same thing with white I'm gonna go a little faster
okay you see look look at this,
even though I under expose this photo
I still I'm losing information in the sky
and this is a Sony 7R3, it's a pretty powerful camera
we're gonna make it a bit brighter but you see
it still comes out pretty well
and then I'm gonna use this gradient here
and then this was the same sunset.
The bridge that you see here is about I would say
200 meters away so I took the shot
and I ran to the Louvre and I got this shot
but this is the same evening.
It's so funny when you have a great sunset
I'm like I milk it out,
I try to be at five different position in five minutes.
That's one trick it one little bonus trick
when you have a great sunset
and you're in a beautiful city like Paris.
don't stay at the same position.
Get the Louvre shot, get the Pont des Arts shot,
get the ... just move around
I actually rent this little bike, this little not bike
this like skateboard with motor and I can be in two three
different spot because the sunset is only gonna last
five six minutes and the good thing is that in Paris
you get a lot of nice spots.
So like this and don't forget here is a little
the famous circle so this one I'm going to
maybe just do a little bit of luminance mask in
just a little tight just to so that it's less obvious
and it goes a little bit behind the buildings.
so that's before super-underexposed
and that's the final result pretty cool.
All right next one, so next one again free preset
the link is under the video do yourself a favor
and download my preset look at this one click Bam!
27 sliders, uh I love it.
Okay this one is maybe too much and I can tell
it's mainly because of the circle so I'm gonna go right away
to the circle and I mean this was a crazy sunset
it's one of the most crazy sunset I have seen on,
this is not Paris this is El Matador Beach,
El Matador Beach beach in Malibu
my favorite Beach in California,
so I'm gonna go here to luminance I love this place
it's it looks like God made like the rocks,
like some artists just painted this whole place
it's unbelievable.
Okay so same idea let's check my black point.
Black point okay black point seems to be geared
white point oh it's a little burn here
so let's bring it back because when you're printing
if you ever print this photo you wanna make sure
that maybe gonna under
I'll love this shot, this is why,
it was it was a crazy sunset.
It was one of the strongest sunset.
The problem with sunset is that
and that's why I'm giving the preset is that
if you are too much off let's say like this super off
like this or super off like there's gonna weird
you need to have the exact right white balance
I think I'm gonna back down a little tiny bit this.
Yes something like that so let me show you the before
so that's the before photo and that's a final shot
El Matador, of course it's not straight
so I'm gonna make it straight really quick
and coming up next is one of my favorite photo ever
I mean what I don't know it's just it's crazy panorama.
So this is a shot that I was telling you
I got from the department store in Paris
and you have this incredible view of Paris so what I did is
I again I think I was at 500 ISO for 140 of a second
I'm gonna take all these photos and I'm gonna right-click
photo merge panorama because sometimes you need to do
a panorama to be able to get you know everything.
I wanted to get the French Opera
and I wanted to get the Eiffel towel in the same shot.
And there was no other way to do it
than to do it through a panorama.
So usually what I do on this is I click on fill edges
like that, and that's what's gonna do is
that's gonna fill all the edges, which is around there.
And it's just additional information.
Sometimes it does weird things but that's fine.
So I'm gonna merge this, that's gonna take a while.
Okay, so, yeah, something is weird there, which is fine.
But let's apply this famous free preset that you can get.
Wait for it, a bang, bang.
Okay, I'm just gonna boost the exposure a little bit.
Look at this, this was a crazy sunset.
I couldn't believe it, okay, let's check the black point.
Yeah, black point's good, let's check the white point.
That's a little too much.
This one's gonna need a bit of cropping, so let's crop it.
I wanna make something nice,
first thing is let's make the horizon straight for once.
Okay and the other one is,
I think I'm gonna go 16 by 9 as one, I love 16 by nine,
that's what I work with my gallery most of the time.
SO what I do is like 1/3 of sky, 2/3 of land, and boom,
check this out, so we came from this
and this is what we got.
You gotta check out my presets, you'll love it.
Okay, at last, and this is a bonus video.
Though this is a crazy story,
I've never been to
same ideas this was a panel it was actually eight photos
you can see here but you know which I just did
was the exact same procedure so I took this by hand
and it was raining all day and as we came in
it's sort of clearing up I was with Scott Kelby
I don't if you know Scott Kelby, amazing man
I shot everything at, I couldn't put a tripod down
because it was quicksand not kidding this whole place here
is full of quicksand so you can't put a tripod down
it just goes down so 100 ISO f10 123 for second
actually I should have done f7 140s of a second
but because I use a self-timer all the photo came out sharp.
Now the problem with this one is that
where is the sunset?
Yes it was too much overcast so I see so many people
so I'll show you a trick so let's apply the sunset preset
to this one it's gonna look kind of weird at first
because there was no real sunset
so you're gonna be very gentle when you do that
what you do is you first of all you take the circle
and you put it where the Sun is, the Sun was there so
and I'm gonna put it just really outside
so it's just a little bit there and maybe even look you
know use the luminous mask so that it goes behind
so you just have a little tad of color okay,
something it just helps bring the color
I'll show you before that circle before after okay
but there was actually this one I shot
with the wrong white balance so if I go here on top here
instead of adding blue like it here
I'm gonna add a little bit of magenta and a little bit
of yellow on this one and this was one kind of like
one of the first photo I did where I got a lot of press on.
Okay, now that all this quicksand is kind of ugly
but you see it's making the I don't need to be so blue
it's adding a little bit of light but don't overdo it.
I used to do it like strong like this.
Don't do that just do it a little bit.
You're like there's a hint of magenta.
Okay now I'm gonna crop this
because there's too much quicksand for me.
So don't do this at home, we had a fireman
pretty close to us and actually the quicksand
are not that dangerous.
And okay and here there is this gradient you remember
that my presets of gradient so voila
and let me show you so this is the before
and this is the final shot.
get my preset install them if you can purchase
a full package you are amazing we are at home
we are creating art also I wanted to give the winner
for last video Christian Photography his link.
His Instagram link is gonna be below the video.
Look at this black and white so I did a video a last
week about how to fake long exposure with filters
and this is some of the photo he submitted
and I thought it was really really nice
and of photo of Berlin, Christian is very passionate
you gotta follow him,
I'm gonna post his Instagram everywhere.
If you know if you want to win this week challenge.
All you have to do is install my free preset
retouch a sunset photo and post it as a story
in Instagram and tag me at @photoserge.
okay then this way I can see it and the nicest photos
I will forward on my stories and I will pick a winner
and the winner will get a signed copy
of one of my color books and will also be in my newsletter,
on my youtube channel and on my Instagram.
I will put in my feed, so this week it is Christian
you can be the next winner,
it can help to boost your Instagram account.
Well I hope you enjoyed these presets
and I will see you in another video.