(rattling)
- A friend of mine brought me back these beans from Japan.
And what's cool, I mean the bottle is cool,
but what's cool about this is that it was actually
sealed with nitrogen inside.
So it's very hard but it keeps these fresh forever.
And I just quite enjoy that.
(rock music)
What's up everybody, Peter McKinnon here,
welcome back to another tutorial.
Today we are continuing, we're continuing the segment,
the sessions on beginner mistakes that you make
in photography that hopefully you're not gonna make
because I'm gonna shine a little light on these
so that you can not them moving forward.
And today's specific lesson, if you will,
tutorial, is about editing.
The last video that we did, which I'll link right here,
was just beginner mistakes that you're
gonna make in photography.
Just general things with regards to actually shooting.
But today we're going to move into the second video
in this series which is the editing process,
things that I wish I didn't do when I look back
at my photos and I see them, and I think to myself,
oh my goodness, I can't believe I did that.
That's just, take it away, take it away.
It's like when someone brings out the old photo album
and you've got like your girlfriend over, or whatever,
and like oh look at Peter when he was seven.
You're like no, put that away, no one needs to see those.
Let's just sweep them under the rug forever.
Hopefully you watch this video, you get inspired,
you keep some of these things under your belt,
and the next time you're editing you shots, you're like
oh yeah, that is probably a little too much.
(upbeat music)
So let's start with number one,
which we are calling over edits.
Now that's pretty self explanatory.
When I first started editing photos, which was in
Photoshop, I wasn't even using Lightroom,
but let's just pretend you are starting now
and you're using Lightroom.
The easiest thing to do, and I'm still guilty of it.
Disclaimer, all of these points that you're going to see
that I'm going to make, I'm pretty much guilty of all of
them at some point, and even still some time.
We're all learning, we're all in this together.
Don't feel bad, or don't feel singled out.
This is just, this is the way this art form goes.
But over editing is one of the biggest, biggest
and easiest mistakes to make when you're editing.
You're pushing that saturation way too hard.
You're pushing the contrast way too hard.
You're pushing the clarity way too hard, the sharpness,
all of those things where sometimes in the moment they
look good, but when you take like a five minute breather,
or a ten minute breather, or even a day, you come back
and look at that photo and you're like...
(gasp)
Wow, I don't know what I was thinking yesterday
when I edited that, or I don't know what I was thinking
ten minutes ago before I went to the washroom
and came back and saw this atrocity.
(laughs)
So being careful not to over edit your photos,
showing some restraint, holding back a little bit
is going to be better in the long run.
And you're going to get a nicer looking photo.
Because a photo that looks too processed is just a photo
that looks too processed.
No one actually sees the content of the photo.
They just see the processing.
You could have the best image you've ever seen in the world,
and you post it, but if it's over processed,
people are just going to be like wow, that's unfortunate.
Look how heavily edited this is.
Look at the skies, look how saturated.
You're gonna miss the fact that it's an erupting volcano
shooting lava a hundred feet in the air.
And there's a steep plane just dodging that splash.
That doesn't matter, they're just going to see that you
took that clarity slide to the max.
Now speaking of the clarity slider, found something that you
guys like, know that the more you put clarity into a photo
with lightroom, it's gonna actually de-saturate it.
Pulls color, it sucks the color right out of that photo
the more you use that clarity.
And just the same thing like when you're using contrast,
the more contrast you're adding to a photo,
the more saturation you're adding to a photo.
So it's all these little things that are trial and error
that you need to make sure that you're not pushing it
too far because there's a very fine line between like,
alright relax, and, that's a beautiful image.
Over editing, easy mistake to make,
try your best to avoid it.
Moving on.
(upbeat music)
Mistake number two we are calling crop top.
Why did I say crop top, like what does that,
that's a style of shirt, Peter.
I don't know why you're referencing that to photography.
I'm just trying to make this fun.
Because crop on its on as a title, it just didn't look good.
It didn't sound enticing, it wasn't fun to say.
But crop top, oh now we're talking.
Now we're having a conversation because it's funny.
We're talking about the crop tool.
A lot of people either use it incorrectly
or they don't use it at all.
Sometimes when you take a photo, when you get that photo
back into Lightroom, using the crop tool to actually
adjust the frame and change the composition to make it more
pleasing by either getting rid of all of that headroom,
or getting ride of that lamppost on the right side.
The crop tool is your friend.
Don't be afraid to use it.
Don't just limit the crop tool to like
Instagram four by five, see ya later.
Use it to actually better frame a shot if you've
got any type of image where there's too much space
on the right or too much space above or below.
And by just trimming that up a little bit, and moving that
crop in, it's gonna make that picture look better.
So, using the crop tool to your advantage
is something I wish I did more of.
When I was starting photography,
I almost never cropped anything at all.
Even being able to crop further into a photo.
If you took something that was really, really wide
because cameras are very high resolution these days,
so you're able to actually push in and pull out
a nicer frame shot using the crop tools.
If I could go back, I would be cropping my photos a lot
more to precisely pinpoint that perfect frame
to just get nicer looking photography.
So, crop top, not a shirt.
It is a shirt, but in this case,
we're talking about cropping photos.
Moving on to the next point.
(upbeat music)
Mistake number three, export master.
I don't mean your a master at exporting.
I mean export a master.
So many times you start editing a photo and then you crop
it for Instagram or you size it for web, or you size
it for something else, and you export that version
and then you forget to actually export the master.
A couple weeks go by, you've imported move photos,
then you go back to try and find it and you're like,
uh, I only have the full size but it's a four by five
for Instagram, where's the actually landscape shot.
Then you've got to go back, find the ROF photo if
you still have it, which you should,
because you should back up all your stuff.
But then you've got to go and re-edit that photo,
if you didn't have it synced and Light-
and then, it's just, it can be a nightmare.
I always recommend, before you do any type of different
crops or exports or hi-res or low-res exports, Instagram,
anything like that, export a master file.
Edit the shot to how you like it, export it, save it.
Then go back in and do what you need to do.
And if you want a bonus tip on top of that, to make
things easier, next time you're in Lightroom and you're
editing a shot, go down to the bottom where all the
thumbnails are, right click and select create virtual copy.
That duplicates the photo.
You'll see that it shows up
with a little page turned icon.
Now you can edit that photo however you want.
Maybe it's a black and white shot, maybe it's styled
completely differently, maybe it's cropped for Instagram,
four by five, but then you can export that copy
and you still have your master that is maybe edited
differently and not cropped by four by five.
So by creating a virtual copy, you can do that one,
two, three, four, five, six, however many times you want.
You're not damaging that master.
So, export your master files, don't lose them.
So many times, so many times I've been in this boat
where I've just had to go back and re-edit shots.
Boom, export master.
Moving on to number four.
(upbeat music)
That's an interesting title Peter.
Humans, not aliens, well what do you mean by that?
I mean when you see portraits that look like this.
Huh!
I mean, you've got to remember folks.
As my friend Gabriel says, humans have pores.
So many times people like to smooth out someone's skin.
Ah, high fashion.
It's going to look better.
They're going to look more attractive.
Let's just remove all the texture, all the detail.
Before you know it, it doesn't even look like a human.
It looks like an actual alien.
Or just something that I'm not even sure what it is.
It's just not pleasing to look at.
Massive, massive, massive editing mistake
is just going way to hard on skin tones.
Either making them look like they have jaundice
or they're too bright and albino.
Or you're completely crushed them and the skin starts to
deteriorate because that picture's been so sharpened
that the skin tone now looks like
you've got lesions on your face or something.
Just don't push skin tones too hard,
especially by softening them too much.
And that goes just as much for the eyes.
People love to brighten up eyeballs,
to the point where you look demonic.
You look like you're going to shoot beams
from your eyes, doesn't look good.
Maybe a slight, slight clarity bump in the eyes,
maybe little bit of iris brightener, but not to the point
where it's like actually creepy.
It stands out way too much,
and it's something that just doesn't look good.
But it's something that a lot
of amateur editors do in the beginning.
They pump those skin tones, they change them up,
they soften the skin, they brighten up the eyes.
And you're left with the weirdest looking photos
that anyone's ever seen.
So that's just a big no.
I would avoid that as much as you can.
Small subtle movements with those sliders folks.
We want to take pictures of humans, not aliens.
I mean, pictures (inaudible) to be cool,
that's a whole other topic.
Moving on to point number five.
(upbeat music)
Number five, that's so cliche.
I guess you kinda figured out the point from there.
We're talking about avoiding cliches.
Now sometimes clients want stuff like this.
If you're shooting for a living and they're like,
hey I would love it if I was holding an umbrella
and maybe just that umbrella was red,
and everything else was black and white.
That would be cool.
No it's not cool.
It's your job as a photographer to convince that client
that is not, it's not 2018,
we're not going to do that anymore.
Like we're not doing star wipes to the next frame.
Little circles.
Sometimes certain trends in photography are trendy
but that doesn't necessarily mean they're good,
or you should do them.
Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should do it.
So avoiding things like crazy HDR photos
and landscapes where everything just looks plastic.
Or color selection where that guy's shirt is green,
everything else is black and white.
Yes, it falls under the creative feel,
but as far as it goes, it's just cliche.
It's like the star wipe, it doesn't really look that good.
So I would avoid as many cliches as you can.
You're gonna get better looking photos.
You're gonna get better looking edits.
Again, I want to clarify,
I'm not singling any one person out.
I'm guilty of all these things myself.
I've done them all from the moment I started taking photos,
I've probably done every single one of these things,
I'm telling you, but that is why I'm telling you
these things, so that you don't have to make these mistakes.
You'll be a better photographer faster,
and that's what we want.
We want to take the best images we possibly can.
So with all of this stuff in mind, grab your camera,
go out tonight, stay indoors tonight, whatever.
Take the photo.
Take something, create something right now.
Like this video, subscribe if you aren't already,
and grab your camera, go shoot something,
keep these tips in mind.
Keep the tips from the last video in mind.
Post it online.
Be proud of your work.
Use your gear, use your stuff.
We're photographers, love what we do, go do it.
Thanks so much for watching.
Like I said before, hit that like button if
you like this video and subscribe if you aren't already.
And folks, I will see you in the next video
because I have this big case here that I need to talk about.
I'm pretty excited about it, if you know what it is.
See you in the next one.
(upbeat music)