- Bonjour mesdames and messieurs.
In this video, I got a challenge
from one of my students called Alan Watson,
who challenged me, and he said,
why don't you take some of your most favorite,
icon photos, from like 10 years ago,
and retouch it with a fresh eye today?
And I thought that was such a great concept.
So I took one of my most iconic photos,
which was my first sort of cover that I did,
actually like small cover.
And it's a photo that changed my life,
because I was an amateur back then,
and when I got published in this magazine I was like, okay,
in this life I'm going to be a photographer.
It gave me the confidence to be a photographer,
and a fine art photographer.
Do you know my taste has completely changed over the years.
You will see that back, 10 years ago,
I had a tendency to over process the photos,
because I was like a kid that just got a new toy.
Photoshop, Lightroom, Plugin, Photomatix, Aurora,
there was so many techniques 10 years ago,
And as I grew I get more natural and more wiser
in fact it's a technique that has helped me a lot.
This is my Instagram number of followers,
this is the 12 months, I just passed over 100,000
and more and more I go natural, more I get impact.
In fact epic and natural.
Dramatic and natural, not dramatic and over processed.
So, here's a challenge and stay until the end,
you will see the second project the difference is crazy.
All right, so here is the challenge.
This photo I shot, you can see here, I believe it's first
August, 2007, yeah at nine P.M.
You know as I showed you, this was first cover of magazine.
This photo is probably the photo that brought me the most
confidence, this was like this was going to be my life.
I couldn't believe I made a magazine cover with this
and I want to show you how I would retouch it today.
So I'm gonna do the simplified version
because truth be told, this was an HDR
and I'm not gonna do it as HDR because I want this
not too hard for you to follow,
but it's gonna be a very similar thing.
So, this is one of the RAW file of this photo,
as you can see there was a boat there.
It was a crazy, crazy, crazy sunset and now almost 13 years
later this is how I would retouch it.
So this is a Canon 5D Mark II file I believe,
so it's gonna be very noisy when you open up the shadows,
check this out.
Like especially here around the tree, I mean it,
I don't know if you can see on the video,
look at all the fringes we get here.
The chromatic aberration.
My old Canon camera used to give me a lot of noise
and a lot of chromatic aberration that I don't have
now with the Sony, but so I would still probably open
the shadows 100%.
I would bing the highlights down, look at this.
By bringing the highlights I'm getting all that,
but what I do is I, as I grow older as a photographer
I grow much more natural.
You see the problem with this retouch is that it's,
for me it screams Photoshop.
I mean I was happy I did a magazine cover with it,
but a lot of people when they saw the photo,
their first reaction was like oh, but did you do something
to the photo and did you Photoshop it?
It was really always the first reaction,
so I want to do it in a more natural way,
because 15 years later, or 13 years later as I grew older
as a photographer I try to just, this is my game.
Maximum drama, but not putting attention on,
not over processing the photo so that people don't
think it's with Photoshop.
You know, and as I told you, on my Instagram when I started
doing that my Instagram exploded.
I think the best combination
is drama versus not over processed and that's what I'm
gonna try to teach you here.
So I open up the shadows, I brought down the highlights,
I'm gonna do my black point with holding the Option key.
And voila.
And then I'm gonna do my white point.
I don't wanna burn anything, I don't care about burning
the city lights, so because I'm holding the option key
I can see what's burned so I do it this.
Yeah, somewhere around there.
Now the key is gonna be the white balance.
Now the truth is I actually never do what I'm doing now,
I always use my preset and I'll show you,
I'll give you some of my free presets so you can do that
so you don't even have to follow all these steps.
You can just install my free preset and you get most
of it done.
On this one I might just warm it up,
but I don't wanna get it so yellow that I used to do,
because that's unreal.
I mean it was a crazy sunset, but it never gets that yellow,
you know what I mean?
So maybe I'm gonna go like to daylight,
yeah maybe daylight, the preset daylight is good.
Maybe add a bit of magenta but not so much.
Maybe warm it up a little bit more,
because it's more like, this was more like after sunset,
like the sun was really down, we're more into the blue hour.
So I think on this one I will use a blue hour preset,
I think it's gonna work better.
Maybe add a bit of more contrast.
Okay.
And then, yeah.
So, because I made it so dark you don't see the noise
which is kinda cool, so let's carry on.
I think, let me zoom in.
I think on this one I'm gonna use texture.
Texture is a new slider that is only for people
which are Creative Cloud members, so if you don't have it,
don't worry about it.
You just have to be a Creative Cloud member.
You can check on photoserge.com on my gear page
how to become that if you need to.
I think it's awesome, it's like $10 per month,
you have Lightroom and Photoshop, I think it's kinda cool.
So texture is gonna bring the bridge texture there,
now clarity, I'm actually gonna do a minus clarity
on this one.
Because minus clarity is gonna make it
just less kinda of HDR looking.
Now, vibrance and saturation, I'm not,
I'm actually even gonna do like maybe a little minus five
vibrance because it's so, I mean it was a very vivid moment.
It was very, very in your face kind of,
it was one of the most incredible sunset I ever saw.
So I don't wanna underestimate the sunset.
So, here on Hue and Saturation, on Hue I might move around
this a little bit.
You see how Hue is gonna change the color.
Let me do it in extreme.
Here on the right side's gonna take all the yellow
of that wall and make it very yellowish,
and here is gonna make it very red.
I think I wanna go, just maybe a little more reddish here.
And then here on the orange, just go very like on this.
You know?
But this is what truly what I do.
So I just move this around, maybe make it a little bit
more orange, just a little tad and the greens,
I'm not gonna touch the greens.
I'm not gonna add any saturation because it was so much
saturated already this photo.
Split toning I'm not going to do anything.
Details I am going to do something.
So let me zoom back in.
What I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to sharpen
this to about 70,
so that it's really sharp, but that's gonna bring back
some of the noise here.
So what I'm gonna do because it was a Canon file
from an old camera, I'm gonna put the noise reduction
probably around 30.
Okay?
And that's gonna blur out a little bit the noise.
I like this value of 70 plus 30.
That gives me a 100, I kind of like that.
And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do my masking,
so that 70 of sharpened right now
is being applied everywhere, the problem,
you can't really see it here but it's gonna sharpen
the sky and it's gonna make it a bit grainy.
So what you can do, and that's very important,
but that's included in my preset.
You don't even have to worry about that if you use
the preset is you hold on the Option key and you do
the masking around 50 70.
So what you see here in black is not gonna get sharpened.
You don't wanna sharpen the sky,
you only wanna sharpen the edges, okay?
And in white is the edges, so it's a mask.
White is going to get sharpen,
black is not gonna get sharpen.
And boom, this way we have a much cleaner file.
Much more cleaner file, which is kinda cool.
So much less saturated, maybe I'm gonna make it a tad
brighter like this, just a little bit more brighter
and then I'm gonna go here
and I'm gonna make a graded filter.
So I'm gonna click here, okay,
I'm gonna click here and them I'm gonna lower a little
bit of saturation, the exposure here and maybe add
back a little bit of blue.
Because I like to go from blue but very little,
like minus 10 maybe.
I like to go from kind of blue to warm here.
And then I'm gonna click and drag and make the same value
at the bottom of the photo just so that we focus more
the attention inside of the photo.
Let me show you before
the gradient after.
It's very subtle,
but as I grow older I do a lot more subtle retouching.
And I think I'm gonna add a gradient here
for the sunset.
I wanna make the sunset even better so I'm gonna add
a big gradient here.
And on this gradient I might just add bit of yellow
and a bit of magenta and a bit of exposure
just to make this pop here.
But you see now, it's a little too obvious so what I'm gonna
is I'm gonna go here to,
first I'm gonna feather this and I'm gonna go
Arrange Mask Luminance.
Okay Luminance.
And I'm gonna move that slider to the right
so that this whole thing is gonna go behind the buildings.
This whole circle is gonna go behind,
maybe I'm gonna add a little bit more yellow
and check this out, so before the circle,
after the circle.
Just a little more yellow, I think I'm gonna add
more magenta, I think we can make it a little more magenta.
And maybe add a bit more saturation, yeah.
Just for that part here, 'cause this is where
people are looking at so let's see before.
After.
Before.
After.
Maybe it's a little too much of luminance mask.
So, you know, it's kind of subtle, you know,
I'm much subtle now.
Let's see here what else we got.
Sharpening we did.
Profile, make sure that, yeah,
we remove chromatic aberration.
Now check this out.
Chromatic aberration, you see how red that is.
So let's click on remove chromatic aberration,
see if it helps.
And it did help a little bit, but see, we still get
a lot of red.
So we need like this, you go manual,
and then you see here you got Purple Hue or Green Hue.
This is definitely more a red hue so what you do
is you take this and you put it more in the red, okay?
And then check this out.
If I move this, look at the red here on the tree.
If I move this to the right
bam bam bam, look at this it's gone.
But do you see now it's making a purple fringe.
It's too much.
So you have to go very light.
I usually go like two, or three, not more.
It just, it's just gonna make it a bit less.
Not completely gone, but a bit less.
Let me show you.
Before.
See how the red is?
And after.
Okay.
Now transform, I'm not gonna touch for now.
And Post-Crop Vignetting yes.
I might add a bit of Post-Crop Vignetting.
Let me zoom out.
So Post-Crop Vignetting I kind of like.
It just makes the whole photo a bit darker.
I think now I am really too dark,
so I am just gonna boost the exposure.
I'm gonna open up the shadows even more.
And boost the exposure a, not so much.
No, I kind of like the, this is how it felt to me.
I think it's still a little too blue,
so I'm going to warm things up a little bit.
Just a little bit so that it's not so blue.
Okay, and I think I like that.
Now the last step I need to do is I'm going
to crop this photo.
So I'm probably gonna crop it 16 by nine
because that's the thing I do is galleries.
And I'm gonna crop it, I don't like this part here
so I'm gonna crop that out, and then maybe having
like two third of water or one third of sky,
just of the leading line I think I should leave
the water a little bit more,
I think I'm gonna crop it this way.
Something like that.
All right, so all these steps that we've done now
you can do them in a few second
if you install my free preset.
Let me show you.
I'm gonna right click and create a virtual copy
so you can see the difference.
I never work like this.
I always, always, use my preset as a starting point.
So I'm gonna reset this photo.
And I'm just gonna install the preset,
the link is below the video.
We had some issues last week because so many people
downloaded a free preset, but try again,
it's gonna work this time.
Make sure it doesn't go to your spam.
You're gonna get into your spam.
You're gonna get a proposal to get my full bundle
of 280 preset, what I actually use every day.
The one that I've done all my books with.
If you can afford to purchase them, do it.
It will change your life and it's gonna help me
do more free videos.
So I'm gonna import the preset, that's the file you're
gonna get if you put in the link under the video,
and then boom.
It's installed in one click.
All I had to do was install this and on this one,
check this out.
If I go to the golden hour preset or the sunset preset
and it's too much.
This was actually a blue hour, so I'm gonna use
a blue hour preset and in one click I just have to adjust
maybe just a little bit the white balance.
I get a very similar result than what I did
in like quite a few clicks.
All I have to do now is the crop in,
so I can copy and paste the crop in,
so Command + Shift + C.
Check none, I'm just gonna copy process and cropping.
So I press Command + Shift + C, you get that window.
You just use Processing, Cropping and then Command + V
and I'm gonna crop it the same way.
And I get a very similar result, of course I will have
to tweak using the preset in what I just did,
so that's why I only use preset.
And this is how I did it 13 years ago,
it's beautiful but it's unreal to me.
This version looks more real to me.
It's really how it was.
So this is a side to side.
I know a lot of people would prefer this one,
but this one is extraordinary, too much.
This one is really how it was and this is more
what I kinda do now.
I understand if you prefer this one, but I think this one
in the long run will do better because it's more realistic.
That's my next photo so, this was a great photo,
I shot this nine years ago with Matt Kloskowski,
I really good friend of mine and I loved it,
I sold a lot of this photo but now when I look at it,
I'm like oh, it's over processed.
So this is how I'm gonna do it now.
I'm gonna use my preset that I just gave you.
So, on this one, blue hour, golden hour, sunset,
I think I'm gonna use the golden hour preset.
I still think it's too much,
so I'm gonna bring back down some blue.
And every time when you use my preset,
you got to check out the black point,
I'm gonna check out the black point,
so yeah I wanna crush the blacks.
I wanted to do the white.
So, I'm holding the Option key and that's showing me,
you this this pixel's 100% black, I don't wanna go that
strong and then like this, the white balance
is totally weird to me so I'm gonna add back a lot of blue.
I mean it was very sunny and I'm gonna kill
some of the magenta.
Until I have something that I kind of like.
Yeah something like that.
Let's see if I take out the saturation.
Maybe a little more yellow, something like this.
Okay.
Add some contrast.
And you just have to play around, because every time
you add, you do something there
the over white balance changes.
So I think on this one, yeah I'm gonna go like this.
I'm gonna go here, and I'm gonna crop the photo
like I did here, like a very big pano.
So very similar cropping.
I like the cropping that I did, something like that.
Yes.
And voila, press enter, yeah I love that.
And then, okay, let's see, if I go more into the blue.
Yeah, I wanna go for a complete different look
than what I did you now 12 years ago, much more realistic.
But you know what, I think in the end it's gonna win.
Maybe make it a bit brighter.
Let's check out when you use the preset you have
gradients here, so I'll just maybe add a bit more blue
in the gradients.
Yeah, let's make the gradient a bit lower.
Maybe a bit darker, let's see.
Yeah, something like that.
And then we have another gradient here.
I think, I'm not gonna use the bottom gradient.
I'm just gonna use the top gradient, okay.
And then, the problem is that my eyes is adapting
to the retouching so you know, maybe it's gonna be,
if I look at it in an hour, oh, it's too magenta.
Right now I kind of like it.
I think I'm gonna kill some of the magenta.
Maybe add a bit more yellow.
Kill even more of the magenta, add a bit more yellow.
It's the white balance I find is the hardest to nail
really good, but I think this is how
I would retouch it today.
Of course, I did my presets so I know my sharpening is done,
I know everything is done.
I mean how much faster is it to use these presets?
You gotta try them, get my full version.
You will love it.
So, let me show you.
This is what I did 12 years ago, I love it,
but it's too extraordinary.
And this is how I would retouch it today.
Much more natural.
People are not gonna go oh, did you retouch this photo,
did you do something?
No, they're gonna go wow, what a beautiful view of Paris.
So, I hope that helps you in your retouching.
It's like being a kid, when you're a kid,
we give you a toy and you just play around with it,
and you play around with it and you, you know,
that's how I feel as a photographer.
The first time I discovered HDR, the first time I discover
this plugin or that plugin, I always abuse it,
I overuse it.
And as I grow, I grow calmer and wiser and wiser.
And this is how I would retouch it today.
Tell me your thought, do you prefer the old way
or the new way, leave the comment, get the preset,
get the full pack if you can, you will love it.
I have received over a thousand email of people who got
the full preset and told me it's one of the best thing
they ever bought in photography.
Plus I got especially for you, it's a surprise,
click the link under the video.