Guys.
So today we're doing something a little bit different.
We're going to be talking all about the artwork.
Yes, the artwork that you see in all of my videos.
So many of you guys have wondered, where does the artwork come from?
How do I get it to look so poppin?
And we're going to be breaking that down today.
So if you want to learn about that, then definitely stay tuned for today's video.
So to really get into it, let's head down to the studio.
Okay, guys, we're here at the desk.
So first up, let's break this video down into a few different sections.
The first one, I'm going to talk about the artwork itself and where I get it.
The second one is I'm going to talk about
how I edit that artwork so it pops.
And the third one I'm going to talk about how I integrate it into the videos.
So first up, where does the artwork I use come from?
Well, most of the artwork in my videos is original from the time periods
I like to talk about.
So most of it comes from the 18th and 19th century.
I do use artwork from up to around maybe 1920 in videos
like "How to Take a First Class Trip on the Titanic."
This artwork comes from so many different amazing artists back then.
And I get most of it from the public domain collections that major
universities, museums and organizations have made available to us online.
Which is just so amazing of them.
Thank you, guys.
So what is a public domain image?
Basically, it's an image that no longer is under copyright.
And most images, in the United States, that were published before
1927 are in the public domain.
And so that's how I'm able to use all of this artwork for free.
So these museums and organizations have digitized
their collections and made them available online for use.
So two of my biggest sources are the Rijks Museum and also the Met.
They both have amazing search capabilities
and a lot of different types of images available.
Now, if I can't find the images I want on either of those sites,
some of my backup sites include--let's see, I wrote a list--the Musee du Paris,
Yale Center for British Art, The Massachusetts Digital Commonwealth.
Now, if I can't find anything in that, then I'm going to start turning to places
like Wikimedia, which is the Wikipedia of images.
They have some really interesting public domain sources, too.
In fact, they're usually my first source for something that's just, like,
super basic.
Like, if I need the official portrait of a British king,
they're going to have it and they're going to have it easily available.
And I'm not going have to dig deep into one of the other collections.
But in short, that is where I get
the images that I use in my videos.
However, once I find and download one of these images,
it does not look like how it does in my video.
I do quite a bit of editing to every single one.
So let's talk about that now.
So first up here I am on the museum website and I like this image.
I'm like, that is a cool fashion plate.
It is from 1914.
So that's a good indication that since it was put out
before 1927, that it is in the public domain.
If I want to check more, I can look at more details and usually
it will say somewhere down there
that the copyright is in a public domain.
So this means I can use this image without having to worry about copyright issues.
Okay.
So then I hit the download Image button.
So after you download an image, what I will do is import it
into my adobe Lightroom collection of classic art.
This is where I keep all of my edited art and I do initial
edits to the images.
Now here's something important to note.
I used to do photography.
I think I actually spoke about this in my like persuasion comparison video.
Like, I did wedding and senior portraits
and all different types of photography before I became a YouTuber.
So I was very, very comfortable using both Adobe
Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop going into this.
And so I do think those skills definitely helped me learn
how to edit the images for my videos.
However, I also have to say that even then it was kind of like a learning process
because editing these images is very different from editing somebody's
wedding portraits, right?
Like very different things.
However, some of the basic concepts are the same.
So I open it up in Lightroom and this is what it looks like.
So when I start editing images
like this, there's a few different aspects I'm really looking to correct.
One is the fact that art, as it ages, will turn yellow.
We definitely see that with this image, like the paper is super yellow
and even the classic paintings will turn yellow
because the varnish on them turns yellow over time and it distorts
how the image looks.
A sky will look green today when the original artist
had painted a blue sky.
And so I do try to color correct the images.
Another thing that happens to art is it fades, the colors fade
and the blacks fade.
So it's very less contrasty and poppy than it should be.
And so I fix that.
And then another major thing that I look to do is make it less distracting.
So, for example,
this image has like a bunch of writing and dates and logos and stuff on it.
I'll remove that
because that would just be distracting to the person watching my video.
Something else I do is I build in consistency with the entire
rest of my video's look and feel
and I'll show you exactly how I do that and a little bit.
Well, let's get into fixing the problem with this image.
Okay.
So the first thing I do is I go over and to develop in Adobe Lightroom
and I actually have
a whole preset that I always run.
Now I created this preset you can buy Lightroom presets
if you know anything about Lightroom, or you can create your own.
And this is one I created that does bring up the blaks a little bit
so that it has more contrast and it's a little bit more saturated.
But as you can see from the before and after there, it's a little bit better,
but it's still far from being what I would want it to be in my video.
So I'm going to open it up
in Photoshop.
So in Photoshop, one of the first things I need to do
is correct the fact that it is so yellow
and this is actually super simple.
When I first started editing these pictures,
I did all these crazy roundabout things trying to fix this
until I discovered the secret of making the images not yellow anymore,
which is I've only created new curves adjustment layer.
I take the White Eyedropper Tool and I click on the paper
that should be a whitish color, and I keep clicking until like
I feel like I hit on the thing that makes it look
well-balanced according to me.
So there we have that.
I color corrected it and it took like one second.
Let's look at the before and after.
In my
opinion, that is an immense improvement.
However, we are not done there.
Okay, so as you can see,
it's better, but we still have a lot of the edges.
We have all of the writing.
So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to
select the part of the image I want
and pretty much use something that in Photoshop
called a mask to hide
all of that.
So just knocks it out and I put a white background behind it
and then I'll usually pretty much crop it in a little bit.
So there's less crazy white space happening.
Okay, so this image is already looking immensely better.
It has all the distracting stuff gone.
It's white balanced, but I feel like that it could still be more popping.
So what I'm going to do is add levels
where I pretty much I'm going to bring those blacks back to life.
I might bring up the whites just a little bit,
but I don't want to like, totally burn her skin tone out.
And let's
see, I feel like that's good right there.
But now we have the darker colors in the image back,
and they're bold and they're not faded with time anymore.
Now, this point, this image's color is pretty good,
but I can see like I might turn it up just a little bit more with saturation.
So there we have it.
This image is looking nice and refreshed and hopefully closer back to what
it would have looked like in the original time period before
age ravaged it, before it aged badly.
Now, after this, there is one more step.
And this is actually a pretty important one,
because it has to do with the consistency of my video.
And that is I am going to replace the paper texture.
So when I knocked out the background of this image
and replaced it with a white background that is like flat white is 100% white.
There is no texture, there is no color to it.
But what I do is I have a paper background that is called Eggshell
Paper, apparently. Take it
and I multiply it down,
which is like a blending mode.
I'm using so many random terms I realized nobody probably knows
unless you're all into Photoshop.
I am sorry, but you guys wanted to know how I did this.
Anyway, so I blended down.
Multiply at 45%.
Basically, so it's just over the image.
And as you can see,
that white back around
now has texture and it has color to it.
Most people probably never notice, I think that that white
texture behind all of the art is slightly pink.
Now, that slight pink ness is actually just a very light form of my pink
brand color.
And so
the branding is deep in my channel.
But basically I do the step to replace that paper texture
and give us all of the artwork on my channel, like a very consistent look
and it makes everything kind of interchangeable,
which I'm going to demonstrate in a little bit.
But at this point I feel like this image is looking pretty good.
So I'm going to save it
and go back to Lightroom.
Okay, so here is a before and after.
I got a drink now.
It's very fizzy.
So that was the before and after.
That I was incredibly fizzy.
But now let's head into Adobe Premiere Pro.
Now, this is the program I used to edit almost all of my YouTube
videos and I am a huge Adobe fan.
I started using them my last semester in college.
So like I've mentioned in other videos, I was an English major,
but my last semester in college I had this dream of learning how to do photography.
And of course Adobe gives amazing discounts to students.
And I realized that after I graduated
I would no longer qualify for that discount.
So I was like, Do I use the last of my scholarship money to buy Adobe or
do I just not follow my dream?
And so of course I did. I bought Adobe.
And I do think it was like one of the best decisions I ever made
because learning Photoshop and Lightroom and all the other programs
like Illustrator and Premiere has definitely helped me in my career.
And of course, it's what I use on my YouTube channel.
I have to say my first weekend that I got it, because back in...
back in my day they used to ship it to you in a box on a CD.
And the first weekend I got it,
I cried because like I didn't know how to use Photoshop.
And you tried and I tried and like nothing wasn't working.
And so I just cried and I was like, I made the worst decision ever.
But then I.
I stuck with it clearly.
And we're here now.
So this has been my spiel for Adobe.
I actually love them so much.
I signed up for their affiliate program, so I will be linking to them down below.
So definitely check them out if you're interested in learning
more about creative programs or editing videos or photos like this.
And also again, if you are a student, that is when they give you
the best deals ever.
So definitely check them out if you're a student just saying.
But let's get back into using this image in a video.
Now, first up, when there is artwork in a YouTube videos, sometimes
it will look like this where it doesn't really fill the whole screen.
There's just like big black bars on either side.
And even if they do have it set to move, it's just moving within
like a weird black void.
And that's not exactly my favorite thing in the world.
Now, this is where that last step in my editing process
comes in, which is replacing that paper texture
and how it's the same exact paper texture
at the same opacity on every single image I edit because what it does is it creates
like this inner connected system that allows me to do this.
So for example, when I put my image there,
I can take this same exact
white paper texture and put it behind it, and it creates
a seamless look across the entire image.
Now the entire screen is filled and it matches the edges
of that image for seamlessness.
Now this has so many different advantages.
One, it looks better.
So one of the main benefits is like, Look, I can put this image anywhere.
And it still looks like it's exactly where it was supposed to be.
Something else that allows me to do is I have multiple images right
next to each other in a video and they are just so consistent.
They look like they just seamlessly blend together, except for the fact that, well,
apparently I chose two images for this example that don't match in art style.
But a lot of the times when I have like two fashion plates on the same image,
it can make it look like they're even, like, meant to be together.
Mm hmm.
Anyway, that is how I edit the art that goes on my channel.
I get it from public domain collections that museums put out and then I edit it
and Lightroom and Photoshop before combining it all in Premiere Pro.
Let me know in the comments down below, do you enjoy seeing the classic art
in my videos?
What is your favorite kind?
Do you like the paintings?
The fashion plates?
Let me know in the comments down below.
And as always, keep being awesome, because you are awesome. Bye!