- Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs!
In this video, I want to show you a really cook trick
that is going to take your beach photography
to the next level.
You see, the problem with beach photography
is really finding the right photo alignment.
If you stay until the end of this video,
I'm going to show you a whole bunch of tricks
that I promise will help you to get better photos
at the beach, and get better exposure out of photography.
I believe in 2019, it is the best time
for you to become a better photographer,
a more exposed photographer,
and I want to help you on this channel.
Come with me in Florida and I'm going to show you
some really cool trick.
All right, so, the trick is very simple.
You see, the hardest thing to do
when you take a beach photography
is to find the right foreground element.
Anybody can take a photo of the beach, you know,
with the sand in the foreground or with some people.
You know, you got a great sunset.
You see hundreds of people taking photos.
But the photos that truly do well on social media,
the photo that gets sales in gallery,
are the photos that have an amazing foreground,
middle ground, background, a very clear message.
And that's what I'm going to show you.
So the trick that I did is I got really close to the water.
You have to be careful not to put salty water on your lens.
That's very important.
But the waves are very small, and they look like nothing
when I was shooting them from far,
so I got really close to them and I put my camera
on High Speed Mode so I could take
like 5, 10 photos per second.
And I was taking photos as a wave was coming
and I'm going to show you the settings in one second.
I'm going to show you some really cool tricks
on retouching them.
But anyway, I took hundreds of photos, but you will see
the result is really cool and it's some of the nicest photos
I've ever taken in this beach.
Also, don't forget to like this video
and leave me a comment.
I read every single comment.
Let me show you in the studio some really cool tricks.
All right, well I'm back from Clearwater Beach
and I really enjoy this technique.
The whole idea is really to get a cool foreground element.
So by shooting at a high frequency, you can really,
you know, have the wave coming towards you.
As I said, one thing I want to show you is that
I first was using Auto Focus
and a lot of my shots were really blurry,
so finally what I did is I went to Manual Focus
and on Manual Focus, I was able to
I think on this one, no, this one's still Auto Focus.
I was able to get everything sharp by, you know,
being basically on the house, you see, on the house.
So yeah, make sure you don't use Auto Focus.
On this one, you can see the series was done with...
Let's see the settings.
So 1/40 of a second and 5.6 in ISO 125.
That's a mistake.
I probably should have been at ISO 100.
So, let me show you how I'm going to retouch it
now that I showed you how I shot it.
So again, what I was trying to avoid is a photo like this,
with people in the foreground, or even photos
where you get some of this algae is in the foreground.
Or even if you're shooting and the wave is small,
here is the issue.
Compare this photo with this photo.
I'm going to press the C mode
so you understand where I'm coming from.
You see, on the left side, I'm standing up.
And on the right side, I'm closer.
There is two advantages.
First one is the wave is bigger, okay.
But the second advantage is
you see how the water has a lot of small wave?
I call this high-frequency texture.
It looks almost like, you know, paper you would use
to scrap paint off a wall or something.
When here, because you get closer,
the wave gets bigger, so it's much more pleasant.
So that's one thing to remember.
Give it a shot.
It's going to change the way you do photos.
So now how to retouch it.
Well, I'm going to give you some amazing free preset
called my toolbox.
You can find the links in the description.
And basically, I'm going to use my signature preset
that I've used to do my Paris book, my New York book,
my Los Angeles book, my Venice book.
This is the actual preset I've been using
and it's only a starting point.
So on this one, for example, I'm going to use
a Golden Hour Linear Circle.
Just so you have an understanding, the Golden Hour Basic
is just basic retouching with golden hour in mind.
Okay, then we have Golden Hour Linear,
which is the same thing, but it has gradients,
meaning if I click here, you have a gradient
and I click on this, you have a gradient here
and a gradient here that you can change.
And then we have the next one,
which is Golden Hour Linear Circle.
It's the same one, but on top of the gradient,
you have a circle, which is there to make the sunset nicer.
And then what you have here is a dark version
and a light version.
So I'm going to start off with maybe the dark version
or no, maybe just the regular Golden Hour Linear Circle.
I'm going to push my black point.
So I'm holding the Option key, the Alt key
on my keyboard for this effect.
So the whole idea of the black point
is you want to get like 1% or 2% of the photo,
like just a little bit of pure black.
What you see here is pixels which are pure black
and what you see here are pixels which are pure white.
But I don't want so much pure white,
so I'm going to go back maybe just a tiny bit with the size
and then I'm going to add some contrast.
So now I'm ready to do the local adjustment.
I'm going to click here, I'm going to click here on the sky.
And usually on skies, I like to add
a little bit of blue and a little bit of magenta
so that we have a strong blue going into the sunset.
I really like that.
And for the bottom, usually I like to darken the bottom.
And in this case, I like my wavy water so much
that I'm going to do the reverse.
I'm going to add some exposure
and I'm going to add some blue,
because water that's not blue looks muddy, you know.
And maybe just add a little bit of contrast,
maybe a little bit of exposure or not,
and I really like this.
Also, sharpening is taken care of.
I mean, there's over 30 sliders in these presets.
You got to give them a shot.
Again, the link is below the video.
I might add a bit of vibrance, you know.
So vibrance is a personal taste.
I like very vibrant photos, some people don't.
You know what? Here's a slider.
On the right, very vibrant.
On the left, not so much.
So I'm just going to go very light on this one.
Okay, and the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to
take the three next photos.
And so you see, I started with a preset,
and now I'm going to click Synchronize,
and I'm going to synchronize
everything on these three photos, except the brush.
Oh, I forgot to do the brush.
Let me show you.
Yeah, I was like, "There's something missing here."
I'm going to take a little brush.
I'm going to make sure that Flow and Densities are on 80.
I'm going to add a bit of exposure, a little bit of blue,
and I'm just going to paint on that wave here
and maybe a little bit on the light here,
just to make everything shine more.
And that's way overboard.
So 0.96, I'm going to go back to maybe 0.64.
Yeah, just to make the photo pop a little more.
Let me show to you the full screen mode.
I think it's so cool.
You should really go to the beach
and try these techniques.
You will love it.
Okay, let me show you.
Don't hang up yet, I got to show you something else.
So now I'm going to synchronize all that
by clicking here on the...
So I'm not going to use the brush,
I'm just going to click on Synchronize.
And by the way guys, if you can take a second
and like this video, it really helps me
produce two videos per week.
Just smash that like button and leave me a comment.
Tell me what you want to learn.
I'll do my best to fulfill your wishes.
Voila, voila, voila.
It's not so bad, but then you have to take every photo
and you have to adjust everything.
So on this one, I'm going to adjust the black point.
So you hold down the Option key, you adjust the black point.
You don't want something like that's a little too much.
And then you adjust the white point.
And then, I'm not going to adjust this,
but I'm going to adjust the circle, which is here.
And honestly, the sunset got so crazy
that I don't need the circle on this one.
I'm just going to erase it.
It just looks so yellow, like a yellow
that only Florida knows how to deal with, you know.
But I'm going to do the brush, same value.
I'm just going to brush a little bit here on the flow
to make it pop and bring it back a little bit.
And I'm basically going to do the same thing for this photo.
So it's already sort of retouched.
All I have to do is maybe just adjust the black point.
And you know, you can tweak these presets to your settings.
Preset is only a base, and then you just make it your own.
You can even save them as your own presets.
Preset will change your life.
You got to try out...
The toolbox I'm giving you is amazing.
It's got preset, it's got textures, and it's got
lots of videos to show you how to install them,
how to use them.
You got to download that photographic toolbox
that's below the video.
It's going to change your life forever or not,
but at least it's going to help you make better photos.
And voila!
And you know, usually what I do, so let me do one more.
All right, so I'm just going to bring it down. Voila.
And black and white.
And usually what I do is I press...
I select all four, I go into the survey mode,
and I put Shift+Tab.
So N and Shift+Tab and I can see them.
And I said, "Okay, which one do I like the most?"
I think it really helps capture this beach photography
because you don't have the high-frequency texture effect
and you have a cool foreground.
Check out this video I did last week
on Lightroom Mobile Edit.
It's how to select your best portrait,
and how to retouch them.
Check it out.