Natural light photographer, I thrive on these fleeting moments where the love, joy, or soul shows. My artistic background is always showing through my photography work. You will get the more formal portraits, they are after all, what we are looking for at first . But beyond that, candid moments, soulful mood, unexpected places is also what I want to bring out... I hope you'll like my photographic vision...
Sincerely,
Isabelle ♥

Monday, September 27, 2010

Source Workshop starts today!

Are you ready for seven days of workshop?  Files will be posted every morning of this week, right here on the blog.  Links to files will remain on the blog post for as long as you need them.  Not everyone can log in at the same time, and if you missed the opening day, you can still join the workshop a day late.  No problem, I like things to be relaxed and fun.


Today's first lesson is Exposure / Color correction
We'll get familiar with our tools and layers palette, then will add some adjustment layers.  Most difficult task today will be the color correction.  It may look tedious at first, but it's something that will be useful for all your future editing work.
You can download the files by using the links below.


Some days, our lesson will only take you 5 minutes, while other days might keep you working a good 30 minutes.  Add all these steps together and you will know how long it takes to edit a perfect portrait.  That's a valuable info if you plan on making a business out of your photography.  Imagine having to edit a whole session!  Sure, as you are getting the hang of things it will be faster, a lot faster.
But we all have to start somewhere, and getting at ease with Photoshop CS or Elements can be quite intimidating at first.  I hope by the end of this workshop, you'll navigate with ease in your editing software.


So, go and play now!


For today's lesson Exposure / Color correction for CS, grab your FILES HERE.
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For today's lesson Exposure / Color correction for Elements 7.0 & 8.0, grab your FILES HERE.



20 comments:

FYH September 27, 2010 at 7:18 a.m.  

Thank you for these tutorials. I was a little afraid it might be to difficult for me, being Dutch and not used to PE, but I worked it through and it went fine...

Looking forward to source 2.

Isabelle Lafrance September 27, 2010 at 7:29 a.m.  

Thanks for the feedback AJ! So glad you joined us!

timluanne September 27, 2010 at 7:33 a.m.  

oh I can't wait to get home and try these out!!! Thanks so much for posting!

Chasing Dreams Photography September 27, 2010 at 7:37 a.m.  

Awesome lesson!!!! This week is going to rock!!!!! : )

Rosie Fluegel September 27, 2010 at 7:47 a.m.  

Learned something new, Isabelle. I've always been afraid of the channels in the Levels adjustment. Thank you!!!!

Anonymous September 27, 2010 at 11:21 a.m.  

First, thanks for doing and sharing this!!

I'm a bit stuck at the point where it says "...Find one nice black area and go back on the previous “Levels” layer...". When I create the gray layer, the picture is all gray like your sample. I'm not able to see the original picture unless I turn off the gray layer. Even doing that, I select the gray dropper and point to a black area, I get a color cast. I understand the last sentence about why there's a color cast, I'm just not sure if I achieved the final result correctly. Have I?

Sorry for being a dork after you've so explicitly explained things.

Thanks again!

Isabelle Lafrance September 27, 2010 at 11:27 a.m.  

You're not a dork! lol...
When you add the grey layer it has to be in difference mode, then you'll se a weird looking image. The blacks that are highlighted are the neutral greys you have to find. Spot one, and go back on the levels layers, then use the dropper on the area you had spotted. If a color cast appears, then maybe move your dropper just a bit, when you reach that grey point, you'll know by the look of the image. It will look balanced, not too warm, not too cold.

Anonymous September 27, 2010 at 12:02 p.m.  

Ahhh . . . now I know what I was wrong! When I did the fill it was not changing to "difference" mode even though I had selected it the "Fill Layer" dialog box under "Blending". Once I changed it in the "Layers" panel, it all came together.

Thanks for your speedy reply and kind words as I felt like a dork when everyone else was saying how easy it was. :)

Cheers!

Carolyn September 27, 2010 at 12:52 p.m.  

That was a great lesson, Isabelle. Thank you! I did the same thing that Cynthia did, so I'm glad that you and she had that little dialogue. It helped me to figure out where I went wrong. Looking forward to tomorrow's lesson :)

Thank you again!!

xmarianax September 27, 2010 at 3:08 p.m.  

Thank you for sharing! You're very generous! I will definitely give this a try. It's a whole new world for me :)

Lucy September 27, 2010 at 7:01 p.m.  

Thank you so very much for sharing this. I just wondered what the colour code for neutral gray is in RGB? R=128 G=128 B=128? or the hex#, I just guessed from looking at your example and it seems to have worked good but I just wanted to be sure. Once again I am grateful for this ;)

Marla September 27, 2010 at 7:58 p.m.  

Thank you! Looking forward to the rest of these tutorials.

Seriously, thank you for sharing!

Anna September 28, 2010 at 1:22 a.m.  

Hi, thanks for the tutorial. Was able to follow through well. However, wanted to know how we could set the curves if our selected picture does not have pure black or pure white colour in it. Thanks again...looking forward to the next one

Isabelle Lafrance September 28, 2010 at 4:57 a.m.  

@ SLucy, yes 128, 128 and 128 is the right code :)
@ Anna, if you do not have pure black or pure white, choose the part of the image that should be the darkest and the one that should be the lightest. You'll come close enough.

Carmen September 28, 2010 at 7:53 a.m.  

If I download these files, will the tutorial be there with the files?

Isabelle Lafrance September 28, 2010 at 10:43 a.m.  

Yes, Carmen. Every day you get the new pdf with the instructions. If other files are needed they will be included in the file.

Carmen September 29, 2010 at 8:40 a.m.  

Thanks Isabelle! I can't wait to try these tonight!! ;)

Anita Bower September 30, 2010 at 5:24 a.m.  

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this lesson.
One thing doesn't look right on my image. After setting the white, black and grey points, the nose and fingers look blown out. What am I doing wrong?
Many thanks.

Isabelle Lafrance September 30, 2010 at 5:33 a.m.  

It happened on mine too, especially on the fingers. Unfortunately I had no control over the image exposure since it's not mine. But I thought it had everything we needed for our workshop lessons. Maybe you can set your white point to an "almost" white area, this should reduce the blown out effect a little.

Anita Bower September 30, 2010 at 8:24 a.m.  

Thank you, Isabelle, for your response. I feel reassured that I wasn't doing something wrong.
On to the second lesson!

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