The Art of Retouching

4 Week Adobe Photoshop Basic Classes

John Ross — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:00:17 +0000

Adobe Photoshop Basic Level One
Wednesday 4-Week Course

Begins May 8, 2013 thru May 29th
5:30pm to 9:30pm EST

You are invited to our 4 Week Basic Course on Adobe Photoshop. This will be your first step in learning about Image Retouching. Stop being confused by a stupid program. It’s really not that hard, once someone helps guide you through your first few weeks.

I have been asked what makes my course different from other courses.

It largely boils down to sequencing. Where each part grows from the last part.
There is an information gap, between what you know, and what you want to know. So, lets close that gap.
Focusing on the 20% of Photoshop that will give you 80% of the results.

Testimonials for this Photoshop Basics Course:

“I was excited to learn about Photoshop. I wanted to learn how to clone. I have definately learned new skills, and the price was great. I would definately consider the next level course. Thank You for teaching the class!” – Amanda Piscitelli

“I was very nervous that I would not be able to follow, but the teacher touched upon all the fundamentals. I walked in a newbie, and now I feel I can pretty much touch up any image given to me. I am no longer shy to manipulate images.” – Marmadue Hane

Every week, you will receive NEW Classroom Topics, Written Class Notes, Homework Assignments, Supplemental Videos, and more! Hours of an organized, and thought out training schedule is ready to teach you everything you need to guide you through Adobe Photoshop CS6. No more garbage YouTube videos, from who-knows-who. I am offering an opportunity to learn from a professional, in a way that everyone can understand. Once the distractions are removed, it’s not that hard.

Pre-recorded training videos of someone talking to themselves will not leave you motivated to finish. Even if you put the time in, it does not mean that they will be showing you all the best practices. In fact, most of the videos I have watched have been filled with terrible advice, no matter how large of a brand name website they have, or how much they charged for the videos.

I am a 20+ year Adobe Photoshop Professional. However, just because I spend every day using Photoshop to retouch images, does not mean I know how to teach.

For that, I would like to briefly give you a few quick Testimonials:

	“It was very helpful for me. This type class can easily conform to any student's level of expertise. Thank you John for hosting the class.” – Don Janelle
	“John offers valuable instruction on a variety of photo processing topics for people at all levels. With so much professional experience, he's able to share pitfalls and personal tips, too. He is thorough and really cares about empowering his students.” – Sue Fenton
	“John Knows is stuff.” – Yvon N'Chonon
	“Complex subject that was presented in an understandable way.” – Ira Dick
	“The teacher is knowledgeable, and patient enough to make it highly instructive and fun. John has been a great help and he has great teaching skills.” – Marmadue Hane

Now that I have established myself as a credible trainer, let's talk about the actual course. I have been teaching Photoshop classes for the past year in front of a live audience. During that time I have learned what you, as a photographer and student, want to know about.

I have developed a training schedule that will give you everything you need to become extremely knowledgeable in Photoshop. Spending the extra weeks learning will give you the time you need to absorb the information. I could cut corners and shorten each class, or skip lessons. But I would rather know my students learn, and retain, everything they expect to.

Here is why a 4 week course with other students works:

• 16+ Hours of class, will engulf you in the topic. I am not boring, and keep you engaged.
• People as serious as you, will be in the class. Peer pressure is a strong motivator.
• We can focus on the single topic, not jumping around getting distracted.
• If we do this for 4 weeks straight, I guarantee you will know this stuff inside and out.
• Mixing in homework (watch videos, retouch samples, etc), will teach even more.

Unable to Attend Every Class?

If you are not able to attend every class, not a problem. Each class is going to be recorded, and posted online for easy downloading. You can catch up with the class at your convenience, over the next week. You can also rewatch anything you want, as many times as you want.

This course will cover the most important points that a Photo Retoucher needs to know, to create perfect images. Here’s a breakdown of some of the topics that we’ll be covering in our 4 weeks together.

Before:

After:

While the results are impressive, the skill set was not. A basic knowledge of Layers, Color Range, Levels and Defringe were all that is needed.

Week #1

• Digital Fundamentals – This class includes everything you need to understand the basics of working with images before putting them under the digital blade. This presentation will be heavy on the mechanical aspect of what images are, and best practices of handling them. RAW vs TIF, sRGB vs AdobeRGB, etc.

• Studio Workflow – Are you ready to get into the details needed to build your studio properly? Once you have the images on your memory card…. then what? This is filled with important information that will make your Photography Studio work more smoothly. Detailed information about various hardware and software options that can be used as companion pieces to Photoshop.

• RAW Processing – After the shoot, but before Photoshop, there is the RAW processing. This step will easily make, or break, your images. This class will help walk you through many different images, and show you what changes will make your pictures jump off the page.

• Image Evaluation – It makes sense to help train yourself on what is important to look for. The Photographer’s eye, is very different from the Retoucher’s eye. By using good and bad examples, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of various types of images, and what can be done to improve them.

Week #2

• Tools and Palettes Overview – This overview of the Photoshop interface will go over the most important tools and palettse in Adobe Photoshop. I will show you how each one works, then move onto the next. It helps define the possibilities for new users.

• Working with Photoshop Layers – Text Layers, Adjustment Layers, Smart Objects and Pixel Based Layers are just the starting point. There are Vector Layers, Layer Styles, Blending Options, Groups and Masks just to name a few of the myriad amount of options that are available to you. The order of your Layers makes a big difference in the appearance of your image.

Week #3

• Photoshop Cloning – This class goes into amazing detail about the topic of cloning. Removing Blemishes, duplicating objects, and other hiding or extending. This is one of the more important retouching techniques, and requires time dedicated to the topic. If I could think of it, its in here.

• Tools and Palettes Details – Revisiting the Photoshop tools and palettes. This time, we limit down the available tools, only to the ones of most value. This time we will discuss each checkbox and pull down menu. Most importantly, I reveal the skills of how to actually use them.

• Color Correction – Settings, Options and Techniques – This is a continuation of the Color Correction Tools Class. This will go further into the back-end of Photoshop, bringing up several of the topics covered back in the first week. We will also go back into the Tools, further discussing the settings, options, and best practices. By separating color into two classes, there is time to become more familiar with everything, before bringing you eveen more information, without overwhelming you.

Week #4

• Masking Simplified – How do YOU select objects in your photographs? Magic this or Magnetic that? Bottom line, using the automated tools in Photoshop will make the change, but will also make it look fake and amateurish. Learn how professionals properly create masks. We will go over which tools work best in which situation.

• Color Correction – Tools – I am going to show you what I use in my professional retouching workflow, and what order I do them in. This is an invaluable resource, in cutting through the clutter of color correction tools available.

Questions and Answers:

Will I be able to download the class to rewatch it later?
Yes! It will be available for download the next day. The class is yours to keep and reference later.

How many other students are there?
Depending on how many sign up; The max will be 9 locally, and 9 remotely.

How is the remote video/audio connection?
I am told it is not bad, and you can easily follow along. With a microphone, you can also ask questions, just as if you were in the class. All students can hear each other.

How is the video/audio that we can download?
I record the desktop, so you can see what I am doing, and follow along. I also record a WebCam of myself, and place it in the corner. So you can see the screen, and me, at the same time. The audio is really good too. The microphone is tied into my Amplifier and Noise Gate Isolator (That means it’s clear without background noise).

Are you any good at teaching?
I’d like to think so. I have been creating Photoshop Tutorials on my website for 3 years, and teaching live classes for over year. Most people seem to agree that there is a lot of information that they did not know about handling and manipulating images. The trick is being able to present is an easy to follow format.

It sounds good, but what makes this better than anywhere else?
I think the price is one huge difference. Since I do not have the overhead of other people taking their part of the money, I do not need to charge a small fortune for the class.
The content itself is very solid, thought out, and well presented with many examples. I like to think of it this way; Taking the skill, and breaking it down to simpler blocks, makes it less intimidating. We will focus on the primary concepts that are used for Photo Retouching, then isolate the tools used to acheive these goals. In the span of a few hours, you can learn enough to apply this basic knowledge to any type of image (portraits, landscape, product, etc). Once the distractions are removed, it’s not that hard.

How do I know if this course is right for me?
It is targeted squarely at people who want to learn Photoshop, but have been initimidated. If you fail in the begining, you quit. My goal is to get you through that fear of failure. Focus on the 20% of Photoshop that will give you 80% of the results. That is where you need to start. After class is over, you can rewatch the class video, watch supplemental videos, do homework, and ask me questions.

I have Photoshop CSx, do I need CS6?
Not at all. I would recommend owning CS4, CS5 or CS6. Any of those will do. CS3 can work in a pinch, but older versions will cause problems. Mainly because 4 and 5 introduced some really great new tools. CS6 has the easy to use Camera RAW that we will be using extensively, but older versions can get along.

How organized is the class? Will you be making it up as you go along?
Nope. I have taught this course several times, so all the Class Note PDFs and Extra Videos are already created, and ready to go. Occasionally, some issue crops up, but the class has always gone on, and the video of the class has always been available the next day.

Before:

After:

Again it looks harder than it is. Levels, Selective Color, and some cloning for cleanup. It’s less about ‘what’ to do, and much more about ‘where’ to do it.

Give me 4 weeks, and you can:

• Check "Learn Adobe Photoshop" off your to-do list.
• Ask me any Photography/Freelance/Photoshop question you want for 4 weeks.
• Get full access to me via phone or priority email.
• Work on weekly assignments to improve your hands-on experience.
• You will have full access to any images, videos, notes or other material created for the course.
• Get a Certificate of Completion – You may even land a new job because of it!

What I Supply:

• Weekly Assignments
• Recorded Classes for re-watching
• Images the class will work on together
• Detailed notes on the topics covered during class
• Most topics have pre-recorded content that can also be watched through the week

Testimonials for this Photoshop Basics Course:

Price:

I have asked several existing members on this, and the consensus is that a price of $247 meets the budget.

In the end, it boils down to this: If $247 seems like too much, for 16 hours for a Photoshop Course, it's not. If $247 seems like such a steal, that's because it is. The competition is $975 for 18 hours, teaching only the tools, not necessarily the skills or techniques. Go ahead, compare their curriculum to mine. Nnote that they do not teach about resolution, dpi or ppi. In this class, that is the first 15 minutes because, well, it’s that important. They do not teach you about Color Spaces (RGB and CMYK) or Color Profiles (sRGB and Adobe RGB). Even several promoted topics are banned from my classes because they are of bad practice; like "Saving as PSD", Shadow/Highlight, and Magnetic Lasso.

I just can't see charging you $32.00 per hour. I do not have all the overhead of an overpriced school. They need to pay rent, instructors, office personel, etc… I don't.

Have questions? You can reach me at 203-551-9684, my name is john.

Bonus: There are several hours of exclusive training videos, only available to students.
Time: 16+ Hours
Cost: $247.00

Individual Classes:

If you look at the rest of the Photoshop Retouching Classes scheduled during this time period, you will see that each class session is listed. You do NOT need to register for anything except this ONE CLASS. Your seat will be saved for you. The other Photoshop Classes listed are for your reference only, to learn more about the classes for that day. It also gives others the opportunity to come to just that one class if they want to.

If you have any questions at all, please email me at info@theartofretouching.com

Testimonials From Digital Fundamentals:

"Excellent overview workshop for this group's meetup. Good tips on what I need to do to make my 8×10 prints look better next time. Looking forward to other sessions." – Bill

"I got a lot of information from John's presentation even though I don't necessarily have the need for that level of detail as an amateur photographer. However, the class was well worth it to gain an insight into the process and have an understanding of terms I wasn't very well versed on. He knows his stuff, and answered everyone's questions." – Ira

Testimonials From Photoshop Tools and Palettes:

"The meetup was fantastic. John is a great teacher, and I learned a lot." – Joseph Haddon

"Informative. Thorough overview of basics." – Tanya Livingston

"I thought the class was awesome! Very excited to apply what I have learned." – Roxanne Moreland

Testimonials from Masking Simplified:

	"Comprehensive, fast paced, but enough time for Q&A." – Wayne Richardson
	“A lot of information, interactive, and well paced.” – Patrick Philpot
	"This was a good topic and was very informative. Professional masking and selection techniques were discussed and demonstrated. The instructor was willing and able to answer any questions that we had. I would recommend this to others." – Phil Widmer

Testimonials from Photoshop Cloning:

	"Very nicely done." – Kathy Radziunas
	"Easy to follow. I wasn't "lectured" at." – Sue Fenton
	"Good Value. The quality was good." – Phil Widmer
	"Fantastic presentation of the various tools, their general uses, and the drawbacks or unintended behaviors experienced in their use. Multiple tools were used to solve the same problems to contrast the process and the results. A fantastic meetup!" – Jeff Dutton
	"Excellent workshop…and a DVD to review it all! Cloning is vital and all aspects were presented generously and frankly with the pros & pitfalls. The "Clone Arranger" was masterful & thorough & I learned an immense amount. Thanks, John!" – Sue Erazmus

Testimonials for Color Correction:

“Excellent course, great level of detail, very good instruction, came away a lot of very useful, new information to work with.” – Patrick Philpott

“Very thorough. Got some great tips. John was really devoted to helping us.” –Sue Erazmus

Testimonials for Portrait Retouching:

	"I best liked the interaction between students and instructor. John answered any and all questions we posed. Great value for the money and time invested." – Don Janelle
	"Excellent class. Learned some very important techniques to bring my post processing to the next level." – Sebastian Fama

This is a Live Webinar. You will be able to use your Internet Browser, microphone, and speakers to join us remotely. All the students can hear, and talk with each other. The class itself is being hosted with The Art of Retouching Studio Meetup Group, located in New Haven, Connecticut.

Have questions? You can reach me at 203-551-9684, my name is john.

Bonus: There are several hours of exclusive training videos, only available to students.
Time: 16+ Hours
Cost: $247.00

Mission, Style and Branding

John Ross — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:00:11 +0000

I am frequently asked about how to move the “Personal Brand” forward. Previously, I wrote about How to Find Retouching Work, but before you find that work, how do you stand out in the crowd? Once you have their attention, you need to keep it.

Define Your Passion

It’s not “To retouch images”. It needs to be more. When you are finally able to clearly define that passion, then you suddenly realize why your “to do” list rarely gets any shorter. Usually, this is because the task is not in alignment with your passion. This often means that it will not get you any closer to your end goals. "Cleaning the gutters" will not get you notice by agencies, photographers, or whatever, so you will likely just put it off.

Define Your Brand

Clearly defining your brand, makes your everyday decisions easy. There are many ideas I have for my blog, or my studio website. Most of them are never followed up with. This is because they are not in alignment with where I want to take the business. Of course, there are many ideas that I should be doing, but simply do not have time for. Why? Because I have a clear vision, and the best ideas take the longest to develop. Like my Photoshop Classes. That started as a single beginning to end 6 week course, and turned into about 24 weeks worth of material. Realistically, I will never even finish the project, but I think it would be fun to try.

Define Your Style

Focusing on your distinct style will further separate you from the crowd. For example, I do like the “dark and gritty” look that has been all the rage for some time, I am personally not afraid of color. This means I can easily that something that is trendy, and put my own spin on it.

Discover your own unique style. What attracts your eye and speaks to your soul? Just remember that for all the best artists have their own style, they usually have a solid understanding of anatomy and perspective. Crap that has style, is still crap. Be sure to understand the basics first.

Define Your Niche

Here’s a suggestion: Take your top 10 favorite images, and figure out what they have in common. Once you know, that is where you should push your brand, and your define your niche. One day I realized that a majority of my photography was “Man made structures, within a natural environment” ie: a bridge crossing a river. Once I was able to identify what i like to do, I could now look for more jobs just like it.

Alternatively, as a kid, I enjoyed drawing comic books. When I grew up, at age 24 I worked at Marvel Comics. Why? The stories sucked. They were not written for me (I was too old), but still I loved the medium. When I realized that it was bright colors, stark contrasts, and dynamic poses, then it was easy to translate that into other fields, not just figure drawing. Now, as I get older, I am quite happy working on portraits. Not the High School or Wedding kind, but other more intersting shoots. The kind where the photographer is able to capture the essense of the subject, and I can bring my own flair to the image.

Define Your Image

Which corporate brands do you admire? Dissect it, and figure out the key points. You can then incorporate those points into your own brand. Clean? Colorful? Fun? Snarky? Think about the logo, marketing, advertising, and website. How do they make you feel? Comfortable? Excited? Deviant?

Now that I have shared with you my own thoughts, try to define your own passion, style, and brand.

If you would like to learn more about Photo Enhancement from a Professional Retoucher, I offer two Photoshop Basic Courses, as well as a Photoshop Intermediate Course. Please contact me today, and I will be able to add you to the schedule too. If you would just like to watch online videos, The Art of Retouching Studio offers many Photoshop Tutorials for Beginners and Advanced users.

11 Ways to Find Photoshop Retouching Jobs

John Ross — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:58:21 +0000

Question:
How do you continue getting new jobs and clients? This is an issue I am struggling with. Do you have any suggestions for me to get clients, jobs, etc?

Answer:
I was thinking about your question for quite a while. If I needed to start over again, what worked, and what didn’t. There really aren’t any overnight answers. Honestly, it all comes down to "who you know". The best advice I could give you, is that you need to be where the work is. I could also add that it comes down to going out of your way to be noticed. You can not just wait in your studio for work to knock on your door when you are just starting out. The following is what worked for getting my own studio noticed.

Freelance Websites

Forget eLance.com or oDesk.com freelance type of sites. If you do not find the rates on there to be a fair market value, then you will always be out bid, so don’t waste your time. For all the jobs I ever bid on, I only received two, and at the same generic rate that you saw. One was a race car, and I just wanted to do it as something different. I never heard from them again.

The other turned out to be a longer term job, and I worked well with the company owner for a unique product. However, when I said I could not continue at the low rates, and he could not pay the high rates, we needed to part ways. The lesson there, is that people who use low paying services like that, are simply are not able to pay what you want. Even after they see your great work. It just is not in the budget.

One Good Client

You do not need 30 Top Tier clients. You only need 1 or 2 who are able to provide regular work. The rest of your clients can be once or twice per year accounts. The trick is to get your name out there, and be known in a relatively small group as "The Retouching Guy". That small group will become your referral base. And other than the regular work, do not bring down your rates. If you are good, charge for it.

The trick, is to get that first client. It can be as simple as signing up to Meetup.com and just go to a few local photography meetings. If you live near a big city, this is easy.

Networking

It all comes down to networking, and who you know. You need to find someone who trusts your work, and is willing to give you one or two people who may also like your work. You then need to reach out to those contacts, and mention who sent you. Quickly explain who you are, and what you are looking for. If they have any work in the future, keep you in mind. Then, as an "oh, by the way", you ask them for another name or two. In theory, you can go to a trade show, and start name dropping. Also keep in mind, that for something to stick, people seem to need to see your name several times, before they act.

Referrals

Business is networking, and meeting people. It only takes one person at a time, and a ton of patience. If your work is solid, people will remember you. It also helps to have an easy to remember name, or business name. Something catchy.

Most recently, I was called about my Photoshop Course Schedule. She said she was really excited to get started, as she heard about how good the classes were. Where did she hear about them? From other local photographers who already took the course. This is a case where I didn’t need to advertise anything, other people recommended me on their own, based on the service I already provided. It may take a while to build up that trust, but it’s worth the effort.

Be Everywhere

At first it seemed kind of silly, but now I am "The Retouching Guy" to hundreds of different local photographers. My name now precedes me. People who never met me, seem to know who I am when I mention my name. I did all of these follow things to get to that point. I would say it took me about 3 years of focusing on what I wanted. It only took 3 years because of the various points of focus. While I was doing well on multiple fronts, I was still being slowed down by meeting people, creating the course, developing the website, creating videos, creating a podcast, etc. It was just many different things, on top of doing regular retouching work for clients.

Meetup

I joined Meetup.com a few years ago, and went to several Photography Sessions of interest. This method worked out fairly well for me over the past year and a half. Simply going to photography group meetings, and letting them know that I was a retoucher, not photographer instantly separated me from "competition", and rather recognized as a "compliment" to what they were already doing. I did take it step further, and started my own retouching group. I have done guest speaking for other meetups, and have taught dozens of classes to dozens of students. You may not want to get that involved, but I only mention what worked for me.

CraigsList

Every few weeks I post on Craigslist.org to mention I teach photoshop classes. One professional photographer in particular was looking, and now I am involved with a modeling agency, who also handles many (you can guess it) photographers and professional shoots. Don’t forget, every model needs headshots to be retouched. Who decides who does the retouching? The agency. But back to CraigsList, I have received dozens of profitable random phone calls over the past few years from ads on CraigsList. Who would have guessed? I would suggest getting a secondary phone number though a company like Vumber.com though. Something that can either be kept, sent direct to voicemail, or simply turned off. I’ve also attracted many strange or otherwise useless calls as well.

Google Local and

Take the time to enter your information into the Photography section of Google Local. You never know who may be looking in your area. Another suggestion would be to add yourself to Yelp.com because Google picks up information from there as well, for local searches. Again, every little bit helps.

Trade Shows

Go to a Photography Expo, and take the time to meet some people. I mean, who is there? Photographers, and companies whose clients are photographers. I know many people who work in various companies. It helps that I have a website that can receive the pitch for their products. I generally do not, but it all comes down to the packaging of "you". Consider that you need to sell a product. The product is not your retouching. The product is "you". I am definitely not an outgoing type of person, but I know it is my personality that makes people comfortable. Who gets more return work? The plumber who knows everything, and acts that way; or the plumber who knows most things, but takes the time to talk about your kids? Why, just yesterday I had a waitress that took the extra few seconds to talk to my child, and treat him like any other customer. believe me, I notice those little things. It’s that good faith that goes a long way.

WebSite

Because of the website, I teach students internationally. While not for everyone, it has worked pretty well for me. After several years of helping people with free tutorials, gives me the luxury of at least being heard of. I mean, you heard of me, right?

Also, if you are going to post your images on the internet, do not post 10 images, if you have 10 images. You get to choose one. Maybe 2, if it rocks your world. Otherwise, get back to practicing. My portfolio was created a few years ago, and I haven’t updated it. I also have the copyright issue where I can post very little of what I actually work on. My other defense is that I am not actually looking for new clients. So, yeah, I am just lazy.

But the point here is, if you are looking for work, and going to show me 10, they better be the 10 best things you have ever done. Personally, I am working on those portfolio worthy images right now. Of course, it just adds to my already busy schedule, so it takes time.

Facebook, Twitter, and Pintrest

Facebook.com or Twitter.com may work for you, but definitely does not work for me. I am not the only one, either. For photography and retouching, twitter doesn’t even make sense. We deal with a visual medium, so Pintrest.com is your best bet. I mean, I have no way to really track it, I just know that if I am going to get someones attention, I will have better luck with a nice photograph. And lets be honest, if you repin a photographers work, they will be notified, and may seek you out. When they do go and find your website, be sure it’s written clearly. Broken English is a big turn-off. Hire a writer from Fiverr.com to clean up any important text.

Focus on a Niche

Too many people think the only retouching work is in beauty, fashion, or wedding. They are sadly wrong. 98% of my work comes from other sources.
They are high paying, and low competition. It only took the right person, and now many key people all know who I am. It was a month ago, and I woke up with nothing to do. By noon, I had 36 images requested from various clients.

Finding work is easy, when the work knows where to find you.

If you would like to learn more about my progression as a freelancer physically, professionally, and emotionally, you can listen to my Podcasts about starting my career as a freelancer. They document my journey from a day job, to working from home as a professional retoucher. Maybe they can help you, too.

Problematic Smart Objects and Smart Filters

John Ross — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:38:01 +0000

Somewhere between being lazy, and not trusting new toys, I never really tried Smart Objects, or Smart Filters. On the surface, something always felt "wrong" about using them. I could never quite put my finger on it before. Now I know the problem.

What are Smart Objects?
The general point of a Smart Object is to select one or more layers, and combine them into a single, non-destructable and editable layer. In theory, you could take this group of layers (now acting as one), and scale, stretch, or distort them. The benefit of this, is that you can keep scaling them, and only upon flattening the image, would it apply the final math.

What are Smart Filters?
Similarly, many Filters could be applied to a Smart Object, and create a Smart Filter. These Smart Filters would attach themselves to a Smart Object, and allow you to make edits to the filter’s settings, even after you applied them. For Example; a Gaussian Blur of 1, could later be changed to 5. This is because it would not actually do anything to the layer, until the file is flattened and saved.

My Resitance
Personally, I always duplicated the background layer, and applied sharpening or noise, or whatever. If I needed to make multiple duplicate layers to achieve my goal, then so be it. What’s an extra layer or two among friends? This worked for the past 20 years, and I saw little reason to change it now.

So, as I said, I started teaching an Intermediate Course, and thought I should finally start teaching that Smart Objects and Smart Filters were good. I thought if I explained that a single layer could have sharpening, and de-noise attached to it, that would result in a cleaner workflow. Less damage to original pixels, and all that.

Well, that lasted only about 2-3 weeks.

There were two main problems with this workflow.

The first one I knew about, which is that Photoshop runs slower. So I warned that if you were working on an older machine, or laptop or something, you may not want to do it this way. I was thinking a newer 8-Core Intel processor would not have a problem with them. Not true. There was definate lag time.

The second drawback was a deal killer.

It seems that if you create a Smart Object, and attach a few Smart Filters to the layer, it appears to run fine, until you want to do something extra to the document, that affects the layer. For example, a simple crop. Photoshop wants to re-apply the math every time you touch that Smart Object.

Where All This Started
Picture this: I was working on the start of a 30 image job. I was going to use this new workflow on them. I did full work on 3 of them my first day of the project. The next day I received the cropping information, so I went back to crop. Thankfully, I was only 3 in, because it reloads the filter to re-apply the data to the new crop information. Unfortunately, the PlugIn Filter I used did not like being a Smart Filter (even though it applied fine), and would not reapply the settings when I tried to crop.This is a brand named 3rd party filter that I use every day, on every image. Omitting it is not an option.

It wanted to reload the plugin interface, then it locked up the plugin, and locked me out of the actual layer and all the settings. So here I was, with no idea what the specific settings were in the various Filters I used, because I could not access them because of a single rogue program. Not using the Filter was not an option. It was the whole point of the workflow, to streamline random layers and make life easier. I could not touch the layer, without it wanting to check with each filter, and get it’s approval before letting me do anything.

I’ll spare you the details, and just leave it the fact that I needed to rebuild all 3 images from scratch, because I could not access the data I needed to avoid the extra work. I was really bumming. And for what it’s worth, even on my 8-Core processor, it ran slower in general. Once I went back to my normal "one layer, one filter" that worked for the past 20 years, I had no further problems, and finished the job without a hitch.

Be careful when using Smart Objects.

I have a new Photoshop Basic Course starting soon. You can get a really great price, for a Live Professionally Instructed Course. With a microphone or webcam, you can ask questions and hear the other students, just like a normal classroom.

If you are interested, follow the link below to find out more, and sign up.

Adobe Photoshop Basic I Course

Adobe Photoshop Basic II Course

Photoshop Tutorial – Tonal Range, Levels and Curves

John Ross — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 02:42:37 +0000

Photoshop Tutorial – Tonal Range, Levels and Curves

This is an Adobe Photoshop Video tutorial that explains Tonal Range, and the difference between Levels and Curves. While each of these topics is technically different, they each work with the same basic principals, so I thought it would be helpful to understand them, if I covered them all at the same time. Before you seriously get started working with RAW Files, you need to understand Tonal Range, and how the different Sliders affect different aspects of the image.

Tonal Range

Between Absolute Black, and Absolute White, are shades of Grey. 8-Bit images have 256 Shades of Grey, and 16-Bit images have 65,536 Shades of Grey. The Tonal Range of an image is comprised of Absolute Black, all the shades of grey, to the Absolute White.

The combined Tonal Range of an RGB 8-Bit image, is 256 x 256 x 256 which is 16.7 Million Colors.

The combined Tonal Range of an RGB 16-Bit image, is 65,536 x 65,536 x 65,536 which is Trillions of Colors, conceptually.

To learn more about 8-Bit vs. 16-Bit Depth, follow the link.

Levels

In Short, Levels will compress the Tonal Range of an image. By moving the starting points of Absolute Black, and Abosolute White, you will visually create contrast within the image. On the down side, you are clipping off parts of available data. You are effectively throwing away data. Levels are limited to 0 (Black), 1.00 (MidTones), and 255 (White).

To learn more about Levels in detail, follow the link.

Curves

While Curves can also be made to create contrast, and still clip off data, it has more flexibility. Rather than being limited to Black, MidTone, and White, you can also alter the 3/4 and 1/4 Tones. In this case, rather than clipping data, we are simply compressing parts of it, and still retaining the Absolute Blacks and Whites.

To learn more about Curves in detail, follow the link.

This Adobe Photoshop CS6 Tutorial answers the question: How to use Tonal Range, and the difference between Levels and Curves. If you would like to learn more about Photo Enhancement from a Professional Retoucher, I offer a Photoshop Basic Course, as well as a Photoshop Intermediate Course. Please contact me today, and I will be able to add you to the schedule too. If you would just like to watch online videos, The Art of Retouching Studio offers many Photoshop Tutorials for Beginners and Advanced users.

5 Week Adobe Photoshop Intermediate Classes

John Ross — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 01:35:35 +0000

Adobe Photoshop Intermediate
Live Coaching Course

None Scheduled

Ready to learn more about Adobe Photoshop? A 5 Week Intermediate Course on Adobe Photoshop CS6 is here to bring your skill level up higher than ever before. No longer being bogged down by slow training, together we can start expanding beyond basic Photoshop Tools. I want you to really look inside your photography, in ways you never have before.

YouTube videos will no longer help, because you are mostly past them. Besides, who has time to sit and watch? Get the personalized help you need, to bring your photography to the next level.

I am a 20+ year Adobe Photoshop Professional. However, just because I spend every day using Photoshop to retouch images, does not mean I know how to teach.

For that, I would like to briefly give you a few quick Testimonials:

	“The teacher is knowledgeable, and patient enough to make it highly instructive and fun. John has been a great help and he has great teaching skills.” – Marmadue Hane
	“It was very helpful for me. This type class can easily conform to any student's level of expertise. Thank you John for hosting the class.” – Don Janelle
	“John offers valuable instruction on a variety of photo processing topics for people at all levels. With so much professional experience, he's able to share pitfalls and personal tips, too. He is thorough and really cares about empowering his students.” – Sue Fenton
	“John Knows is stuff.” – Yvon N'Chonon
	“Complex subject that was presented in an understandable way.” – Ira Dick

Great Photography means more than knowing the tools that Photoshop has to offer. It’s about getting your hands dirty, and experimenting. It’s about real world problems and solutions. This class incorporates much more "how and why" than a basic class can.

Here is why a 5 week course with other students works:

• 5-6 Hours of class, will engulf you in the topic. I am not boring, and keep you engaged.
• People as serious as you, will be in the class. Peer pressure is a strong motivator.
• We can focus on the single topic, not jumping around getting distracted.
• If we do this for 5 weeks straight, I guarantee you will know this stuff inside and out.
• Mixing in homework (watch videos, retouch samples, etc), will teach even more.

Unable to Attend Every Class?

Before:

After:

Another great image to start, is taken to a new level of depth and emotion. Attention is directed up to the face and shoulders as intended. Topics used to acheive this look are covered in the various classes of RAW Processing, Color Correction, Beyond Cloning, and Advanced Masking Techniques.

Week #1

• Digital Fundamentals Revisited – Designed to fill in the key information that may still be a gap in your training. The goal here is that we will all start off on the same page, no matter what your background. We will review all the topics covered in the Basic Class, as a fairly quick refresher. This goes into a deeper explanation of resolution, bit depth, tonal range, and color spaces.

• Tools and Palettes Expanded – By taking this course, it is assumed that you have basic knowledge of Brushes, Cloning, Levels, Curves, etc. However, not everyone will. So, we spend some time going over some basic tools and palettes, before getting into some of the more obscure of Photoshop’s offerings. This will prep you for more advanced topics in the coming weeks. There are 5 different ways to do everything in Photoshop, so let’s talk about them.

Week #2

• RAW Processing and HDR- Let’s go further into what is possible in Adobe Camera RAW and HDR (High Dynamic Range). It is now quite possible that more than half your image retouching is already completed, before you even open the image in Photoshop. It is quite amazing what we can achieve these days.

• Beyond Cloning and Touchups – In the basic class, we introduced the different tools, and showed some simple cloning techniques. Here, it is about learning how to fool the eye into believing the unbelieveable. Being able to take the tiniest sliver of detail, and replicating it across large gaps within an image. Painting and sculpting within Photoshop is one of the ways a professional will separate themselves from being "merely adequite".

Week #3

• Advanced Masking Techniques – Assuming you know how to create a selection using quickmask, this class will be perfect for learning the tricks behind some of the most complex masks you could possibly hope to create. There is nothing simple about this class, it is all top shelf techniques here.

• Compositing – Often requested is; How to replace a sky, background, or a person’s head? Together, we will replace several different items, and I will show you how to do it in a seemeless way, so that no one will know that you did anything at all.

Week #4

• Color Correction Mastery – We will dig in deep to find out how to properly wield all the Color Correction tools available to you. And there are a lot. We will go further into Color Spaces and Profiles. Soft Proofing and Rendering Intent. We’ll discuss how to properly calibrate your monitor with your printer. We will also go over tricks that will help you uncover your best prints ever. Many different topics are planned for this day’s events.

Week #5

• Final Review – The strength of this is to show you how to improve your eye for detail. Being a good photographer, and a good retoucher, are two completely different things. We will also go over professionally printed ads, and discuss what works, and what doesn't. We will also review homework assignments, and tear apart some of my own layered files to see how they were created.

• Final Images - Wrapping up the class, we will be working together on several images from beginning to end. This will bring together everything you have learned over the past few weeks. This will give you a hands-on, real time walk though, so you can see a photograph or two, from a retoucher's point of view.

Before/After:

This image was done completely in Adobe Camera RAW. Explore further into what is possible with the power of a RAW Processor. Throw HDR into the mix, and it’s amazing what can be done.

Questions and Answers:

Will I be able to download the class to rewatch it later?
Yes! It will be available for download the next day. The class is yours to keep and reference later.

How many other students are there?
Depending on how many sign up; The max will be 9 locally, and 9 remotely.

How is the remote video/audio connection?
I am told it is not bad, and you can easily follow along.

How is the video/audio that we can download?
Top quality. I record the desktop, so you can see what I am doing, and follow along. I also record a WebCam of myself, and place it in the corner. So you can see the screen, and me, at the same time. The audio is really good too. The microphone is tied into my Amplifier and Noise Gate Isolator (That means it’s clear without background noise).

It sounds good, but what makes this better than anywhere else?
Suprisingly, there isn’t anywhere else. I mean, there is, but they all seem to teach either Basic stuff, or stuff you don’t really need to know. They are trying to follow some pre-designed curriculum that someone thought up. Other items you can find are in depth "Start to Finish" type of one-shot videos. I mean, those OK and all, but I am really striving to create a unique and well rounded course.

How do I know if this course is right for me?
It is targeted squarely at people who feel comfortable with Photoshop, but know there is more to learn. If that sounds like you, then perfect. We will have intelligent discussions about tricks and techniques. Will look at things from a technical, and an artistic eye. It is not all about how to use the tools, much will be conceptual and what-if’s. Expand your horizons.

Give me 5 weeks, and you can:

• Ask me any Photography/Freelance/Photoshop question you want for 5 weeks.
• Get full access to me via phone or priority email.
• Work on weekly assignments to improve your hands-on experience.
• You will have full access to any images, videos, notes or other material created for the course.
• Get a Certificate of Completion – You may even land a new job because of it!

What I Supply:

• Weekly Assignments
• Recorded Classes for re-watching (available next day)
• Images the class will work on together
• Detailed notes on the topics covered during class

Before:

After:

Under Exposed, flyaway hair, and skin blemishes can easily ruin a quick shot. But after adjusting the Tonal Range, Color Balance, and some Cloning; this image is back in business.

Testimonials for the Photoshop Basics Course:

Price:

In the end, it boils down to this: If $199 seems like too much, for 25 hours for a Photoshop Course, it's not. That's only $8.00 per hour. You can't even see a movie for that. If $199 seems like such a steal, that's because it is. The competition is $975 for only 18 hours, teaching only the tools, not necessarily the skills or techniques.

I just can't see charging you $32.00 per hour. I do not have all the overhead of an overpriced school. They need to pay rent, instructors, office personel, etc… I don't.

If you have any questions at all, please email me at info@theartofretouching.com

Have questions? You can reach me at 203-551-9684, my name is john.

Time: 25 Hours

Cost: $199.00

Testimonials:

As this is an all new course, with all new classes, I do not have testimonials to back up the content. What I do have, are many from previous classes I have created. Here are a few of them:

"Excellent overview workshop for this group's meetup. Good tips on what I need to do to make my 8×10 prints look better next time. Looking forward to other sessions." – Bill

"The meetup was fantastic. John is a great teacher, and I learned a lot." – Joseph Haddon

"Informative. Thorough overview of basics." – Tanya Livingston

"I thought the class was awesome! Very excited to apply what I have learned." – Roxanne Moreland

	"Comprehensive, fast paced, but enough time for Q&A." – Wayne Richardson
	"This was a good topic and was very informative. Professional masking and selection techniques were discussed and demonstrated. The instructor was willing and able to answer any questions that we had. I would recommend this to others." – Phil Widmer

	"Very nicely done." – Kathy Radziunas
	"Easy to follow. I wasn't "lectured" at." – Sue Fenton
	"Fantastic presentation of the various tools, their general uses, and the drawbacks or unintended behaviors experienced in their use. Multiple tools were used to solve the same problems to contrast the process and the results. A fantastic meetup!" – Jeff Dutton

“Excellent course, great level of detail, very good instruction, came away a lot of very useful, new information to work with.” – Patrick Philpott

“Very thorough. Got some great tips. John was really devoted to helping us.” –Sue Erazmus

	"I best liked the interaction between students and instructor. John answered any and all questions we posed. Great value for the money and time invested." – Don Janelle
	"Excellent class. Learned some very important techniques to bring my post processing to the next level." – Sebastian Fama

This is a Live Webinar. You will be able to use your Internet Browser and speakers to join us remotely. You can even "raise your hand" and ask questions. The class itself is being hosted with The Art of Retouching Studio Meetup Group, located in New Haven, Connecticut.

If you have any questions at all, please email me at info@theartofretouching.com

Have questions? You can reach me at 203-551-9684, my name is John.

Time: 25 Hours

Cost: $199.95

Photoshop Tutorial – Color Range

John Ross — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 21:42:51 +0000

Photoshop Tutorial – Color Range

Color Range tool is a crucial aspect of Photoshop Masking, that many people have difficulties using. The tool plays a significant role in selecting groups of color areas, that need to be adjusted separately in a particular image. Color Range has the quickest, and simplest options available for selecting complex patterns as well. In addition, you are able to preview your selection, and pick the best results, before committing to the task.

This video is part of my 2+ hour Photoshop Masking Tutorial. That extended video covers many expanded topics that cover the range from Beginner, Intermediate, to Advanced.

To preview the selection of the image, the selection preview menu at the bottom will give you various options to choose from. The options include; white matte, black matte, QuickMask and grayscale. These options will show you the area you will have selected, I stongly recomend QuickMask. The moment you are satisfied with the selection, simply click OK and the selection marquee appears on the image you are working on.

Here are a few steps that will guide you in using the color range tool for you to end up with a top quality image. It is important to keep in mind two parameters; these are color, where one can select multiple colors to use, and fuzziness. Fuzziness aspect makes a selection of all the colors close to the one you have provided by a fuzz value.

From the top pull down menu: Select – Color Range. The color range window opens up; the selection part is completely dark as nothing has been selected as yet.
Ensure Fuziness is 40. That value is subjective and abstract. I just happen to like it.
Ensure the Selection Preview is QuickMask, so that you can easily see what you are doing.
Use the EyeDropper, with it’s Plus and Minus variants to select the areas you want, by clicking on the main image.
You can adjust the fuzziness value to a number that you most prefer. This is only to fine tune your eyedropper selection. The maximum fuzziness value is 200. It is advisable to use high fuzziness values so as to have appearance of fine details in the image you are working on.

Move the mouse pointer to your image and click on the background. This ensures a selection has been made. The selection may not be as perfect as you want it to be, so to make it perfect, move the mouse to a different part of the image’s background, hold the shift button and click, to add to the selection. Repeat this step a couple of times so as to get a sharp and clearly outlined selection.

In conclusion, the best tool to use for quick, or complex Photoshop Masking is the color range tool, as it gives you a chance to preview the selection before finalizing on it as well as providing you with numerous options for color based tasks.

This Adobe Photoshop CS6 Tutorial answers the question: How to use Color Range in Photoshop? If you would like to learn more about Photo Enhancement from a Professional Retoucher, I offer a Photoshop for Beginners Class. Please contact me today, and I will be able to add you to the schedule too. If you would just like to watch online videos, The Art of Retouching Studio offers many Photoshop Tutorials for Beginners and Advanced users.

Photoshop Tutorial – Masking with Color Range and QuickMask

John Ross — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:47:54 +0000

Photoshop Tutorial – Masking Simplified

Properly masking out an image in Adobe Photoshop is often done using one of the simple selection tools like Magic Wand or Lasso. This is simply the wrong approach. You should be using Color Range and the QuickMask.

In this video for beginners, I will slowly explain how to use both these tools to make simple and complex selections. This video is also an introductory lead-in to my 2 hour Photoshop Masking Tutorial. That extended video covers many expanded topics that cover the range from Beginner, Intermediate, to Advanced.

QuickMask

Quickmask is a feature in Photoshop that is used to help with creating a specific selection of an image that can be edited as desired. It creates a colored overlay that will go on top of all the items in an image that have been selected for editing. QuickMask allows for the process of editing individual items.

Quickmask is easy to handle and should involve the use of a few simple steps:

Click on the Quickmask button to create a color overlay that will keep the area, outside of the selected area, from being edited. This overlay will be red by default, and will be partially opaque. Use the appropriate paint tools, like Brush, to edit the areas that you would like to have selected. Click on the QuickMask button again, and you will go back into the regular editing mode, but this time, you will have a selection, based on the areas that you painted while in QuickMask.

This procedure for editing images with Photoshop should not be too complicated to handle. It can be useful for getting any background isolated or to allow individual items in a picture to be highlighted so they can be edited with the Quickmask feature.

Color Range

The working principle behind Color Range, is that it selects a specific color, within the entire image. By adding and removing from the selection, and adjusting the "Fuzziness" slider, you can quickly select a range of colors that you would like to have selected. The main purpose here, is that you can quickly grab a group of colors across the entire image, very quickly.

How to use Color Range

From the Top Menu, "Select – Color Range"
I recommend starting with a "Fuzziness" or 40. Adjust as needed. By entering a value or through the usage of the fuzziness slider, you can adjust the range of colors to choose from. It works as a simple lower number, lower selction; higher number, higher selection.
Ensure that "Selection Preview" is set to Quickmask, for best visual results. Other options include:
- No preview in the image window for none to preview
- Grayscale, grayscale would do so as to feature it in the grayscale channel
- Black matte for the selection of display in the black matte back ground
- White matte for the selection of display in the white matte white back ground
On the image or preview area, place the pointer and click to bring a range of colors you want included. The preview selection will visually adjust itself, as you build upon it in the next steps.
Adjust the selection of color ranges
- For color addition (Shift key), select the "eyedropper plus" and click the preview area of the color you want added.
- For color reduction (Option key), click the preview image by selecting the minus eyedropper.
When you click "OK", you will come out of the Color Range back to the main image, but will now have a live selection.
At this point, you may refine your mask with the QuickMask Tool.

Questions and Answers

Can’t the Magic Wand feature work instead?
The Magic Wand feature could work but it does not do a good job with selecting colors. Sometimes it works with random parts of an image instead of specific ones that the user wants. Both Quickmask, and Color Range, will leave you in full control of what areas you want selected.
Is the Lasso any better?
Lasso is not very acurate, and not recomended for anything that requires detailed selection.

This Adobe Photoshop CS6 Tutorial answers the question: How to Mask in Photoshop? If you would like to learn more about Photo Enhancement from a Professional Retoucher, I offer a Photoshop for Beginners Class. Please contact me today, and I will be able to add you to the schedule too. If you would just like to watch online videos, The Art of Retouching Studio offers many Photoshop Tutorials for Beginners and Advanced users.

Photoshop Tutorial – CS6 Preferences Overview

John Ross — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:26:55 +0000

Photoshop Tutorial – CS6 Preferences Overview

This Adobe Photoshop CS6 tutorial goes through the preferences panel, and points out the most important settings that need your attention. Largely, it is an informative video designed to help ensure you understand basic settings of Photoshop CS6.

This Adobe Photoshop CS6 Tutorial answers the question: What are the main settings in the Photoshop CS6 Preferences Panel? If you would like to learn more about Photo Enhancement from a Professional Retoucher, I offer a Photoshop for Beginners Class. Please contact me today, and I will be able to add you to the schedule too. If you would just like to watch online videos, The Art of Retouching Studio offers many Photoshop Tutorials for Beginners and Advanced users.