Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi. My name is Sutter, and in this video, I'm going to show you how to create ultimate color effects on create a soft, dreamy background using Adobe Light Room and Photoshopped. This is my role file that I will be using today, and this is the final edit. I'm going to show you all the steps to achieve this. Look on. I will provide the PSD file as well as the role file for you to practice on and followed two tutorial if you want to. If you want to use your own photo, I would recommend a picture with shallow depth of field where the background is blurry. IDs. I think it will look more natural using this method before we start. Please note that this tutorial is aimed for users who are already family or with light room or Camero. I basically over the same functionality and Photoshopped we'll be using mainly masks and just simple adjustments and photo show up. Such a selective color levels on curves
2. RAW Processing: Okay, let's dive in first. We're going to make some basic adjustments in light room one editing my role files. I like to make sure that there is snow under exposed or over exposed areas. First, to make sure that we have a good foundation once moved to photo shop. So let's bright into picture first of it, because I think it's a bit dark overall. Also, let's bring the shadows up a bit by adjusting the shadow slider and then adjust contrast and highlights later. Sometimes like to zoom in and check certain areas to make sure they're exposed correctly and make some adjustments if necessary. It probably noticed that the white balance and this picture is a bit too cold. We remaining for warm kind of orange and brown colors, so let's adjust the white balance to make it a mid warmer and to make sure that the dogs for and shadows can match the background once we change to the autumn colors. Don't worry if he looks a bit too warm at this point because it will make some further adjustments later on in the show. Okay, that looks pretty good. So now let's head to the hue, saturation and limited section in light room. Andi, Let's select Hugh. You can either a justice lighters for each color or click on the icon on the left and some like the green area in the picture. Once you hold the left, my was batten down and move your mouse up and down. You'll notice that the huge will change as you move it, so let's make it as yellow as possible. Way can adjust their situation and dominance the same way. If we want to throw some blue spots in the background that don't look very nice at this point, boats don't worry about them because we'll fix them later on in front shop. The very last thing we will do in light remains noise removal. The Mori added the picture, the more denies will become visible, so I kind of like to remove it before exporting the picture to photo shop. Let's zoom in. And as you can see, there's quite a lot of noise. Adjusting. The brightness and shadows can make the noise become much more visible. Let's adjust the imminence annoys slither to Okay, I think it looks good. So now let's export the photo to photo shop
3. Editing in Photoshop: Okay, so first of all, let's get rid of this blue collar because it looks a bit distracting. I usually try to use for the shops, content aware fill first, because usually does a pretty good job and removing colors, leeches or anything unnecessary in the picture. I think in this case will need to make some manual adjustments because it doesn't look very good. So let's use the healing brush tool. I don't really want to spend too much time on removing the color because it's not really the main focus of this video. So let's just try to roughly match Differs. It doesn't look too obvious. Ones freeze him out. Okay, Next, we're going to create a mask. This is a very important step, as later on will be making changes to the background and dogs separately, so it's kind of crucial to get it right. If the subject is not mosque correctly, we might see some issues like the ages will be to pride or too dark, and I think it will make the picture look but fake. Overall, I usually start by selecting the select subject option. It will select the dog for us, but the mosque is not very accurate is very broth. So let's use the selected mosque option. Okay. As you can see, the selection is very rough on the edges, so we'll use the refined edge toe to adjust it. You just need to kind of paint around the dog and make sure that's all. The first rounds are selected correctly. Okay, I think it looks pretty good. So let's click OK to go back to the main photo shop window and let's press Q on the keyboards to enter a quick mosque mode and make sure to kind of clean up this election of it. Sometimes they refine edge, doesn't get everything right and light like to just double check on, clean the mask manually and the next we can save our selection because we will be using it later on. Let's call it dog just to make it obvious. Okay, we can be selected for now. Okay, let's click on the selective color, too. As you can see, the green collar is selected by default, although the by ground still has green tend to it. Often adjusting the green color wouldn't do much or just want to do enough, depending on the picture that we're working on. In this case, we need to change the color to yellow and a justice letters to change the background to orange or warm brown color. As you can see, the changes we made were applied to the whole picture, and now the for looks just a bit too orange. So this is where the mask will come in handy. So let's load our selection and make sure that the mosque is selected and use the black brush to paint over the dog. No, the selective to adjustment is only applied to the backgrounds. Another dog itself, and I think it looks much better. The next step is a little trick. I usually used to make the background slightly softer and colors of the deeper it's duplicate our background layer. I'm going to call itself background. Then we're going to blur it a bit. I usually use galaxy and blur sets to about 12 to 30 maybe 40 pixels. Once it's done, let's change the blending mode too soft light. As you can see, the colors are much deeper and the Bagram looks quite solved, but it doesn't look very good Overall, I think the effect is just a bit too strong. So let's adjust AEA Prasetyo around 40%. Usually it will make the shadows look a bit too dark, so I'll quickly must come out. Getting the next thing we're going to do is to get rid of those blue patches into back girls. Let's create on you layer and changed the blending roads to color. I'll move it up so it's sitting on top off all the other layers. Now I'm going to create a group and college background. Our color fix layer will automatically be added to the group. Now let's create a mosque from our selection that we saved previously. We're going to load this selection, but this time, make sure to take the invert option to select the background instead of the dog. Once the selection is loaded, we just need to make sure that our group is selected and click on the Mask Aiken. Now all the layers and adjustments that we're going to create are going to be applied to the background only. For example, let's use a green brush on our new layer, and as you can see, it only allows us to paint on the background and the dog is not affected at home. Okay, let's change the a positive of the brush and make sure we're using a very soft brush. We will sample. The colors are on the blue blotches together very closely matching color. I can hold down the old key and click on the picture to sample a caller. Now let's call our over the blotches until they disappear. I like to sample or adjust the colors of the brush quite often, because using the same color on the whole picture might make it look very unnatural. Next, we're going to create a new layer. Let's call it soft light and change the blending Lord too soft light. Make sure that the layer is actually a part of the group that we created before. Now let's elect a very bright or even a wide brush. We're going to use a very large and soft brush and lower the A positive as well. We're going to brighten the area, bought the dog to kind of simulated sunlight. It's important to pay attention to the light in your picture and make sure that our sunlight actually matches the light direction in the picture and this example, the light is coming from the left hand side from the top, So this is where I'm going to paint by sunlight. It's a very common mistake just to brighten random areas of the picture without paying attention to the shadows, and often looks very fake and unnatural of the shadows are on the same side as the painted sunlight and someone insulin. So, for example, if we paint our sunlight on the right side, it wouldn't much delighting in the picture. And it will probably make it look very fake. Similarly, we can pick darker color and create a very soft vignette on the edges. Okay, I think that looks good. Now we're going to create another layer, but this time we'll be using hard light, blending milled. It would create a stronger effect, and it will make the background look a bit smoother. I use even a lower a positive for this blending type to create very subtle radiance. When painting, I usually sample Kahlo's from the picture to creative race booth background, something to cull. Overall help was blended better and create a really smooth, greedy int. Well, if we want to change the here and situation. We can actually pick the colors from the color wheel as well. I'm pretty happy with the results so far, so let's move on and create yet their various methods. But I usually like to use a very soft brush in the quick mask mold, so let's change the opacity to 100% and press cue to enter quick mask mode. We're going to paint on the edges with the exception off the light areas, as we want them to stay very bright and simulated sunlight next world lurid to create a very soft radiance. Once the layer is blurred, we can click on the levels adjustment, and it'll automatically create and you adjustment layer was Applied Mosque for us. Let's make the ages darker and use the second ultimate slither to make the Viet look more flat. Okay, lets out some final touches to the background. We can go back to our soft and hard layers and experimental, but to see what works best, I think I don't like giving it up. It's stronger and actually bright in the sunlight to make dog kind of pop up. But thanks to the masks and layers we can always go back and just just anything like her own. We can also add a new saturation adjustment layer to our group and adjust the situation. I think it will do saturate the colors just slightly, and I think I will also make a vignette a bit stronger. Okay, I think I'm pretty happy with the background, but it seems like our dog is not really dry getting attention on this picture. So first, let's edit the ice a bit less. Press cute. Enter quick mosque mode on kind over the eyes just to select them. Next. Presti levels I can again. It will automatically create a new layer off the mosque for us, but typically make the eyes brighter and just a bit of contrast. The ice look a bit too orange now, but we can easily fix that by changing their layers, blending modes to limit its. So the changes will only affect ruminants and not the situation. Nothing that looks much better. Next we're going to load our previously safe selection again. Bright into dog obits stands out more. Oh, use curves to a bit of brightness and contrast. We can mask out some of the areas to make sure that nothing is over or under exposed. I feel like this picture is just slightly too dark overall, so let's create another curves layer and adjusted slightly. We can also add a matter. Look to the background by lifting the end of the curve of it so it will make the shadows look more flat. I'm pretty happy with the background now, but I think the dog looks a bit too flat. But we can always load our selection again on Master Dog out. It would be like it just a cool trick to show you pressing control and h will hide this election so we can see the changes we make easier and pressing control age again. We'll show the selection again. Okay, this is the final result. So let's compare it with the original. I think it looks pretty good. So let's go ahead and save it. This is the end of the tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it and you learn something as mentioned. Oh, provide the row file and the PSD file for you so you can practice on your own. Thanks for watching and see you next time
Sara Nowak, Pet Photographer
