Mobile Flat Lay Photography for Instagram & Co.

1. Intro: we all seem to noted riel there, casually scrolling through your instagram feed and then bam d picture you will fall in love with that day, a picture that causes you to want to take out all of your professional camera equipment, set up all the good stuff and get shooting for me. That always happen when I saw Gorgeous flatly shot but done again, even though I own a professional camera, very rarely took it out because using my phone was just so much easier. But the phones were used nowadays are more than prepared for professional looking photos. So a couple months ago, I took my supplies out, went to the craft store and just decided to get going. In this class. I want to take you on a journey from a board on the floor, over a pile of beautifully arranged stuff, all the way through mobile phone islands and into a photo editing app, so that maybe one day people will find your photo on their stream and will want to start exploring this beautiful world with you. Hi, I'm Merriam, and today I'm going to teach you all about flatly photography 2. Backdrops: Alright, guys, let's start right at the bottom on my floor. This is the floor right next to the balcony window, which is where a lot of light can come in. I do have a board next to me clumped with these little corner brackets and one of these clumps, which is just a white painted and the F board. I'm talking more about these in a second, so I just have these on to decide because this is where my fold up desk stands, which is super dark. So I just have a unnatural white wall to decide. And this is where the window is. And this is also my ob first backdrop. We're gonna talk about backdrops in case I haven't mentioned it. And this is my little marble tabletop faux marble tabletop, which is not really a flat life backdrop that I use a lot when I do a style shoot. But I use this mostly whenever I warm to ah film Instagram videos because I use this on my desk usually. So whenever I take a video with the inspector up, I will den style the and shoot on this background just for continuity purposes most of the time? Not always. So what is distracter made off? This is basically to ikey a desk liners. One of them is black, which is made of rubber. And then I stuffed what is called a design foil on it. And then I have this matter clear one on top of it, and I feel like this is just really fake looking just on its own. And it's also super effective. And by adding the mat foil, I feel like it is the match. A liner, not foil. I feel like it is muted, their bitch. It looks quite nice. Andi, I feel like a marble table. Trump after moment is like one of those things that everybody should have on. This is what before looks like it's just a row off, um, stuff with a sticky background, and you can cut it and you can stick it on. It's super easy to do all of my backdrops, R D I y, by the way. So if you do have like a Norge and marble slab, or like a pretty table that you can use that is obviously ideal. But making them yourself. It's pretty cool as well, and There's an awesome skill share class to die white backdrops that I will link in the description as well. So this is one of my backdrops. Let's talk about the other ones. So my backdrops consists off MDF board and these are MDF boards that I had cut on. One side ist is natural and the F that everybody knows and the other side is watch like metal thing here. I don't have another one that is unpainted. I can't really show you. Well, that's maybe see like that. So it's just a white face, and I had one of these. One of these costs me like 3 50 Swiss francs, which is about 3 $50. So my dimensions are 60 by 60 centimeters, which is a little bit more than half a meter, which is definitely plenty for the type of backdrops that I do. And then I just painted D. So sometimes I painted white side. Sometimes I painted two black side. The first factor up I made is dis one, which is just using some white acrylic paint with a thick brush and doing some texture dry brushing on on there. But I made a little bit of smudge when I try to paint the other side with chuck board paint . So I'm never I was never really happy that I think I didn't like one shoot with it, which I'm not really liking a lot. So I'm considering repainting this, but it's just like a white texture background. I also do cried like shooting on darker background. So that's maybe also why I don't use it as much. But that is one of those another backdrop that I made is this one. Sorry, my tripod takes a lot of space, so let me see how you can just so that you can see that. So this is what it looks like. It is Ah, long black texture. And I also sprayed it with, um, a glossy ceiling finish, which is why you can see it's quite reflective. And also there's copper paint on this, and I quite like having this one reflective, even though usually I don't do a lot of reflective stuff in my background, but I feel like this looks really nice. It looks quick. One g. It can create beautiful backdrops using this one, and this is also just acrylic paint on the spatula editor use for this. And now the last one, which is the one I'm going to be using today for my shoot is my newest one, which is also my favorite. One is the one we started with, which is this which is, um I made this using spackle or party or whatever you called us, the stuff that you get to fill holes in a wall and I just took it out and put it all over the white side off the MDF board, and I'm I made it quite rough on the edges and more smooth in the center because I wanted to have one area at a smooth in case. I want to have a flap page on there, and I feel like this is theory that is usually covered because my pictures are pretty much a very centric Electra of them in the middle. Just because that's my style of photographing. And that's why I kept. It's quite smooth here and very rough on the edges. And then what I did after it dried. I just painted it with acrylic paint, took white acrylic paint through a little bit of black in there and then used a big brush to just painted on, and it doesn't really look that good on video, but it is very cool once you edit it because it has so much texture in there, and I absolutely love it, and this is the backdrop that we will be using for our class today. 3. Props & Storytelling: so the next step talk. I want to talk about ISS props. Obviously, we can take pictures off our things without putting other things. Next to them were the first things that I would recommend. Using as a prop is using your art supplies. Paints look amazing, and pictures usually like having your PayPal it on their your watercolor palette having beautiful pain tubes. That just makes a lot of sense when you're sharing artwork. But with things that I noticed a lot is that sometimes you will have our supplies in a picture and that an empty page, which is something that I take a lot, but and I will usually put some kind of calligraphy in there. But you want to make sure it ab the props that you are supplies that are in the picture are actually use or pretended to be used in your picture. Otherwise, they don't make a lot of sense. So I feel like art supplies are probably the easiest thing to add to your picture, but also one of the hardest things to tell a story. So definitely start with our supplies. But don't stick just short supplies. So once we take a step back from the art supplies, There is still plenty left on. One of the main things that I personally really like to build my flat lay around is dishes and fabrics, which is just so much fun to play with. So I have a collection of little dishes that I keep repeating in my flat lays. I do have a lot of dishes. I actually kind of collect dishes, which is why it makes a lot of sense for me to put dishes in my flat lace, even though usually they're like paper centric. So there is a lot of paper involved. They usually have something to do with calligraphy, and still I will would. I will put dishes in there because I just feels personal to me. And I always have dishes lying around my desk like this little boxy bowl here, which has my little nip great yard. Andi, I like to use these Nibs to Sprinkle around my flat lace. I also like to use coffee beans to Sprinkle around because I feel like a little bit of sprinkling for it of anything makes sense and also makes a lot of sense for me personally. and my storytelling, because if you know me from Instagram, I'm always sharing coffee pictures. I really, really drink a lot of coffee. So it makes a lot of sense for me to have coffee everywhere in my house. Eso When I throw a coffee cup in my pictures, no one will question it because there's always a coffee cup near me and all my desk. So having a flatly shop that is meant to represent a pretty table styling definitely isn't complete without a coffee cup. It also isn't complete without pretty dishes because they literally stack up outside of my kitchen kitchen as well. And I am a huge nip collector, which is also making sense that I put them in my pictures. So the wave props is you want to make sure that they fit your story and the kind of person that you are publicly so as a zone example. I personally I love watches in my personal life, and I always wear watch and at least two rings. But when I'm at home, which is when I do feel my flat lace, I don't wear a raunch or rings, which is why people on the Internet don't really know about my ring obsession or the obsession with watches that I have. But do you know about my coffee obsession? Which is something that I show in my instagram stories? So I put dive in my pictures, and I don't put washes and rings in my pictures. I might put them in some time just when I talk about it in my captain. But you will always want to make sure that the picture that you put together based on your props is cohesive. So once you have your props collected that you want to use, you can start with a D styling and before you even start to styling, consider storytelling, which is, I trust upon this before you want to make sure that the story that your picture tells fits the thing that's your whole personality tells on the Internet. So all of your postings kind of paint a picture off the person that you are online, and you want to make sure that the picture that you put together fits that picture on if you don't want to do that. So if you want Teoh break a habit in a way you want to build a contrast in your picture. Make sure that you talk about it. Just do it. Make sense. So if you post a picture, I know it's house a lot of weights. You want to make sure that not only does it tell a story, but that you also tell the story I feel like was the main things that annoys me whenever see pretty flatly shots is that people don't really talk about them. If something is off, like sometimes people put certain things in their pictures that they usually don't and they don't talk about it. Which annoys me. So I always try to encourage everybody. Teoh use their caption to talk about that picture and tell their story with it. 4. Before the Styling Session: all right, So when I say storytelling, I don't want you to do and write a novel about yourself. You don't need to dio a lot of talking and explain everything. Just pick up student elements. Let's say for me I usually will just put things in a picture that people expect of me on. Then I really right on the piece of paper that I feature in my flatly quote and then talk about that quote usually, which is like my typical instagram posting process. So today we are more working on something like that, not like building a huge story in the flat laid that is controversial in a way. So let's look at props that I will use. So first off, I will put together a styling styling kit in a way which is just I will start off with deciding at the beginning off my shoot. What is going to be my subject on what are the main items and props that I want to use for this paint up for this photography session. So for me, that means a pretty typical day would mean I grab my pens, these air, my calligraphy pens. I do have a lot of custom nip holders, and these always make an appearance in my flat lays because I obviously have a calligraphy instagram account. So if I post something that is not pun related, it's a little bit weird. So I usually have these all out and sitting next to me and I try to you have rotation and feature most of them pretty regularly because I find them all beautiful and I don't really have a favorite, So I have these all nearby. I always have my dishes nearby. One of the things that I really like to use recently as a desk, which is actually a candle dish in combination with dis I just liked is layered, especially in his background, because it also kind of fits the color palette, and I usually go forward, which is mostly blue town, with splashes of red and yellow and green in it. Then I do have a pretty big collection of papers, so I usually buy cool papers that I see online. These air just once they got a crack at the craft. These are just one that I got at a craft store. They are not really dad special, but this one has quite a fun texture on Kraft paper always makes sense. And then I have, like a stock of little pieces of paper. I also have a couple pieces bound together using a little bit of fabric to create this little bundle here, which I quite like. They always make sure that all of the layers show up. Obviously, I do have quite a bit of artwork and calligraphy on handmade paper that I sometimes use, but I do have a lot of NT pieces of paper as well, and I usually make sure that the backside off any of my letter on pieces is empty so I can take a shot that is going to be a month gap. Indiana's well, really sorry that light was completely off, so help you can see it. So I do have some more generic sentences and sentiments, which always makes sense like positive wipes on Dreamer, which I actually spilled coffee on this while I try to film for this los which socks? I might actually insert a picture of this just so you can see my struggle like something like I love you and then I always have the backside, which is empty, and then we can start styling. One of the other things that I like to have is things to build. Texture and building Texture is usually done if you work in layers and as something like a fabric. I do have this box, which I call my flatly box, which has two different cheese clef or gauze, whatever you want to call it. Um, it has silk ribbons on spools, and I have this linen of ribbon, more linen ribbon, and I do have a bow, which is tied off these. Actually, these are scrap pieces off, like this transparent fabric, which is beautiful, which I got from someone who's this seems dress, so she didn't need them anymore, so I was able to keep them. And these basically dictate my color palette because they're very red. They are very red, so obviously that's kind of how my color pink cap. So basically, that's kind of how my color palette came to be. I chose my silk ribbons to be fairly neutral, so I have a couple. I have four different silk ribbons, which are are just greens and neutral Newt's colors and the dark green and dark blue. These very much fit in with my usual color palette. As you, you've seen my pen holders. They are fairly brown and blue toned, and these are just the fabrics that I like to use as an accent. I don't use these as much or as I don't feature these as, ah, prominently as I feature my little girl's runners because these are just much more neutral . So let's actually start and style a flat way. 5. Styling: all right, so I'm starting with a clear backdrop. I'm sorry about making noises. That's just so than nature of this thing. And I will always photograph and session so it will never just take one shot. I usually take a lot of shots on. I switch up my design a lot, so I will always start with the paper and the center. But if I know that I want to build texture, using a fabric in the background, that's a little bit more muted and not as prominent. I just opened this up and drape it on my backdrop, and I decide on this side. And the nice thing about the swings is that these are very transparent, so it still shows a texture underneath, which is something that I like to use a lot. So I don't want to use an opaque fabric here, too. And if I have a back drop, it already has a lot of texture on their all right, so then I will use my paper. So today I feel like using a big cotton piece and then layer a great piece on top and maybe do like a black peace and a center so I like to lay our Lord. And what I also like about layering is that even if I decide to just post my mock up shot, um, it will still look nice enough. Then I could throw in like people love in there and definitely get a pen holder in there as well and a little bit off other fabric, because right now it looks very empty, and I like to look at this center part of this again. I have mentioned there's a lot of people who like to use, like, thirds and stuff where their pictures. But I really like to center mine a lot, which is just something that king with Italian I always try to do like thirds and stuff, but I always ended up liking. The pictures were when their center more and the cool thing about having them center days. It's super easy to Dan crop them in thirds or whatever through I want to follow that They all right. Let's put thus to dis in here as wealth, and we can't just use a pen holder and throw down in either above or next to it. I feel like this would be quite a nice shot already, but it doesn't have enough color in there. So I want you throw in just a touch of color and one thing that I really like to do, which is a recent thing. A recent little bit of an obsession of mine is I like to bunch up this little yellow fabric and there's a little bit of a scene here which is not okay, So my recording failed, and what I was seeing is there's a little bit of a scene here which isn't too pretty. It has these little holes in it, so I try to hide that as much as possible whenever I'm bunching up my fabric. And then what I like to do is put it on here and then draped a bull on top of it. And this just adds a little pop of color, which reflects the holer here. And the blue fits with the blue of the holder here. So I really like to repeat colors and you can play with contrasts. But I like to have a look that is cookies, if again you want to make sure you use colors that fit together, and if you use a strong color like a red. You don't want to overpower your picture with it. So this is just one example of how a wood style a picture on. Then how it would move on from there is I will just go ahead and go through deep props that I shows and arranged M and play around with it a little bit more. And then when I feel like OK, I have, like, six year, 80 pictures taken or like, even if some days it's just 30 then I will stop and look through them and duty editing process. Okay, So before I send you guys off to the next class, I wanted to take just a second to share two attempts with you, the 1st 1 being how to drape fabrics. Because when I first started, I knew I wanted to incorporate the fabrics, but I never really knew how to go about it. So, um also how, um, how much fabric I would need? So I ended up buying just cheapest options on all of these Etsy stores, which ended up being quite short. And but in the end, I never need more than this because having them out and in a frame means that they look a lot longer than they are. But if you if you fold them up a little bit, they don't overpower your piece because they pile up hugely. So actually, going with shorter sizes is a better option. Save with ribbons. I don't necessarily by the huge ribbons and also these Gauls pieces are fairly small squares. But they will be covering my whole 60 by 60 board 60 centimeters. So this one is just about as long was my thing. And now if I want to drink something in the background, I have talked about that Try pull it again. I have talked about that before just that I will drape it so that the thing shows underneath. But another thing is, I always make sure to never Iran this because I feel like having little fulls in there looks quite nice. It at the national feeling touch to it. I try Teoh keep my seem out of the picture. So I will maybe full this over here a little bit. Or just make sure that doesn't, um, look to you can see it too much because I don't necessarily like to seem a lot and I will lift up and let it fall just so it feels natural. And then I can tug a little bit until I like it. So this is just how how I drape a huge piece off fabric that I want to sit in the background. I will. Just dude is pinching and lowing it fall motion. So, um, it creates a little bit of texture and, uh, more interest. And if it was just laying it, it's down super flat. Now, if I'm working with a fabric that is pretty stiff like linen, you can do stuff with it. You can turn it like that. So if you're not having a spool to create an effect like it waas coming from a spool I liked you, like, twisted at the ends and then let this fall. It doesn't look as amazing as I wish it would win. Um, like when you're using it for Miss pull, it looks a lot better, but you can create these curls which look nice. But whenever I worked with the linen, I usually laid flat because I feel like it looks quite nice if I have it flat and obviously my settings here are suited. You can't really see the texture to a while, but I can bring out the texture in the editing. Now for these soft fabrics, these air just scraps. As you can see, they are super uneven. So if they were to lay this one down and would look a little bit weird So what I make sure I do is I try to work with this more bundles and creates a basically a very similar thing that I do with backgrounds, where just turn it a little bit, let it fall and then arrange it like that. And sometimes I like to have them overlap. If I have a piece off paper in there, I do quite like to add the paper under one of those fabric clears or not. Now, how to deal with the silk ribbon is ah usually will remove it like this where I try to keep the curl so I can use that. Sometimes I will just stretch it out a little bit. But I do really like the curl, and here you can see naturally kind of unfolded as I moved in a little bit. But It looks quite nice with this Lowell turn here. And I'm also like how it ends at the spool here on day. Sometimes I will include this bull. Sometimes they won't. But really, this is how I will try to arrange my, um my fabrics, my ribbons. Just so I always want to make sure that I look at them and try different things, like I will start smelling it flat. And if I see it doesn't work, then I know I will have to work differently. So if it's very light fabric that see through it usually makes more sense to a lot of fall . Something like silk falls beautifully naturally, which is something that I always like to experiment with, letting stuff fall. Not the expensive pen holders, but just like fabrics, etcetera. Now, talking about Ben holders, Um, one of the things that always annoyed me Waas stuff rolling off, and I found a solution to that which I want to share with you guys. So let's say I have this pen holder here and as soon as I laid down Of course not. It doesn't world. Often times it will roles so that the nip isn't facing upwards or like sideways, which is super annoying. And this one? Yeah. Obviously, when I try to demonstrate the ruling off, it works. Well, sometimes you're lucky, and you can arrange it like that. But something like, um Then there's something like a brush which all the ways of rules. Well, this today, I seem to be mastering the ruling off well, usually and rolls away. So if it rolls away, if you're not lucky with the things that I found was amazing to use, not April's good is a need. Herbal. Theresa, if you're dealing with pencil lines, you must definitely will have used one of these before. So this is basically an eraser that is like, um, Plato. And what I like to do is I like to get a little piece and roll it into a sausage and then just pinched off that little thing. Make it into a ball. Now, having this great hungry is great. Now I can find my piece. Well, let's get another one. Sort of. This is super chaotic. All right, so I have this little ball Well, here it is. So I have this little ball and now I know that obviously, whenever I post brush on instagram, I will usually hit the brand usually tacked the brush maker, and people always ask what brush I use for stuff. So obviously, brushes usually have writing on them. That tells them exactly death. So it's quite nice. Teoh showcase that by finding the place that she want on the front and sticking the little thing. The little ball that I squish into this oval elliptical thing like piece of a sausage. And then you can press it down and it doesn't fall off on doesn't move. And what's also nice is if you can fix all of your elements, you can lift up your backdrop with ease. 6. Photographing: All right. Okay, so we are now in my phone and I'm going to start by opening up my camera. And the first thing that I always want you to make sure is that you're using the that you are photographing in raw mode. So that means you go into your settings and most cameras will be able to go into raw mood. And you want to increase. Make sure that you use the biggest picture size possible so that you have the full resolution at your disposal. So for me, that's for by three. I'm using a something galaxy S H, but you will have most cameras. Do you have a setting by an album? You can set it up. And if you do not, are you? If you're not able to photograph in the raw mode on your camera, I will show you the same thing in light room. So you want to make sure that you can save Raw and J pac files. So what this one also says is Dad pictures that should take in pro mode. So my phone only takes the pictures that are taken promoted in the raw format, and you were all format will just allow us Teoh do a lot more editing without having a picture turn grainy or Pillay a lot more with color and lightness and darkness. So I always air committed to work with raw files When you're working on your mobile. For phone Onda, that means that I need to go in promote, all right, so I'm now in my camera. I make sure that my large sizes on now what I need to do is for me. I need to sweat right and go into pro mode, and there's different ways you can work with promote. My promote actually has all those settings for all of those. If you're not comfortable with manual photography, this is a great option. Just said it all to auto, and it will work fine now. I take everything in manual mode whenever I use my actual camera, so I usually go and play with the settings a little bit because I feel like my phone takes quite light pictures and I personally prefer Teoh. Take them just a little bit darker. Just go a little bit darker on my pictures because I know that in editing, it's a lot easier for me to lift up colors than to darken them. Um, so I'm actually taking quite dark pictures right now. Um, maybe not that dark. That's a little bit too dark. Maybe so. That would be nice. The white balance. You can totally leave it at auto, because you can change it afterwards. Sometimes I like to go and use my default white balance, which is, like around 5600 sewer. I like to go quite cool usually. But again, this only makes sense if you know that you want to use, um Maybe it also creates a J pack file. So maybe you want to use that shaping file for something. So as you can see now, the picture that I take is quite far up and not closed down because I know that this this around here is probably my focal point where I want to take my shots. But I go ups because I consider that maybe I will take a 16 by nine shot. Oh, shit, that happens. So what I was trying to say before the coffee ruined my whole flatly session was that I will never go very close to my subject. or as close as I think I will need it in the end. Even though I do try to think of the framing that I will go for. I always consider that I usually will cut um, different formats. So you one by one, a four by five or maybe even a 16 by nine. Alright, guys. So I just want to show you guys how you would send it up on light room to photograph in the raw mode instead off the irregular. So what you want to do is you tap the camera, I can aan den at the top or at the side. Depending on your invitation that you use, you can actually switch to file format from Jay Pek, which is the default if I believe into the raw format, which is DMG, and it does also have an automatic mode. In case you're not comfortable using, um, professional mode professional in mode which has you focused your white bones. I so and you should speed 7. Editing pt 1: All right, guys. I am now in the official Adobe Light Lem ap on my phone. Adobe Light Room is one of the premium adobe absence, part of the creative cloud. It has been a desktop up for years, and it is actually one of the first mobile APs that has almost all the features off the regular. Let me just see that I have not stopped recording. So, um, light room is one of the only adobe APS on mobile that actually has almost all of the features. And like any of the adobe APS, it is free to use. All you need is a free adobe account. If you do have a premium subscription, it will sink up with D Cloud, and it will have additional features like selective edits and the thing geometry setting is also one of the premium features about almost all the things that we are going to be using today is available indie free app as well. And what I want to show you guys today is how to add pictures and three different editing styles that she can do. So the first thing I want to do is just a minimum realistic in a way like now, the realistic let's just call it a minimal natural looking at it, not really creating a look, but just fixing up the picture a little bit. So to add pictures to your gallery, you used the low icon under right here with the plus sign. And here you can see all the pictures that I have taken today and you can see that, um, my phone takes a regular J pack and the raw file, so I will just add to raw files to my gallery, and it will just this into the photos and you concede it all. My photos as soon it is, has been at it. So five pictures happened at it now, and I feel like we should use this one. So the first thing I want to do is rotate my picture and you can see on the side here there's a rotating signs. Now, this is where I can choose the crop setting, so it does allow you to do a custom crop, and it has some presets for instagram. One of the crops that I haven't really liking is a fought for by five, which I need to rotate the orientation already, um, crop ratio at the top here and now I can just crop it up. It's a little bit. Were to do this in a landscape format. I usually will use my phone and edit in the, um, regular form portrayed former. So it's a little bit weird to have it all on the side. Here, um, feels a little bit unnatural to use it in landscape mode. Usually you have all of these at the bottom. So, um, you can choose different profiles, which is something here. So you can go into monochrome or, um, color. I never use profiles. Um, all my phone and I literally moved down here just in the order that goes with it doesn't make a lot of sense. Um, up here already. Selective edits, which are the premium features which are not going to talk about too much. So the first thing that I like to do when I go and create a natural edit is here. I can see that it is a little bit too bright. So I take the exposure down just a little bit to bring up some of the details, and then I like to increase contrast just a little bit and take the highlights down a little bit, but increase the shadows so it does. Look, um, not flat, but the shadows are in us, Stark. And I'm lowing the whites as well so that we get some of the paper textures and open up the blacks. I know. If we zoom in, you can see that here in the whites, weaken that nicely. Sita White texture off the paper Now, General, been happening for all right. Minimal edits. So, as you can see, here is where you concede a raw features. You can see that the temperature is actually set at a Kelvin. And it is not, um, at the is that the setting that we shows and because we're using a raw format, it is super easy to adjust the temperature without this causing. Anyway, things same for the timpte. Um, and the, um, some of the other studies that we will be seeing. So if I go for a completely natural finish, I will actually use this little dropper here and choose you white area to automatically create a white balance, which is pretty much the same thing that actually happened before, and I personally, I want to go cool, but I'm going to create a natural look. So this is what adobe Light Room says is a natural white. So no, look here, but I will increase the vibrance just a little bit. And as you can see, the cool thing about Vibrance is it will just take certain colors and make them a little bit more punchy, whereas saturation makes a look on a real. So what I usually like to do is actually go a little bit down with saturation, but increased vibrance a bit. And I feel like that creates quite a nice little look. No, in this setting, I like to add a little bit of clarity which will just bring out some of the textures a bit better. Not too much, though, because we want to create something natural here. Do you? Hayes is really cool. If you forgot to clean your car, Merlin's before you take a shot that she should always do. You could also add a grain if you wanted to. Some people like to do that, but I'm not going there. And this is what I was talking about before with the temperature because we are using the raw former. You can see that this actually already comes with some sharpening, which is really interesting. I never realized that until I took mobile shots and looked at it that there is already a little bit of sharpening applied. So I actually increased the sharp writing a little bit to make it a little bit more crispy . But what I will den do is do a little bit of masking so that it doesn't look crispy, But not really. It doesn't, Chris, but not crunchy. So you don't want it to be so fragmented in a way. So the masking house with that? The rest of the settings are leftist, same on the legs profile. Correction should be on if you've taken a picture in the raw format already. And then, um, this is something that I will usually do, which is D geometry feature, which I think is just for Adobe creative caught subscribers. But he can actually, um, correct distortions. Um, which is really nice if you feel like it looks a little bit awkward, but we're actually just going to re said that because I am actually quite happy with dis on Ben. There is, um, filters and presets. I never use presets. I don't believe in presets. But if I want to apply settings and copy them and for my next picture be, which is something that I do quite often is if I want to apply my filter in a way or the edit to all of the pictures from the session, I will actually copy the settings, um, and copy all of them, except for the crop. And then I can paste them. And then once you have those added Aiken Den, play with them more because they will never fit all of the pictures. Even if you take them with the same settings and in the same lighting, it will just know look perfect every time. So that's why I don't really believe in presets. I will always take a lot of time to edit one of the pictures from the set, then copy does settings and then tweak them to make it look good. So this is just a minimal edit. You can see if I actually hold my finger on it. You can see this is what it looked before we looked like before and this is D after, which is natural, but still a little bit more vibrant, a little bit sharper. That looks quite nice, So I'm going to save that. 8. Editing pt 2: All right. So let's start again. I I think this was the reset button. Can I reset? Just adjustments. Yeah. So I reset. Just adjustment. Not all of them. So the crop should still be the same. Is it? Yeah. So the crop is still the same. And now I want to show you an edit. Did I Personally? Never do. But I know a lot of people love it. So I recently did like a show, three different pictures off these three different edits and decided actually was one amongst the most popular ones. Um, obviously, because it was my followers, a lot of people like to my edit, but descended is very popular, so it's like a warm match and type of feel to it. So this is how you would go about it? It might. I look perfect with my picture here because obviously, this is taken for a very cool picture. So if you want to, um, take warmer pictures, you might want to go warmer with our your props as well. Let's start with lighting. And here we are actually going to start editing a curve. Now. She entered the curve. Make sure that the white, um, little bowl here is tapped, and then you want to create a match. Look, So place a dot in the middle just so that the upper part here doesn't move too much and then grabbed a bottom and move it up a little bit and then move this thing here down. So we are creating, like, a little bulls year. So what, you can see here this lift up the blacks and creates more ring match effect, And by dragging this stuff down, D mat effect is created. And then, um, you might be one to put this down a little bit as well. Just so this is probably what eight Matt Warren pictures should have as a tone curve. And you can see already dis made it a lot more Matt already. Now, um, exposure You could keep you could go up. A lot of people that do this type of editing have very light pictures. I personally wouldn't go more up because this was taken already quite late. Now improved contra am increased contrast Just a little tiny bit. Go down with the highlights as before because I feel like I want you get at some of the paper textures and lift up some of the shadows. Um seems for the whites like this, then go into color. And here, obviously, we want to play with temperature. Now, you could warm it up using a D temperature slider, But what I'm actually going to do is I will warm it up another way a little bit later. Still, I'm actually going to do an auto my white balance on this on the paper again. Now I will go up with Vibrance just a little bit and go quite drastically down with a d saturation because this is a mutant Matt look, which is warm. But it is very, very muted. So definitely reduce the saturation. Now go up with clarity alot bit you get a little bit more textures and then use split tone Now, for the split tome was very common is to make the shadows bull and the highlights yellow. So what I like to do to make sure that I really grab a shade of yellow that I like is I do a D full saturation and then moved down like e 40 or so and then full saturation. Make sure that you choose a blue That's your weight and saturation down as well. Quite drastically. So it's 30 or so and here can really see it creates this Holy matter should look, um, this looks like an instagram folder. Um, now do a little bit of sharpening and do the masking as well and apply islands correction. And this is basically what you would do for this match effect. I am not a master of this edit, which is why I definitely improved its but this is completely different and how I personally at my pictures. But this is an edited a lot of people like and something that I've seen quite a lot of people do where you would do to split tone and do this type of a tone curve and make sure that you create a matter of fact and take some of the colors down. Um, so this is how you do that 9. Editing pt 3: Okay, so let's do a reset of the adjustments again. And actually, let's train just e lens profile correction on at the beginning because that's something that I always do. So now what I want to show you guys is how I would edit this picture using my type of finishing, which is I would say, it's very cool toned. It is very crisp, very textured. Some people feel like it is over edited, but I personally really liked us, so here it goes. So the first thing that I do is I create an s curve, which is a pretty common curve that people Dude, I like to go with a pretty high contrast. So you want to This is not pointed at once. All right? So I do create a much now I can grow it. My my lower here. So I do create a match effect is whoa and this s curve will increase the contrast off the colors, making a little bit more stark. And I personally loved this. Some people don't, but this is what I do now. Once I'm happy with that. I hit Done. As you can see, I lost quite a bit of stuff here, so I'm going down with the exposure. Go up with contrast, always increase contrast, even know to tone curve already out. It quite a lot of contrast, not go down with the highlights up with the shadows, but I do like quite harsh shadows. So I go go to white up too high up, take the white stone on the take the blacks up a little bit and then go into temperature and definitely reduce temperature. I like a very stark blue tone and then go up with the vibrance. I feel like my previous an editing probe. Just it properly. I like to go quite up with the vibrance because it will bring out all of those colored elements and saturation. Go down a little bit now, definitely add clarity and what the clarity will do. It won't sometimes introduce a little bit more darkness than I like, so I might have to actually go back into go back into delight settings and maybe increased exposure just a tiny bit. That's too much. That's one of the things that I actually prefer. One computer is that you can go in, adjust the settings to two point whereas with fingers, it's a little bit harder to be super, super accurate but accurate. But that's just how it ISS now. I feel like sometimes I feel like the haze. It doesn't nothing, and sometimes it doesn't lost. So I always kind of do a little bit of it. All right, sharpening up. As you can see, I went quite a little bit sharper. It and I do with the other edits, because I like it crispy, and that's basically it for my personal edit. So that's how I would edit a picture. Obviously, you want to make sure that you try to figure out what you want to do with your style. Usually, people that take more cool tone photography will also do cold toned editing. So it's really a matter off trying on different edits that you can find online, maybe try different presets and look at them and decide which ones you prefer. So if you prefer more warm turns, definitely experiment more with warm toned edits. And look would suit your picture because, um, that's just one of the editing, obviously takes a picture furter. But if a picture already dictates a certain looked and definitely go more fit than against it. And definitely don't let people tell you if they don't like your edits. Especially like there's I call them naturalists. People that really do know, like editing. They will not like your picture if it is highly edited. But definitely don't think about think about what you personally like EMS do dodge and go with what feels right to you. 10. Class Project: So as your class assignment, I would love for you to go ahead and take whatever you learn in this class on Make a beautiful flatly maybe try a little bit of editing and then either shared on instagram using d hashtag half a pixel flatly class or create a project in this class of all of us can see what you have done. I hope this was helpful to you guys. I can't wait to see what you come up with, and I see you next time.