Portrait Photography - Lighting and Posing Models

1. Intro: Portraits are everywhere, whether it be your family photo album, or a advertisement on a passing street car, or a local shop, or even that new updated profile picture. You pretty much can't go anywhere without seeing some type of portrait. Hello, everyone. My name is Fynn Badgley. I'm a commercial fashion and portrait photographer, and today I am walking you through some advanced portrait techniques, as well as some advanced lighting techniques for when you are creating powerful images of people. By the end of this course, you will have an in-depth knowledge of how to use light in differing circumstances, and how you can really play with light and shape it to create some engaging and powerful images. We're going to look at how you can structure a photo shoot incorporating lighting, wardrobe, color, to create a overall theme that then you can have brought out of your subject to create an overall mood, and tell a compelling story. We're going to look at two very different setups, so that way you have an in-depth knowledge of both, and can apply them to your photography no matter where you are coming from. If you are a wedding photographer or family portrait photographer, you can still gain an amazing amount of information out of this that you can apply to your own work to set you apart. Or if you are a portrait fashion editorial photographer, there are a ton of tips in here, from lighting to working with models, for how to up the quality of your photography. This course is for anyone of any skill level, even if you are just starting out, there are some solid tips in here, especially if you are looking to get started in the genre of portrait photography. While this course will take place within a studio, by no means will you need access to one to complete today's project. The material covered today is crafted in such a way that you can create similar images right from the comfort of your own home. No matter your equipment, no matter your setup, the techniques covered today will lay a solid groundwork to give you some amazing images. So, without further ado, grab your camera, get settled in, and let's get ready to take some incredible portraits. 2. Project: Right off the bat, I want to give you a breakdown of the project that you will come away with by the end of this course. I'm going to be going through two very different lighting set-ups today, both that you would be able to recreate within the comfort of your own home. While I will be working with trained professionals today, the tips that I'm going to share with you will help you be able to work with anyone no matter their experience in front of the camera, whether it is your partner, your spouse, your children, even yourself. The techniques covered today will give you some incredible portraits no matter who you have in front of your lens. We're going to be looking at a very commercial setup and we're going to be looking at a very editorial setup. Both of these are very recreatable within your own home. By the end of it, what I am mainly looking for is for you to be inspired by at least one of these two setups and recreate something similar within your own environment. I look forward to seeing the art that you create down below. I will be very active in the discussion. So if you have any questions as you're going along or as you try this out for yourself, feel free to ask away down there and I will be sure to pop in and answer as best I can. 3. Equipment: What equipment am I going to be using for these photoshoots? My main camera body that I'll be using for this, is the Canon EOS R mirrorless camera, and I will primarily be relying on the 24 to 105 EF zoom lens. Now, just because I am a zoom lens person, does not mean that you need to use one yourself, I'm sure whatever lens and camera you have available to you will do absolutely find for the project that you will create today. Even if you have something as simple as an iPhone and a couple of household lamps, the techniques covered today will transcend to any level of gear that you have available to you, so you don't need to worry about having to go out and buy some expensive camera gear. You can use what is readily available to you to create some amazing portraits. Now, what I like about these strobes, is that they are battery powered and fair portable, and that way you don't have any cords lying around or anything like that that you can possibly trip over or get in the way. It just makes things very simple that way. Now, as for modifiers, I will be using some very large umbrellas, some smaller umbrellas, shooting into the umbrella and letting that reflect back and create a beautiful soft light. Additionally, I will be using some smaller seven-inch reflectors to give more of a harder light. I will be using both soft and hard light for the duration of these shoots, so that way you get a handle of both of them and how you can mix them together to create some really dynamic shots. Now, that said, you don't need access to expensive studio lighting to complete the project. Within this course, you can use something as simple as a household lamp, position it in a similar way that I have discussed or use it in a similar way that I am within the techniques in the future lessons. You could use something as simple as a household lamp and position it in a similar way to that, which you will learn in the following lessons. There is no limit to the amount of gear that you need for this, as I am trying to keep it quite accessible, so that way you can create these images within your own space with whatever equipment you have available to you. Part of the reason that I want to keep this so accessible, so that way you're able to create these images in your own space, is that this course is being recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such, I want to let you know that I have taken all necessary safety precautions in order to have this come to fruition. Myself and the subject who you will meet soon, Andrea, we have both been COVID tested prior to the filming of this and are both negative. We have both also worked in the film and television and space, and a lot of those productions require you to have a negative test in order to work on them, so I have been tested with quite a lot and always good in that regard. Now, the studio does require that everybody who is not on camera wear a mask, so for the duration of the behind the scenes content, I will be wearing a mask. If at all it becomes hard to understand what I am saying, especially if you rely on reading lips or anything like that, there will be transcriptions down below near the discussion and project tabs that you can read and follow along with as I am walking you through the tips and techniques of this course. Hand sanitizers, wipes, masks, etc, are all available at the sanitation station that I have near to where I am tethering into my computer. That is also another note on the equipment side of things that I am tethering into my MacBook, just so that way I can see the images nice and large as they are coming in and the model also has a good reference point of how the images are coming out. It's just something that I always like to offer on my shoots whenever I can. Now, with all of that out of the way, let's go out on location to the studio to show you how to create some dynamic portraits. 4. Commercial Style Shoot - Part 1: We are here at the Toronto studio. I am joined by the lovely Andrea. We are going to take some beautiful portraits mixing some flash with some ambient light. It is a bit of a gloomy day outside currently. So I'm going to add some light in with my giant umbrella here. Basically, that's going to simulate the sunlight that would regularly be coming in from the window. What I'm doing here is following the flow of the light from the window and then just adding a little bit extra with a stroke. I'm tethering to the computer, so that way we can see everything nice and big as it comes in and right off the bat we'll take a couple of test shots, make sure the lighting is good, and then we will go from there. Yeah, just get comfortable, and let's see how this is going to look. Off the bat, we can see it is a little dark in the space. That's just because we are getting a bit of not the most amount of light from outside. What I'm going to do is expose for outside itself then we will come back in and balance that stroke back in there. Now currently, it is a little too powerful as you can see in the images I'm putting up. Light, if we bring it down a little bit more, we can see we're getting closer to where we want to be. Open up my F-stop a little bit more. That's getting closer. Now, I do just want to maneuver this light a little bit more so it wraps around her face nicely. How's this going to look? That right off the bat is actually looking a lot better. I just bring it a little bit more around to the side here, up a little higher, just the right way it can give a nice fall off across her. Now, you guys don't need to use such a big light, but I'm just doing it to give the largest, softest source that will just emulate that window like there and make it look as if it were a bright sunny day. Now coming back, that is looking a lot better and a lot more flattering and natural. I do just want to bring it just a little bit or you know what I'll do. What I'm going to do here, we're losing a bit of light on the camera left side of her face. I'm just going to fill in a little bit. That's a bounce card here and then we'll really get going. Now, I'm just going to use a good old 5-in-1 reflector, but you guys can use foam core or anything that you have available to you that is just big and white. This will just give a nice little bit of fill on the side of her face there. Now, I think that should fill in the shadows quite nicely. From there, that's looking a lot better. We can see the difference. We take it away. Then if we bring it back, just how it fills in the face nicely. Now, Andrea, what I'm going to get you to do is almost elongate your self on the couch a little bit more. Yeah. If you want to bring your legs towards me, and yeah, just even angle yourself so your feet are hanging off, and you're just relaxing, having a nice chill day. You're feeling yourself. I think that will look pretty good there. You can see, I'm not really giving her directions based on put this here, put that there. It's more about the vibe, giving her something that play out and act, rather than turning her into a stiff robot. Yeah, and just get comfortable there. Beautiful, that looks really nice and natural. Feel free every couple of shots just to change it up and move your body wherever feels good to you. These are the perks of shooting with somebody who is well trained as well is they just make your job very easy. Let me know if there's any particular shape that you like. Definitely, yeah. Feel free to put some angles in there with your arms and legs as well. Cool. Triangles always give a very good visual interest. Triangles? Yeah, like triangles with your arms and legs and everything. Yeah. It's a weird thing, but it works. It looks great. Cool. That's looking pretty freaking good. I'm going to move this guy just a little bit here. We can see also on the computer here that I'm tethering to I have it facing Andrea so she can see what she's doing as well. That way, as I'm shooting, she can adjust and see what she's doing and make it to her liking as well. It's pretty cute going like this but [inaudible] What do I look like. I just want to catch the angle of that light and bounce it back nicely there. I will bring this guy down just a bit. Now, I think I might take some from a high angle, so if you'd want to elongate like that again. This is something I like to do is really change up the angles just to give a lot of variety and create a lot of dynamic shots between everything. I'm just going to hop up here. This height actually gives me a incredible angle. Oh yeah, that looks great. Yeah? Oh, cool. Wow. Who is she? Right, who is she? Then I can also zoom in a little bit here get a couple of tighter shots and get this. We got this really cool lifestyle, but a low like high-end lifestyle going on. It really works well, especially the outfit jumping up from the couch. The colors and everything play really well together. That's something you can keep in mind is play with color and find ways to make everything fit, but also pop out at the same time. Now, I'm liking those high angle one, so I might take a couple more of those. I'm going to feel almost completely topped down here and feel free as well to even lay back a little bit more if you want. I'm going to get a little funky here and hope to not fall. This is a good old do as I say, not as I do in this scenario. Please be safe. That is looking absolutely beautiful. Can I just get you to look out to your left for me? Perfect, yeah. What that does is she's now looking towards the light more and it's going to illuminate that front side of her face and just give a really flattering look. Feel free to play with that as you're taking your portraits. Change the angle with the face so that way you get different lighting on there and can create some really dynamic images. I am going to move this guy a little bit more over here. Sure. Actually, as you're there, we might try something a little more straight on and see how that looks. I do have this plant in the background but I want to make sure that isn't coming out of your head because that's all you need is a giant little palm tree looking thing spreading from your head. Nobody will like that too much. Nobody likes a plant head. Nobody likes a plant head. You heard it here first. I will just bring this guy down rather a little bit more and tilt it down. Also, especially when you're working with lights like this, make sure to sandbag everything because the last thing you need is to have your talent there and then the light comes crashing down on them, and then nobody is happy and you get sued, so don't do that. That is looking little dark now that I've moved back the light, but if I had to bring it around here because what happened was when I angled it like that, I cut off some of the light from her face. Now I'm bringing it back over and just creating that nice light coming in from behind, creating this nice top backlight. It should look quite pleasing. I will just adjust the power of that guy a little bit to increase it and then move this a little bit closer and missing a bit of that light to her face. I'm just going to bring that little closer and down a little bit more, just so it captures this down. We'll do a little bit of that and I think that should work nicely. That's working. Yeah? Yeah. Lie there a little bit closer I might open up my shutter a little bit more because I am quite wide here. We do want to get a lot of the environment in. I'm going to come a little bit down more on her level. So I'm just going to bring this guy back down, give her that nice, beautiful backlight again. But I will bring it around to the side a little bit more just to wrap around the face nicely. Even if at any point you want to get weird with it and start throwing some different angles of the body and everything in there, you're more than welcome to. Cool. Just hit me with something, whatever comes to mind. Beautiful. That's one thing I always like to emphasize is making sure my models really have fun with what they're doing because it makes them feel more comfortable and if they're more comfortable, you get better images out of it, and everyone's happy. Now, it also does helped that you can tell she understands this kind of cozy but upscale lifestyle vibe. She's really putting that through and I think it's working really well. Beautiful. Yeah, that's amazing. Now, to change up the angle that I am right now, I am catching the light in the mirror, which is why I pulled the couch away from the window there in the first place. I'm just going to move this back to where our initial position was, that way we're not getting this giant, massive umbrella in the shot there. I'll just give that a good little wipe down. This is how you avoid fixing things in post is just take a quick second, clear the velvet there, and you are good to go. That is beautiful. That's perfect. You can tell as she's going along, I really like to emphasize things that she's doing well and keep that positive encouragement going. There's nothing worse than you're just shooting and everyone's silent and it's like, okay, am I doing well, what's going on? What are you thinking? Does this look good? Do I look good? This way it just helps to make sure everybody is in good spirits and is knowing that they're doing a good job. 5. Commercial Style Shoot - Part 2: Beautiful. Okay. You can even slide a little closer to me if you want. Then we can do almost the reverse of what we did earlier where if you want, you can elongate yourself the other way. Cool. Just to keep the light consistent, I'm going to move this guy around here, a little further, so it still acts like a backlight from that window but it still will be illuminating the face and keep everything consistent but still flattering and natural. That is perfect. Right off the bat. Beautiful. Yeah, if you want to. What do I do with my arm? That's always the kicker, what do I do with my hands? I know. I was like, "What would I do with my arms?" Even if you want to pop your one arm like upon the pillow kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Then that arm, you can just have hanging down or you can put it on your legs. Okay, cool. Anything like that and just move it around, even you can play with your hair a bit if you feel like it. Sure. Anything like that. Cool. Cool. I missed to do that. Beautiful. Let's see. If you want to play with your hair a little bit more. Yeah, perfect. Look out to your left for me. Yeah, that's beautiful. You are rocking It. Okay, now even if you want to bring your legs towards me a little bit. Okay. You can have it hanging off the coach even. Yeah, sit up maybe a little bit more, but you can still stay towards that side of the couch. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Just like that. It works perfectly. Yeah, and feel free to stick the legs out or pull them in, whatever feels natural and good to you. Now, if you can bring that back arm a little closer to me or even pop it up on that pillow if you feel so inclined. Oh, I see, yeah. Yeah. Just because before, the hand was getting a little cut off by the pillow. Yeah. So we want to make sure that, yeah, I think anywhere there would be good. I'm just going to back myself up a little bit here. Because although I like being wide, I do want to zoom in a little bit. Even if you want to. [inaudible] in the edge. I was going to say yeah, if you want to, perfect, that's exactly what I was going to say. I know that [inaudible] You are. Beautiful. Yeah, then even if you want to. Yeah, that was perfect. Look out to your left for me. Beautiful. Then again, you can prop yourself up a little bit more if you want to. Even if you can go towards the corner a little bit more. This corner? That corner there and then. Like this? Yeah, like that kind of thing. So you just prop up a little bit more. Yeah, exactly, and then that way the coach is hiding less of view. There we go. Yeah, that's perfect. Then just suddenly look out to your left for me. Beautiful, and you notice whenever I'm directing you to look a certain way, I'm always saying to your left, to your right rather than to mine, because then it just becomes a weird mess. It's also keeping the emphasis on the other person, so it's about them and their experience. In the background, you'll notice there are a couple of lights by that tree there, and that mixes well because we're exposed nicely for that, for the sunlight coming in. So that way, any ambient light like that, we can still see, but our main light is right here. So that way, we're not getting a lot of interference from that light; it's just a nice accent in the background rather than overpowering the image. I can even, if you feel so inclined just to show you, I'll turn this guy off quick. Take a shot with the light. So then if I take a photo with the light back on, you can see it still looks quite natural, but we are getting a lot more light on the face, which is really what we want to do here when balancing this large umbrella with the ambient light coming in. Now, maybe if you want, you could, what if we get you sitting on the corner of the couch itself? Yeah. Almost propped up like that and then change it up a bit just to get something a little different going. Yeah, exactly like that kind of thing. Now, you can see here, if this was a more dramatic or intense image, I might go with something little harder of a light, make it more punchy, more dramatic heart of shadows. But we're going for that cozy lifestyle shot today that's why we have such a big soft light source and keep it natural and cozy in that way. I like having a light source that is usually quite a bit larger than the subject I am shooting, and just so that way it is nice and soft and completely fills out the body even if it is quite a bit raised like we are here, it will still fall off nicely and get you from head to toe; versus if I use something smaller, we might lose part of you there. So better to have too much than too little in this case. Now, lets see here. we'll take a little test shot now that we're in a different scenario. I'll just drop my ISO just a little bit there, and let's see how we are looking. Beautiful. Okay, I'll just turn this guy around, get a little more light on the face and I'll put just a little farther away. So that way, following the reverse square law, that's going to create less light coming across her face; make it a little bit dimmer just because we are losing a bit of light from the outside, and coming now. That is looking pretty darn good. I'll zoom in a little bit more, and you can, even if you want to, you can drop your other leg there. Yeah, and even if you want to prop it up on the corner there and lean on that. So if you lean on your knee there. Okay. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Then I will just pull myself back a little bit here, and then turn a little more square on to me with your upper body, and then bring your left leg out just a little bit further. Yeah, there you go. Cool. Beautiful. Okay. We'll do a couple of that or more on that horizontal field. Beautiful. I like how you're changing up the hand position too, it's working well. Yeah. I see what you're doing, and we'll take a couple more from a little further back. The lighting is beautiful. I think with that, we're going to be good here and we will go now to the next set up. 6. Editorial Style Shoot: [MUSIC]. We are back with our second setup here. We're doing a mixed light setup with a lot of gels going on here. Unlike the last setup where we were balancing with the ambient light, this time, we're going to try to pump enough light in here that a lot of the light is very dim and we'll get a bit of glow off of these Edison bulbs, but they won't be super intense and overpowering or anything. We'll get this really nice neon vibe [inaudible] things. Now, for the setup that you are currently seeing, initially, we were going for a pink and blue contrasting color theme. Originally, we're trying to play that out and see how it would work using a pink gelled light in the background and using a blue teal gelled light for the key light that will mainly be lighting our model. Then, we have the warm glow of the tungsten bulbs. But as we started taking some test shots, we decided that the blue and pink contrast in colors didn't work as well as we had hoped, working against the Edison bulbs there. This can be a process of trial and error and even seasoned professionals can make these mistakes. But that's okay because it's all part of the flow and you adjust things as you go to create the images that you are looking for. That is why as we continued, I swapped out the blue teal gel on our key light for a warmer CTO we call it, also known as a Color Temperature Orange warming gel. That way, it created that warm glow, matching what we were getting from those Edison bulbs on the background there. We still have that subtle pink gelled light in the background creating a nice back hair kicker light there. That wasn't so vibrant that it overpowered the warm glow we were getting from the practical bulbs there. But it just added to the overall look and vibe, especially because the wardrobe was that warm color; we wanted to match that. I feel that the warming Joe definitely worked better for this setup and fit the overall vibe mark. You don't have to worry about being locked into one choice once you make it. You are more than welcome to change things up and play with them as you go to get the desired look that you are going for. If things don't necessarily look how you want them to at first, it is more than okay to adjust things and see how it comes out after the fact. This is how, as photographers, we grow; we play around with things and see what works, see what doesn't to get to our final intended result. With that said, we're going to carry on with the rest of the shoot using that warm gel that we put on our key light. Let's see this guy, we can increase the power on then bring around just like so. Again, if I can get you to take half a step to your left for me. Perfect. You know the way you were leaning earlier when you put your right arms above your head and whatnot? Again? Yeah, if you want to do something like that. That's perfect. Beautiful. That's nice and warm and dramatic. I like it. You can see we're still getting a bit of that subtle pink coming off the camera left side. But it's not anything that's completely overpowering and detracts from the overall look. It just adds a little bit of flavor, a little bit of spice in there if you will. Now, to go with the dramatic vibe, I'm going to come a little closer and shoot [inaudible] a wide, get a lower distortion in there and make it a little funky. Beautiful. Yeah. Feel free to play around with who you are and even come a little lower. Even if you want to almost point your leg right towards the camera. I got it. [inaudible] Yeah. [inaudible] towards the camera. Like this? Yeah, exactly. Then that way, it adds this extra level of depth and creates this nice line that follows all the way up to the image. That's cool. You can tell between the two setups, these are very different shots that we're creating. One is a lot more dramatic. There's a lot more cozying [inaudible] So it's almost as if you're taking more of an editorial fashion photo versus something more commercial and how you can use these lighting techniques to go between the two and use them to add flair to your own work. You can even bring your arms down and just play with how they are. Yeah, that's perfect. Beautiful. Oh, these look amazing. [inaudible]. Beautiful. That wood wall really works to create this almost rustic dramatic background. I like it. [inaudible]. Let's see now. How would you feel if you took the jacket, robe, whatever it is? If you were to have your arms out the sleeves but [inaudible] over your shoulder. Does that make sense? Yeah. Anything like this. I always like to check with the model to make sure they're comfortable with any direction I give them and if they're not, that's the end of story. You don't go ahead with it. I'm not out here to make anybody do something they are uncomfortable with. I think that is a good way that we can all [inaudible] So make sure to check in with your model, see what they're comfortable with, and that way, everybody is comfortable and you get better work out of it because everybody's on the same page and knows that they're feeling respected. All right. Yeah, that looks amazing. Beautiful. [inaudible] Right? Yeah, sorry, it always takes like a second to load. It does, yeah. I wonder, I may even just to make it a little easier for you. Let's see here. Now, hypothetically Oh yeah, well, that looks, you caught me. There we go. Now, we can go full screen on that guy, so that way Andre can see it nicely and won't have to squat quite as much. I'm glad. What can I say? Now, let's see, I may have you turn just a little, so your left shoulder will be towards the wall a bit. Yeah. Feel free to step out a little bit and really elongate yourself, as you lean in there? You want me to lean against the wall? Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. You read my mind. Feel free to, if you can tilt your chin up quite a bit. Yeah, exactly, that attitude, there you go. I dig it. The light actually plays an amazing part in here because it really lends itself to that really bold look that we're getting here. It's like Kill Bill. Almost, yeah. A little bit. I want to go back a little farther just to see what something like that will look like. Beautiful, yeah. Even if you want to poke your thumb into either the top or the bottom hook there, whichever one. I know it's so, it's like I like it, honestly. No. It's like Britney Spears kind of. Kind of, yeah. Yeah, beautiful. Then, you can even if you want, if you were to bring your left arm higher up on the wall, you can even use that to lean against, like if you bring it up. I see. I'll move this guy. I'm going to give you a little bit more room there. But do you still want this over the shoulders? You can even have it over one shoulder. Okay, cool. If that works. Does it? You tell me. Let's see. I'll get you to move a little bit further this way. Yeah, exactly. Perfect. We have a nice balance of hard and soft light here because we're getting that hard back-light to match the exposed bulbs, but then we're still getting that soft warm glow to shoot through the umbrella. It's reflecting back on her face and just making a really bold but still flattering image. Let's see. Yeah, that's perfect. I love that. You can even bring your right hand down a bit, yeah, and just kind of play with that, have a lot of attitude. Beautiful. Almost like you're a boss baby, you know what I'm saying. Trying to keep it family-friendly here. Of course. Yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, you got the expression like down, Pat. Then, she laughs. Then, I say that, and then, it works It's so funny because it feels so strange, but then it looks amazing on the camera. It's like that feels weird, looks good kind of thing. That's why I like having that guy there because then you can see and you go, oh, that's why I'm doing this. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think we can get the back, put your arms in the sleeves, take a couple more, and then I think we'll be good to go here. Cool. This time I'm going to come around here a little bit more and we'll bring this guy a little bit here. Again, I can just kind of film the face nicely and still get that flattering look. Now, let's see what if I kind of have you turn in towards the wall there and then just kind of turn out towards me a little bit. Yeah. Almost like that. You can kind of bring your arm around, so it pulls the coat back open. Yeah, beautiful, just like that. Now I will zoom in quite a bit just to make a nice compression in the background there. Beautiful. Yeah, you've got the look like down, Pat. For one final image, I will shoot straight ons and I'll have you doing a similar lean-to what you were doing before but almost more dramatic if you can. Yeah, sure. Just like more bendy. Exactly. You can see I really like checking in with her just to make sure that she knows, what I'm thinking, what I'm going for, and that everybody's on the same page. That way everybody feels heard and the images come out solid. You can even turn your torso and your body a different way. Yeah, that's perfect. Cool. Okay, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Just give a really nice shape there. Beautiful. Ooh, that's so cool. You can tell the art, even though the pants are quite bold and the jacket has that print as well, they still work together in this bold of way. It's a very warm image, so that way nothing's too out of place at all, works well together and it's not too busy or anything like that. Where if we had a pattern in the pant and like the last shot or anything that might be a little iffy there. Beautiful, yeah, like that, and then perfect, you read my mind. Beautiful. That's perfect. Beautiful. If you can raise your chin up just a little bit for me. Fantastic. I am shooting a little bit lower on her for this shot, just because I want to emphasize that power and that authority that we get out of this shot. Whereas the other one, I wanted to keep it a little more fun and flowy, so I was on the same level as her, if not a little bit above. You can really play with your angle to show that and to let that come across in the image. Okay. Then you can even bring your hands almost like you're reaching towards the camera as well if you want. Yeah. Then, you can have them falling down a little bit. Beautiful. Yeah. That will about do it. Okay. Now, with that done, we're going to wrap up here and we will go take a look at these in the editing room and show you guys how we can play with it and tweak the light that we've set up here to make a really solid couple of images. 7. Review: Now those were some incredible images that we captured in studio. Andrea did an amazing job. Links to the studio and her own profile will be in the notes down below. I hope you gained a lot of value out of that and saw how you can use the different light sources, modifiers, and positions to create some really dynamic lighting, and really create a mood, especially when you incorporate your wardrobe, your posing, and the location to which you are shooting at. Additionally, I hope the model tips on how to work with your subject came in handy. As I know a lot of these tips I've cultivated over my career, and that is why I'm sharing them with you as it is something that is less common knowledge within the photography community. Now that we have some amazing images out of the camera, let's jump over to the computer where first we will call through the images and I will show you what I look for when I'm choosing an image to edit. Then we will walk you through how I craft and edit and really finish up an image and polish it so it is ready for whether it'll be an advertising campaign, a magazine spread, or my own personal portfolio, I will show you how to really have that image polished. 8. Edit Part 1: Selecting Images : Here we are in the edit, we are in Lightroom currently. I'm going to break this down in a bit of a two part system, so to speak. Basically at first I'm going to show you how I go through my photos, and how I choose images. What I look for, and then from there we're going to get into the actual edit, and really tweak things around a bit. Looking at our first setup here, this is the mixing the artificial light with ambient light. We can see when we started off, we were playing around getting the exposure right. We balanced for the ambient light coming in and then balanced the strobe, giving that almost a bit of a sidelight. But that umbrella was such a large light source that it gave us a very nice fall off onto the other side of the face there. This is a very common lighting technique used in editorial and advertising photography, and I absolutely love it. A lot of what I'm going to be looking here for these images is, I'm looking for a strong pose, a strong expression, and just something that gives an overall feel and tells a story really well. Right off the bat, a lot of these images are doing just that. Any applications like this Lightroom capture 1, etc. I always love using their rating system. Usually for a large shoot, I will break things down between 1-5 in terms of how I rate them using the star system. But for this demonstration, I will be just rating the ones that I am looking to edit as fives. Then that way it keeps everything nice and concise for all of you. You can see right here, I rated this one a five. That's just because I like the expression that we have, going on here. There's nice light on the face, there's nice fall off. The pose is pretty strong. We got some triangle action going on here. You can see everything nicely, but I think we can find something even better, and you can see these top down shots worked very well, also. Something like that, we can maybe call a five, and something like these images here I just really love, especially this one. It's a very nice natural expression. It's very relaxed, and it really sells that feel that we are going for. Going through some more of the images, can see, just going a little fast. There are a variety of expressions here and that's why it's always good to work with an experienced model, or just to have them change up the pose a lot as you get a lot more out of the shot. Even something like this is pretty good as well. You can this setup was a little dimly lit, but that is okay. We can also bring that back in post as well. Just brighten it up a little bit, and give a really clean look to it. Something like that, I enjoy as well. It's fairly subtle. I do like this though there's a little more going on in the face, a little bit of a smile going on there, a little more in the eyes. That is just an outtake there, so we won't worry about that. Then something like this too when she's looking off in the light is really nice on her face. Even some of these are nice as well. There's really a lot to work with here. But I'm just going to go through and I think I'll try to narrow it down to one image from each set up, and that way I can show you guys, the best editing techniques that I'm using for all of these. Even this image I actually like quite a lot. You can see the outfit well, there's a strong pose here. You can see the environment and you get that couch in there, which looks really nice. The outfit pops out from that couch nicely. You get that vibe that we're going for. Going along down the road, we're getting some really dynamic poses here and really selling that mood that we're going for. You can see I am changing up my angle quite a lot, I'm moving with the model just to make sure that everything is keeping dynamic, and that flow is still going. These I like a lot. The only thing is her hand is cutoff here. If you remember, I did tell her to bring that out a little bit. Then that's how you deal with that. Is just make sure you're not hiding any limbs or anything like that as well. Now here, if you remember, I did ask if she could prop yourself up a little bit, just because we are losing a lot of her in the couch there. Then we get to these images and you can see quite a bit more of her there. Then, something like this image I absolutely loved. There's a nice expression and pose, and then I think this one is even better. We're getting a very nice soft expression there. The hand, I'm not completely a fan of just because it does look like a little bit of a clause, so make sure to watch out for that as well. But something like this is very nice and natural as well. I like that quite a lot, so I'll rate that a five as well. Going through, we're getting some nice expressions here, and then this is as I was showing the difference with the flash on and off, when it came back on it was a little bright just because the trigger turning that back on, it had a different set power level, but coming back down we can see that it is quite nice and flattering there. Then going along, we're sitting on the corner of the couch there. I wasn't quite a huge fan of this particular pose, but that's okay because going down the line, we get more of this look, which I think worked a lot better. I'm a big fan of this leaning portrait. I believe I was about 35 millimeter here between 24 and 35, it seems like this on a 32. That looks pretty good there. You can see I rated this one and that guy as a five. I think I like this one a little more. There's a little more going on the face where here, she's a little more straight onto me. Here there's a little more of an expression going on there, and I quite enjoy it. This could be a really good advertising image. We've got room for text, for copy, anything like that. I think this would do very well. We're not cropping any of the joints or anything like that. There's a nice fall off on the face, the hands are in a fairly nice placement as well. Even something like that looks good as well. We're just going down the line here. Even that is also very flattering, and I like the hand position there quite a lot. I'll give that another five as well. Then, these are nice as well. I did pull back and zoom in quite a bit. You can see these are about 70 millimeters here. I think it just gives a nice compressed look there. Something like that, I think it's quite nice. The expression is nice and soft and gives that overall look we're going for. We get a little bit of that light in the background. We have a bit of our cable here, and that's from me tethering into the computer, but we can always crop that out. Going down along the lines, I think we're doing pretty good. Now, this image I think might be the one that I go with. I just love the expression. I love the pose. The light is absolutely beautiful, so I think that's going to be the one that we go with there. Then we can see this is our second setup. I'm going through these images. I'm going for a bit of a different feel, so my coloring process will be a little different here. You can see we had that teal and pink vibe that we were planning on going for. But with the warm glow of the Edison bulbs, we just felt that something a little different from that would be better. Because you can see with the blue, with that teal, she is a little washed out and I'm not a huge fan of that, especially we got a warm color from the jacket, we got a warm color from pants there. Keeping with the color theory idea here, we want to keep everything on a similar color scheme. Even though that blue teal is on the opposite end, I think for this particular image it would be more beneficial for a warmer light, which is where we get into these images here. You can tell the difference between, say, something like this and something like that. She's a lot less washed out and the light works for her a lot more. We're going for a very different look here. There's a lot of angles, a lot of power. I am shooting up at her. Like I mentioned earlier, that's just to emphasize a powerful look and idea there. You can see I was asking her to lift the leg up. I quite like that look, so I'll give that one a five for now. We will come back to it and see what else we have in this set here. I'm getting her to move her arms around quite a lot because that can give a lot of different visual interest there, trying something a little horizontal. For this, I like the vertical better. You can see I am getting her to play with the jacket quite a lot and just play up with the pose and everything like that. I like that pose quite a bit, something fairly natural but still dramatic. For a lot of these, you'll notice I am at about 24-50 millimeters, so I am on the wider end of things. Then again, that's just to elongate things and really emphasize that sense of power and that distortion that we're getting there. I did zoom in for a couple and I just backed up so we have a similar field of view, something like this. I don't mind being a little zoomed in for, but I like the wider shots for this I think. Going along, we can see we're getting a variety of poses here, which are working quite nicely. I like that idea, something fairly simple but still quite dramatic. Even like that is actually really nice. We're getting a decent expression there. It's not quite dead in the face. There's still something going on, especially here. We're getting a very nice light across the face. It's a nice warm glow. We can see everything nicely. It looks pretty good I'd say. Then we got her laugh in and come back. As we're going through, you can tell I'm just really trying to find a really good expression, a good pose. We want the light to be nice as well. You can tell as we we're playing around with things how the look changes a little bit, but we're keeping that consistent vibe going. I didn't really like getting the wall there in the back, so a lot of these we used will just cropped in. I like this look more anyways I think. Something like that I'm a fan of, but maybe we'll keep going down to see what we find. Let's see. Something like this is actually pretty nice. We're getting that dynamic flow the body. It gives you a nice trail to follow with your eyes. Before, she had two hands up. Sometimes just one the hand is nice, but also something like that is actually really nice there. With the jacket flowing almost looks like there's someone going or something like that, creates quite a dynamic image there. I really like that pose, so I'll give that a five. Then as we're going along, you can see even something like that isn't too bad. I think I like that look a little bit more, so we'll give that guy a five as well. Coming along and you can see I'm getting her to change it up quite a bit, bringing the hands close to the legs. I'm not always the biggest fan of that look, but sometimes for something like this it can be quite effective. Again, yeah, getting her to change up her pose every so often gives you a lot more to work with. Especially if you're doing this for a magazine editorial, it gives you a lot to work with. If you need to fill up a couple pages, you can get a close-up shot and a wide shot for one particular look. I did get a couple closer up shots as you noticed earlier, especially when I punched in a bit. But for the hero shot for this look in particular, I think I'm going for something a little bit wider, so that's what we're going to go for here. Now that we've rated them, I'm just going to go down here to our filters, select Rated, select five stars. Then we'll go through our images here. You can tell from both looks, I did give five stars to quite a few. But I know this is my favorite image from our first set. You can tell, just the light and the eyes is beautiful. There's a nice natural smile there. The pose is nice and relaxed. It doesn't feel forced. It feels quite natural. A nice, simple background. We're getting some ambient light coming in. We're getting a little bit of bokeh in the background, those nice little out-of-focus lights that were hung up in the studio, a little bit artificial light back there, and you can tell that job really does fill in her face quite nicely. We are going to go and open up this guy in Photoshop. So Photo, Edit in Adobe Photoshop 2020, and then we'll let that guy load. While that's doing that, let's come over here and take a look at these guys and refine things a little bit. I do like this image quite a lot. It is quite nice and natural, but I think I want something a little more dramatic for this look. Look, there's the difference at 40 millimeters versus 24 millimeters there. It does create quite a bit more drama there, and you can tell I punched in a little bit. But like I said, we're going to want something a little wider, so we'll look for that here. i think probably this might be my favorite image for this particular set. It's a little more abstract, a little more different, but I think it works very well for the shot. Even though we're not really getting those Edison bulbs in the shot too much, I just like the overall look of it a lot. I think it'll work quite well. I think this is going to be the one that we'll edit. From this particular set of images to start with, that's going to be our hero shot. Again, there are lot of other really good shots in there that I would pair alongside with this for story, some tighter shot, some longer ones just to really flesh out that story there. Same here, there's some that I would get with the Edison bulbs in there. But I think really the image that I like a lot is this guy here with that jacket flowing. We're not really getting those Edison bulbs in there as much, but I just think it is a very powerful overall shot. I think these two are the ones that I'm going to be working with. With these selected, now we are going to edit them. 9. Edit Part 2: Editing a Commercial Image: Now going straight ahead into the edit, this guy you can see, I already did some basic adjustments to just brought down the overall exposure, a bit of the highlights. If we reset it, there's a little overexposed. So I did bring it down quite a bit. Now, coming down, I do want to give again, just a little bit of an S curve, nothing crazy. I just like doing that to all my images. I think personally it's a little bit part of my style and it just keeps all my images pretty consistent there. Now we'll go down here and I think a lot of these adjustments we will save for Photoshop. We don't have any color fringing around the edges, so I won't worry too much about the lens profile corrections there. Then this guy, we can play off a little bit more because it is a more colorful and dramatic photo. I do maybe want a crop in a little bit just to avoid that little bit down in the corner there and I think that looks pretty good. Now, I do want to drop the highlights just a little bit for up here, that was hotspots and then we'll bring up the shadows just enough, not maybe a little too much, so we'll just bring it down a bit. It is a little over underexposed, so just bring up the exposure a little bit, but we still want to keep that overall dramatic vibe. So we'll actually, intentionally keep it a little underexposed. Sometimes it can be nice for that stylistic choice and that's what we're really doing here is making that choice and I think it works for this particular application. Now, with that said, I think the color is looking pretty nice. Again, we'll just give a very subtle, a little bit of an S curve there. Give it a little bit of a mood and a vibe to it and see if we turn that on and off. Just even things out a little bit. I always like that kind of thing. Now we can see the skin here and the skin here, there's a little bit of a difference there. So either tackle that here or we'll mascot out in Photoshop, if that is going to be better options. So we'll see if we bring up the reds, that's more in the pants and oranges, that's a little more what we're talking about there. If we just bring up the luminance of the oranges, you can see that is affecting the face quite a bit, lifting that a little bit more getting closer to the skin tone here. But in Photoshop we will blend that all a little bit more. I'll bring up that yellow bit too, why not? Okay. Now, with that said, we will come to both of these photos. Photo edit in Adobe Photoshop 2020 and we'll get to work on some more specific adjustments here. So right off the bat, I do want to give a little bit of a quick skin retouched here. So we're going to do some frequency separation to give a quick rundown. We duplicate the layer twice, come down to the bottom layer over to Blur, Gaussian Blur, give it about three or four on the blur there. Make the top layer visible again, come down here to linear light. It looks really bad. Come up here to Image, Apply image and then it looks even worse. Going to go down to layer 1, selecting the layer that we just blurred. So that way it knows what to base it off of and it looks really bad. We're going to come down here to the blending mode and change that to subtract the numbers that we're using here are a two on the scale and a 128 on the offset. I don't know why these numbers are what they are. There is a particular reason, I'm sure, but that's what you want for this and what we've just done is separated the color from the texture. Our bottom layer here, we can rename to color, our top layer to texture, and then that's just going to isolate those for us. Now, skin here is pretty nice and even already so I won't do too much. I'll make this pretty quick. Just selecting a similar area in terms of color, tone to blend together. It's just going to soften everything out a little bit. I am using the last so tool here you will notice. That's a L on the keyboard and I am hitting the last filter about twice the keyboard shortcut for that. I'm on a Mac right now and that is Control Command F to reuse the last used layer, which is that Gaussian Blur of about three to four on the intensity there. I'm selecting some wider areas just to blend everything in nicely. That looks pretty good. Under the eyes if we want to go in there, we'll go over to our clone stamp keyboard shortcut as on that guy. Increase the hardness, drops the size a bit. We want to drop the opacity so it's not as intense and we don't want current and below because that'll make things look weird. If we do current and below, you'll see it's going to get pretty funky, which we don't want. So go current layer and that's just going to be on a texture there and we want that smoother texture to just fill over there and you can see how that is nicely filling in a couple of those pores and what have you. I don't like to overdo my skin retouching because I want to keep things fairly natural. Certain images for fashion and that kind of thing will call for little more intense retouching but I like to keep it a minimum. That right there looks pretty natural. It's a little too much, group that together command G on the keyboard, bring it down about 80 percent is how I like to do it. Toggle on and off and you can see it's quite subtle, but it just helps out a little bit. Now because I'm not going to be the person that really touches a face and doesn't really touch anything else. I'm going to come down here and I'm just going to give a very quick little retouched of some of the skin there. I don't think the texture I need to do too much with, but I will blend in the color of everything there on her color layer. Just makes everything look a little more uniform and that way it doesn't look like you just retouched the face and nothing else. I do like to select just outside of the main area of one color. So that way everything is blurred nicely together. You'll also notice up top where there is the Filter section here. I have it about seven pixels, which means the selection that I have is filtered outward by about seven pixels and that just helps blend it and make it look a lot more natural. Now, the outfit isn't to wrinkly or anything like that, which I am always happy about because I would come in and smooth things out there. Say for example, if we want this line or that line there to be taken out a little bit, we'll go over to the clone stamp. This time we do want current and below will do no hardness, full capacity and we'll just very subtly clone that guy in. Don't want anything too big there. Then this way, just go beside it and clone it in so that way it is not overly distracting or anything like that. You don't want any wrinkles or anything like that on the clothing 2D tracked. Now wouldn't go crazy on this. Anything that draws your eye away from the main focus of the image is something that I would take care of, but I wouldn't go overboard from there. You can see those guys we're a little distracting to me. I'll quickly clone stamp those in and that's how we'll do that. Toggle that on and off, can see a nice subtle difference there. I'm going to accidentally made that inside the layer, so put outside. There we go. That's looking quite nice. Now, I do want to shape the face just a little bit. So I will bring a darkened curves layer and a lightened curves layer. This is essentially my version of dodge and burning. I just like it because it is non-destructive and that way you can always change it when you come back to it. This guy, I like to call it contour, that's our darkened layer. This highlight, that's our lightened layer. Both of these masks are inverted. So I will go to my brushed tool be on the keyboard and I will paint with white to painting where I want that darkened area to be not, just emphasizing the jaw line a little bit basically. All I'm doing here is emphasizing some of her natural features and making them a little more prominent. Shape out the nose a little bit more and based on the natural light of everything, it looks pretty, great, right off to that. I don't think I need to do too much at all. I will take our highlight layer, maybe bring a little bit under the eye. Just with that up a little bit, add a little bit to the eye. But I don't want to go crazy because that's when you see eyes that look fake or like there's a light in them, which is what nobody wants. Toggle on and off. Again, very subtle, but it does make a difference in these little differences add up quite a lot. Now that we have our main edit there, we're going to go back into Lightroom after saving that guy, and it should be updated with our different settings there. So if we come in here, we have one of two, two of two, we can see our adjustments that we made there. Come back in here and this is where I'll get a little more creative with my color grade. I do want to warm things up just a little bit here. So just adding a little bit of warm from the color Temperature slider there. The Vibrance, I'm pretty happy with and then the Hue, Saturation, Luminance, I won't touch too much. Then I'll come down here to the Split Toning section. I'll pull the balance almost all the way up because I'm going to add some color into the shadows and I don't really want it to affect anything too much. Bring it all the way up just to pick the right color that I want. There will go something almost like a TLE color and right about there is pretty good. I think you can see the subtle difference I makes, it just gives an overall, defines a look a little bit more and very subtly. I'm going to bring this guy very intent at first, just to get my color dialed in how I want it, and I'll bring it down just a bit. That way you can see, it just gives that overall mood and vibe and gives everything that very commercial look that we're going for. It's not a super intense grade, but it is nice. Now, I do want to emphasize the light coming through the back window a little bit. I'm going to make a radial mask dragging outward, maybe I'll bring in a little more oval shaped like that and I do want to invert it. Now my previous settings were very Dehaze and desaturating that kind of thing, which I don't want. I'm going to bring the overall exposure this guy up a little bit more. The contrast will actually bring down just a little bit. Maybe we'll even add a little bit of a haze to that just to make it nice and a little funky, maybe bring it out just a little bit like that and think that's looking pretty good. We can even warm it up a little bit. Just so it's like a nice warm glow coming out of the window there. So you can see this is where we started with here and then that's where we got for our first image there and I think that's looking pretty great. Now if we come back into Photoshop and edit our second image. 10. Edit Part 3: Editing an Editorial Image: Here you can tell the skin is a little more exaggerated. Just because we are using a mix of hard and soft light there, especially on the forehead there. We will want to make things a little more subtle in the edit. Getting that nice warm glow on the face is looking quite nice. Getting a bit of a catch light in the eye there. Maybe we will copy that over and bring it to the other eye, but we'll get there in a minutes. Going to come over now and just make sure current layer, opacity down, yadda, yadda, yadda. I don't want to completely obliterate the skin texture, which is why idea of the opacity down and even after doing all this correction, I will drop the opacity on my main layer. That way, it is a lot more subtle compared to how it's looking currently. Basically to do this, I am just taking the texture from a smoother area and copying it to somewhere where the texture is a little rougher. You can see they're yeah, just copying it over. It helps smooth out some of those pores and also smooth out that highlight nicely as well, same thing for the forehead. Going through it nice and easy. Again, taking that smooth area, bringing it over to where it is, a little coarser, just helps even things out a little bit and look a little softer and not so intense. I think that should be looking pretty good, I'll further it a little bit on the side there and that's looking pretty darn great, I would say. Come down, bring the opacity down on it just a bit about 88 percent layer. Can see turning it on and off just helps smooth everything out a little bit and I will come down to the stomach here and again, just smoothing things out a little bit. Now can see there is a bit of play that were getting in terms of the overall color here between the face and the pants there, or the stomach, I should say. On the face I am just going to play with the color a little bit to get it closer to where we want it. I'm going to grab a hue saturation layer, go to red, bring back all the way up, and then we'll slowly drag it away. That way, we are just really affecting the face there. Bring that over and I just want to bring it a little more, so a little more subtle. Again, bring that out of the group, because we don't want that there. Back down to red so we can see what's out looking like so far. It takes some of the redness out and we can up the brightness on it, take a look and compare. Now, we turn that guy off, is fairly subtle, but we aren't going to invert that mask by hitting Command+Delete, brush tool, and we will paint over her face of fairly large brush just to get it all nice and quick there. Then that's looking a little better. We want to make sure that we're not hitting the lips because this can look a little more of the lifeless and that kind of thing. Then we can see it's a very subtle change, but it does help and now that we have that face selected there, I'm just going to bring a Curves Layer. Create clipping mask so it's attached to the hue saturation that we added before and just add a little bit of brightness to the face, making it look a little closer to where we are in the stomach there and maybe we do want to take a Curves Layer and just dark and that guy down a bit, just to make it, so it's not so bright and more of the focus is on the face because that's what we want. Also, that area is looking a little bit magenta for my liking. We'll take the color balance layer again, clip that there, actually going to add in just a little bit of green there and a little bit of yellow because that's almost what we're getting at with this very warm color on the face. The random won't worry about too much, but adding in that can see just helps match the color there quite a bit more. I may even want to increase the amount of curves brightness that I have on the face, just like that and that's looking pretty great there, if I toggle everything on and off. Again, you can see these are subtle changes, but they do definitely make a difference there. Now to give everything a solid look, you do want that warm feel across everything. I'm going to go to a selective color layer, going to go down here to neutrals. I want to add in a little more yellow to everything, as it turns out, so I'm going to do that. Now, in magenta, maybe I'll add in just a bit so everything is nice and uniform. What are we looking at, its first cyan. I actually like adding in a bit of cyan, just helps even out the tones a little bit there. Now, black level we can raise maybe just a little bit, make it a little more natural, give it very subtle, a little bit of a color correction, a little bit of a color grade there. We will save that guy. We'll open it up in Lightroom again, where we will finish it off. Then opening this guy back up in Lightroom, we'll just give it a nice bit of a color grade across everything. In the shadows again, I'm just going to do the same thing we did with the first image. Give it a very subtle yellowish color going on there and then the highlights. I want to give it a little bit of a golden look there, nothing too crazy. I did add a little bit of a magenta tint in there. Maybe I'll just increase the luminous, the orange is a little bit, and I think that's looking pretty good there. Maybe that's a little much, so bring it down a bit and that is looking pretty good. We're getting a nice light on the face and everything looks pretty great and that's a very editorial image. There we go. We've edited something that looks very commercial, not natural vibe. Then we have something a little more editorial and dramatic there. There we go. If you've been following along, you should have been able to craft and give a overall look to all of your images that you have there. 11. Outro: If you've made it this far, first of all, I want to thank you for your time and spending it with me today to learn how to create some amazing portraits. Now that we are at the end, you should have the knowledge, not only of how to mix artificial light with ambient light, how to use different light sources and color temperatures of lights to really craft a mood, as well as implementing wardrobe and the location to really craft a story and sell that image. Additionally, you will have the knowledge of how to work with models, make them comfortable, and get the type of image that you are looking for. If you enjoyed the content that I shared with you in this course, feel free to follow me along here on Skillshare as I do have other courses talking about photography, and I will be uploading more in the future, especially related to different photography techniques, as well as some filmmaking-related tips and techniques as I have also worked for many years in the film and television industry, as well as being a commercial fashion and portrait photographer. Lastly, if you would enjoy some more bite-size content following both of these realms, I do have a YouTube channel, which will be linked both in the notes under this course and in my profile.. Feel free to follow me along there where you will learn some smaller, more bite-sized tips. I wanted to thank you once again, I look forward to seeing the images that you post down below. I will be checking so that way we can interact with one another, and I can see how you implement the techniques that you've learned today. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing and creative day.