Here are two videos featuring my retouching techniques. They have been sped up in order to last the length of the song but you will see how in-depth I go with my retouching and what I would be able to teach you.

At the workshop, I will teach the following:

Lightroom

• Exposing for post processing.
• Beyond defaults.
• Exposure vs Brightness.
• Using the adjustment brush with purpose.

In addition you will receive my personal import preset for Lightroom that utilizes a custom tone curve and exposure settings to ensure the most tonal range possible in an image. If you bring your camera or a RAW image with a proper exposure I will help you adjust the preset to your shooting style and camera output.

Photoshop

• Non-destructive editing.
• Masks.
• Preliminary skin cleaning tools,
• Advanced retouching techniques using frequency separation.
• Effective Burning and Dodging.
• Local Contrast Techniques.
• Sharpening Methods.
• Luminance Masking.

In addition you will receive a custom action pack to help you perform common tasks needed while retouching.

I will be teaching the workshop while working on a 42″ LCD so that everyone can easily see the tools and techniques. You can bring a laptop if you’d like to follow along. You can also bring some images that you want retouching suggestions on. If we get through the materials before the 2 hours is up then we’ll spend additional time on any questions you have about retouching.

Again, if you have an interest in attending this workshop on July 28th 6PM – 8PM or in one-on-one lessons then please contact me at scott@three2three.com.

I started out with Julie doing some natural light shots while we waited for it to get dark.

Fireworks!

And then I got bored and started jerking the camera around and using long exposures.

Then, afterwards we did a second shoot at a grain elevator downtown.

More details here.

I walked around with Jim Ferguson, Roy, and Larry Hayes along with McCall and Kay and got some great photographs of them both!

In this shot I brought McCall over to a small out building in the park while Jim and Larry were over by the playground equipment with Kay. I setup McCall near the brick and used a hard off-camera light to give her some punch. I love what hard light can do when used correctly and in Nebraska it’s difficult to use an umbrella or softbox unless you have an extra hand to keep it from falling over in the wind!

Here I placed Kay and McCall on the steps on the East end of the park. I placed a flash behind them to give them some rim light and had Jim and Roy each hold a bare speedlight directed right at each of the models individually.

Beautiful ambient light! Not purely natural though, but using a 5-in-1 reflector to it’s full potential can give great beauty light in situations where the natural light isn’t working. I had one assistant wrap a 42″ translucent scrim just out of frame on camera left and had a second hold the white wrapping under her chin just out of frame. Using a scrim in this close gives fantastic diffused light and having the white underneath allows her skin and eyes to reflect something other than the brown stone below.

Now, this shot is 100% natural. Jim asked McCall to sit on the fence and I grabbed my 70-200, climbed up and balanced for a different vantage point and got some great shots of McCall from this position. I asked McCall to lower her sweater off her shoulder to add a little something to the image and made sure to place her head in the negative space created by the road for more visual impact. I also used the fence as a leading line to direct the viewer.

While Larry and Jim had McCall over on a bridge at the park I worked with Kay a bit in front of a nice looking stone structure at the end of a driveway of one of the houses in the park. I directed him to give me some natural unposed looks.

And, for the last shot of the day, I placed Kay in Larry’s old Cadillac. The car is actually classic gold but I felt that the gold car mixed too much with Kay’s skin color and jacket so I colored it blue and changed the brown trim black in order to make the color flow.

We met up with my friend Chris Amato once we got to Mo Valley. Chris took us around to several great locations around town and assisted me with lighting.

The area around his studio is full of a lot of great locations. In this shot I used a wide-angle lens to capture a unique perspective.

For these next to shots we went down to a junk dealer down the street from Chris’s house. I used several lights to bring out the cars and to put a focus on Selmira.

This shot comprises 31 images. This is shot with a telephoto lens and put together like a multi-level panorama to give a nice blurred out background that otherwise wouldn’t be possible with a wider lens.

This was taken on some train tracks South of Mo Valley. I setup the shot to get Erik and Selmira in silhouette and waited until their heads were in negative space. I just love the way their hands and the electric pole form a cross!

Using small strobes can be a great way to add a dynamic feel to an image. For these next few shots I used bare AA powered speedlights to offset the sunlight and used a low camera angle with a wide angle lens to make them appear larger than life. My goal was to make sure that their heads and torso’s were in negative space and didn’t have to fight for attention with the girder bridge in the background.

A playful shot. I asked Selmira to tug on Erik’s tie while he fought her a bit. The clouds whisped in and gave us a beautiful background!

On the way out to the bridge I noticed this sign and immediately got an idea of how I wanted to shoot it. On the way back we stopped and quickly grabbed the shot.

Our last location was an area between Mo Valley and Honey Creek. In this shot the sun is to my back providing a great shadow behind them. I underexposed the sunlight and used a couple speedlights from the right to light Erik and Selmira.