Post Production

Hey there FStoppers! My name is Sean Armenta, and this is my little spot called The Post Production Tutorial. If you enjoy these videos, be sure to subscribe to the Fstoppers PPT Youtube Channel for the latest updates. Feel free to connect with me on the right side bar and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about retouching.

When I first saw this video featuring the new sportscar by Polish builders Arrinera Automotive, I thought it was completely CGI. Today they just blew my mind by releasing a behind the scenes video on how they filmed the commercial for the yet unnammed Lamborghini inspired super car. I know nothing about these cars so if you do, leave some insight in the comments.

At a recent TED Talk, conceptual photographer Erik Johansson broke down his approach and method into a bite-size chat. While many photographers consider their work finished as soon as they hit the shutter button, apply contrast, and upload to Flickr, Erik decides to take it further (quite a bit further, in fact). His images make you stop and think and may take a few minutes to sink in. If you’re one of those who asks “yeah, but is it photography?” don’t say I didn’t warn you. Check out the video in the full post.

Who doesn’t like a good Photoshop tutorial and learn few new editing tricks? Maybe learn how to fix skin tones or even remove stray hair. But what If you’re less into models and more into photographing dictators? we have the perfect tutorial for you. You’ll learn how to fix funeral shots, hide crime against humanity and so much more!

Remember when Apple released the new version of its flagship video editing program Final Cut X? If not, you might want a refresher course with Conan O’brien. Basically the backlash was almost unanimous, and it made many of us thankful we chose Adobe’s Premiere as our editing software of choice. Well today there is an upgrade that apparently fixes most of the complaints from FCP X users. [Read More]

Jay P Morgan’s Behind The Scenes Videos seem to pop up every single week. In this week’s episode, Jay teaches a few tricks for shooting black and white photography. Everyone knows how to convert their images into black and white in Photoshop but Jay recommends turning your camera to BW so you can see the results real time. He then uses Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro to make the final tweaks when he gets back to the studio. Watch the full behind the scenes video to see some other useful lighting tips as well.

Great music can take a video edit to the next level, but music that doesn’t fit, or is cheesy stock-quality can make even the most awesome video seem like something your uncle put together after a few beers. I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite places to get FREE music for low/no-budget video projects, as well as some pay sites. Check out the list in the full post.

The Washington Post published an HDR photograph on the front page which caused the public to react in a negative manner. Do you think HDR is acceptable in photojournalism? Where do you draw the line? Check out the full post for the story and let us know your thoughts.

Some of the most iconic black and white images of our time, shown colorized by Sanna Dullaway, gives us a glimpse into how these images would have looked had they been taken in full color. Are they better in color or left in black and white? You have see these images in the full post.

Maya Rota Klein created this stop-motion Photoshop cooking parody for an Adobe Competition. This clever video shows what it would be like if baking were as simple and error-proof as Photoshop. You might not want to use the burn tool but there’s nothing that the patch tool can’t fix. Click the full post to watch the video.

If you are a sports fan, you are going to love this interview. Grover over at Photoshelter recently interviewed Sports Illustrated Director of Photography Steve Fine. Steve’s job is to pick out the absolute best “super selects” from a handful of sports photographers and publish those photos in record time (sometimes within hours).

I recently met Steve and what I found interesting about his job is not only the insane amount of work that goes into finding the absolute cream of the crop photos but also how important Steve’s eye has to be to tell the story of each game in only a handful of frames. With SI, their photo team winds up with dozens if not hundreds of great images but only a very select few can be published to represent the final theme of the game. The following interview is pretty long but definitely worth checking out, especially if you are interested in knowing how sports photography or wired images are used to create the magazines we see on newsstands daily. Enjoy!

Happy New Year Fstoppers! My name is Sean Armenta, and this is my little spot on Fstoppers called The Post Production Tutorial. If you enjoy these videos, be sure to subscribe to the Fstoppers PPT Youtube Channel for the latest updates. Feel free to connect with me on the right side bar and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about retouching.

In this second part of the mini series, we will introduce some light leaks using photoshop to magically transform your expensive digital camera bodies into $30 plastic toy cameras.

The public beta of Adobe Lightroom 4 is now available for download. Some of the new features include: Highlight and shadow recovery, photo book creation, location-based organization, extended video support and soft proofing for prints. Click here for more details and the full post.

Check out this video from Corridor Digital! I love graffiti and street art, and it’s a great lesson to all of us on how mixing and matching media can make an addictive, fun video. The fake door shot reminds me of so many shows and cartoons I saw growing up. If you think about it, they mixed graffiti, acting, and stills for an awesome end product. I want to see one of our readers do something similar with photo stills! I can’t help but think Corridor Digital’s style in this video has incredible, untapped power in the advertising world. What do you think? And which one of you is going to top this?

Weetabix Food Company recently produced a new commercial to advertise their Weetabix Chocolate Spoonsize Cereal. The young hiphop dancer in the video is talented, Arizona Snow, and the Teddy Bears – well, they’re actually giant life-size costumes. Weetabix brought in professional hiphop dancers to dance inside of the costumes in front of a green screen. The concept behind the commercial is the cereal sparks kids imaginations. Regardless, it’s pretty awesome to watch this little girl tear it up. Click the full post to see the behind the scenes footage.