Recent Post Production Articles

[Video] How To Color Grade Underwater Photos And Video

A few months back I posted a video created by the team at The Underwater Realm showing how they created waterproof hotlights to be used on their feature film that is currently under production. Their entire movie is planned to take place underwater and the shots will be a combination of real underwater footage and studio work. Anyone who has ever shot anything underwater knows that the deeper you go, the bluer the image becomes. With a little bit of color work you can create a much more pleasing looking image. Fast forward to 4:00 for the goods.
Do Not Be Afraid of Using Stock in Your Creations

Being a freelance photographer and digital artist, I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not always be able to use my own photography in the images I create for clients.

A Quick Tutorial on How To Replace a Sky in Photoshop

If you've ever left a shoot a little disappointed with how the weather panned out — and I imagine this is a feeling we're all familiar with — perhaps changing the sky in post-production might salvage your images.

How to Fake Eyeshadow in Photoshop

Many photographers and artists say that your subject's eyes are the most important element in an image. But trying to enhance them or add a little eyeshadow can be very tricky. This tutorial will show you exactly how it's done and teach you great Photoshop techniques in the process.

How To Sync Your Video And Audio The EASY Way

As a photographer getting into DSLR video, I love it when a reader of ours emails us with a question we can answer or better yet a question we have not thought of before. Well FS reader Christian emailed us about how we sync our DSLR audio with audio we may have recorded in a separate unit (zoom, iphone, computer, etc). Until recently we used to just do it manually by lining up our wavefiles from both sources in Adobe Premiere. But there is a much much easier way now thanks to Plural Eyes by Singular Software. Plural Eyes simply analyzes each waveform and automatically aligns each and every camera angle and audio clip right there in your timeline. It's brilliant software and extremely inexpensive for what it does. Check out this little demo from the 2010 WEVA Expo and click the full post to see a well made tutorial on how to sync your files step by step.

WEVA News: Singular Software PluralEyes demo from WEVA on Vimeo.

How to Use Adjustment Layers in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018

Recently Fstoppers reviewed ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018, the newest version of their all-in-one editing flagship. If you are not familiar with ACDSee’s platform, it is an editing suite similar to Capture One Pro or Photoshop, but also includes photo managing tools and quick editing capabilities similar to Lightroom. This gives ACDSee a unique combined platform that simplifies the average user’s workflow and eliminates the costly need for multiple programs.

Unique Holiday Gift Idea: Photograph Your Own Pet Calendar

The holidays months can bring extra leisure time, and there's nothing more rewarding than spending that free time on a challenging photography project. During last year's fall holidays I decided to turn my available energy into something creative and fun: a pet calendar for 2018.

How to Dodge and Burn Dark Skin Tones

Dodging and burning is both a fantastic way to shape the light in an image and to retouch blemishes; in fact, it is the technique preferred by a lot of high-end retouchers over other more common methods. When working with subjects with dark skin tones, you will want to take note of a few differences in technique compared to working with subjects with lighter skin tones, and this excellent video tutorial will show you everything you need to know.

Can't Take a Holiday this Holiday Season?

Photographers around this time of the year, portrait and wedding photographers especially, tend to have clients banging down their doors for holiday photos and other must have product deliveries in time for Christmas. While the rest of the world is gearing up for a relaxing holiday, we often experience anything but. From Christmas cards to wedding albums — regardless of the client's procrastination all year — we're expected to produce our work in record time.

How To Shoot A Super Hero Action Shot

I know a couple of Fstoppers that go by the names of Tiffany and Gianna that are going to love this one... Jay P. Morgan is back again with a really unique concept. In this video Jay explains how he created a super hero concept from nothing and then shows us every minuscule detail that goes into making that image come to life. As always, Jay does an incredible job of packing his video with priceless information that every photographer can use, even if you don't ever plan to shoot Wonder Woman.
[BTS Video] BYU Students Photograph Computer Hackers For FS Contest

Jaren Wilkey is the manager of Brigham Young University's photography department (perhaps he helped on this shoot?). His Behind The Scenes Contest submission idea was to create a photoshoot that played off a news story there at the university. Jaren and his students set out to produce an editorial type image featuring computer hackers. These hackers weren't the malicious type you typically think of but rather the winners of a large computer science hacking competition. Check out what Jaren and his students came up with and they even used the Eye-fi to ipad tethering tip we exposed here. Congrats guys and good luck with the contest!
Only 6 Seats Left in Pye and Justin's Wedding Photography Workshop

If you're planning on attending Lin and Jirsa's Ultimate Wedding Workshop 101 down in the Bahamas you will want to act fast. With only 6 seats left in this class, Pye and Justin will be covering proper exposure and how to shoot in manual, how to pose your couples, how to modify natural light, on and off camera flash, and much more. If you have seen the wedding work of Lin and Jirsa Weddings then you know Pye, Justin, and the rest of their team are at the pinnacle of the wedding genre. Their 101 workshop takes place May 13th through May 14th.

Is the Remove Tool the Perfect Skin Retouching Tool in Photoshop?

The Remove Tool is a new AI-powered tool designed to remove unwanted areas in your images by simply brushing over or around them. This tool has quickly made it into the workflow of portrait photographers around the world, but is it all it claims to be?

Is This a Real Photograph?

Photography has often been described as the capture of light on a sensitive medium and its reproduction. But what happens when there's a significant amount of manipulation before the final image can be created? Even more importantly, what happens when this is instantaneous and seamless? Is it a photograph that you've just taken? These are questions that we will have to answer for ourselves in the near future.

Battle of the AI Portrait Editors: Aperty vs. Evoto

While tools like Adobe Photoshop and Affinity Photo are great Swiss Army knives for photographers, sometimes a more specialized tool is called for. In this artificial intelligence-driven age, two new tools on the block, Aperty and Evoto, leverage this technology and aim it squarely at portrait photographers. Which one is better?

Looking for Inspiration? Ask Alexa

Adobe Creative Engine is a way for you to see what's happening in the creative world, especially if you need to get out of a creative rut, and it now supports Alexa.

CreativeLIVE: Watch Eight Pro Photographers Speak Live In NYC

Right now the hottest spot on the globe for photography is in New York City at Photo Plus. Our good friends at creativeLIVE have set up an unbelievable opportunity for photographers to learn from eight of the industry's leading photographers all for FREE. Catch creativeLIVE's free event Photographers Ignite live right now. If you missed any of the speakers or want to revisit these amazing workshops,

[Visual Inspiration] Street Art Ninjas: A Lesson in Mix and Match Media

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?
An Fstoppers Contest Update: Battle On The Racetrack

Within 24 hours of announcing the Fstoppers 2011 Behind The Scenes Video Contest, we were shocked to already have our first submission. Marc Kuyer from Holland had an idea to have small model cars battling each other like they were straight out of Rock and Roll Racing (super cult classic). Marc does a good job outlining his plans and showing you all the photoshopping that went into this final image. Of course we'd love to see everyone on camera but sometimes with language barriers you may have to stick with subtitles and text. So I guess it's safe to say right now Marc has taken the lead in our contest. If no one else steps up to the plate he will be moving on from small speed lights to a full studio worth of equipment!
Freddie Wong Sky Dives Out Of His House

I was just introduced to Freddie's youtube channel and I am blown away. Freddie and his friends keep creating fantastic videos with some impressive homemade CGI and then they explain how they did it. Watch this BTS below and the finished product in the full post. <
Everything You Need to Know About Sky Replacement in Luminar AI

One of the neatest capabilities of modern editing software is the ability to automatically replace skies in a convincing manner with just a few clicks, something that used to be a rather tedious and involved process. Nonetheless, there is still a lot of creative control over the process and things you can do to improve the final result. If you are using Luminar AI, this excellent video tutorial will show you everything you need to know.

Underworld Evolution CGI

If you have ever watched an action movie or fantasy movie, you have probably heard people taking about how anything can be done with CGI. But how many times have you stopped to consider what was actually real and what was computer graphics? In today's movies, the line between reality and computer animation is more blurred than ever and that's why I enjoyed watching this short film about the movie Underworld Evolution. It's always crazy to me to see how creative camera angles and complex stunt rigging can be combined with computer graphics to produce these shots we are so used to seeing on the big screen.

Underworld Evolution - Behind The Scenes from Jeff Castelluccio on Vimeo.

Would You Pay To Watch Select Vimeo Content?

Vimeo recently rolled out a Tip Jar feature for it’s content creators, where you can tip a donation to the artist. Coming up next for Vimeo is a Pay-To-View service, where audiences will actually have to pay to watch the video. It’s controlled solely by the creators, but will Vimeo take a cut of the money, like they do with the tip jar?

How "MotionScan" Just Took Video Games One Step Closer To Real Life

I enjoy playing some video games but I actually enjoy the technology that goes into creating them even more. Check out the video below where Rockstar Games takes us behind the scenes of their new technology called "MotionScan". I am so excited to see this implemented in all of the games that are produced in the future. Of course graphics aren't everything, which the greatest game of all time proves.
Zoner Photo Studio X's Fall Update Makes Develop Module Faster and Adds Features

Zoner Photo Studio X is a powerful and affordable editing suite that doesn't get the attention it deserves. Now they have improved the speed of the Develop module along with some other new features, increasing its viability as an all-in-one post-production and digital asset management tool.

Behind The Sound: Black Swan

As creative professionals, we always take extra care to notice the details in our work and to make sure that everything we do is as perfect as possible. In the video world, sound engineering and production can actually make a huge difference in the overall success of the visual elements on the screen. If you enjoyed seeing how Oscar winning editors produced the sound of Inception a few months ago, you are going to enjoy listening to Craig Henighan as he explains some of the effects used in the blockbuster hit Black Swan.