Post-Production

The Amazing Spider-Man has been out for about 2 weeks and has made 137 million dollars. I saw it last week and was really impressed by the special effects but I've never had a full understanding of what really goes into it. In this video Jerome Chen from Sony Imageworks takes us through the basics of creating an all CG fight scene. Check out the full post for 3 additional videos.

Foton inc. recently released a video showing off their video retouching skills. As photographers most of us know the time it takes to make someone look younger in a still image but what if you had to do that with video, frame by frame. To do this Foton created a new retouching technique they have named “Age Reduction FX".

If you're a sports fan, or even if you just like toned and tan bodies, you're going to want to pick up the next issue of ESPN (hits newsstands Friday). It's filled with some pretty sexy images of the United States' favorite athletes in nothing but their birthday suits.

Jeremy Cowart is the newest photographer to be featured as a part of Profoto's Master Series. In this video he explains his work flow of his well known Imogen Heap portrait. Jeremy thinks way outside the box with much of his work and he is a true artist at heart. Hopefully hearing him talk us through this shot will move you to find new ways to shoot whatever it is you do. Enjoy!

If you haven't seen the movie Snow White and the Huntsman, then you'll want to go see it after watching this video. Filmed with the Red Epic camera, the amount of detail that went into creating the Mirror Man is amazing. The guys over at The Mill Visual Effects Studio did many tests with liquid before deciding to use cloth instead. Cloth provided more control over making the sculpture appear seamlessly out of the mirror.

Pepsi Australia recently teamed up with Kelly Racing to produce the Pepsi Max super car. Photographer Chris Benny was hired to shoot the new car and lucky for us, he filmed a quick BTSV of the production. As with many shoots, the weather became a problem but Chris had a backup plan. With a little post work Chris made the outside shots pop and then moved the car inside to finish the shoot.

Blair Bunting is a good friend of mine, and by far one of the best commercial portrait photographers out there today. He just published a blog post regarding the highly lauded (while simultaneously seriously attacked) new MacBook pro with retina display. While the display is absolutely breathtaking, it has a serious disadvantage. Is the display too good?

This Thursday, June 14, Jared Platt is doing a 3 day workshop on how to speed up your Lightroom 4 workflow. As always with creativeLIVE events, the online workshop is free to watch live (so sign up for that now) and then the video recordings of that workshop cost $150 to download after the event ends. Click the full post for more details on how you can watch this intensive tutorial for free this coming weekend.

Have you ever recorded a video with a cheap mic or maybe just with bad settings and got a hiss or faint high end distortion? What about a low pitched hum like the sound of an A/C unit or heavy traffic outside the window. Well have no fear, in this video the guys at VideoMaker show you some handy tips for correcting hisses and hums using high and low pass filters, notch filters and automated tasks. Enjoy!

If you are like me, you probably update to new versions of Photoshop only to not take advantage of any of the new features. Learning new techniques on your own time is always time consuming. This week(end) only, our friends at CreativeLIVE are offering a free download of Lesa Snider's CS6 course (normally $79) which is Live now! Lesa covers all of the new features like Puppet Warp, Liquify, Lighting Effects, Video, and Content Aware as well as some basic tools you might already know about. Details are in the full post

Have you ever been going through the magazine rack of your local book store and just stood staring at the cover of a car magazine? No? Ok, well maybe that's just me. But when I see a photo of a blazingly fast sports car clinging to the corner of a race track it certainly piques my interest. Even if you aren't a "car person" chances are you have at least wondered how these cover shots are made.

Trey Ratcliff is perhaps one of the most well known and adored HDR photographers today. The High Dynamic Range images he creates are not subtle by any means and he takes no apologies when it comes to creating images he personally enjoys. In this video, Trey talks about his gear (mainly Nikkor 12-24 and Really Right Stuff Tripods) and how he thinks through his compositions as he visits the beautiful Gorda in the Virgin Islands. Watch the 2nd video in the full post

Anyone who has picked up a magazine with photographic content is well aware of the amount of retouching and massaging that goes into many of the photos displayed in advertisements or in editorial features. But at what point does the 'retouching' go too far?

If you are like me, you feel pretty confident editing images in Photoshop, Aperture, or Lightroom. If you have ever tried to do similar edits for your video in Premiere or Final Cut, you know how frustrating it can be. It seems like these video programs don't have all of the necessary tools and they don't seem to work as well as photo editing software. If you don't mind a couple extra steps, you can easily edit your videos just like a still photograph in the program of your choice.

It’s rare these days to find a product that is so well rounded that it can appeal to an entire market of users. Especially in photography, it is not uncommon to find products that claim to be designed “for beginning to advanced users” but suffer greatly from the attempt to spread out over such a vast range. SLR Lounge's Lightroom DVD is advertised to be an A-Z Lightroom mastery experience, so does it live up to it's claim?

The popular series is back after a 4 year hiatus! This series combines tutorials with humor, mostly humor though. If you're familiar with the series, this is probably something you're excited about. However, if this series is new to you, be sure to check out a few of the first episodes here before checking this one out.  

The majority of photographers I know have a love/hate relationship with post production and retouching. In fact, for most of them, it's more of the latter. As a fashion photographer/retoucher myself I find I'm often in the minority as I personally enjoy both. Quite often I enjoy retouching more than shooting even. There are of course people out there who solely retouch and don't shoot at all.

A user on the popular social website Reddit was the first to bring our attention to this enormous Photoshop fail. A recent Target advertisement left one of the models sporting a little something extra. You won't believe your eyes when you see this, nor will you believe that somehow, nobody caught the mistake.

Vincent Laforet, the man who arguably started the DSLR-Video revolution, and most recently created the short film Mobius with the Canon C300, posted a quick video giving an overview of new features in the new Adobe CS6 Production Premium. Hover scrubbing (like in FCX), a customizable interface, and adjustment layers are now in Premiere Pro.

Having a professional photographer explain exactly how they made a photo from start to finish is something that will always interest me. Having three photographers do this is obviously even better. In this short interview series we get to peak over the shoulders of photographers Romain Laurent, Raïssa Venables and Mat Baker as they explain their individual workflows. Starting with their capture process and continuing on to their post production techniques.

Most of you know Mark Wallace as the face behind Adorama TV. He's a very accomplished photographer based out of Phoenix, Arizona and we recently were able to share some drinks with him when we filmed Blair Bunting's Aventador video. Mark gave us a little glimpse about his 2012 Workshop Tour and now the details are finally able to be revealed. If you are a fan of Mark, which we hope you are, click the full post to hear about his new 7 city tour!

We get a lot of Kickstarter projects emailed to us and sometimes they are interesting and other times they look like a desperate plea for money. We usually don't feature such projects but today I'm making an exception. Benjamin Von Wong has been featured on Fstoppers probably more than anyone else. This year he plans to goto Europe to produce inspiring photoshoots but at the same time film informative behind the scenes videos. Hopefully this post will

Photographer Dave Hamilton takes us behind the scenes on his latest shoot with hockey legend, Trevor Linden. This video is very informative and well produced - including a lighting diagram for each of the different setups. Aiming to get that perfect cover shot for Vancouver View Magazine's April 2012 issue, Dave was able to get some nice shots using his Canon 5D Mark II.

Adobe releases a new version of it's flagship editing software Photoshop every year or two. Usually the releases are pretty uneventful except for a few new automated features that full time editors rarely use. Adobe Photoshop CS6 changes this trend and might be the biggest revamp to the photo editing software yet. You can download Photoshop CS6 Beta here to test the software for free, and in the full post I'll touch on a few key features that might make this update worth considering.

The Photoshop team rolled out a video which showcases some of the direction which Adobe intends to go in the future. It was shot and then edited entirely in a future version of Photoshop. Though the video itself is pretty standard, it's a glimpse of what's to come. Do you believe that Adobe should keep video editing separate from Photoshop? We want to hear your thoughts. 

Shot with the Red MX Camera, director Andrew Huang created this incredible short film about the gaps between people and the way those gaps are filled. Solipsist is the antithesis of human connection. This video had me glued as the models swayed back and forth in a Yin & Yang fashion, often times co-creating each other.

As any photographer knows, understanding color space and color management can be one of the most difficult concepts to wrap your head around. What is the difference between Adobe RGB and sRGB? Why do magazines always print my images with funky colors? Why do I need different profiles for different devices? I still have trouble with these concepts. Luckily photoshop guru Kevin Kubota has made a really useful video explaining how

Fstoppers.com has featured some great behind the scenes videos over the years and showcased amazingly talented professional photographers in our Fstoppers Originals series. Recently Patrick and I were invited to Scottsdale, Arizona to expose the secrets of commercial photographer Blair Bunting. When Blair invited us down to Loft 19 Studios, his idea was to shoot something big, expensive, and one of a kind.

The next evolution on the Intuos line is here with the Intuos5. After our initial first impressions, we decided to take a closer look at this tablet, along with a comparative look at what changes Wacom has made from the Intuos4. With this review, you'll be able to get a full undisclosed look at one of the best tablets to date.

Manipulating photos happened way before Photoshop was around. This series shows before and afters of famous and notable figures before the digital era began. Truly fascinating, you can't help but wonder what level of dedication it took to make these happen.  

To our surprise, Wacom was generous enough to send us one of their brand new Intuos5 graphic tablets to review. If you missed the press release, check it out here. We were elated to get out hands on the next version of the popular Intuos line to test out so soon! We also have a set of unboxing pictures below for you to check out. Although we will have a full detailed review soon, here is our first impressions of the Intuos5. 

It seems with every new version of Photoshop, Adobe finds a way to add something both useful and unbelievable. First we had the new Content Aware. Then rumors of a tool that makes your blurry images sharp and focused. Now apparently Photoshop CS6 is going to let you add nearly authentic shallow depth of field to your otherwise infinitely sharp photos. Obviously most photographers will do this with a fast lens but

It's crazy to compare todays advertising campaign's to those of 30 years ago. They are becoming more involved, creative and technically advanced than we could have ever imagined. In this video, Photographer Tim Macpherson takes us behind the scenes on the new campaign for the fabric company 'Sunbrella' which was shot and filmed in South Carolina! While this video lacks technical information, it is still really awesome to see how much planning and time it took just to film and shoot one simple scene. 

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.

In this final part of the mini series, we will finish off the vintage look by introducing scratches and other grunge elements to give it that aged feel. 

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).

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.

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.

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.

Last Friday, January 13, 2012, The Washington Post published an HDR photograph on the front page depicting their top story.

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.

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).

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. To see the full list of new features and to download the beta click here.

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.

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.

Who needs a clunky camera these days when you've got a 12 megapixel camera in your pocket. Shot using a Nokia N8, the guys over at Aardman (producers of Wallace & Gromit) broke the world record when they produced this short animation. The final video is only 1 minute and 31 seconds but it took them 5 days on the beach to shoot all the images.

Now this is an interesting story. Lately there has been a ton of controversy and debate about the role of photoshop in today's advertising market. FHM (For Him Magazine) just published their December issue with Pakistani cover model Veena Malik wearing what appears to be nothing.

There are a ton of car photographers out there but very few of them are this good. Lee Howell just sent me his newest portfolio shoot that involved shooting a new Audi R8 GT in a soon to be opened tunnel. Lee got his hands on one of the craziest car rigs I have ever seen and walks us through the basics of his production.

Gry Garness is a makeup artist turned retoucher/photoshop consultant from Norway. I wasn't familiar with her photoshop tutorials until I came across this video the other day, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with her articulate approach to complicated techniques. In this video, Gry teaches some interesting liquify techniques on an image by Derek Cooper.