Why It's Awesome?
Aaron Nace and the Phlearn team have designed this Photography & Compositing Essentials Class for the beginner photographer looking to enter the world of compositing and conceptual photography. A successful composite image requires a strong concept, solid lighting and posing fundamentals, and quality Photoshop skills. Based off the workflow of one of the best-known conceptual photographers, this class will teach you the essential skills to create your own composite images.
2015 Workshop Trailer
Our Goal For You:
You’ll learn all the different aspects of creating a successful composite image through hands on learning and walk away with the ability to apply those skills to any future photo shoot.This class is going to cover a lot! That’s why the whole Phlearn team is coming! You will have seven instructors working hard to bring you an amazing workshop, that’s one Phlearn team member for every two students!
Create Whatever You Can Imagine
Many photographers wanting to learn about compositing focus heavily on Photoshop. Yes, good Photoshop skills are needed for a successful composite, but what many fail to realize is that your end image will only be as good as the photos you start with. A good photo requires a strong plan and solid photography fundamentals. Concept, planning, shooting, and editing: a weakness in any of these areas will show in the final image. Over the course of 2 days we’ll teach all four of these essential steps.
Concept and Planning
It all starts with a concept and a plan. Often the excitement of the upcoming photo shoot will cause you to rush through the planning stage. It happens all the time, you’re so excited to start shooting and creating you miss a key detail that would really bring the concept to life. We’ll cover both the creative side of developing a concept and the planning side of making that concept work.
Day 1 - Photography Essentials
Strong photography fundamentals are a must when shooting for a composite. It doesn’t matter how good your Photoshop skills are if your model’s pose is boring or your lighting is flat. On the first day of the workshop we’re going to teach you all the basics of posing and lighting, and we’re going to have a lot of fun with it! Since we’re at an amazing resort, we’re going to get an amazing location, a couple of models, a hair stylist and makeup artist and do a fashion style shoot. Over the course of the day we’ll cover posing basics, lighting your subject with one light, two lights, three lights, lighting you background, using gels and creating dramatic lighting.
Every student will have time to shoot every setup, and Aaron and the Phlearn Team will be there to give individual guidance to all the students as we work through the setups. By the end of the day you’ll not only have learned a lot, you’ll have a couple portfolio images to take home.
Day 2 - Compositing Essentials
For the second day of the workshop, we’re going to take everything you learned from Day 1 and bring it into a studio setting to learn about shooting for composites. You’ll learn how to analyze a background image and mimic that light in studio to create a realistic composite. To start, Aaron will take the class through a simple concept and teach how he would approach the shoot in the studio. He’ll cover how to match the light from the background image, chose the correct perspective, dynamically pose the model and many more small but important details. Then, the class will break into two groups for two separate photo shoots where you’ll be given a styled model, some props and a background image. You’ll use what you just learned to make her realistically fit into the background. Again, there will be at least 3 Phlearn Team members at each setup for guidance. Then we’ll do it all again, both the demo and the group shoots, this time with more complex background images. If you’ve been counting, that’s 6 photo shoot setups on day 2! We may even have a little competition during the final round of shooting.
Photoshop Tutorial Download Included
To wrap up the workshop we’ll jump into Photoshop and bring it all together. Using images from Day 1, Aaron will go over retouching and show you some of his favorite techniques. Then we’ll shift over to compositing where Aaron will give a live demo of some of his favorite tips and tricks, and work on some images shot by the students during day 2.
A recorded tutorial of detailed instruction from images shot during the workshop will be sent to the students a couple weeks after the workshop. Why a recorded video and not teach live you might ask? Aaron and Phlearn have produced over 70 advanced Photoshop tutorials and over 600 free videos on Photoshop. Photoshop is a very robust program, students are at different skill levels and everyone learns at their own pace. Trust us, our video tutorials are the best way to learn Photoshop.
But wait, there's more!
We’ll have Google hangout a month or so before the workshop to get to know everyone. All students will receive our Photoshop 101 and 201 Pro Tutorials before the workshop so everyone has the same base skill set. And there will be swag! So much swag!
We may be planning an excursion for Friday between the two class sessions. We’re in the Bahamas after all. More details to come.
What Students Should Bring:
Your camera gear. We’ll have all the lighting equipment including triggers. You can bring a laptop if you would like to follow along for the Photoshop portion, however it will be taught as a demonstration and not a follow along class.
Need to see more about Phlearn? Then Check out our 2014 Year in Review;
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Learn more about this and the other incredible workshops offered on https://fstoppersworkshops.com/
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If I had the means to take more classes in the Bahamas I would have liked to take this one as well.
Aaron Nace is the sole reason I finally buckled down and learned Photoshop after avoiding it for so long. He is one of the best Photoshop instructors out there period and his compositing tutorials show you that you can really do anything in Photoshop. He has TONS of free content on the Plearn site and his paid tutorials are even better. I sound like a shill but Plearn really got my post work up and running and Aaron's enthusiasm and clear instructions were huge factors in that.
This is exactly how I feel and I have to say they are some of the best tutorials for photoshop out there in my opinion. I just recently started watching the tutorials and man do they make learning photoshop a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be.