When you have that desire to do a photoshoot, what’s the inspiration that started it all?
A location, lifestyle, or maybe a just a single colour? As a photographer I sometimes feel overwhelmed with ideas, and it’s difficult to nail down that concept that will begin the creative process. For this shoot, I wanted to expand my Photoshop knowledge. Of course initially there were a lot of ideas swimming around my head. On top of all that, this was the first photoshoot I had done in months so dusting off those ‘creative cobwebs’ so to speak added to my overall creative goal.
My Goal: Work more efficiently with directing the model as well as editing techniques in Photoshop, as I often find myself going back to the same editing tools. This time around I wanted to jump outside of my comfort zone and learn new tools I’ve been too unsure to use in the past. Specifically with regards to colour correction and adjustments in the highlights, shadows and midtones.
Approaching photoshoot I wanted to keep things simple. Utilizing visual lines for the single point perspective at the Shrine of Remembrance, and the vibrant colours at the Botanical Gardens. Keep the focus of the shoot down to a handful of guidelines so compositing the images in the camera doesn’t get complicated.
On the editing front, after I had retouched, smoothed out and colour corrected the skin, I saw Levels as an ideal starting point. A tool I rarely used in the past beyond the S curve, I soon discovered it’s vast potential in making detailed changes to the RGB mix. For more subtle alterations in temperature, I gave Colour Balance a shot. I usually colour balance is used in small amounts, but this time around I made changes in highlights and shadows. Colour Lookup provided me with an array of stylised filters I was previously unaware of (Photoshop already has a MAMMOTH library of colour filters for anyone to experiment with) that added the final touch to many of the images.
As I was working through the images I found COLOUR to be the focus of my editing, and I slowly but surely became more comfortable with using these new features. Adjusting the warmth / coolness to evoke a certain mood can very well be a creative starting point for a photoshoot. ! I still have a whole lot more to learn about Photoshop and it’s functions, but I feel quite content with making that jump into the deep end of the “pool-of-creativity”