Color Correcting Negative Film For Printing

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color correcting negative film for

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printing so here we have a book that I'm

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currently working on my own work into

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the wild sky which will be out pretty

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soon and what happened is I shot all of

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this with 35 millimeter film during the

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sunrise I got up like 4:30 in the

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morning and I used actually a one-hour

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photo that I found me here it is the

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first time with this particular

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[Music]

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developer and lab that did this work and

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overall it's not bad but there's

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definitely a very strong cyan and green

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color cast that is happening and that's

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not only their fault

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every time that you automate scanning

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the computer is going to try and pick a

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white mount a white point for you and

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unfortunately whenever you have a

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sunrise photo the the light isn't pure

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white because of a simple fact that you

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know it's a red and that's orange and

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it's yellow

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and so you want to be able to capture

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that and so what happens is whenever the

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computer does it it thinks oh this photo

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is a way to read way to orange and so it

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adds cyan and it adds green cast and it

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takes away some of that red and so what

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we're gonna do in here is we're going to

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go in and edit a bunch of different ones

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part of the project is that we have all

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of these different lighting scenarios

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happening all together so I'm going to

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edit a couple of different ones and you

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get to see adding cyan cast is very very

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common so we're going to go here and

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edit with Adobe Photoshop and this is

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the same procedure as if you were to be

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editing a a film photograph that was

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scanned to be printed just one off so

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this is a pretty low resolution JPEG so

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there's not a lot to play with so the

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way that we're going to be editing you

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know it's going to be a lot more subtle

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and just about color correcting as

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opposed to making major changes

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that you would do if you have a raw file

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from a digital camera so to start this

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photo doesn't seem that bad but I

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promise that it will look a lot better

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by the time you're done and to start

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we're going to hit command J to create a

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new layer and then we're going to go and

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under here we're going to go to edit

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your image adjustments then down to hue

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and saturation the first thing we're

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gonna do is we're gonna turn down that

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cyan turn it down just a little bit and

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I'm checking the sand here is this the

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flash that I use is a neutral they're

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relatively neutral temperature of warmth

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to coolness and so we want to find the

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point that is the most neutral in order

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to get the real colors happening up here

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so I'm just lowering the saturation of

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cyan a pretty good amount it's actually

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very cyan then we're going to here on

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reds and we're just gonna pick the

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saturation the Reds up just a little bit

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like that okay awesome

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so then we're gonna make a new layer I

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prefer to make new layers but this way

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as opposed to making masks I find that

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for my workflow it just worked better

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and it just works a little bit easier so

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then we're going to here and you have

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adjustments and when I go to curves and

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we're just going to bring the exposure

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up just a tiny little bit we'll come

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back to that later

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in general printing is very dark because

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in these the backlighting allows the

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darker colors to look brighter than they

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actually are and allows for more depth

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in the blacks than our printing process

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now if you have like a you know like I

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have a 13 in grohl printer that

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is very clear and very defined blacks

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but if you're producing you know if

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you're not doing something on that

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super-high scale then your blacks are

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going to get a little muddy they're

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getting all the details gonna get a

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little lost and so you'll find that with

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all these we're going to edit up a

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little bit to make them a little bit

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brighter than would look best on the

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computer because that's what's going to

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look best in print so here in red we're

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just going to take this histogram here

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and you see that little tail there we're

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just going to drag that there just to

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give it slight more read cast and then

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we're going to green just gonna take a

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little bit of that green away there you

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go you can see now that makes a pretty

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dramatic just difference and if you can

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see here it's starting to look much more

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neutral here we're just going to take a

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little bit of that blue away not a whole

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lot go back to green here

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I think there we go now I'm going to go

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and start making a new layer then I'm

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gonna go under open up curves again and

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this time I'm just gonna brighten

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everything up just the tiniest bit again

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that was just to make it a little bit

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brighter for printing and as you can see

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that's a very different photo than what

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we start with I'll show you what the

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original looks like so here you know at

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first when you look at it didn't look

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very silly on but now the actual scene

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is very very red and you think oh like

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it's not really that red in person and

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you can maybe turn it down a little bit

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but you know parler reason you get up at

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4:00 in the morning is to make it not

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red you know you want to get those

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beautiful colors and you get turned on

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the red just the tiniest bit there we go

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and that photo is done and go back to

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InDesign let's find another one how

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about this one which is a little bit

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more neutral doesn't have a flash on it

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Photoshop again we're in the hit command

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J to open up a new layer then we go to

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image adjustments hue and saturation

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we're just gonna find those cyan and you

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might worry and it seemed like this for

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those so much blue that you're gonna by

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dropping the cyan saturation that you're

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gonna kind of ruin the image but I

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promise you won't so you're just going

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to drop this down a little bit again

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here we're looking at the sand to make

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sure what it looks neutral and then we

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go up here to the Reds turn up the Reds

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just a little bit again these are

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justice that I'm making our very extreme

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because the light was so red and so

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orange and so yellow that you're not

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normally going to see that in a normal

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you know daylight photo from an Jade

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opening layer the image adjustments

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curves go to read a little bit of red

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not as much as before your group green

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let's go take so you can see changing

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the green here change the look feel

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about a lot just slide like that get

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very purple so we're just going to take

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it here and just go to where it starts

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to clip there just come to the end of

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the tail here then go to blue just a

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tiny little bit we're going to take away

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here remember we already T saturated

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this I am see how that goes and I'm open

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up a new layer and this time I'm going

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to raise the whole histogram

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it's about right to me a lot of this you

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have to go by feel

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so we'll compare it to the original

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that's the original and that's the new

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you can tell even though the sky is

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slightly less saturated because we

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desaturate that's I am it really doesn't

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look you know it brings the focus down

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here and I'm actually going to increase

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the exposure down here just a little bit

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more just because you want to look

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almost too bright for printing and

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there's our final photo find one more

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this one is has crazy light where the

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Scott for the Sun is just barely like

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not even breaking the horizon and so the

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light is really crazy and I see a lot of

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YouTube videos with people color

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correcting about you know this is how

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you make it a scene look neutral and you

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should always strive to make it look as

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it appeared when you originally saw it

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but what happens when the light that

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you're shooting under is really crazy

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for me I'm interested in in really

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strange and not normal everyday light

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that's why you know we get up 4:30 in

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the morning to go take the photos at

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sunrise and so you know editing this to

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look normal isn't right you really want

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to when you're taking the photos to have

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a clearer picture memory of what the

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colors actually looked like so we can

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match that so we're going to open up a

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new command here

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image adjustment hue/saturation again

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I'm not really the fan the biggest fan

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of adjusting highly seen looks to make

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it look like a hyper reality like

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something that it

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obviously wasn't but if something was

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that dramatic and was that beautiful you

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shouldn't you should edit to make it

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look how it was to be transparent so

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this is very cyan a very green down here

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because it seems so red so this one's

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really gonna be the most dramatic that's

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when I fly in that's here

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turn up those Reds

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I'm actually with this layer gonna do it

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a little out of order so I'm going to

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leave this later and I'm gonna create a

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new layer and this time I want to do the

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curves first and it's just because this

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is so extreme that I want to be working

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with the full color spectrum afore I

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really enhanced that red because that

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fred is in every single thing so I'm

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just going to drag this down there just

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to where the end of the tail is then we

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go to green I'm just going to drag the

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green to where the tail is blue just

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where it looks sort something a little

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neutral just like that static central

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there now I'm going to work from here

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I'm gonna open up a new layer go to

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image adjustments hue and saturation the

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cyan desaturate slowing down a little

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bit I'm gonna turn off their bad

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saturation just the tiniest bit it's

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already so saturated honestly the one

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thing that we can do to check is we can

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zoom in our face let's see

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that's your skin tone look natural it

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doesn't look gray and we have a little

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bit of redeye going on I like it so I'm

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going to keep that

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and yeah the skin town looks normal it

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looks natural there's no clear color

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cast happening the ground here that

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looks like wet sand there might be the

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tiniest hint of kind of green going on

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there but I feel like if we give this

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any more red it's going to explode I'm

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going to make one more layer they want

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to open up curves again and we're gonna

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lift the whole thing just like that

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again because if you print this and I

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actually did get a proof all of this

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turns to just mock and you can't see

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anything that's happening now if you

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wanted in this particular one I think

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needs it we can do a little bit of

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sharpening just on her to make her

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really pop out so this is a little bit

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extra but we got a command J one more

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time when I go to filter sharpen smart

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sharpen and so the important thing with

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these kind of photos is that the model

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always looks good you know if you're

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ever doing model photography you know if

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you have to choose between the

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background and a model you make sure

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that the model looks good and their face

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looks good and so we're not going to

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sharpen to a point that looks really

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tragic really kind of grains everything

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out like this but I think that adding

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just a little bit of pop will improve it

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I actually like it just right there at

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60 and then since we're working in

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layers are not I'm asked what we can do

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here is we can go to the erase tool keep

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it at pencil or pasty 100 percent this

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doesn't have to be super accurate again

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I'm working with a very large tool here

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and we're just going to delete the

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sharpened layer that is exactly the same

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as the other one except sharpening and

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what this does is it will bring out all

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of the details in the model and make her

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really pop out from the background and

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so it will create that kind of really

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layered and flat in perspective that we

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were going here when I was shooting this

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with a more telephoto lens

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get in between the legs so back here

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let's go find the original to compare

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again this looks really red but let's

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see how the original look even though

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the original looks very ready to begin

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with oh wow

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doesn't that look so Sonia it's so crazy

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whenever you are color correcting it's

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important to get up constantly and look

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around and make sure that your eyes

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aren't or to be aware that your eyes

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will constantly adjust the scene you

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know as we continue to look at this it's

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looking more and more natural more and

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more normal but the reality is the scene

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looked a lot more like that and the

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light really was that busy so that's how

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you color correct that's what I'm doing

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today I am color correcting this whole

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book I have like 44 more photos to do

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there are more intense steps that you

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could take if you want to do something

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more but the reality is if you are a

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professional artist and you were working

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on scale that's not really appropriate

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to do any deeper steps because they

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reach a point of diminishing return

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anyway I hope that this tutorial is used

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for you if it was or if you think that

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there's anything that I should have done

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differently or if you disagree feel free

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to leave a comment and if you want me to

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make more videos then subscribe and

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write a comment and like thank you so

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much