Every day new and exciting images are competing for our attention. Famed UK photographer, Jake Hicks returns to PRO EDU teaching a fundamentally simple yet powerful technique to create long exposure portraits impossible to ignore.
Combining ambient light with studio strobes, Jake introduces four unique methods of creating portraits while capturing unbelievable practical effects in-camera.
This tutorial was designed to teach you not just the technical aspects of long exposure photography but how to be truly creative in the studio and experiment in ways that will set your work apart from the rest.
Advance your light painting skills with an entirely new setup. Refine your set with a new model, wardrobe, colors, gels and light brushes. Prepare modified tools to create a variety of new shapes and textures of light and entirely new creative.
Create long exposures with dimension and a variety of shapes using the new gel setup and tools. With the effort of careful, layering to the light setup, along with methodical testing in the early stages of the process, achieve powerful results in your imagery, while minimizing problematic variables.
With a rock solid lighting base, alternate with different light brushes and gels to create even more variant imagery. Learn to adjust speed and movement of your lighting tools as you paint with a different source shape
Work with a change in wardrobe, gels, and a combination of light painting tools. Refine the long exposure light painting technique.
Begin retouching the first of four images in Photoshop. Take a broad approach to cleaning up various elements of an image, focusing on major problem areas first. Utilize the patch and cloning tools to create a clean foundation for the retouching workflow - with a primary focus on skin.
Apply dodging and burning in a targeted way to affect specific areas of skin. Create more continuity, definition, depth and tone in specific areas of the subject’s face.
With the initial, targeted areas resolved in cleanup and the initial dodge and burn pass, complete the process of retouching skin. Develop a methodical approach to create smooth texture along with even and natural flow to the skin’s surface
With the same multi-purpose mask, dodge and burn the image with a global approach to create more dimension and definition for the entire image.
Continue to enhance your image by applying a procedural, multi-pass sharpening effect, without affecting the overall color. With a subtle build up of layers, blend modes, and opacity adjustments begin to realize the final stages of your image.
Apply the final layers of polish to your image with an intelligent approach, using isolated color channel curves to bring out the most vibrant and balanced final grade.
