How to FINALLY get better at Photoshop
I am seing plenty of advices and tutorials on how to photoshop stuff like a pro, but what I am going to tell you right now, I never heard from any Photoshop course. And I think this is what is going to truly make a difference. Beyond the technical stuff, to be great, you need to develop and work on your vision! I talk a lot about this here, and I will never stop, this is CRUCIAL! Here are a few tips for you!
- Think about your editing BEFORE even taking the picture :
What do you want to do, what are you photographing, what do you need to shoot in order to have all the elements for the editing process, how is the light? Do you need to shoot separate elements? What is the background going to be? Take the time to think about all of this, just 10 minutes of hard thinking before starting to shoot can save you hours of Photoshop time. For example, I will never everevervevever Photoshop someone out of a background : I shoot them on the good color right away, or something REALLY close of what I envision.
- What do you want to say? :
How does the editing will help the message? Photoshop is a tool to help you get the result you imagine. What is your message, what do you want to communicate? Ask yourself these questions to create meaningful work that are beyond just pretty.
- Use non-destructive techniques and multiply layers :
The beauty of digital creation is that you can change your mind about everything, THE biggest mistakes is most of the time we do to much of a certain thing : too much dodge, too much blue, too much skin retouching. You need to have access to the separate layers, so you can just turn them off by 50%.
- Draft your ideas before going into crazy detailed editing :
One of my biggest/simplest advice for editing anything a bit crazy in photoshop is to make a DRAFT : don’t go into something really detailed when you don’t even know if your idea is actually working. You can take two hours cutting around hair to realize in the end that the composition is not that great (come on we all did it!) When I go into creative mode, I always draw really quickly with a simple brush over my photograph. Or if I want to assemble multiple pictures together, I am roughly masking the edges. When I am finally happy with the overall idea, and the composition is working on this preview, I finally go for the it! I can do multiple drafts on the same pictures, it’s the fun part! It allows me to save PLENTY of time and to be super efficient in my editing (I never spend more than 3hours editing a picture). And if you want to know the truth, I never do the actual editing the same day, I add my draft into a «pictures to edit » folder and I do them some other day. In coworkring space for example, while chatting with friends. I save them up for times when my brain refuses to work on any creative task anymore (cutting around is usually a very relaxing task later in the afternoon)
- Learn the basics of drawing, painting, observe the world like an artist :
You don’t have to go to design school, just take the time observe the world around you : like REALLY observe. Take a random object for example (or even person) in the room you are in right now : where does the light comes from? Where are the shadows? Where are the highlights? What do you think of the color? How is the texture? Is it reflecting? It is matte? Transparent? By observing and understanding reality, you can then infuse this knowledge into your creations and make them more realistic, relevant, and your editing will quickly start to be AWESOME.
- Use a tablet :
Alright I am not a crazy gear person but my tablet is on the list of things that are just vital. It took me a full week (working as a retoucher full day, not just like 2 random hours from times to time) to get used to it, but since then I just can’t not use it. Wacom tablets are unkillable, but you can also start with a cheap one. It gives you the feeling to really paint on your photographs.
- Observe and collect what you love in others art pieces :
when you identify what attracts you in a picture, you can then learn to understand it and reproduce this. It is hard to figure everything by yourself, and it does not make any sense either. Observe the artists you love and try to understand why you love them : what tool do they seem to use? how is the lighting? how are the colors?
- Seek advices and critiques from someone YOU RESPECT THE VISION :
everyone will have a view on what you should do, if you ask someone that is not a visual artist, they will give you their view : be ready not to like the answer. I get pissed off quite quickly when my sales person not artist at all friend gives me advices, but someone who has a decent level and a career in the industry I am like oh yeaaah YOU ARE SO RIGHT! Critiques are really valuable if you can listen to them, but you have to pick the right person to help you because most people do not really know how to use the right words to help you!
Are you already using these techniques yourself already? Do you have some other tips you would be willing to share here?
And if you need some more help to go further, you can contact me to apply for a mentoring session with me, we can reaaally dig in together so you can finally create everything that you have in mind :)
Thanks and have a fantastic day!
