I am a Retoucher/Graphic Designer, turned Photographer and now YouTuber. I like to keep learning and growing whenever an opportunity presents itself. The opportunity here is to fill a void online in Photography
Post-Production knowledge, which in part contains Retouching. At the same time educate myself on all things video which I am sorely lacking in.
Somehow the photography community (me included) became obsessed with gear, we actually have a name for it which is something like “The Gear Bug”. When it bites you obsess over a next purchase to improve your equipment kit.

Nobody gets bitten by the post-production bug very often, that species must be going extinct. Whatever the reason I know I get retouching questions very often so people are interested, it’s just that this is more like a traditional trade where it’s best you practice while learning and better yet with a mentor.

I thought of making a Lynda learning type course but decided a weekly cadence allows me to adapt on the fly to anything new or fun, it sounded far more interesting, and more personal! This is bite sized and sharable, and Free!

This is my first attempt at sharing my post-production work and it’s what I want to eventually drive this channels highest value once all the introduction series work is completed to get people started.

There are tons of professional photographers on YouTube already who discuss gear, lighting and how to shoot during production very in-depth but most gloss over the post-production, if they talk about it at all. In my opinion not nearly enough is being said about post-production work on the internet.. anywhere.

Post-Production is everything that happens after the shots are taken and in digital photography this is half the job!
Which image do you select? How do you edit it? and why?
If you are just getting started in photography it’s totally understandable that gear and shooting are top priority and very fun, but when you finally produce those 100+ great shots be sure to give them as much attention or it will stand out like a painful sore thumb.

My first “Dropping Knowledge” video gives me a break from the intro series work. I want to get a wider variety of work out in the beginning to showcase the various types of videos I want to make.

I have been excited to share this info on Presets since the planning of this YouTube Channel. The reason was simply that it seems every corner of the internet is selling presets these days and while I don’t condemn anyone for trying to make a buck, I do want to look out for my fellow enthusiasts who’s photos may suffer as a result and worse, may not even know it’s happening.

I personally have only ever created 1 preset in 5 years that is adaptable enough to work on almost any photo, and the only reason that’s possible is because it’s black and white, and highly stylized so it can handle any colour and any lighting environment.
Even then! It still doesn’t work perfectly because often the image wasn’t dramatic enough to warrant the style. I should make a video one day about it.

What is essential to getting started in post-production on digital photography so that you can do excellent work, and really enjoy your experience? Going cheaper than what I talk about in this video will create an environment where you may want to give up because things are too slow or the work is not looking great. Going more expensive may be too intimidating for you to even get started up as there is no limit to spending in having the perfect setup. What’s great about PC’s is you can slowly build up the pieces you need when you are ready. But if you have the cash right now an iMac will be a real treat and motivate you to create.

In this video we have improved lighting and audio, I am feeling better about the quality now.

I probably made video post-production people cringe with the equipment I was using on my first two videos, hopefully you can avoid my same fate starting out and find this information useful quickly and easily.