Aaron Nace is the host of Phlearn the educational website and amazing youtube channel focused on photography and post production with Lightroom and Photoshop Tutorials. In this interview we talk all about editing with all the options available for mobile!
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In This Episode You'll Learn:
How Aaron got started in Photography and Photoshop Tutorials
What a post production artist does and why Aaron considers himself equally a photographer
The difference between lightroom and photoshop
Why you should be editing on mobile
What apps to use to edit photos on your phone
The downsides of editing on mobile in 2019
What you should do to your boring photos before uploading them to facebook
and How to know when youre done editing
Premium Members Also Learn:
How new working photographers can improve their workflow
How to use mobile editing to your advantage with clients
The best way to manage client expectations
How to find the balance between perfection and progress to not waste time
Resources:
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Full Interview Transcription:
Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:00 Welcome to the beginner of photography podcast, where today we're learning the ins and outs of editing on the go. Let's get into it.
Intro: 00:09 Welcome to the beginner photography podcast with Raymond Hatfield, the podcast dedicated to helping you grow your photography skills. Raymon interviews the world's top photographers in their field to ask questions that will get you taking better photos today. Now with you as always, husband, father, Ho brewer, La Dodger Fan, an Indianapolis wedding photographer, Raymond Hatfield.
Raymond: 00:37 Welcome back to this episode of the beginner photography podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am Raymond Hatfield and today we have a much requested interview about editing that I cannot wait to dive into, but first I want to give a shout out to Leah for leaving the podcast, a five star iTunes review. She said I get valuable information out of each and every episode. I enjoy the interviews and this is the only podcast I am a patron of and it is well worth it. Leah, you are way too kind. Thank you so much for your review. As Leah mentioned, she is a patron of the podcast, which means that each week she gets an extra extended interview where that week's guest shares information specifically related to the business and making money with your camera. If you want to start making money with your camera, do like Leah and considering becoming a patron by heading over to beginner photography, podcast.com and clicking the premium membership button at the top.
Raymond: 01:40 In today's interview, premium members will hear how to improve your workflow to save time and get your clients their photos faster. How mobile editing can give you an advantage over your competition, how to manage client expectations. And honestly a what Aaron shares here is massive and caused me to reexamine how I conduct my business. And lastly, how to handle progress over progression to get things done fast. So if you want to know the answers to these questions, become a patron by heading over to begin photography podcast.com and clicking the premium membership button now. So let's get into this week's interview with Aaron Nace, and if the name isn't familiar, he is the founder of PHLEARN the Photoshop and Lightroom education website and super popular youtube channel that has helped me on more than one occasion and be sure to stick around to the end where after the interview where Aaron gives me something special to share just with you, the listeners of the beginner photography podcast. So without any further ado, let's get into this week's interview with Aaron Nace. Today's guest is Aaron Nace, the host of PHLEARN the educational website and amazing youtube channel focused on photography and post
production. Today we're going to be talking all editing and all of the options that we have available now for mobile. So Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Aaron Nace: 03:05 Yeah. So great to be here. Excited to talk about all the fun things we can do with editing our images.
Raymond: 03:10 It's, that's one of those things that, uh, it's crazy. The, the, the amount of, um, just the, the scope of the world that editing is, uh, how many different nuances there is that comes within editing is, uh, sometimes it causes me to have a headache. So I'm excited to be talking to an expert and, uh, and really getting into, uh, editing and what it can do for our photos. But before we do that, can you share a, how you got into photography slash when you started focusing on post production?
Aaron Nace: 03:43 Yeah, for sure. So my background in Photoshop actually came first. Uh, I am traditionally trained as a designer. I went to school for product design and got out of school and was doing a lot of like three dimensional product designing things like cars and you know, tools and, and things like that. And so we had a lot of work to do with actually like visual rendering and creating competition. And this was more like using Photoshop as a piece of paper, you know, using layers for like basically if you want to like design a car, you have to draw it first, right? And then you have to like see how it looks in different dimensions and things like that. So I would do all that in Photoshop using a tablet or like a, a pressure sensitive screen. So that's where my background in Photoshop, uh, started and photography actually came to me a little bit later down the line.
Aaron Nace: 04:36 And I was taking the trip after graduating from university and just fell in love with photography through the fact that I had a camera with me. I was going to a lot of really interesting places and I was like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I got to capture everything that I can and kind of fell in love with photography during that process. So when I got back I realized, Hey, I can take my love of Photoshop that I'd been working on for years. And combining that with my new love, with typography and really creating things that are just like kind of out of this world. So my background in the photography side of things is mostly conceptual and fine art photography. So doing things like making people levitate in the air or you know, making a person as big as a house and, and doing this and trying to make it look 100% real, not look like it was Photoshop, just make it look like a photograph. And that's kind of what drove my passion to, to create through both photography and Photoshop.
Raymond: 05:35 So when, when you first kind of made that connection in your head like, Hey, I've got these photos, I can turn these into something, you know. Fantastic. Um, what was the goal for kind of where you are today? How did, how did that progress into end of this kind of education powerhouse? Uh, that it is?
Aaron Nace: 05:52 No, it was all just for fun. In the beginning I was just doing like I had, I had these ideas in my head and I just wanted to see if I could pull it off, you know, can I, can I do this? Uh, I, it was just a hobby. I had a full time job at the time and it was just a way for me to get my creativity out there and kind of give myself a little bit of a challenge and I suppose do my work online. And the comments just started pouring in like, this is cool. How did you do this? How did you do this? And I realized there was a big gap in the marketplace. There were a lot of people teaching how to do these techniques. And so I started teaching people individually just one-on-one through like Skype sessions and hold ma'am.
Aaron Nace: 06:34 Yeah, yeah. It was just like, uh, you know, very natural progression and I had such a good time and you know, the, the response was really great. So it was pretty much immediately obvious that there was a need there. And I started releasing videos for free on youtube. This was back in, Oh boy, this almost 10 years ago now. And you
know, almost from the beginning we had a really, really great response. So that was to me, just again, not necessarily like a business, it was more just something I was doing fun or we didn't give back to the community and it kind of turned into a natural business when I realized, you know, not only people were interested in short snippets on Youtube, but they wanted longer, more in depth, like more difficult topics. They really wanted to master this stuff. And that's when I founded flirt.com and, uh, we fast forward today, we actually have a subscription service where you can pay, it's kind of like Netflix, you just pay a monthly fee and then you get access to everything. So, uh, that's basically the whole thing in a nutshell.
Raymond: 07:40 Yeah, that's insane. What a, what a great journey. That's crazy that it took 10 years. You know, when you think of kind of like online and uh, uh, you just have this idea that things happen fast, fast, fast, but it's a, it's great to hear that you, you know, you stuck with this for, uh, for so long and here you are today. So, uh, I kind of want to know a little bit more about you and kind of what, aside from obviously founding flirt, would you call yourself like a post production artist? Is there a different title that you would have for your, for the, for the job that you're teaching, I suppose?
Aaron Nace: 08:13 Yeah, for sure. So I would say as far as my art is concerned, I would consider herself myself more of a photographer than a post production artists. Uh, I use post production as a tool. So the way I kind of see Photoshop and, and any type of editing tool, it's just, it's, it's another skill set. It's another tool that you can use to create the artists that you want to create. So, you know, we're getting out there. A camera is just a tool to interpret how you see the world. You know, if you decide maybe you're going to photograph people in a studio setting, you can bring in lighting and you can do backgrounds and you can use props and those are all just tools as well. And then when you get to the computer, you have different programs that serves as different tools as well.
Aaron Nace: 08:56 So it kind of all starts with an initial vision of what do I want this end product to look like? And then gathering the tools that are necessary to create that end product. So for my personal work, I do all of my own photography. It's all purpose driven. And then Photoshop is a tool that I use to bring those concepts that I photograph together. So, uh, both as a photographer and as like, I guess a digital artist. Um, but my primary passion in teaching that's, you know, that's what I'm all about. Like how can I, how can I get this information to as many people as possible?
Raymond: 09:31 Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. Um, so when it comes to, uh, the editing side of things, you mentioned Photoshop there. Uh, there's a lot of photographers, especially in the beginning photography podcast, Facebook group who um, maybe aren't at that level yet where they understand the difference truly between light room and Photoshop. So before we actually go any further, can you just settle once and for all, what is the difference between Photoshop and Lightroom and which is the right choice for who?
Aaron Nace: 10:00 Yeah, so Lightroom is kind of like step one in Photoshop is step two. So if you, if you're at zero right now, if you're not doing anything, start with lightroom and start with step one. The things that you can do in lightroom are make your image brighter or darker. Let's say you know, you've overexposed your image or you've underexposed your image or maybe not even your whole image. Maybe your subject looks good but the sky is too bright. That's the sort of thing that you can fix in light room. Maybe you have a lot of distortion from your lens or the colors aren't exactly like what you wanted. Maybe your white balance is off. In other words, your photo came out a little too blue or a little too yellow. That's the sort of thing that you can fix in light and it's an incredibly powerful program.
Aaron Nace: 10:42 It can do quite a bit of work, just improving a photo as a whole. Now step two is Photoshop and this is where we get into a little bit more advanced techniques.
Things like retouching, taking a a portrait and you know, removing blemishes, doing advanced techniques to make the skin look a little bit smoother and a little bit cleaner. Also, things like compositing, you know, if I want to take an image of a person in this location and put them in a different location, I can use Photoshop to do that sort of thing. So I would say, you know, I use the same step one, step two with my own work as well. When I take photographs, I first bring them into light room and get them to look as good as I possibly can. Enlightening. And then from Lightroom, I go into Photoshop and take the next steps. So it's a step one step two process.
Raymond: 11:38 Gotcha. So it's not like if you're a beginner to start with light room. If you're a professional, you only use Photoshop. It's you use both in tandem, but that's the order in which you, you go through editing your photos.
Aaron Nace: 11:49 Yeah. Yeah. Most definitely. And you want to start with light, no matter where you are in the process. If you've never used any photo editing software, you want to start with light room or if you're a professional, you still want to start with lightroom. So it's, it's the great first step after getting your images on your computer.
Raymond: 12:06 Yeah. I've, I, I've been asked before. Yeah. As you can imagine, there's a lot of confusion between the two, for new photographers, kind of what, what do I use? And obviously the answer is both. Um, but I think as a wedding photographer, I would, I'd, I'd say that I use Lightroom probably 98% of my work and then the remaining 2%, uh, like you said, the retouching is done there. They're in Photoshop. So I can totally see how there's, there's the use there for, for, for both of them. But when it comes to Photoshop, I want to talk, I really want to kind of get into this, right? Because the Photoshop is more of the manipulation, you know, within a photos on your phone, you know, on, on your iPhone, you can change the exposure, you can change the contrast and these things are simple and they're built in, but you can't, um, add a son or you can't add anything or truly manipulate an image without, uh, kind of taking the next step, I guess. Uh, we'll just continue with that analogy by going into extra, uh, apps or whatever. So, um, before we really talk about the manipulation side of it, can you kind of share with me what are some, um, tools, uh, for mobile that are, uh, specifically, I totally phrase this question wrong. This is a bad question. What, what would you suggest are some tools that beginners can use, uh, on their phone to, to get started with, with manipulating their photos past, uh, just simple exposure adjustments,
Aaron Nace: 13:34 right. So I'm actually light room for mobile is a really fantastic program. Uh, so recently Adobe came out with a new software suite. It's, you know, it's a replacement for lightroom classic, which technically they haven't phased out lightroom classic, we that's still available. But there's a new program called light room. It's for your computer, but you can also use it on your phone and on a tablet. And the editing capabilities in that program are really fantastic. So you can really go beyond just making your photo lighter or darker. For instance, there is selective editing in that program where you can, you know, grab a gradient and drag, you know, just affect your sky. So you could have your sky be a little bit more blue, a little bit more vibrant. You can select individual colors and make those, you know, maybe you want the Greens to be a little bit more saturated or you've took a photo and you know, like the background might be a little bit distracting.
Aaron Nace: 14:34 You can kind of lower the contrast and the background to make your subject stand out. So you can do all those things in Lightroom for mobile. And the best part about that is that program's free. So it's very easily accessible. You don't have to load in, you know, professional, raw images. You can load them images that you've taken right from your camera and edit those right on, on your mobile device. But if you do load images in from your camera, you can work on your raw images on your mobile device as well, which I think is just insanely powerful. And the editing capabilities within that program are really very, very
good. So I think anyone who has used Lightroom classic in the past is going to have no problem with the transition to light room mobile. So that's really like my, my main, um, you know, my main program when I'm editing on my phone.
Aaron Nace: 15:27 Uh, now Photoshop, uh, is in the process. They're releasing Photoshop for the iPad, uh, relatively soon. I know they announced it with the iPad. Uh, there's a Beta version out, uh, which I've had the opportunity to test and it's going to be a fantastic program for taking that next step on mobile devices. Uh, and then, you know, we'll see the iPad version come out in a couple of months and then further down the road, uh, there's a good chance we're going to see a mobile version for that. I've had as well. It basically, it's, it's, uh, you know, we're kind of waiting on hardware to catch up with the software, but, um, I've had the opportunity to use some of the newer tablets, like the iPad pro and I got to say the hardware on that thing is just, it's mind boggling. It's, you know, a tablet that's as powerful as a, as a modern computer. So I, as we see mobile devices take more of the marketplace and become better computers, uh, we're going to see software that improves to be able to match the computing capabilities of those devices as well.
Raymond: 16:34 Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, I remember, I remember the, the, the day that the iPad was announced, like the original iPad, I looked at my, uh, my girlfriend at the time who's now my wife, and I said, I was like, one day I'm not even going to need a computer. Like, I cannot wait to just like be able to edit an entire wedding on the iPad. Like on the way home from the, uh, in my testimony, my self driving Tesla, you have to drive. I can just set it by the time I get home, uh, the wedding's done and I can deliver it. It's going to be fantastic. I think that now, even though it's, uh, it's almost 10 years later, um, we're, we're starting to get to that point and it's, it's really exciting. But with that said, even though that we're almost 10 years in, mobile editing is still very new. It's kind of a bit of a wild west. You know, we're desktop editing is, it's pretty polished. We've been doing this for a long time. So why would anybody even want to edit on mobile today?
Aaron Nace: 17:27 Well, I got to say, you know, that that dream scenario you had where you can edit your entire wedding on your iPad. I believe 100% that, that's here now, we're already in that stage. And I, again, if you have the right technology in your hands. So, uh, I picked up, you know, the new iPad pro 0.9 inch, uh, because I'm going to be doing some workshops using this as a mobile editing device and I was a little skeptical. Like is this all it's cracked up to be like is this software, there is a hardware there and I got to say it's there, like we are in that time. Uh, they're doing a really nice job with the software releases that are coming out soon. Soon you're going to be able to plug in your SD card directly into your iPad by a little, you know, Dongle accessory or whatever they call them.
Aaron Nace: 18:19 Uh, so that day is, is very much here, uh, anything on your mobile device honestly, because light room for instance is, is cloud based software. And what that means is any edit that you make on one device, you know, uploads to the Internet. So when you look at it on another device, the change is already there. It's syncs across all your devices automatically. And for that reason you and why I believe it's an actual viable tool now is a bit, you don't have to do any of your work twice. You do your work on some of it on your computer, pick up your iPad and the work you did on your computer is automatically applied on your iPad. You put down your iPad, pick up your phone and the work you did there is automatically applied on your phone. So you're never doing multiple edits of the same image.
Aaron Nace: 19:10 It's all of it is sinked at the same time. So it's really just whatever device you have. And for me, I carry an iPad with me just about wherever I go. So if I have an extra 20 or 30 minutes where I'm just kind of hanging out at a coffee shop, like why not do some editing? They're like, the tools are there and if you have the device with you, you know it's hard to predict when you're going to have extra time. And you know, I find myself having
extra time just in the randomness of cases. And sometimes I'm just like sitting in my car for 20 minutes, like waiting for a friend to go grab a coffee and come back to the car or whatever. And if like if I can grab my iPad there and edit your photos, like, you know, in a professional capacity and not have to Redo that and I, well that's 20 minutes that I would otherwise just be like sitting on my phone browsing Instagram or just like totally my thumbs and that's an extra 20 minutes that I've saved and working at home.
Aaron Nace: 20:09 So I think these mobile devices, it's not like, Hey, now I'm only going to edit on this mobile device. But the deal is most people have a mobile device with them at all times. Right? Like I've got my phone with me at all time, I have an iPad with me a lot of the time and if I can get this editing done when I'm, you know, in random situations and having just like a, I'm in bed right now, you know, I'm not quite tired. I want to stay up for another 20 minutes, I'll flip through my images and I'll make some edits there. Perfect. And then tomorrow when you open up your laptop, those edits are automatically there. That's, that's where I think mobile editing really has its place nowadays.
Raymond: 20:51 So, uh, I kind of guess where I get 'em caught up is sort of the, uh, and we don't have to go too in depth in this, but it's more of like the file management side of things because, uh, if I, you know, if I'm on my way home from a wedding and I'm loading 150 gigs worth of raw photos on my iPad to then, you know, then the next day when I wake up to start editing, it's, it has to upload all those photos from the iPad to the Adobe cloud and then back onto my computer. And then I gotta figure out what to do with those. Uh, so I could see how in a sense of like I have an idea for a, a conceptual photo or fine art photo and this is only going to take five raws rather than 5,000 where this makes sense today.
Raymond: 21:38 So if we're in that situation where we have this idea, because oftentimes photographers kind of get overwhelmed by editing tools like Photoshop because they just don't know what they want to do, right? Like me in particular, I go out and I shoot photos of my kids all the time. So I bring those photos into Photoshop and I have no idea what to do with these photos. And yet then I see a photo of a, you know, like a New York skyline and then somehow a waterfall is added to it to becoming through the buildings. You know. So to be able to create a photo like this deal, you need to know what you need when you go out shooting, uh, before you edit it. Or can you just bring in any old photo and create something out of your imagination?
Aaron Nace: 22:26 I think you have a much better chance of creating a good final product if you have a clear idea from the beginning. So for me, when I'm, when I have an idea about an image that I want to pull off, it's I spend a great deal of time in the early stages, pre production, thinking about this idea, what's the story that I want to tell? Like how am I going to tell this story? And if I'm going to need to capture multiple images and combine them together later on, how am I going to, how am I going to capture these images in a way that they're going to wind up looking realistic so that that planning and the preparation stage, it's, it's not always the most exciting, but it really does help you end up with a better final product. And you touched on something that's really important.
Aaron Nace: 23:15 Uh, you know, not knowing what you want to do in Photoshop. I think we've all gone through that, but kind of like the way I use it, an analogy like in the kitchen, right? Like, you know, if you go in the kitchen and you're like, I'm going to make food and then you just like, but what food am I going to make? You know, like you're never, you're not going to get anywhere. You know what I mean? But if you're like, you know what, tonight I'm going to make chicken Tikka Masala. And then you look up a recipe for chicken Tikka Masala and you go to the store and you get all your ingredients and you come back and you follow the recipe. At the end of the Diet, you're going to have chicken Tikka Masala. It might not be them best you've ever had in your life, but you're going to wind up with something.
Aaron Nace: 23:57 And that's a very different situation than just like staring into your refrigerator and you know, hoping something appears. So opening it every five minutes, like, is there something, is there something new in there now? Like what's the deal? What's come on? Uh, I've been in, you know, I'm a avid cook. I love cooking. And I've had those moments so many times where it's just like, there's nothing here in the, in the kitchen for me there. There's no meal. Um, but the deal was I didn't have a vision of something I wanted to make and I didn't get the ingredients of, you know, of this thing. So starting out with an end product in your mind will help you get there. If you don't have an end product in mind, well you're really not gonna get anywhere at all.
Raymond: 24:45 Yeah. That's, that's, that's a great point. That is a great point. And that's a really good analogy too. I didn't think about that. So, so then, uh, at some point we have to, in that scenario, we have to know what chicken, uh, uh, Tikka Masala is, right? We have to know what that is. Or it could be cereal and milk, right? Either way, you're gonna need your cereal and you're to need your milk, right? Right. But if, if you want to go out and you want to, um, try something new, something that you've never made before, you know, you don't know what the kitchen is, is possible of, you know what, this is getting wasted.
Aaron Nace: 25:23 No worries. But like the whole thing is, you know, when you're, when you're looking for something you want to create, just like we have with food, right? Like there are restaurants out there that serve delicious food where you could go try something and be like, you know what? I like this food. I didn't realize I like this food, but I kinda like that. I want to see if I can make it on my own. We've got the same thing with Instagram, you know, browsing images and saying like, you know what? I really like this photograph. I want to see if I can make something similar. You know, I don't want to copy it, but what do I like about this photograph? Maybe I really liked the lighting or maybe I like the way that, you know, this person was captured. I really feel like I can get to know them. Maybe I want to try to retreat that with my next photo. So having all these tools and inspiration allows us to kind of build a little bit of a reference point to where we can say, okay, cool. That's what I want to do now. Let's go ahead and try to get that done. Okay.
Raymond: 26:19 I Dunno if ended up past life you learned how to read minds, but he just did it to me perfectly and you got the answer that I was looking for. Terrible, terrible questions.
Aaron Nace: 26:29 So I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's, yeah, I think, I think we can pull him together.
Raymond: 26:37 Uh, and so I, I kind of want to know a little bit about, um, this is kind of the next step, right? You get started, uh, you start wandering into, um, editing at, you know, maybe you're charging for your work photographers who are just starting to charge for their work. What is something that they can do, uh, perhaps with mobile to improve their workflow?
Speaker 4: 27:00 Hey, Raymond here. And if you're listening to this, you are listening to the free version of today's interview. If you want to hear more from today's guest about the business of photography, consider becoming a premium member every week. Guests answer questions about products, pricing packages, and so much more that will help your growing photography business thrive. This is the next logical step to join head over to beginning photography, podcast.com and click the premium membership button at the top of the page.
Raymond: 27:30 I love it. Um, I just had so many ideas there running through my head about how even myself could kind of improve how I, how I communicate with that with clients. So I got some work after this.
Aaron Nace: 27:43 Well, it's like you go to a restaurant, right? And you order something, you know, like you have a certain expectation of what you're going to get when you order something. You know, if you weren't a hamburger and you get a chicken sandwich, you're going to be like, uh, I ordered a hamburger. Like, you know, and there'd be like, well, chick is kind of like hamburgers, you know, that's, you know, we have an expectation, but if you go in and you're like, I order a hamburger and the, you know, your server is like, oh, you know what, we're actually out of hamburgers but we do have chicken sandwich. If you want that, then you can decide, okay, chicken sandwich would be cool if that way when you get the chicken sandwich it's like, Yup, this is what we agreed upon. Yeah, exactly. So it's all about managing those expectations.
Raymond: 28:26 segue by the way.
Aaron Nace: 28:32
Raymond: 28:32
my iPad continues to, uh, get me excited. It was specifically for wedding photography. I know that it's like we talked about, it's easier for, um, conceptual photography or smaller, smaller batches of images. Um, but, uh, this idea continues to get me excited and for some reason I keep buying the newest iPad because I, I keep thinking that there's something in that iPad that is going to let me, you know, uh, get to that next step. But I keep finding downsides, whatever it is. So I want to know from your point of view, what are some of the downsides to editing on a mobile device here in 2019?
Aaron Nace: 29:13 Well, you know, what are the deals with a light room for mobile? For instance, if it is a cloud based, you know, software, so all of your images are being uploaded to the Internet. So if you're on a really slow connection that's just gonna take a little bit of time. And like you said, sometimes you're coming back from a shoot with 150 gigabytes. Well, you know, that's a lot of information to upload the Internet. And if you're not working on a fast connection, it's going to take a long time, then that might be a little bit frustrating for you. Not to mention that that cloud storage isn't free. You know, anytime you upload something on the Internet, someone's paying for it, right? It's mainly younger. Yeah. I mean it depends, right? When you upload your images to Instagram, you're not paying for it. But guess what?
Aaron Nace: 30:05 The company that owns Instagram, Facebook, they're paying for that storage, right? That image is on a server somewhere and they're paying for that. So there's a funny little quote like if you're not paying for a service, then like you are the service or you are the product. And like when it comes to Instagram, the reason you don't have to pay to upload your images to Instagram is because they're serving you ads. They're making money off of you being on there. But let's say you have another like cloud storage platform where you want to backup your images, chances are you're going to have to pay for that. So the same is true with Lightroom. For mobile lightroom desktop, you hit a certain amount of information that's included with your monthly plan. But if you want to start, start uploading 150 gigabytes, you know, per session, you're going to wind up paying a larger and larger monthly rate to store that much image, uh, to store that many images on the cloud.
Aaron Nace: 30:58 So I would say if you're in that position, it may not make sense to upload every single photo to the cloud directly. It might make a little bit more sense to get your images on your computer first. Go ahead and call out the images that you're like not going to
so speaking of managing expectations, this is a very terrible
Yeah.
Um, thinking about like the idea to be able to edit everything on
use. Cause out of 150 gigs, there's a good chance that some of those are just throwaways, right? Like all of them are perfect. Right? Yeah. And of course, like, you know, we, we want to take as many images as we can, but you know, just the image, it's like grossly underexposed or like, oops, I forgot I took a picture of the ground on accident. You know, get rid of those first before you put those on the cloud. Uh, so that's a potential thing that we want to look at too, especially if we're working with a lot of files.
Aaron Nace: 31:44 Um, you know, and then really just bandwidth. You know, when you're working on your images on your computer and they're on a local hard drive, fantastic. You know, that connection between your hard drive and you computers likely very fast. But if you are in a slower, uh, you know, a slower network situation, it might be a little bit of a slower bandwidth. You know, I got to say though to that, what could be seen as a con on the exact opposite side of that, all of your images are now backed up permanently on the cloud. So let's say your computer did have a failure or someone for, you know, stole your computer or your hard drive crashed your whatever. Well, all of your images by using one of these cloud based servers are already on the cloud. So it's not only is it a way to edit wherever you are, but it's also an instant backup solution. So it's, it has like, you know, very positive side of it as well. It kind of takes all of your image backup, uh, and it does pretty much automatically.
Raymond: 32:48 Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I run into when it comes to editing is I'm, uh, when I edit on a computer, the, the monitor is calibrated. I have the light in here dialed in right where I need it so that every time I edit, it's a very consistent experience so that I'm editing the exact same way every single time. With mobile. I could be on my couch or the lighting is entirely different. Maybe there's a window right in front of me, and that's kind of skewing how I see the image itself, which can affect how the image gets edited. Um, now I know that apple at least has put in things like, uh, is it true tone or whatever that, that calibrates the monitor itself. But aside from that, uh, is there any way that we can kind of get around that just so that we can ensure that we have a more consistent, uh, edit so that when we posted online, it, it looks as though it looks the same way it did on, uh, on our mobile device.
Aaron Nace: 33:48 I would say, you know, if you are concerned about color to that degree, I would do all of, you know, the majority of your editing on your mobile device, on your iPad, whatever, when you're out and about, I mean, do it on your computer. Well just do it on whatever device you have with you. But then when it comes time to send those images off, get in your environment that you know is dialed in and just do a quick look through and you'll be able to see, okay, are these up to my standards of where they should be? And if they aren't, you can do a little quick tweak before their, so it totally depends. You know, not everyone has an environment like you do where the lighting is perfectly dialed in and they've got a calibrated monitor and that's totally okay too. But you know, if you're a person who does care about having your colors exactly, you know, render perfectly and you have one of these environments, then I would just say make that the last step in your chain before you upload them to the Internet.
Raymond: 34:46 Okay. Good tip. Good tip. One thing I see a lot is, um, whenever I scroll through, Facebook is just really boring. Cell phone photos from my family and friends that just, just very boring. There's nothing to it, you know, straight out of camera. They took the shot, uploaded it directly to Facebook. What are some things that everybody listening could be or should be doing to their photos to prevent them from posting boring, boring shots?
Aaron Nace: 35:13 Well, I think, you know, part of that is, uh, depends on the, the desire of the person taking those pictures too, right? Like, oh, sure, yeah. I get
Raymond: 35:22 my, my aunt, uh, a free pass because you know, she doesn't understand but, but I'm assuming that for those listening, uh, they're obviously have some sort of interest in photography and they don't want their photos just to blend in with everybody else. What are some, what are some things that, what are just some, uh, simple beginner things that we should be doing to our photos, uh, to make them stand out just a little bit more?
Aaron Nace: 35:42 Right. Well, I think even a lot of that can be done with the photography side a bit as well. So, you know, capturing things from new angles that might be just a little bit more interesting. Um, maybe bring your phone a little bit lower to the ground or getting a little bit higher. You know, uh, these angle changes can make a huge, huge difference in the perception of a photo. You know what, when we look at photos of the paths that have caught our interest, you know, we're talking about photos that are 50 or 60 years old and the technology that those images were, you know, like 50 or 60 year old camera is dinosaur in terms of technology compared to what you have on your smartphone. So the technology there is already really good. So, you know, using the techniques that people have used for hundreds of years to create great images, those techniques will continue to make your images stand out.
Aaron Nace: 36:40 So, uh, you know, finding out what's interesting about an image and then framing your photograph to focused on that interesting part of it. You know, one thing that draws me into photographs a lot of the time is I want to feel like I'm getting to know the person in that photograph a little bit more. I want, I want a little bit of a sense of story, like what's going on here, what I want to be pulled into this image and I want to be asking more questions like I want, you know what I mean? It's like you take a bite of a hamburger and it's like, I want more of this, right? Like, Ooh, there's something interesting here. I want, I want even more of that. And that's what I want to see with photography. That to me is what makes it photograph interesting. So you know, photographs where everyone's looking at the camera and smiling.
Aaron Nace: 37:32 Totally good. Those have their purposes. Those have, you know, their uses. But those don't usually tell me a lot of a story. It doesn't pull me in and it doesn't have any asking what's next, what's more, what happened before this? What's gonna Happen after this? So definitely take those images where you're, you know, everyone's smiling and looking at the camera, but then also take those images where maybe you're getting up close and personal and, and taking pictures of people in the moment or maybe they're don't even know you're taking those pictures. So a little bit more of a candid style of photography and trying to get those reactions. You know, if a person is laughing or you know, like having like, uh, you know, an organic emotion that if you can capture that sort of thing, it's just going to be a little bit more interesting in general.
Aaron Nace: 38:20 And I think that we can go with our guts as far as like what's interesting to us to look at in person. Like, you know, if I'm looking at a bunch of people smiling, looking at me, that's not that interesting, right? That's not, it's just, you know, but if I'm looking at someone like working on an engaging task and maybe they're frustrated or maybe they're like crazy excited because they just like did something new for the first time, like that just officially is more interesting to look at just as a person. So just using your eyes first as your camera and like, is this interesting or not? And if it is, that's a good time to bring out of camera. And if it's not well maybe change something up. Maybe wait a few minutes till something is interesting. One thing that I like to do is if I am taking a picture of someone who's like, you know, quote unquote posing for the camera or a little bit like doesn't want to have their picture taken, I'll take a couple of those pictures and then I'll say, okay, done. And then I'll take a couple more when they think that we're done. But they like relax, they become themselves and then like maybe they'll like laugh in a genuine way cause they're not posing for the camera anymore because I think that I'm done taking the pictures and then those kept pictures a lot of
the time. Or like the golden gems where it's like that's them for real after they think the posting is done.
Raymond: 39:40 That is a great tip. That is a great tip. I think everybody's always looking for how to get more genuine photos while in a post and a, if anybody follows that, that's, I don't see how it couldn't work. I, it's funny, I interviewed, um, I believe it was, oh, I interviewed Kevin Mullins, who's a, who's a documentary wedding photographer from the UK a few weeks ago. I'm trying to remember. A few years ago, I watched a video that was all about documentary wedding photography. I can't remember if it was Kevin Mullins or if it was actually Zach areas, but regardless of the tip was, um, when he wants to take a photo of somebody, he'll go up to them, um, to, to make sure that they're not, you know, like Kimra aware or whatever. Um, and then he will, uh, take their picture. They're gonna look at them, no way. You know, I just screwed the whole thing up.
Raymond: 40:27 But there was something to the effect of like looking down, no, like looking up. Oh yeah, that was it. Okay, here we go. Let me start again. He walks up to them. Uh, he'll like take a picture. He'll make it look like he's taking a picture of the sky so that the people don't care. They don't think that he's looking at them and then he'll point the camera at them and make it appear as if he's looking at the photo that he just took. Now these people are, you know, they're not aware of the photo being taken to them, completely relaxing for the camera. That's when he takes the shot. And uh, it just getting that, that kind of natural reaction, which is a, uh, what you were just sharing there. And that was a very roundabout way of getting there. But once again, fantastic tip. Fantastic tip.
Aaron Nace: 41:06 Yeah, that's super cool. And you know, like I get it, like I try not to feel like I'm taking advantage of anyone. So at the end I'm going to show them the pictures and be like, Hey, look at these awesome pictures. We gotta be sure the goal is to like, I want people to feel really good about the pictures that I take of them. You know, like I think as long as that's your goal, you really can't do wrong. You know, it's, it's when we'd run into situations where, you know, we feel like maybe we're taking advantage of the people we're photographing. That energy to me is something that I always try to avoid, you know, so it's not, it's not a secrecy in the way of like, this is for me, it's a secrecy of like, this is actually for you and it's a way where we're going to get really great pictures of you if you don't like them or delete them. Like, I have no interest personally in posting images of people that they don't like. Like, you know, this is, it's not for me, it's for them. So, you know, if they're happy with their photographs, like cool. My, my job is, you know, I've got a gold star. Right?
Raymond: 42:13 Yeah, yeah. I get that sticker from the day for sure. Exactly. Exactly. Uh, well, uh, Aaron, I, I, I really want to be conscious of your time. We've been speaking for almost an hour now, so I only got two last questions for Ya. Are you ready? Let's do it. Okay. Uh, so wow. I hope that this conversation, uh, was helpful to, to many listening. Um, it definitely was for me, so I have to thank you for that. Uh, there's, there's just no replacing practice. And this is where obviously PHLEARN comes in, uh, on flaring. You have mini tutorials. I want to know where do you think that listeners should start? Like what, what, what is lesson number one? What is something that everybody should know when it comes to uh, editing or the post production side of photography?
Aaron Nace: 43:00 So as I said earlier, light room in my opinion is step one and Photoshop is step two. So if you're interested in learning light room, we've got fantastic tutorials. We've got a tutorial called the beginner's guide to like room classic, which is starting from, Hey, I've never opened this program all the way to the, by the end of the tutorial you're like, oh, I know how to use Lightroom classic now. And I feel like I can improve my photographs through what I've learned. That's a great place to start. If you're interested in light room for desktop and mobile, we have a tutorial on Lightroom, desktop and mobile. All these
are available on PHLEARN.com and it's a subscription service, kinda like Netflix. So you just pay monthly and you get access to everything. There's a really great discount if you pay annually and you just get access to everything so you can kind of take your learning to the next step. Uh, when you're ready to start learning Photoshop, we've got a tutorial called the beginner's guide to Photoshop, which is the perfect place to start learning Photoshop. So we try to just make that process a little bit easier. So like, you know, here's a great place to start. And then when you're comfortable with Lightroom, when you're comfortable with Photoshop, we've got some other tutorials that are gonna really kind of stretch you and teach you all the wonderful things that you can do in these programs.
Raymond: 44:18 I love it. Perfect. Those, those definitely the place to check it out. I've been watching PHLEARN videos for years and I can tell you personally that they have helped me, uh, fixed many problems with my father. So a personal five there. Um, and I can, I can attest to that too. The quality of these videos, you guys spend no expense. So, um, of course I got one last question for Ya. And it is, I would think that the most frequently asked question that I get about editing is how do I know when I'm done? Can you please shed some light on this question?
Aaron Nace: 44:54 So I would say, again, being goal oriented when you start is a great way to know when you're done. If you have really no goals, it, it's, it's hard to know where you're going. You know, it's, I think about it like when I get into my car, if I don't have any destination in mind, I'm just going to drive around for a while. Right? And how do you know when you're done driving around? Right? But if you have a destination, it's pretty obvious when you get there. Uh, so I would say that that's a fantastic place to start. Another little test that I give is just the do I like this image test. And for that test, my recommendation is to take a little bit of a break from your editing. So go ahead and work on an edit and get it to the point where you feel pretty good about it and take a break. Could be five, 10 minutes a day is even better. Come back and look at it again. And if you still like the image you're done. Yeah. If there's something about it that you don't like, then you got a new goal in mind and you can go to work and try to fix that. But if you like the image you're done and you know what? Some images, you'd like the image straight out of camera, so you're done.
Raymond: 46:02 Yeah. It doesn't require a much, much extra than that. So, uh, just kind of follow up on that. Um, every photo doesn't necessarily need to be edited.
Aaron Nace: 46:16 Um, no, every photo does not need to be edited. I think most photos can benefit from a little bit of editing, but again, it's not always a huge edit. Maybe it's just like bringing your shadow levels a little bit brighter, increasing the vibrance a little bit, adding a little bit of texture and clarity. Like it's not every photo needs to be edited. You know, greatly or to a huge degree, but there's a good chance that you could improve little aspects of your photographs and those areas still issue, you know, warrants a little editing. I took issue, uh, photos of my partner and I recently at the Garfield Park Conservatory here in Chicago and you know, we were photographing out of the window and I wanted that to be exposed properly. But I, you know, she and I worked dark, we were a little bit too dark, so I brought that into light room mobile on my phone. I use the brush selection tool, so I brushed over our faces and brought up the exposure a little bit and then boom, we were properly exposed and the background was properly exposed as well. So not a huge edit, but something that definitely helped the photograph.
Raymond: 47:23 Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, Aaron, again, I have to thank you for on sharing everything that you did. Um, like I said, you opened up my eyes to a lot of things that I didn't know about, uh, about editing. And I know that the listeners, uh, are just going to be blown away and that they probably need a notepad right now. They've probably already filled it out. Again, thank you so much for coming on. Before I let you go, can
you please share with the listeners where they can learn more about you and PHLEARN as well?
Aaron Nace: 47:53 Yeah, for sure. So, you know, p h learn.com is just a fantastic place to start and we have hundreds and hundreds of free tutorials available. So if you're interested in the idea of editing but you're not ready to start spending money, check out a, some of those free tutorials and you'll get a good sense of what you can do. And then when you're ready, you can go ahead and subscribe and get access to all of our pro content as well. Um, we're on PHLEARN on Instagram and Facebook and all of the major social media platforms as well. So if you want to connect to us, we'd love to hear from you.
Raymond: 48:27 Perfect. Wonderful. Aaron, again, thank you so much for coming on and, uh, hope to chat to you soon.
Aaron Nace: 48:32 Yeah. So good. Thanks Raymond.
Raymond: 48:34 This interview was a tough one. I'm not going to lie. When I was coming up with questions it was difficult to, uh, figure out things to talk about that were more uh, technical things that could be explained. Uh, you know, over over audio cause editing is, is, is technical. It's more technical than it is philosophical like photography. I tried my best and I really hope that you enjoyed this interview, but like I said, I, Aaron had a little bonus for you. Listeners of the podcast as Aaron mentioned on the, uh, his website PHLEARN. He offers, uh, Lightroom and Photoshop training. He wanted me to give you the code BEGINNER20. That is BEGINNER20, one word, no spaces or anything to take 20% off of a yearly subscription to PHLEARN. So now you can learn anything and everything you would ever want to know about Photoshop and Lightroom for 20% off. So a huge thank you to Aaron and the whole PHLEARN team specifically in loop a for that one. Okay. So that is it for this week's episode, and until next week, I want you to get out. I want you to keep shooting. I want you to focus on yourself and I want you to be safe. All right. I love you all.
Outtro: 49:50 If you enjoy today's podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes or your favorite podcast player and continue the conversation with Raymond and other listeners of the podcast by joining the beginner photography podcast Facebook group today. Thank you. We'll see you again next week.
