CREATING ARTISTIC MASTERPIECES using PHOTOSHOP and NO A.I. with Bert Monroy

This is the recording of a live broadcast where I chat with Photoshop legend and artist Bert Monroy about how he creates his incredibly detailed masterpieces of art using Photoshop. Bert also gives us a look at how he uses traditional Photoshop techniques, with no AI at all, to create life-like realism and effects. Watching him work, you get a real sense of the skill behind every piece, and just how much is possible with traditional techniques alone.

•Watch on YouTube to see the LIVE chat as it happened ( LINK )

links mentioned in the video

Bert Monroy Website: bertmonroy.com ( LINK )

Bert Monroy YouTube Channel: ( LINK )

The Making of Times Square (Full Length Tutorial - 14 hours)

• Part 1: ( LINK )

• Part 2: ( LINK )

• Part 3: ( LINK )

Classic Portraits with Constant Light

Recently I was back with friends in the studio taking portraits, and this time getting Steve in front of my camera to try out some ideas I’d stumbled across when browsing Pinterest that I thought would be another good excuse to get my L60-B constant light out for.

Pinterest

I’ve used Pinterest for years as a great place for not only finding inspiration by looking at the work of photographers I admire like Annie Leibovitz and Mark Seliger, but also a great tool for looking how other photographers pose their subjects, which lets face it can be awkward at times. 

Finding a balance between what you want but also making the pose look natural and the subject comfortable can be challenging to get right but I’ve always found it a massive help when you can guide your subject on what you’re looking for by showing them a picture.

Anyway, these here are some of the looks and poses I was really interested in …

Model for the Day

Model for the day was my dear friend Steve Healy whom I’ve known for years. 

There was a time when for quite a while we’d not met up because of Steve moving away to Devon but I’m glad to say that when we finally made the move to the South West , we’re now able to meet up fairly regularly to just hangout out and take photographs. This we will certainly be doing more and more of!

Anyway, Steve drove over to my house in the morning and then we both jumped into my car and headed to South Wales to catch up with the gang; some of my closest friends which to be honest are more like family … Ian Munro and Anthony Crothers.

This was the first time Steve had met up in person with Ian and Anthony even though I’m sure they felt like they knew each other anyway having messaged back and forth many times on social media and also in the chat room during my Sunday LIVE Broadcasts on YouTube. Needless to say … Steve instantly became ‘one of the gang’ 😃

So after a traditional meet up at Costa in Brynmawr, South Wales to fuel up on coffee, we then went to the studio and cracked on …

PORTRAIT 1

So the first portrait I really liked the look of doing was the one inspired by this portrait of Robert De Niro taken by Mark Seliger …

Steve had brought along a dark grey casual suit-type jacket which was ideal. He’d also bought a white shirt to wear underneath but when setting up we all felt that even though you’d only seen a small portion of it, it would be too distracting, so instead Steve kept with the black T-Shirt he was wearing.

BACKGROUND

• X-Drop Pro Background Support System

• Glyn Dewis Vintage Grey Background Material

For this I portrait as it was to be a fairly tight crop of Steve on one side and just a little bit of ‘dead space’ to the left, the 7’ x 5’ background would be plenty big enough and so this was set up with the rear supporting leg shortened so that the background took up less floor space and could be closer to the wall.

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LIGHT + MODIFIER

• Westcott L60-B COB LED Constant Light 

• Westcott 24” Rapid Box Switch Beauty Dish

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … I absolutely LOVE this light!

I wouldn’t be exaggerating when I say that positioning the light (L60-B) to get the Rembrandt Lighting Pattern 100% BANG ON took just a few seconds; such is the convenience and ease of doing so when using because … What You See Is What You Get

Bottom Left: iPad Pro with Pinterest App open showin the ‘reference’ image

To achieve a quality of light that was neither hard or soft but somewhere in between, and also to minimise the amount of light that would spill onto the background, I opted to use the Westcott 24” Rapid Box Switch Beauty Dish and with the outer diffusion panel fitted.

Westcott 24” Rapid Box Switch Beauty Dish with Outer Diffusion Panel

CAMERA + Lens

• Sony A7RIV

• Sony 85mm f/4.0 G Master

CAMERA SETTINGS

• Aperture: F/4.0

• Shutter Speed: 1/60sec

• ISO 1250

Once set up and with any light in the studio that wasn’t contributing to the portrait turned off, I could then start taking portraits of Steve but what was really useful here was that everyone could see EXACTLY what the shots would be like without having to look at the back of my camera each time or look at my iPad Pro that I was tethering to; again because What You See Is What You Get

Studio lights and ‘any’ lights not contributing to the portrait turned off.

This made it so easy for anyone who wanted to make a suggestion and move in to maybe get Steve to angle himself differently or change the position of a hand.

It just worked and worked so incredibly well, making EVERYONE feel involved.

OUT OF CAMERA

Here’s the out of camera Raw file …

Original Raw file in Adobe Lightroom Classic

FINAL EDIT

Here’s the final retouched image which was worked on using both Lightroom and Photoshop …

Final Retocuhed Portrait

LIGHTROOM CLASSIC and PHOTOSHOP

Here’s a summary of the retouching steps carried out in both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop …

Lightroom

• Straighten & Crop

• Colour Correction*

• Denoise

• Masking (Enhance eyes - Iris and Pupil only)

*Had to do this manually as ‘somehow’ I forgot to use my Colour Checker Passport … Doh!

Photoshop

• Clean Up

• Dodge & Burn

• 2010

• Dreamy Glow (20%)

Lightroom

• Colour (CN16)

• Color Mixer (Reduce Orange & Red Saturation on Steve’s face)

• Masking (Radial Gradient to Shape Light)

• Masking Exposure on Face

• Add Grain

PORTRAIT 2

For the 2nd portrait of Steve, this was the photograph I used as the initial inspiration / idea …

For this we went with the exact same set up albeit positioning the light camera left this time as opposed to camera right as it was for the first portrait.

Below is what the set up looked like before turning off the lights in the studio that weren’t contributing to the portrait …

Using the single L60-B coming in from high up and angled down produced exactly the lighting that was wanted (below) however I felt that the shadow side of Steve’s head was a touch too dark …

To add a touch more light onto the shadow side of Steve’s head, rather than use a 2nd L60-B we just used a Silver Reflector which also had a white side to it, however between the two surfaces, the silver side gave the best result …

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OUT OF CAMERA

Here’s the ‘out of camera’ Raw file …

Out of Camera Raw file in Lightroom Classic

FINAL EDIT

Here’s the final retouched image which was worked on using both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop …

Final Retouched Portrait

lightroom classic and photoshop

Retouching steps in both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop were pretty much the same as in the first portrait, however there was one very definite difference.

When taking the 2nd portrait, we all felt that although Steve sitting on a stool worked, it did make him look a little squashed because of the height of the stool he was sitting on and also how his jacket sat, so we also tried a few shots with Steve standing …

With Steve standing it definitely stopped him looked squashed, however when looking at the images later in Lightroom Classic I was torn because I liked the pose and expression on Steve’s face from the seated shots.

So now in the retouching I was thinking I could either (a) do a head swap or (b) do the opposite of a technique I used to do when photographing physiques … and that’s what I chose to do.

PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL

Here’s a short video showing exactly what I did in Photoshop to reduce / remove the ‘squashed’ look …

WRAP UP

Following the photo shoot we all the headed over to Abergavenny for what was a delicious bite to eat at The Angel … THANK YOU Steve!

So there you go, all of the steps that I went through from the initial idea, the kit, the set up and the final edit.

As always if you have any questions / comments, please do make use of the section below and I’ll be sure to reply.

Oh and don’t forget, if you’re interested in getting ANY of the Westcott kit including lighting, modifers, backgrounds etc then drop me a line as I’ll be able to give you a Discount Code for 10% OFF

Cheers
Glyn

Calibrating my iPad Pro for Photography

One thing I always do when taking portraits is shoot tethered, and while that used to be with my camera connected to my MacBook Pro, it had changed to my iPad because it's way more portable and convenient. I use the Capture One app for tethering, which works incredibly well: open the app, plug in your camera, or connect wirelessly, and you're up and running. The only problem is that out of the box the iPad screen is too contrasty; it's set up to give the richest colours and deepest blacks for apps, movies, games and looking at pictures, which isn't ideal for tethering. My 6th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro has Reference Mode, and in this video I go step by step through calibrating the screen for the best results when tethering, editing and viewing photographs.

PHOTOSHOP Zoom GONE CRAZY ??? TRY THIS QUICK FIX

Sometimes, when Photoshop gets an update, you might notice a few things behave a little differently, and one of those can be zooming in and zooming out. After receiving an email from someone whose zoom had started acting strangely, I put together this quick video to show the fix, so if zooming in Photoshop has gone a bit crazy for you, this should get it back to behaving as it should.

🏳️‍🌈 QUICK COLOUR GRADING technique using ONE ADJUSTMENT LAYER

Colour grading doesn't have to mean stacking up lots of layers. In this quick Photoshop technique I show how to use just one adjustment layer, Selective Color, to colour grade your images and add the classic teal and orange look. It's a single layer doing all the work, which keeps things simple and quick, and because it's an adjustment layer it sits above your image rather than changing the pixels themselves, so you can go back and tweak the look whenever you like.

REMOVE TOOL 💪🏻 The MOST POWERFUL TOOL in Photoshop 💥

The Remove Tool in Photoshop might be even more powerful than you think. It's easy to see it as something for brushing away the odd small distraction, but here I show why I'd go as far as calling it the most powerful tool in Photoshop, and how it can do a lot more for your images than you might expect when it comes to taking out the things you don't want in a shot.

How to Match / Change Colour in Photoshop (2-SIMPLE + FAST TECHNIQUES)

Changing the colour of something in a photograph, or matching it to another colour, is one of those jobs that comes up time and again when editing. Here I go through two of my favourite techniques for doing exactly that in Photoshop. Both are simple and fast, and they give you two different ways to match or change the colour of content within a picture, so you've got a choice of approach depending on the image you're working on.

MASTERCLASS: Create Hair and Fur Brushes in PHOTOSHOP | GREAT for SELECTIONS and CUT OUTS

Hair and fur are some of the trickiest things to deal with when you're making selections and cut-outs in Photoshop. This is a masterclass in creating your own hair and fur brushes in Photoshop with Aaron Blaise, who was at Disney for more than 20 years. Being able to create brushes like this can be incredibly useful when you're working on difficult selections and cut-outs, and it's a real treat to watch someone with his background show how he builds them.

The POWER of POINT COLOUR 🔥 LIGHTROOM UPDATE (October 2023)

The October 2023 update to Lightroom and Camera Raw introduced Point Color, and it's a really powerful way to target and manipulate colour in your images. Here I take a look at what it does and how it works, showing how you can pick out a specific colour and then change it, rather than adjusting colour across the whole photograph. It gives you a lot more precision when it comes to colour, and it's well worth getting to know if you edit in Lightroom or Camera Raw.

Dave Cross chats with Photoshop Virtual Summit 5 Instructors

With just over 4 weeks to go until the Photoshop Virtual Summit 5 which runs from 30th October thru 3rd November 2023 …

You can also use the link above to check out the page on the official website where the Founder and Organiser, Dave Cross, chats with each of us instructors for a couple of minutes about the classes we'll be presenting; ALWAYS more to learn