Retouching Masterclass
Turn your photos into cinematic masterpieces.
Join Stanislav on a magnificent visual journey and learn his unique retouching workflow to turn your photos into stunning cinematic masterpieces. Stanislav will teach you how to analyze your image and remove it’s weak points. How to work with mood and emotions to involve your audience. This tutorial goes far beyond what’s available on the market. While it does include basic techniques of skin, hair and clothes retouching, it’s true strength is in storytelling. You’ll learn how to craft your image into a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.
Over 12 hours of content | 43 Chapters | PSD files included | 2 Bonus chapters | Digital DeliveryBecome a universal retoucher
This tutorial will teach you systematic, precise and robust workflow in Photoshop. You’ll learn not only tools and techniques, but more importantly underlying theory and concepts that will set your work apart from competition. With more than ten years of experience in teaching Photoshop, retouching and compositing, Stanislav is known for his clear and systematic approach to teaching. While his tools are often very simple, everything he does has strong foundations in psychology, physiology and art theory. By following this tutorial you’ll become a universal retoucher. Well versed in the technical side of everyday challenges of retouching skin, hair or environment, but also able to move far beyond to realms where stories are told and legends are being forged.
Note for Czech speaking customers: Pokud stojíte o tuto výukovou sérii v českém jazyce, naleznete ji zde. Jedná se o totožnou sérii, pouze s odlišným názvem.
What will you learn?
Skin & Hair Retouching
Retouching Masterclass is built to teach you whole process of retouching step by step. We’ll start with fundamentals. Retouching skin, clothes or even hair is bread and butter of every retoucher. You will learn how to turn even the most helpless skin into silky smooth beauty.
Environment Retouching
Every story takes place in time and space. Luckily for us, we can shape and bend them to our will. In this chapter you will learn to remove unwanted objects from your scene, cover or highlight any detail, all in service to the story you wish to tell.
Storytelling Techniques
Once you have a solid understanding of the basics, we’ll progress on to more advanced topics. You will learn how to capture your viewer’s attention, guide them through your story, highlight what is important and supress the rest. These are the techniques that elevate photos from the ordinary and help you create art, that stands out.
Color Grading
Colors are always telling the story. Choosing the right color grading is a must, only then can our viewers relate and find themselves at home. Stanislav will show you all the intricacies of working with cinematic color grading and you’ll soon find that it’s much easier than you thought.
Secret weapons: solid theory & robust workflow.
Feedback from our students
“The best course I can recommend for editing in Photoshop. Stanislav is a photographer who has dedicated himself to taking photos with a special cinematographic style and what stands out in a great way is his extraordinary way of editing and color.”
— Hector Reyes Photography
I can confirm that your Masterclass is by far the best course I’ve followed, which means a lot when you know that I’ve followed the Retouching Academy courses, as well as those from the The Gnomon Workshop.
Bravo first, for the great pedagogy you demonstrated throughout each and every lesson, making advanced techniques easy to understand, learn, and replicate, while demystifying most of the preconceptions of photography post processing. Bravo too for the energy and the efforts you put into making these incredibly rich courses. Great artistic and personal vibes radiate from your Masterclass, making it as much inspiring as pleasant to watch and learn from.
By the way, regarding the incredible amount of precious informations you’re sharing, your Masterclass is also a great bargain.
— Emilien Delgery
“Stanislav is a master storyteller, so it was awesome watching him go through his process from start to finish. What makes this tutorial special is theory. Stanislav talks about underlying theory needed to create compelling stories and it's amazing seeing him carve out spectacular works from quite rough files. There are also really cool techniques he uses I've never seen before.”
— Radovan Bartek Photography
Stanislav provides amazing instruction, great insights to his work and in depth analysis of the how's and why's of his style choices for the provided images! This course is amazing, I would say it is a must for the beginner as well as advanced photographers and retouchers who are wanting to create EPIC Images!
By listening and applying Stanislav’s techniques, you will save tonnes of time. Simply follow his process for designing and mapping your thoughts for both shooting and retouching, for getting the desired outcome saving you time, frustration and money!
One of the BEST tutorials I have had the pleasure to learn from!!!
— Don Quincy Photo
The Retouching Masterclass was the best course I have ever seen! In the past I completed couple of courses but I still felt like I din't get any groundbreaking skills. Of course I got great knowledge about the tools but I feel in your course you’re providing us not only with the knowledge, but with many years of experience as well.
The skills that pop up as unique after this course are masking (that really blew my mind), and beauty retouching techniques. Before I just heard about the loudest ways (dodge & burn), but your way is simply superior to everything I’ve seen. I'm recommending your course to all my friends, even though I'm a little bit scared that they can take more from it and become almost too good :))
— Magdalena Kosztyła Photo
“I like to learn from the best artists and Stanislav is definitely one of them. He taught me how to look at an image comprehensively. Story, planning, composition, lighting, colors...absolute precision. I can’t be more grateful”
— Michal Barok, DoP
Learn to craft complex stories.
What’s included?
We made sure that you have everything you need to become a professional retoucher. We have included every PSD file and even added two bonus chapters. See for yourself.
43 chapters, more than 12 hours of video
Retouching Masterclass is comprised of 43 separate chapters (including two bonus chapters), totalling more than 12 hours of video. Tutorial videos are shot at our professional studio in FullHD resolution, ready for playback on both your computer as well as any tablet device.
Full PSD sources
You’ll get the same final PSD files as your instructor. This means that you’ll be able to follow along and never get lost in the process.
Two bonus chapters
We have included two bonus chapters. The first bonus chapter will give you a comperhensive overview of advanced masking techniques, which we use for compositing work. Second chapter will help you move beyond retouching on to compositing.
Focus on story. Not the tools.
Meet your instructor
Stanislav Petera quickly rose through the ranks of fashion and advertising photographers in Czech Republic, establishing a reputation for his passion and creativity. Having published in glossy fashion magazines (Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Marianne etc.) in his early twenties he felt he was missing key elements of the craft and moved to Paris.
After several years of a successful commercial career he decided to focus solely on his personal projects. He now spends most of his time shooting cinematic narrative images all around the world.
With more than fifteen years in the photography and retouching business at a professional level, Stanislav is one of the most sought-after retouching teachers. Over the past ten years he’s trained literally thousands of photographers and retouchers, who are now able to pursue professional careers.
Learn cinematic color grading.
Perfect workflow
Stanislav is well known for his robust, structured and theory-based approach to retouching. He will guide you through his entire workflow from start to finish and make sure that you know every tool and technique you need, as well as all the underlying theory. This is perhaps the most advanced retouching tutorial on the market, because it will give you not only the answers to HOW, but more importantly to WHY. At the end of your magnificent journey you’ll have all the necessary tools, techniques and skill to push your images way beyond what you thought was possible.
Note for Czech speaking customers: Pokud stojíte o tuto výukovou sérii v českém jazyce, naleznete ji zde. Jedná se o totožnou sérii, pouze s odlišným názvem.
Basics
Everything starts with the basics. In the first few chapters Stanislav will build solid foundations and lead you through tools and techniques you need to know for precise retouching of skin, environment and clothes.
Retouching Skin & Jewellery
In the following chapters you’ll learn about specifics of beauty retouching, skin toning, working with jewellery and even complex and demanding techniques of retouching hair.
Storytelling Techniques
Once you have a rock solid foundation, Stanislav will guide you through his storytelling process. You’ll learn how to analyze your image, set your goals and work with light, contrast, structure and color to help your viewer understand the story.
Advanced Storytelling
Knowing what mood you want to achieve or what emotions you want your audience to feel is much more important than the techniques themselves. Stanislav will give you a rock-solid foundation of theory and the underlying science, so that you’ll never get stuck in the process again.
Particle Effects & Color Grading
In this bonus chapter Stanislav will take you beyond retouching, half way to more sophisticated realms of compositing. He’ll show you how to create depth in your image, how to work with atmospheric perspective, create realistic particle effects and advanced color grading.
Learn WHY, along with HOW.
Frequently asked questions
How is this tutorial different?
Most retouching tutorials on the market focus on skin, hair and sometimes make-up. While it’s really important for a retoucher to know how to craft perfect skin, Stanislav believes it’s even more important to know how to craft a perfect story. He will take you far beyond your everyday techniques into the worlds of painters, concept artists and other great visual storytellers.
What do I need to know?
Let’s be honest. This tutorial is not for complete beginners in Photoshop. In order to be able to follow Stanislav, you need to have a solid understanding of the basics. You need to know workspace of Photoshop and its basic tools as well as working with layers, masks and adjustment layers.
Why not learn from YouTube?
There are many great free tutorials available on YouTube, that’s for sure. But as with any other craft, retouching is best learned in a systematic way from a great teacher. Teacher who would explain not only the tools and techniques, but also the thinking behind them, underlying theory and context. That’s where YouTube fails and our guide really shines.
How fast would I get my videos?
Right away. Once your payment is processed, you’ll get a download link in your mailbox. Retouching Masterclass has about 18.6 GB and is divided into several parts so that your download is easier.
What Photoshop version?
Stanislav uses Photoshop CC 2015 in his workflow for several good reasons (main one being that it’s the most stable version available), but you’ll be fine with any version from CC 2014 all the way up to CC 2020. It’s also possible to work in Photoshop CS6 with a few small workarounds.
Would this work in Affinity Photo?
Yes! Since Affinity Photo is very similar to Photoshop, 99% of techniques will work there as well. We have many students who use Affinity with our guides.
