Archive for the ‘Lighting & Retouching Tutorials’ Category

Kylie Jenner recently launched her latest product line on KylieJennerShop.com. We photographed the camouflage-themed collection last month in Hollywood, with Kylie playing her own e-com model. In sync with the creative direction of the shoot, her poses were perfectly mannequin-esque.

Knowing the KJ team was planning to run the lead image on a Santa Monica Blvd. billboard, I shot the campaign on my faithful Hasselblad 503CW and Leap Aptus-II series back—the first time I’ve used this camera since 2014.

Congrats to Kylie and her team on a successful launch that sold out the hottest items in mere minutes. See the entire collection here, and take a look at behind-the-scenes images below.

CREDITS:
Model: KYLIE JENNER
Photography: NICK SAGLIMBENI
Makeup: PATRICK TA
Hair: TOKYO STYLEZ

Holiday season brings holiday cheer, and what’s more cheerful than getting what you want at ridiculous discounts?

At the end of October, we were pleasantly surprised to sell out our inventory of SlickforceSoftlights at Stan Lee’s Comikaze. We’re happy to announce that the new shipment has arrived, and we’ve created some holiday promo art to illustrate to our ever-growing audience just how much our learning tools and tutorials can help.

The Slickforce System holiday spot features the talented and ever-professional actress Anna Adjian as our young artist, embarking on a journey of discovery as she learns how to capture her creativity more easily and effectively.

As those who purchased the Mastering Lighting box sets already know, Slickforce Softlights are perfect for pre-visualizing your photoshoots, using your favorite action figures as stand-ins for your models. And who better to model for our stunning softlights than Wonder Woman herself? (and a wind-blown Kotobukiya Bishoujo Wonder Woman at that!) Special thanks to the Hulk, Prince Adam and Hoth Wampa for orchestrating this beautiful lighting setup for our iconic heroine.

Our Black Friday sale starts today at SlickforceStore.com, and you can pickup a 2-pack of Softlights for only $19.95. Or, if you’re ready to get serious about your art, check out our holiday deals on Mastering Lighting, Mastering Retouching and Mastering Compositing—now available at our lowest prices ever.

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving, and we look forward to helping you brighten your holidays!

Nick’s Lighting Journal is included with Mastering Lighting: Volume One DVD and VIP Box Sets

SlickforceSoftlight™ comes with silver umbrella, removable diffusion cover, power-pack and two stand-extension poles.

I’m excited to release this 8-minute video documenting the making of Mastering Lighting. It showcases the incredible amount of teamwork that went into creating a learning experience that didn’t suffer from the usual tutorial boredom. It’s also a fun look at the challenges we faced trying to squeeze PhotoKamp into an easily-distributable format, including scanning a model in 3D, taking you to my favorite locations virtually, and putting the viewer inside my head for a first-person POV on set.

We hired more than a dozen visual effects artists in five countries to help us build the warehouse, the Aryn model, and a full library of lights and camera gear. Being new to VFX, I was naive at best, and I would have been in way over my head if not for the guidance and contributions of good friend and VFX supervisor Raffael Dickreuter.

Dickreuter gave us the blueprint for creating a mini-VFX house within SlickforceStudio, and together we spent endless hours building render farms and network servers, programming camera moves, and adjusting lighting and texturing from the various artists. It’s safe to say that without Raff I’d still be working on this today.

If you haven’t checked out Mastering Lighting yet, you can learn all about it right here. SlickforceSystem.com is offering a Fall promotion for $30 and free U.S. Shipping, enter code MLFALL30 at checkout. Also, for a limited time you can order additional SlickforceSoftlight’s with your order.

After spending two long years and countless hours in a seemingly-forgotten corner of Los Angeles putting together our latest tutorial, it has been an absolute thrill hearing from so many of you about Mastering Lighting: Volume One. For those still curious, here’s a look at the first chapter of the series.

Fortunately, some pretty big critics seem to be in agreement with your positive comments, and Mastering Lighting has been getting rave reviews from these incredible photography sites. (Click images below to read the full reviews.)

I am also proud to announce the simultaneous release of two additional language versions. Mastering Lighting: Volume One has been meticulously translated into German and Spanish, by photographers Stefan Rasch and Adrian Orozco respectively. For those viewers who want the best of both worlds, the SlickforceStore is offering a combo bundle which features the German or Spanish download and the English Box Set (Standard or VIP Edition). Previews of each language are below. Click here for more information and to see all language options in our store.

And finally, by popular request, we’ve now introduced VIP Box Set Trilogy combos, allowing you to complete your SlickforceSystem library collection while adding the convenience of the downloads. Each trilogy set includes Mastering Lighting: Volume One, Mastering Retouching (Levels 1-7) and Mastering Compositing (Levels 1-5). Compare all options here.

Thank you for continuing to send your feedback, it is incredibly helpful in our quest to continually improve our learning series’!

It’s been a bit crazy this week in the studio, with the Slickforce team fielding shipping palettes from multiple factories overseas. We’ll do a proper post in the next week or so, but in the meantime, here is a quick look at the beautiful Mastering Lighting: Volume One Box Set packaging. While supplies last, you get the Slickforce Softlight reference toy free with your order, which you can see hiding on the left side of the photo above. All Slickforce products ship anywhere in the world—special launch pricing for a limited time, order here.

As an art-house, the SlickforceStudio team takes a lot of pride in just about everything we produce. But every few years, a project comes along that requires unprecedented levels of attention—an all-consuming energy beast that galvanizes the team and challenges us to power-up our skills and work together to break new ground.

Ever since the release of Mastering Retouching, my inboxes have been filled with requests for a lighting tutorial. Producing five PhotoKamp workshops provided me an incredible opportunity to work side-by-side with up-and-coming photographers and learn which teaching methods stick. Aspiring artists want to know how to create the worlds that have existed only in their minds…until now.

I’m proud to announce Mastering Lighting: Volume One, available for early pre-order now and shipping in early January. Taught in classic SlickforceSystem style, we’ve combined hundreds of your questions into a revolutionary new teaching tool.

In Volume One, I’ll take you through some of my biggest shoots, completely reverse-engineering the lighting setups. I cover our most highly-requested topics, such as redirecting the sun, working with fog, balancing artificial and natural light, finding the right composition, motivating your light sources, and much more. Best of all, you’ll get to set up the shot and light right alongside me, thanks to the incredible first-person perspective experience created by our visual effects team.

And since more than half of our customers preferred the library-quality Collector’s Box Set for Mastering Retouching and Mastering Compositing (artists like awesome tangibles, go figure!)… well, we’re just going to have to top ourselves on this one. The first 250 customers that order Mastering Lighting: Volume One will received a FREE Softbox reference light toy. I’ll elaborate more as we get closer to launch, but trust me, you’ll want this one on your shelf.

I am indebted to the wonderful Slickforce team who worked so hard to make this series a reality, and a very special thanks goes out to YOU for all of the questions, feedback and support you’ve sent us over the years. You’ve helped us create a fantastic new way to learn about lighting and photography. And I can’t lie… this one was just a little too fun to make. If you don’t believe me, check out the official trailer above.

Special early pricing ends November 30, so pre-order now at MasteringLighting.com!

We just got back from PhotoshopWorld in Las Vegas last week and had a blast! We threw stunning models Esther Hanuka and Ayanna Jordan (discs 1 & 7 for Mastering Retouching fans) in the trunk of the car and drove to Sin City on a mission!

The big news at this show was that Mastering Retouching ships iPad-ready, which had many curious customers circling the booth. I also took advantage of our PSW presence by announcing the first PhotoKamp, a 2.5-day workshop for photographers and artists, on November 12-14 in Los Angeles. The pre-launch of PhotoKamp was met with overwhelming response…so much so that we are almost completely sold out less than 2 weeks from the initial announcement!

We also doubled our booth size this year from the Orlando show, which allowed us many more opportunities to meet our friends and fans, as well as many talented photographers and Photoshop artists. German wunderkind Calvin Hollywood dropped by to say hello and meet the models, and we were also blessed with the presence of PhotoshopWorld royalty Matt Kloskowski (PS genius), Dave Cuerdon (retouching legend) and Wacom guru Wes Maggio.

But, with all due respect to the talented artists we met, no one impressed me more than my beloved Slickforce team. Director of Ops Kevin Savarese, lead retoucher Joyce Park, and assistant Derek Eskridge assisted models Esther and Ayanna in educating the public on the Slickforce brand, and photographers Clint Davis and Matt Timmons graciously joined us to show their support as well. I am moved and humbled by the dedication of my team, and it motivates me even more to keep our brand growing.

INDEX:
TOP: Mastering Retouching on the iPad!
1-9: The Slickforce Team showing PSW how it’s done.
10: The team throwing up Slickforce gang signs.
11: The team (L-R): Kevin Savarese, Joyce Park, Clint Davis, Ayanna Jordan, me, Esther Hanuka, Derek Eskridge, Matt Timmons
12: Partying at Blush @ Wynn
13: Models Ayanna Jordan and Esther Hanuka
14: Ayanna Jordan, Nazanin Mandi join R&B artist Miguel for his performance at Eve nightclub

Last week we had the pleasure of being an exhibitor at PhotoshopWorld in Orlando, Florida. It was not the first time SlickforceStudio had a convention booth (our longtime Southern California fans may remember way back to ActorFest, Glamourcon, and the Sci-Fi Conventions at the Shrine), but it was certainly our largest public display to date, and our first convention foray on a national level. It was also an important convention because it marked the debut of the DVD box set of Mastering Retouching™.

It was a pleasure and an honor to meet so many masters of their craft, as well as the countless friends, customers, fans, and curious public that approached our booth. I, personally, got a chance to meet many people who I have known on-line for years but never met face-to-face.

I pulled together a power-team for this conference, including magazine covergirls Esther Hanuka and Erica Jackson, Mastering Retouching™ beta-tester Matt Timmons, and SlickforceStudio man-behind-the-curtain powerhouse Kevin Savarese.

I’m proud to say that Mastering Retouching was extremely well-received, so much so that we actually sold out our entire convention supply. Brand new Level 7 volume “Exotic Features” was also included in the series for the first time, and has now been added to all new orders.

We made many new friends, both professional an personal, including NAPP-founder Scott Kelby (photo 1), retouching-guru Dave Cuerdon, and best-selling author Matt Kloskowski (photo 2). We had a blast at PhotoshopWorld, and hope to see those of you we didn’t meet at PhotoshopWorld West in Vegas later this year!

The cats are out of the bag.

You asked for it…you got it. I’m finally revealing my top-secret industry retouching techniques! Pre-orders are now available for my new long-awaited 6-volume super-tutorial Mastering Retouching™!

The series will be available for instant-download on January 30, 2010, and as a ridiculously beautiful DVD Box Set on or before March 30 (may be earlier depending on shipping). Pre-order customers ONLY will get both for the heavily discounted price of one.

Order before January 30 and get $200 off your order. You’ll get the download, the DVD Box Set, AND our upcoming bonus lesson Exotic Features (available March 30) FREE with your purchase. You will also get access to The Matrix, a members-only section of the Slickforce forum for customers who have purchased Mastering Retouching™. There you can post your pics for feedback, get coaching on your techniques, and discuss upcoming volumes to the SlickforceSystem library.

I will be personally monitoring the forum to answer any questions anyone has about the product while it’s still in the pre-order phase. This series has been designed using all of your forum input, countless e-mails from the last 5 years, past students, fan requests, and customer wishlists. I’ve been beta-testing this bad boy with students who have taken my retouching classes AND complete newbs, and I’m convinced you’re going to love the final version.

The Lessons:
Volume 1: Tools & Basics
Volume 2: The Slickforce Technique™
Volume 3: Complete Workflow
Volume 4: Light Complexions
Volume 5: Dark Complexions
Volume 6: The Stuff No One Else Will Teach You!
Volume 7: Exotic Features BONUS (available FREE with purchase!)

We’ve also got testimonials from users and a heavily detailed FAQs on the site itself as well as a video sample. Visit MasteringRetouching.com for more info!

Thanks in advance for all of your input in helping my build the mother of all retouching mastery tools. Here’s looking forward to arming you all with lethal skills!