Free online course Architectural Post-Production in Photoshop: Zero to Advanced Workflow
Duration of the online course: 10 hours and 51 minutes
New
Make architectural renders look photorealistic with a free Photoshop course: sky swaps, reflections, perspective fixes, pro color grading, and print-ready exports.
Print vs web export preparation: sizing, sharpening, color space, and output-specific settings.
Workflow speed/performance: Smart Objects, migrating to new docs, PixelSquid plugin advantages for 3D assets.
Creating believable custom assets: depth via shading/gradients + perspective to make flat shapes read 3D.
About the free online course
Turn a good render into an image that feels real, intentional, and presentation-ready. This free online course on architectural post-production in Photoshop guides you from foundational habits to an advanced, repeatable workflow used for exterior and interior visuals. Instead of relying on random effects, you’ll learn to diagnose what a render needs, then apply targeted adjustments that improve clarity, mood, and realism without destroying details.
You’ll start by building a strong base: opening and evaluating a project, correcting camera angles and perspective, and recovering problem areas like burned highlights or flat surfaces when you cannot re-render. From there, you’ll work with both automatic and manual approaches to sky replacement, learning how to keep control through editable layers, believable lighting, and natural color integration. You’ll also craft convincing reflections for water, windows, and floors so your scene inherits the environment around it rather than looking pasted together.
As you progress, the workflow expands into the details that sell a story. You’ll enhance textures without over-sharpening, tune global color and contrast for cohesion, and add atmosphere with mist, rain, birds, vegetation, people, and vehicles in ways that match scale, perspective, and light direction. You’ll also practice techniques for inserting new elements such as buildings, street assets, and objects while preserving realism through masking, matching values, and scene-consistent grading.
The course also emphasizes performance-friendly habits and professional output. You’ll learn to prepare files for print versus web export, manage higher dynamic range imagery like EXR renders, and use tools such as Vanishing Point and Perspective Warp for complex composites. Along the way you’ll pick up practical retouching skills like cleaner transparency, quick object removal, smarter layer management with Smart Objects, and controlled lighting effects such as bloom, flares, and light trails. By the end, you’ll have a structured Photoshop process for producing polished architectural visuals that communicate design clearly and look convincing in a portfolio.
Course content
Video class: Architectural Post Production (Zero to Advanced) in Photoshop Promotion02m
Exercise: What is emphasized as a key principle of the Photoshop architectural post-production workflow?
Video class: #1 CGI Description01m
Video class: #2 Analyzing the Project02m
Exercise: When bright sun creates flattened, burnt highlight areas in a render and re-rendering isn’t possible, what is the recommended workflow solution?
Video class: #3 Open Image01m
Video class: #4 Fix Camera Angle with Camera Raw Filter (ACR)08m
Exercise: In Camera Raw Filter > Geometry, which option is used to manually correct perspective by drawing horizontal and vertical guide lines?
Video class: #5 Fix Camera Angle by Free Transform Tool06m
Video class: #6 Fix Burned Surfaces with Camera Raw Filter10m
Exercise: When adjusting burnt/flattened surfaces with Camera Raw Filter, what makes the changes apply only to specific areas instead of the whole image?
Video class: #7 Fix Burned Surfaces Manually11m
Video class: #8 Sky Replacement Automatically06m
Exercise: In Photoshop’s Sky Replacement, which output option creates separate layers (sky with mask plus lighting and color adjustment layers) so you can edit them later?
Video class: #9 Sky Replacement Manually12m
Video class: #10 Add Sky Reflection on Water pool11m
Exercise: What is the correct blend mode to use for the sky reflection layer on water before fine-tuning intensity?
Video class: #11 Overall Color Adjustments06m
Video class: #12 Detail Enhancement04m
Exercise: Which workflow is used to enhance details by detecting edges and then blending the result into the image?
Video class: #13 Preparing file for Print05m
Video class: #14 Chapter 2: Introduction05m
Exercise: When working with a 32-bit EXR exterior render in Photoshop, what is the recommended first step to better manage gamma and visible details?
Video class: #15 Adding Alpha for Sky Replacement06m
Video class: #16 Add Sky Reflection In Windows06m
Exercise: Which blend mode is recommended for adding sky reflections on glass in Photoshop?
Video class: #17 Add Birds04m
Video class: #18 Add Raindrops Method 106m
Exercise: Why is the Wind filter disabled, and what must you change to enable it when creating rain streaks?
Video class: #19 Add Raindrops Method 223m
Video class: #20 Floor Reflection17m
Exercise: When creating a ground reflection, which Photoshop action is used to turn the duplicated render into a reflection?
Video class: #21 Adding Mist08m
Video class: #22 Adding Tree13m
Exercise: Which Photoshop feature is used to quickly generate simple background trees on an empty layer?
Video class: #23 Adding Grass22m
Video class: #24 Adding Peoples18m
Video class: #25 Overall Adjustments16m
Video class: #26 Final Adjustments (end of chapter 2)10m
Exercise: What is the recommended workflow to prepare an architectural image for printing versus web export?
Video class: #27 Chapter 3 - Introduction, Adjusting12m
Video class: #28 Adjust Grass07m
Exercise: When adding a Total Lighting render pass in Photoshop, which blend mode is suggested to improve the image subtly?
Video class: #29 Adjusting Sky04m
Video class: #30 Add God Rays07m
Exercise: Which Photoshop blending mode is used to make the created God Rays layer brighten the scene naturally?
Video class: #31 Adding Background05m
Video class: #32 Add Birds08m
Exercise: When adding birds from a non-transparent image, what masking approach helps separate them from the sky quickly?
Video class: #33 Final Adjustments08m
Video class: #34 Chapter 3 - Introduction: Vanishing Point15m
Exercise: Why was a new 8-bit document created before using the Vanishing Point filter?
Video class: #35 Sky Replacement07m
Video class: #36 Add Buildings21m
Exercise: When adding a new building into a scene, what is the most important criteria to check first so it blends realistically?
Video class: #37 Add Street Asphalt06m
Video class: #38 Add Roadblocks12m
Exercise: What is the main advantage of using PixelSquid with its Photoshop plugin during architectural post-production?
Video class: #39 Add Grass07m
Video class: #40 Add Vegetation07m
Exercise: What is the main Photoshop method used to fix an incorrect road perspective/angle in a scene?
Video class: #41 Finishing Road Asphalt11m
Video class: #42 Add Bushes13m
Exercise: When creating a simple block shape for bushes, what is done to add depth after drawing the rectangle?
Video class: #43 Street Lights Part 112m
Video class: #44 Street Lights Part 211m
Exercise: When adding new street light PNGs into a composite, what is the purpose of adjusting them with Curves (Ctrl/Command + M) before adding bloom/glow effects?
Video class: #45 Add Cars20m
Video class: #46 Fix Windows Transparency04m
Exercise: What is the main purpose of Ctrl/Command + clicking on a layer mask during window refraction cleanup?
Video class: #47 Buildings Re-adjustments18m
Video class: #48 Add Traffic Cone11m
Exercise: When adding a traffic cone cutout into a scene, what workflow best helps it match the environment realistically?
Video class: #49 Interior Ceiling Lights17m
Video class: #50 Add Interior Details10m
Exercise: Which workflow best creates a subtle interior glow/bloom behind a window in Photoshop?
Video class: #51 Cleanup Buildings05m
Video class: #52 Add Airplane13m
Exercise: When creating the airplane’s smoke/light trail, which blending mode is used after moving the trail into the main document?
Video class: #53 Buildings Reflection08m
Video class: #54 Add Cars08m
Exercise: What is the correct workflow to create a realistic ground reflection of an object in Photoshop?
Video class: #55 Add Street Lights05m
Video class: #56 Migrate to new Document for better performance03m
Exercise: What is the purpose of creating a Solid Color layer sampled from the sky and setting it to a blending mode like Overlay/Soft Light/Vivid Light during post-production?
Video class: #57 Add Lens Flare for Lights12m
Video class: #58 Add Car Lights02m
Exercise: Which blending mode is used after painting a saturated red light spot on a new layer to create a lighting effect?
Video class: #59 Add Light Trails13m
Video class: #60 Project Final Adjustments (end of chapter 4)07m
Exercise: What is required for Photoshop’s Filter Gallery to work properly in this workflow?
Video class: #61 Chapter 5 - Perspective Warp09m
Video class: #62 Vanishing Point in advanced06m
Exercise: In Vanishing Point, what should you do to avoid unwanted color/light changes when using the Stamp tool as a simple clone?
Video class: #63 Smart Objects Tips05m
Video class: #64 Content Aware Fill03m
Exercise: What is the main advantage of using Content-Aware Fill for removing objects in Photoshop?
Video class: #65 Hue Saturation Tips07m
Video class: #66 Puppet Warp02m
Exercise: What adjustment can you make in Puppet Warp to get a smoother deformation on a subject?
Video class: #67 Quick Switch Modes05m
Video class: #68 Perspective Shading Intro10m
Exercise: Which combination most helps a flat shape read as 3D when creating custom assets in Photoshop?