Recent Education Articles

How To Get the Most Out of Lightroom's and Photoshop's Masking Capabilities

Lightroom and Photoshop have taken some massive steps forward with regards to their masking capabilities in the last few iterations, and if you have not taken the time to dive into all the new features yet, you are definitely missing out. This fantastic video tutorial takes a look at some of the best new capabilities and offers a range of tips to help you get the most out of them, making your workflow both easier and more efficient.

How to Create a Timelapse Video

Making a time-lapse video is a blend of photography and videography. While the outcome can be stunning, the process requires preparation and can pose certain challenges. In this article, I will walk you through my workflow and offer a glimpse of some real-life examples I've created.

4 Helpful Tips for Your First Portrait Shoot

Portrait photography is a challenging genre, but within it are numerous creative paths and rewarding adventures if you are willing to put in the time to learn and grow. This fantastic video tutorial offers beginners four helpful tips that will help you tackle your first shoot.

The Difficult Decisions in Landscape Photography

Landscape photography can be a bit of a start and stop genre, with hours of waiting punctuated by fleeting moments of opportunity. That can lead to some difficult decisions about how to maximize your chances of coming home with worthwhile shots. This great video follows an experienced landscape photographer as he grapples with such decisions and discusses how he moves forward.

Helpful Advice for Printing Your Photos

Printing your photos can be a tremendously rewarding exercise, but it is also an expensive venture, and as such, mistakes can quickly add up in cost. If you are new to printing your image, check out this fantastic video tutorial that features an experienced photographer sharing a range of useful advice to help ensure you get the best possible results.

Important Advice for Budding Photo Professionals

Making the transition from hobbyist to professional takes a lot more than simply being good with a camera, and it is important to enter it with the right idea of what to prioritize. This great video essay features an experienced commercial photographer discussing some important topic, particularly the balance of technical and creative as a professional, and how to thread the needle to maximize your chances of finding success.

3 Ways To Improve Your Photography Today

Despite what social media may tell you, there is no such thing as a magic path to success. But what are some concrete steps you can take to reach your goal of becoming a successful artist?

How to Handle Boring Skies in Landscape Photography

Most people hear of blue skies in the forecast and get excited for nice weather, but for landscape photographers, it can cause a groan, as it means monotonous compositions that are difficult to work with. Nonetheless, that does not mean you need to pack up your camera and head home, as it is still possible to make great shots, even with those boring skies. This great video tutorial will show you how to do just that.

Helpful Advice for Improving Your Images

Producing compelling photos can be a somewhat nebulous thing, but composition goes a long way in helping you capture the attention of your viewer. While composition is something one can spend a lifetime studying, one of the simplest but most powerful principles is to simplify the frame to draw more attention to your subject. This fantastic video tutorial will show you several effective ways to do that.

How to Price Your Photo Prints

Pricing is something many photographers struggle with. While things like camera settings can be quantified and are, thus, easier to learn in a way, pricing can be a nebulous and tricky thing to nail down. So, when it comes to selling prints, how do you set your prices? This helpful video tutorial features an experienced photographer sharing some useful advice sure to put you on the right track.

How to Light a Group Portrait

It takes a lot of skill and experience to light a portrait of a single person, but lighting groups can be an entirely different challenge. Nonetheless, depending what you shoot, you may be called upon to photograph groups. When that happens, you will want to be ready to transition quickly. This great video tutorial will show you an effective and straightforward approach for producing quality group photos.

7 New Adobe Photoshop Features Explained

Adobe Photoshop has been moving quickly in recent months, rolling out some of the most impactful features the software has ever seen. In this video, learn about each new feature, what they do, and how to use them properly.
7 Tips for Getting Started With Portrait Photography

Portrait photography is a popular but challenging genre, as it requires good technical skills with your camera and lighting, the ability to pose people and make them feel comfortable, and solid capabilities when it comes time to edit the image. If you are new to the genre and looking to improve, check out this helpful video tutorial that offers seven tips sure to put you on the right track.

In a World of Infinite Images, What Makes a Photographer?

Photography is a strange thing. Almost everyone listens to music, but very few people actually make it. Almost everyone enjoys a painting in a museum, but how many people do you know who own a set of paintbrushes? And yet, almost everyone takes pictures, usually on a daily basis. So, in a world where images flow at a dizzying rate, what actually makes a photographer? This insightful video essay tackles the question.

Some of Photoshop's Most Useful Newer Features for Landscape Photographers

Photoshop remains the gold standard for advanced landscape photo edits, and in recent iterations, we have seen some remarkable steps forward, with some features giving photographers the ability to make drastic edits with just the click of a button. If you are ready to update your toolkit, check out this fantastic video tutorial that explores some of the newest features and shows you how to leverage them in a landscape image edit.

Five Tips for Better Autumn Photos

Now is the time to head out and capture beautiful fall colors, and in this article, I give you five tips on how to do so.

Learn How to Use Flash to Light an Engagement Portrait With This Tutorial

Learning to use off-camera flash can feel quite daunting, especially when you combine it with natural light in an outdoor environment. Once you understand and grow comfortable with a few fundamental principles and techniques, though, you will find the entire process much more intuitive and easier to tackle. This fantastic video tutorial features an experienced photographer walking you through an engagement shoot using off-camera flash and natural light to help you learn those crucial fundamentals.

Why Feel Is More Important Than Rules in Landscape Photography

Between the rule of thirds, camera settings, guidelines on focal length, depth of field calculations, and more, landscape photography can be a rather prescriptive genre. And while it can be good to have rules that increase your chances of coming home with a keeper, they can also be overly restrictive. This great video tutorial features an experienced landscape photographer discussing why feel is more important than following the rules in the genre.

5 Invaluable Lessons I've Learned as a Landscape Photographer

Embarking on my journey as a landscape photographer has been a thrilling ride filled with exploration, challenges, and countless awe-inspiring moments. Over time, this pursuit has not only honed my technical skills but also imparted invaluable life lessons. In this article, I'm excited to share the five most significant insights I've gained as a landscape photographer, each of which has enriched my craft and my perspective on the world. They may also be applicable to you. Or, perhaps you have more to add?

Why You Should Copy Other Photographers

We are constantly taught the value of originality as creatives and why it is important to explore, expand, and refine our creative voices. And so, it can sound a little strange to recommend you copy other photographers, but the exercise can actually be tremendous beneficial. This fantastic video tutorial discusses some of the reasons why you should try it.

Making the Best of Bad Conditions in Landscape Photography

Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of landscape photography is that you do not have any control over the conditions, and if nature does not feel like cooperating that day, you can end up with a real struggle on your hands. That does not mean you should just give up and pack it in, though. This great video follows an experienced landscape photographer as he deals with such a day and perseveres in order to still come home with worthwhile images.

How to Light an Outdoor Portrait With Natural Light and Flash

Learning flash can feel daunting, but once you get the basics down, you will find that you can tackle a much wider range of creative needs. One of those fundamental skills is balancing flash and natural light, and this excellent video tutorial will show you the ins and out of doing that to create a compelling portrait.

How to Remove Overexposed Hot Spots on a Subject Using Photoshop

Hot spots can be quite frustrating, as they can be a significant distraction on an otherwise compelling photo and are not particularly easy to remove. It is not impossible to get rid of them, though. This awesome video tutorial will show you everything you need to know to even out those hot spots using Photoshop.

Two Common Photography Pricing Mistakes

Pricing is one of the trickiest aspects of being a professional photographer, and there are no hard and fast rules on how to go about setting yours to ensure you bring in the most income from your work. Nonetheless, there are some important principles every photographer should understand. This helpful video tutorial features an experienced pro discusses two common pricing mistakes photographers make and how to fix them.

How Can You Enter Photography’s Circle of Success? Here Are Seven Ways

Getting to grips with the fundamentals of photography, such as camera and exposure control, composition, and relating a story, is essential. Sadly, there are other factors that get in that cause you to fail. Here’s why it is important to break free of those and become a successful photographer.

Want to Become a Photoshop Rockstar in One Week for Free?

Have you fallen behind on keeping up with the tsunami of Photoshop updates and new capabilities? Or have you wanted to master this powerful tool, but you haven't been sure where to start? Well, put on your sweatpants, order in your favorite food, and thank your lucky stars, because next week, you can join Aaron Nace, Kristina Sherk, Ben Willmore and more live from your living room all week. And the best part? It's free. No, my editors did not miss this typo, it's true, and I'm here to tell you all about it.

How to Use Lightroom's Powerful New Point Color Tool

In the past few years, Lightroom has undergone some major revisions and has emerged with some powerful new tools that make it a far more capable image-editing application than in past years. One of its newest features is Point Color, which gives you far more control for editing the colors in an image, and this excellent video tutorial will show you everything you need to know about how the tool works and how to use it on your own photos.

How to Light a Green Screen

The green screen effect (sometimes known as "chroma keying") is a useful tool for making easy composites. However, getting a clean effect takes very careful and precise lighting. If you find yourself struggling to get it just right, check out this helpful video tutorial that will show you how to properly light a green screen along with some common mistakes and how to fix them.

Tips and Ideas for Photographing Mushrooms Without a Macro Lens

When autumn arrives, it's time to photograph mushrooms. Creating something unique can be challenging, but you don't need to use the most expensive or elaborate equipment, nor do you need a macro lens. I have some nice ideas for you when you go out photographing mushrooms.

A macro lens enables you to capture small subjects at a 1:1 size ratio. This means the subject appears the same size on the sensor. If a mushroom is 2.4 cm in height, it will also be 2.4 cm on the sensor. For example, with a full frame sensor measuring 36 x 24 mm, the mushroom fits perfectly within the...

Four Useful Two-Light Portrait Photography Setups

It is important to start learning artificial light with a single source, as this will allow you to better understand the properties and fundamental behavior of light. Once you have mastered that, though, adding a second light will open up a lot of creative possibilities that simply would not be achievable otherwise. This fantastic video tutorial features an experienced studio photographer sharing four effective two-light setups for working with models.

6 Harsh Truths About Photography

Photography can be a tremendously rewarding hobby or profession, but it is important that you have a realistic understanding of what it is like to be a photographer and what it takes to find success. This important video essay features an experienced photographer discussing six harsh truths that every person should be aware of.

Important Advice for Landscape Photographers

Whether you are a professional or a hobbyist, photography is a complicated craft that takes a wide range of skills in order to find success. While we spend a lot of time studying things like exposure settings and editing techniques, there are some other topics that do not get the attention they deserve. This fantastic video essay features an experienced landscape photographer offering a nice range of important advice that will help you improve your images.

5 Helpful Tips for Flash Photography at a Wedding Reception

Lighting a wedding reception can be a real challenge, as you are often working in less-than-ideal environments and have to keep responding to dynamically evolving conditions, which can make it a bit intimidating for many photographers. If you would like to improve your images, check out this fantastic video tutorial that features an experienced wedding photographer sharing five tips that will help you take better control of your reception lighting.

Why You Should Become Your Own Photography Customer

Whether you are a professional or a hobbyist, going through a period where you are not feeling creatively inspired can be incredibly frustrating. So, what can you do to break out of that and get back to making photos that make you and your clients happy? Sometimes, the best solution is to become your own customer.

How to Light a Portrait Using a Speedlight

While learning artificial lighting can feel a bit daunting, it makes you a far more versatile photographer and frees you up to explore many creative avenues that would not be possible otherwise. You do not need to start with expensive equipment, though; a speedlight and small modifier are a portable and affordable way to learn. This excellent video tutorial will show you everything you need to know to photograph a portrait using a speedlight.

Photographer Jacques Henri-Lartigue and Wes Anderson

Photography has always been a medium to preserve moments and memories, but for some artists, it serves as a source of inspiration and a window into the past. One such artist is the renowned filmmaker Wes Anderson, known for his distinct and visually captivating cinematic style, which draws upon the work of French photographer Jacques Henri-Lartigue to infuse his films. While the two artists work in different visual mediums, Henri-Lartigue's photographic compositions and Anderson's cinematic worlds share distinct visuals capturing a sense of joy and playfulness.

7 Helpful Tips for Better Landscape Photography

Landscape photography is a challenging genre that requires a wide range of technical and creative skills, a lot of perseverance, and often, just a bit of luck. If you would like to improve your landscape work, check out this helpful video tutorial that features an experienced photographers sharing seven useful tips sure to put you on the track to better photos.

A Beginner's Guide to Lighting Outdoor Portraits With Flash

Flash can feel a bit daunting to photographers who have not used it before, particularly when you take it outside and have to learn to balance it with the sun. You will find it a lot easier if you master a few fundamental concepts first, and it will make you a far more versatile portrait photographer. If you are ready to start learning, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you everything you need to know.

The Fine Art of Composition in Landscape Photography

Composition is one of the trickiest parts of photography no matter what genre you shoot, but it can be especially challenging in genres in which you have no control over the placement of the elements in the environment, such as landscape photography. This great video features an experienced landscape photographer discussing some of the difficulties of composition and showing how even minor adjustments can make or break an image.

Why Believing in Yourself Matters in Photography

Being a creative is often anything but easy, and doubt in your abilities can creep in due to all sorts of factors. That can have serious consequences on your ability to produce images, and that can lead to a spiral of reinforcement that hinders your progress. This excellent video essay features an experienced landscape photographer discussing the issue and why a positive mindset can lead you to compelling photos even in poor conditions.

Enhancing Your Composition by Using the Often Overlooked Lines in the Sky

Lines play an important role in the art of composition. They serve as guides directing the viewer's attention, emphasizing the subject within the frame. While we often find lines with the prominent features of a landscape, it's crucial not to overlook the lines in the sky.

What Filters Are Really Necessary for Landscape Photographers?

Landscape photographers often employ filters for a variety of reasons in order to shape and improve their images. With so many options out there, it can be difficult for a beginner to know which filters are truly useful and which you can probably live without. This helpful video tutorial features an experienced landscape photographer discussing some of the most important filters for the genre.

Why Should You Challenge Yourself?

Picture the scene, you are at a location, camera in hand, ready to capture some epic shots of a landscape that looks the same as it has thousands of years ago! You, however, are not alone, you are in the company of other photographers who feel that a challenge is in order and not any old challenge, an only 400mm challenge.

The Importance of Light in Landscape Photography

In landscape photography, just like any other, light can make or break a photo, and as such, one of the most important things a new photographer should do is learn how to read light. This awesome video tutorial features an experienced professional discussing how to read light and how urban environments can help you become a better landscape photographer.

Dodging and Burning Isn't Just for Portraits

When most photographers think of dodging and burning, they think of it being used to sculpt a subject's face and as a high-end retouching technique. But dodging and burning is nothing more than the skillful shaping of light in a frame, and as such, it is an appropriate and useful technique for just about any genre of photography. This helpful video tutorial will show you how to use it to create a dramatic landscape image.

One of the Best Things You Can Do for Your Photography Business

Photographers generally like to focus on objective things: camera settings, lighting ratios, finances, etc. It is only natural to want to put your attention toward easily quantifiable things. However, that is not all it takes to find success as a professional. This fantastic video essay features an experienced pro discussing a subtler but crucially important skill all aspiring professionals need to develop.

How to Edit a Landscape Photo Using an iPad, Lightroom, and Photoshop

In the beginning, the iPad was mostly an entertainment device meant for content consumption, but it quickly evolved into an incredibly powerful device for content creators, and when combined with Adobe's apps, it is an intriguing option for photographers on the go. This awesome video tutorial will show you how to use the iPad to edit landscape images using both Lightroom and Photoshop.

Is Stock Photography Worth the Effort in 2023?

It used to be that if you were good at it and could invest the time, you could make a decent living from stock photography, but in recent years, the industry has evolved in what has very much been a race to the bottom in many ways, and it is a far less reliable income source than it used to be. Is it still worth the time and effort in 2023? This great video essay features an experienced commercial photographer discussing his experience with stock work in the past year.