Serif launched the beta version of Affinity Photo a few months ago, and it impressed many retouchers. Very robust, not so costly, and quite stable despite its young age, the beta version had everything to seduce amateur photographers and retouchers, as well as professional. It had a couple of functionalities lacking, but Serif was listening to the community and made the software even better. Why do I write everything like it is in the past? Well, because today the stable and official version is here. Affinity Photo is available on the Mac App Store.
When I started out photography professionally, I only wanted to do weddings. It was what I loved (and still love). I thought studio work was so boring. With time, I was convinced to get my own studio and started doing portraits, beauty, products, and other genres. It was great. However, after two years, I am about to terminate my studio lease and will not take a new one. While I love shooting in a studio, I think the cons outweigh the advantages. Perhaps they will not for you. Nonetheless, let me show you what I learned from my two-year experience of having a studio.
Adobe released today the version 2.1 of Lightroom for mobile devices. It comes with a bunch of interesting new features making full use of the possibilities offered by iOS 9 and the iPad Pro. Some of the new features also could make one think that Adobe is becoming serious about making great apps for mobile devices.
Don't get me wrong; I am not going to show you how to make up for bad lighting in post-production. However, Glen Dewis has created a very interesting video that shows us how to achieve a gobo-like effect using Photoshop, something that be very handy if you are looking for an easy way to add drama to your picture without spending too much time in front of your computer.
It’s a common belief to think that creativity is a skill that you either have or don’t. While in reality, all creativity truly is a process through which you perceive things and situations differently than others around you. Coming up with an alternative way of seeing requires hard work but it becomes easier with time. Sometimes, we get lost in our thoughts or simply don’t know how to find any new ideas. So in this article, I have laid out for you a straightforward process to come up with unique concepts for your shoots and turn them into great pictures.
As Photokina is kicking off, almost every brand is releasing new products. The Danish medium format manufacturer is no exception and is introducing a new digital back, the IQ1 100MP, along with two new Blue Ring lenses and Capture One 9.3. One might wonder why Phase One decided to have two 101-megapixel backs in its product line, so let’s dive into the specs and see what the reason(s) may be.
It’s become a tradition: every year, Broncolor offers select young and talented photographers a chance to access some of the best strobes and light modifiers for free for two years. The lucky ones are chosen through a competition called "Gen Next," which is now open for 2017.
With the recent addition of albums to Instagram, photographers have a fantastic opportunity to add videos such as behind the scenes, short vlogs, or even short clips along with their images. However, if you are like me, cinematography is kind of a new world. While setting up the camera to film isn’t incredibly complicated, editing the content afterward is like learning Photoshop all over again: a nightmare! Thanks to YouTube and amazing people like Ben Brown, getting a grasp of Adobe Premiere’s basics isn’t too difficult.
Learning and improving our craft should be as important as producing content. Online educational resources have made training and workshops accessible to everyone worldwide. One fantastic example is this year’s CineSummit. If you are into cinematography, want to get into it, or even if you are just curious to learn more about content production, then this is for you!
As a photographer getting into video, it’s frustrating when you are not able to reproduce what you are used to with Photoshop. For example, the simple task of the replacing a sky in a frame can eat up a lot of time when you don’t know what you are doing. But thanks to DaVinci Resolve and Aram K, the process is actually much easier than you could imagine. It almost makes me wish Adobe would include similar tools in their apps.
Capture One offers quite a few tools to adjust your raw files. It’s best known for its color editing capabilities, but luminosity adjustments are also very well designed. One of them was introduced last year with Capture One Pro 9, and it’s called the Luma Curve. It’s a powerful feature to adjust contrast manually while avoiding any color shift. Let’s see how it works and how it compares to an RGB curve.
Since the arrival of digital photography almost 20 years ago now, the photographer’s workflow and its equipment have changed quite significantly. While investing in a solid camera, tack sharp lenses, and reliable storage equipment is a very good idea, one piece is often misunderstood or underrated: the monitor. Having a poor monitor is kind of like looking at your work while being color blind. I know that for a fact because I have been relying on poor screens for a long time. Recently, I’ve been given the opportunity to try the ViewSonic VP2768 for you, and I think it’s an amazing screen. Here’s why I think you should consider it if you don’t already own a great monitor.
In many artistic disciplines and sports, people are told they should concentrate on one thing and one thing only. Being specialized seems to be the trend and what most industry leaders appear to believe in. However, there are exceptions to this. First, those industry leaders themselves that are more often than not great educators as well. But then, there are those people that truly shine in different domains such as Micayla Gatto. Watching her recent video where she rides her bike on mountains and her drawings is just an amazing experience, one you should see with your own eyes to believe it.
Phase One announced a couple of new medium-format digital backs this year, the Trichromatic and the Achromatic. The latter is available for a whopping $63,000 in a kit with the XF body, and for that price it only shoots in black and white. At least that’s the way many seem to consider it. However, it’s much more than that. It captures black and white images like no other camera, and for the photographers that like black and white shooting film, this gorgeous beast offers a very similar workflow. See how it works and performs in this video.
Colors straight out of camera vary greatly between brands and sensors. Canon has been known for a long time for its great skin tone reproduction, while other manufacturers have created more troubles for colorists and retouchers to get perfect tones without a solid post-production workflow. In this tutorial, Chrystopher Rhodes from YCImaging shows how he uses 3D LUT Creator to get perfect colors out of his Panasonic GH5 and goes further by quickly demonstrating how you can color match your footage to any picture or video you like.
