I knew very little about choosing a filter when I first started out. This short video contains some great advice and offers some examples of when to use filters and why to use them.
Tilt-shift lenses are some of the most unique and useful lenses out there. This great video will show you how they work and why they are so prized for lots of different work.
Architectural photographers face many technical challenges when shooting massive structures, especially when space to shoot from is limited. This is one of those cases in which the gear absolutely enables the photographer to take better images.
The last time I wrote anything about the iPhone 12 series when it comes to photography, commenter Blake B wrote, “… computational imaging is way more important than you make it out to be.” I’m starting to think he might be right.
Long telephoto lenses can be very expensive, but a reasonable alternative is a teleconverter, which attaches between your camera and lens and increases its focal length. However, teleconverters come with their own set of drawbacks. This excellent video discusses the use of teleconverters, including why you might want to consider one for your own work.
Making your footage more cinematic doesn’t mean that you’re constantly trying to make your films look like a Hollywood movie, but it does mean that there are some tried and tested techniques for making your shots more interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Here are 10 great tips from experienced filmmaker Mark Bone.
Some photography is gated behind the physical requirements of keeping up with the subjects, and unsurprisingly, action adventure photography is one of those genres.
Black and white and Minimalism is a great style that can be applicable to any genre in photography. It is also a great discipline to practice, especially in landscape photography by maximizing the use of long exposures.
Following the 2021 version of Photoshop, Adobe also released new updates for the Lightroom Classic version 10, bringing some new features and UI improvements.
Corporate portraits can not only be shot in a number of different ways, but they are often required to be shot in different ways by your clients. Here are four different lighting setups, depending on how many lights you want to use.
It is always best to start out with one light when you are first learning how to use artificial light, but once you have mastered the basics, you can enter an entirely new world of creativity when you start working with multi-light setups. This fantastic video tutorial will show you a dynamic and professional three-light setup for creating compelling portraits.
If you’re ready to upgrade from your kit lens and you’re wondering what to choose, consider getting yourself a fast — yet affordable — prime lens. Here’s an overview of the most popular options which should give you an idea of what will best suit your photography.
Usage charges or license fees (depending on where you live) make up the majority of a commercial photographers income. However, most of us either don't charge it when we should or simply do not charge enough. Let's look at how we should be doing this.
Beverage photography is its own genre within the commercial world and some photographers specialize even further by photographing liquor bottles. This is a great tutorial for someone who wants to try their hand at photographing an attractive whisky bottle and beverage, with an affordable setup.
One of the most useful and effective features in Photoshop, is the ability to create masks on different layers. This allows you to perform pin point and localized edits onto your image without impacting the rest of the file. For many photographers, layer masks are crucial and in my view, luminosity masks are one of the more useful ways of creating selections.
Well, Adobe has gone and done it. Sky replacement is now a featured part of the just-released Photoshop 2021. For about a year, Skylum has been the leader in sky replacement with Luminar 4, but the story isn't that simple anymore.
When you are new to photography, it is common to think that you need to head over to Photoshop for any sort of serious editing, but you might be surprised by just how much you can accomplish using Lightroom if you know what you are doing and where to look. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to edit a portrait from start to finish using only Lightroom.
There's a new change happening in the photography world and you may not even be aware of it. Let's see how it'll pan out and learn how it might affect you.
Lightroom totally dominates the realm of digital asset management (DAM) — a solution to everything, it fits the mold of most photographic workflows. However, the bitter pill to swallow can be the treacle-like performance and that monthly subscription (something I've touched upon before). Photo Mechanic, renowned for its blisteringly fast performance, offers a new solution. Is it a Lightroom killer?
While there is much discussion about different camera brands, models, and the development of the market, the perfect camera still hasn't been built. This article will show you where to find information to make your best choice from what's available.
I recently purchased the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art lens. It is the fastest lens that I've ever had, and I've been working on getting accustomed to the intricacies of shooting with a very wide aperture.
Landscape photography is a difficult genre that takes solid technique, good creativity, and the ability to plan ahead and anticipate changing conditions. This fantastic video tutorial details a range of on-location tips that will help you create better and more compelling landscape images.
Nikon has just announced the second generation of their full-frame mirrorless bodies, updating the Z 6 and Z 7 to Z 6II and Z 7II. These feature updates improve some crucial areas of camera performance, but is it enough to keep them competitive? Check out the features that have changed and decide for yourself.
ACDSee's brand new edition of Photo Studio Ultimate has arrived on the scene and offers a powerful new tool to revolutionize color editing in your photography workflow. With plenty of fantastic new features, upgrades to old favorites, and a few time-saving innovations, this software is a strong contender in the world of photo editing.
Drug and alcohol addiction often go hand in hand with art. Painting has Van Gogh and Pollock, poetry has Coleridge and Ginsburg, music has The Beatles and Jim Morrison, and novels have Burroughs and Welsh. I was, however, surprised by how little information I could find about photographers’ substance abuse. Where are the in-depth books about photographers that were inspired or crushed by their addictions?
Fall is here! The leaves around you have hopefully taken on some great colors, but you might not be getting the draw dropping pictures you want. Fortunately, there’s 5 easy tricks you can try and they all work with your phone.
There are a thousand skills — technical, artistic, and observational — that need to be mastered to make great images. But to really get better we have to, first, learn to do this.
Photoshop is full of a wide range of tools and features, and a fair amount of them have some amount of overlap between their functions and capabilities. Two such tools are the opacity and flow sliders. If you are not quite sure of the difference between the two, this excellent video tutorial will get you up and running in no time.
In landscape photography, we do not get control over the light or the conditions in which we are photographing, and as such, it is very much a genre of planning and patience. This can often lead to a mistake that makes us miss images, and this excellent video discusses how we fall into that trap and the consequences it can have.
Sometimes sourcing good equipment for portrait photography simply isn't enough. You also need to learn how to connect to the people in front of your camera. But how can you improve that?
Off-camera flash can be a bit intimidating for a lot of photographers, but it opens an entirely new world of creative possibilities and is well worth learning. This excellent video discusses the benefits of off-camera flash over just natural light and how it can improve your work.
Have you ever wondered how portrait and family photographers get those wonderfully rich cinematic tones in Lightroom? Check out this video for a few simple but effective methods.
We all know that person (if you don't, it's you) who thinks they are amazing and are completely useless at photography. Chances are that we have all also been that person, but why?
The ancient axiom "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" has long been regarded as wise advice. My father always said, "better safe than sorry," which saved me more times than I can count.
Landscape photography can be a challenging genre to begin with, but having a general blueprint can help newcomers ease into it.
You can learn so much about yourself and photography by briefly getting familiar with art history. But is photography art in the first place?
Making intricate selections of complex subjects or objects takes time and nuance to do well. Here are three tricks to improve your efficiency and accuracy.
Often in landscape photography, you will want to blend different exposures in the same frame to balance different shutter speeds due to extreme dynamic range. However, sometimes, you might want to blend different shutter speeds in the same frame to create the right amount of movement in each element. This fantastic video tutorial will show you exactly how to do just that using Photoshop.
The inverse square law is by far one of the most fundamental and important concepts that every photographer working with artificial light should understand. If that is something you struggle with a bit or you have not heard of it before, this fantastic video will get you up and running in no time at all.
One of the easiest and most beloved methods of color correction is a simple swipe of the white balance temperature slider. It can change the whole tenor of a scene. There are limits to what it can do, however.
There are loads of different options when it comes to food photography backgrounds. However, they can often come from places that you wouldn't necessarily know about. Let's have a look at the most common ones that I use in my studio.
Street photography fans will be familiar with the beautiful portraits and serene city scenes that Vivian Maier captured in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles. But, have you ever tried applying her way of shooting into your own street photography?
Many Lightroom Classic users have one catalog, and that's perfectly fine. However, others have several catalogs or even a different catalog for each shoot they do. Regardless of which you are, this tip may save you some time and make your Lightroom time more productive.
Fall is undoubtedly one of the best times to be a photographer, as the leaves change and give rise to brilliant scenes full of vibrant and dramatic colors. To make sure you are able to take full advantage of the season, check out this fantastic video tutorial that details 13 helpful tips for better fall images along with a lot of great example images.
Still life photography is both enjoyable and accessible for many photographers, but it's easy for your work to become stagnant. Here are 4 tips for more creative still life photography.
For many landscape photographers, the autumn season brings about the fresh desire to get their cameras out. Here are a few tips for taking advantage of the beautiful colors of the season.
I took a look at Topaz DeNoise AI earlier this year and found it effective at removing noise without killing the details in your images. My only complaint was that it was not a speed demon. On some large images, I had to wait almost a minute before the image was cleaned up. Is that better in the latest version?
Avoid the rookie mistakes that other amateurs make and jump ahead with some professional preparation for your first, or your next wedding photoshoot. You'll be surprised how often these steps are overlooked.
Animated GIF images have seen a real resurgence in recent times, with many apps and social media platforms integrating tools for using them. So perhaps it's time to make a few of your own.
Waterfalls, rivers, and the like are by far some of the most popular subjects for landscape photographers, particularly when it comes to long exposures. This fantastic video tutorial discusses how to shoot flowing water to create ethereal and entracing photos.
