Scams are nothing new to photographers, but scammers are getting cleverer and more thorough. A scammer who targeted me in November was the most convincing one I’ve had yet. I’m going to share the scammer’s emails and the clues that gave him away.
Members of the mysterious and magical craft of photography may have mentioned that mastering manual mode may be the most meandering path to making magnificent masterpieces. There's a shortcut, though.
One of the things I have always loved about landscape photography is the way the same scene can be rendered in vastly different ways by various types of light. This great video discusses the many different types of light you will encounter in landscape photography and offers some helpful tips for working with them along with some example images.
Product photography can be a very tricky genre with lots of specific techniques and hidden tricks, but you might be surprised by how much you can accomplish with just a single common modifier. This excellent video will show you how to create a professional product image using nothing but a single softbox.
Outside of being physically out in the field and taking shots, we can step back and identify several key elements to what being a great bird photographer means.
Spend enough time on the internet, and you might begin to think that landscape photography is all about traveling to beautiful locations and creating jaw-dropping images while basking in the best light. And while there can certainly be a lot of adventure in the genre, it can also be quite a slog at times. This honest video takes a look at the reality of landscape photography.
One of the most fundamental concepts any photographer or videographer needs to understand is the quality of light and how to change it to suit your creative needs. This excellent video will give you a quick lesson in hard versus soft light, both what it is and how to affect it.
While strolling aimlessly along downtown streets this weekend, doing a bit of photography just for fun, I was reminded of one of the reasons I fell in love with photography in the first place. I was also reminded that this simple reason still provides benefits, both professionally and personally.
Whichever application you might encounter it in, the tone curve can be a little intimidating if you’re new to editing. This excellent short video from Mango Street gives you a great introduction to how it works in Lightroom, what it can be used for, and how to achieve some creative results.
In certain parts of the world, specifically parts of Europe and the Pacific Northwest in the USA, gloomy weather is quite often the rule rather than the exception. In this video, we learn how to use these conditions to our advantage while out photographing forests, and also how to bring out a dark, moody feel from the raw files in Lightroom.
The beauty of landscape photography is how much simply manipulating the exposure triangle can alter your image in different creative ways. If you are ready to take full control of your images, this great video will show you everything you need to know about mastering manual mode for landscape photography.
"Get it right in the camera", correct? But sometimes you can't and sometimes you won't on purpose, but it works out only if you know how and when to crop!
Composition and light are two of the most important factors in any good landscape image, but depending on the scene you are photographing, the way they interact with each other can vary a great deal. This insightful video discusses the balance between light and composition and offers some great guidelines for learning how to prioritize them to create stronger and more compelling images.
When you're looking to have your work printed for display on your own wall, in your client's home, or in a gallery you have a myriad of choices and formats that you can print on. Today I'm taking a close look at one option, the brushed metal print.
A new sky can take an otherwise drab photo and turn it into something much more compelling. Still, it takes a careful eye and some specific Photoshop skills. This great video will show you how to create convincing sky replacements using Photoshop.
Is there a faster and easier way to create dramatic images in Lightroom that still sticks with your style? Here’s a quick tutorial and a different way of taking one of your images and using the power of Adobe’s software to create a stunning portrait.
Pets are considered by most as family members. Some prefer cats, others prefer dogs, and some even are drawn to the the flying kind of lovable companions. While most think of only photographing their beloved fur babies as a hobby, have you ever thought about turning it into a marketable portion of your company?
Double exposures, when they’re done well, are incredibly impressive. The literature on how to do them is fairly limited, but here, I'll explain how they work and how they're done.
Recently, someone in our comments suggested a really cool idea, and we need your help. If you've been featured on an episode of our Critique the Community, help us with a future video by responding to this post.
Becoming a successful photographer has always been a difficult thing to do, and it is only going to become harder in the future. Still, it can be a very rewarding career. If you are interested in becoming a professional, this helpful video from a seasoned photographer details seven things you need to do to increase your chances of finding success.
The company has grown, and they're stepping up to serve the professional DSLR and mirrorless shooters with filters made from aerospace-grade quality materials.
Lighting is about more than simply providing proper illumination that shows your subject off in a good way. With proper control of it, you can evoke certain moods or emotions that can go beyond simply illuminating your photo and create a more complete experience for the viewer. This great video demonstrates how this is done by showing two vastly different moods made using creative lighting.
Would you shoot the same thing every day for a year as a personal project? This video shows how much value there is in routine. This is a story all about how a guy’s life got flipped upside down.
Have you ever taken a shot and while you're sure you nailed the focus, it's a little bit softer than you'd expected? Perhaps your lens needs calibrating to ensure the autofocus is perfect.
Photoshop has many powerful features for retouching photos, with one of the most impressive being frequency separation. However, this technique requires a very careful touch to achieve proper results. This great video will show you everything need to know to use it for retouching photos.
It doesn't matter how many couples shoots you've done, you can always learn some new poses. Here are over 20 in under 10 minutes!
If you are running a luxury photography studio but have not starting using in-person sales (IPS) you may be leaving money on the table. The investment menu is key to having a fluid sales session. But did you know the importance of where you place the collections on the menu?
When I first started out in photography I didn't have any specific process to manage any of my images and files. This is one of the primary reasons I don't have many of my early images anymore. It's a shame because I was quite proud of some of the images I had produced.
Abstract nature and landscape photography is a subgenre in its own right. It is a fascinating approach to nature, where the feeling of the photo is usually more important than the subject.
Photographers: if you're looking to have a smoother shoot, you might want to try these few tips that really contribute to my photography sessions. Remember, it's how you manage a shoot that really contributes to someone's opinion of you, assuming the photography is already done well.
Finding backgrounds for indoor portraiture can be a pain after a while. You can get mileage out of proper backdrops and different lighting setups, but there's an option for punchy portraits with for all intents and purposes, unlimited variations.
Underexposing is one of the most common techniques photographers in many different genres use, and it can be quite a beneficial way to shoot, but that does not mean it is always the appropriate way to shoot. This helpful video discusses the benefits of underexposing your images, when it might be right for your workflow, and when you should avoid it.
As a challenge to myself, I wanted to shoot every single day in January, a way to start the new year off right. This is what I learned.
One of the most fundamental and useful capabilities of Photoshop is the ability to remove distracting elements convincingly and efficiently, something that can improve or even save a wide range of photos. If you are new to Photoshop, this helpful video will show you how to use a combination of the Spot Healing Brush and Clone Stamp tools to remove distractions from your images.
Some photographers make a good living out of specializing in beverage photography, but many of these pros — who generously share their techniques on YouTube — do so using the best of equipment, so it might seem a little intimidating for a beginner. If you're curious about how to get professional-looking product images using some basic equipment, however, look no further than this tutorial.
Photoshop is full of lots of powerful features, and one of the most useful is the Liquify tool. If you are not quite proficient with it yet, this great video will show you everything you need to know about how to use the Liquify tool.
There have been many trends in photography, but one that’s been quickly picking up speed has been the disposable aesthetic, with celebrities creating separate Instagram accounts for their photos captured on film, like model Gigi Hadid, YouTube creator Tana Mongeau, and the app’s founder, YouTube creator David Dobrik, each amassing over 150,000 followers.
Photoshop has lots of powerful tools to improve your images and help you develop a personal style. Two of the most fundamental of those are the HSL and Color Balance tools. This helpful video tutorial will show you how to use these tools to change the color of anything in Photoshop.
Portraits take the confluence of technical aptitude, creativity, and the ability to work with people to be successful, and the lack of any one can derail the entire endeavor. This great video will give you five tips to improve your portraits, ranging from composition to interacting with the subject.
Today, we're going to discuss how dodging and burning can improve your photos and show you how easy it is in Capture One 20.
Growing up on comic books and graphic novels I have always been a fan of anything illustrated. When I started taking photos and creating art, I wanted my images to have a similar feel.
Portrait photography requires studio strobes, softboxes, along with grip equipment like light stands, and C-stands, not to mention lots of money to acquire all the required equipment. Without this equipment, your images are going to look like your local police department’s Saturday night mugshots. Do you really need to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get good portrait shots?
Technical perfection, originality, environmentalism, story, aesthetics, and realism are all concepts or principles we as landscape photographers can value. What we value will define how we do our landscape photography and if those photos will ever be any good.
With Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill tool, remarkable things are possible. Join Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect as he runs you through a simple means of removing this chain link fence and throws in a plethora of other incredibly useful tips along the way.
When you are new to artificial lighting, it can be a bit difficult to navigate the world of modifiers — how they work and how they will render an image. Nonetheless, they are essential equipment for anyone who wants to learn how to light a photo properly. This excellent video will introduce you to five common lighting modifiers, including how they work and how they will make your photos look.
It’s crazy how ideas develop over time and how far we can track our today’s understanding of the world. Find out, what an influential Italian monk from the 13th century already knew about creating good pictures.
For most manufacturers, one of the hangovers from analog cameras is the chunky dial that sits on top. Two of the modes — shutter priority (often S or Tv) and aperture priority (often A or Av) — are becoming increasingly obsolete. Cameras have changed, and so has how we use them, and manufacturers need to keep up.
There are many ways to approach composition in photography and filmmaking. One of the most powerful ways to add storytelling into your images is to compose using layers. In this video, travel photographer Mitchell Kanashkevich discusses the concept while taking us through several examples from his own work.
You need balance as a photographer, and that means addressing the business side as well. We are creative beings, and running the day to day is something we're so great at avoiding.
One of Luminar 4's most intriguing features is its AI sky replacement that can convincingly swap the sky in a photo (a task that can be quite tedious otherwise) in just a few clicks. While it is mostly automated, there are still a few tweaks and tips that can help you get the most out of the software. This great video will show you everything you need to know about using the feature.
