As much as you may call yourself an artist, you must also learn the importance of identifying yourself as a business person. If you own a camera, and you're not making any money, this is the reason why.
As time goes on, the tools and technology keep getting better and more powerful. Today, learn how you can take a boring seamless paper backdrop and give it life with added texture and easy to follow steps using Photoshop.
I absolutely adore the precise placement of light, and recently, during a model test, I decided to play around with it, utilizing a new tool, ending up with my first portfolio shot of 2020.
Whether you're a new photographer looking to create some interesting photos on a budget or an experienced shooter that's looking for a little out-of-the-box thinking for your photography, there are many ways to use household objects to spice up a shoot.
Landscape and travel photography can be incredibly rewarding genres and a wonderful chance to capture interesting places and human life while showing off your own creative vision. If you are looking to dive into it, check out this incredibly comprehensive video that will show you everything you need to know, from gear, to composition, to post-processing.
Being a photographer comes with perils that only fellow photographers can relate to. Here are 7 things that only photographers care about on set.
If you've found yourself wondering how you can go about using hashtags on Instagram for tagging your work, here's how I go about it. Spoiler alert: I don't overthink it, and I keep it as simple as possible.
Levels and Curves adjustments layers in Photoshop are a staple tool for any photographer who uses the software, but they aren't particularly intuitive to beginners. Here, PHLEARN give a beginner's guide to using both levels and curves.
The process of creating technically solid images can seem a bit daunting. But there aren’t actually all that many variables a photographer has to contend with, nor that many things those variables directly influence. But, as with everything, the devil is in the details.
Even if it is not your professional specialty, product photography is a great genre for any photographer to practice simply because of the lighting challenges you will encounter and the problem-solving skills you will develop. This excellent tutorial will show you how to create a great glassware shot using just two speedlights and a bit of Photoshop.
Creating an accurate selection of a subject's limbs is deceptively difficult. The edges often look sharp and easy to cut out, but that often isn't the case when you put the selection in the hands of Photoshop's AI. However, using this technique, you can accurately smooth out the ragged edges of the selection to create perfect edges and a crisp cut-out.
The concept of working for “credit” is not a new one, nor is it unique to photography. Yet, it is one of the few industries that everyone thinks should work for free.
A common challenge for many portrait photographers is shooting people in a room with very strong ambient light. This tutorial and demonstration video gives a good solution to that, as well as to the challenges of shooting in front of a mirror.
I'm not a portrait photographer, but it is one of the genres that I've been studying and practicing. This video by Chris Eyre-Walker reveals the insights of portrait photographer Ashley Joanna and illustrates the essence of portrait photography: the person in the portrait.
You've photographed a commercial client, they select several images, but want all the unedited versions for a symbolic price. Obviously, you did a good job at shooting, but what about the negotiations in that case?
If you are new to artificial lighting, you might wonder why some photographers employ complex multi-light setups for some portrait work. This great video shows you the difference between what you can accomplish with a single light setup versus using multiple lights, which will illuminate why more complex setups are often preferred.
If you shoot landscapes or anything involving scenes with a lot of depth, figuring out how to keep everything in focus can be a bit of a tricky problem. There are a few ways to go about this, but one of the most efficient ways to go about this is by using the hyperfocal distance. This great video will introduce you to hyperfocal distance and how to use it.
Social media has an infinite, universal audience. But as you define your niche, your potential audience becomes smaller and smaller. Not everyone is interested in macro photography of sand, so how do you maximize your audience? By understanding what your potential value is to your followers.
At the beginning of the year, I worked on a client job for York Fashion week with local agency NIMA and videographer Beetroot Box. The brief was to create a teaser campaign for the upcoming event.
DNG, JPEG, TIFF, PSD, PSB, and more: photographers have more options than ever for saving their files, but not every option is a good choice. Do you know the benefits of each file type and when you should use them?
Both beginner and intermediate photographers are sometimes surprised to find out just how limited a camera meter is. Understanding how the camera meter works and how you can compensate for different lighting conditions is something that can significantly improve your photography.
Shooting interviews is the bread and butter for a lot of videographers, especially those who work in the commercial sector, from in-house corporate communications and internal marketing, to brand awareness and customer testimonials. Most of these setups would require high-key or fairly neutral lighting styles, but what if the client needed more drama?
Are you more into narrative-based video production than commercial ad-based video? In this video, Studio Binder shows you how to reproduce a scene from Christopher Nolan’s Inception for a mere $310.
Whether you're an amateur looking to learn how to be better in a specific area of photography or a new professional looking to dominate a market, how do you know which niche you should choose?
Photoshop is a tremendously intricate and layered program, and there is a multitude of ways to accomplish any one task — some more power and efficient than others. This awesome video will give you 25 helpful tips and tricks for working in Photoshop.
Knowing where to start when you first venture into marketing your photography can be a real challenge. Here are some tips that should help to point you in the right direction.
When I moved from Canon to my Sony a7 III late last year, the first lens I ordered was a nifty fifty: a cheap, incredibly lightweight, relatively fast 50mm prime lens that’s good for portraits, landscapes, and pretty much everything in between. Given that this affordable lens is so universally loved and has such an important role, why does its future look so bleak?
It is totally natural for your subjects to feel vulnerable or insecure during a shoot, but a boudoir session requires an extra level of professionalism and sensitivity from the photographer. This excellent video discusses many things you should avoid saying to your client during a boudoir session.
Gaining followers on social media can sometimes feel like getting stuck on a hamster wheel — a whole lot of effort to get nowhere. Chris Do, of The Futur, aims to make that effort pay off for you and help you launch your social media following into the stratosphere by adding 10,000 followers per week — without buying them.
Virtual Copies and Snapshots are powerful features in Lightroom that often go unused or underutilized. In this article, we'll cover what they are and how they can be used to make your editing workflow faster and easier.
If you’ve ever used Adobe Photoshop’s built-in Layer Styles tool as-is for creating drop shadows, you may have found it lacking in realism. Here’s a better way to add shadows to your product photography.
When you think about crafting a lighting setup, you probably think about it from the standpoint of adding light. However, as important as it is to know where to add light, it is just as important to understand when and how to take away light to better shape your subject. This excellent video will show you three lighting setups using the black side of v-flats.
A simple click and boom, the background is gone from behind the subject of your image. It can't be this easy, right? It can be. It is, all thanks to the latest Adobe Photoshop CC 2020 update. And the fun doesn't stop there.
Lawrence Sher, cinematographer for the new “Joker” film starring Joaquin Phoenix, has released a video explaining how he uses hue, saturation, and light to shape the mood, style, and story of a film.
Have you ever made a shot list for a landscape photography location only to end up disappointed or disconnected from your final images? Maybe you need a new approach.
For many photographers, the first type of photoshoot they will ever book is an engagement session. In this extended tutorial, I will walk you through four different setups that you can use regardless of your location or skill level.
If you have ever wanted to create dark and moody images of people or food, then this video will help you understand how to light them.
It's a slightly uncomfortable question when said directly, but it's one you ought to answer. If you want any significant improvement in your work, being happy just taking pictures isn't enough.
If you use screw-in lens filters, sooner or later, you may end up with a stuck lens filter that refuses to come off. Have no fear, though: here are 10 ways to remove that stuck lens filter.
Many times, when we go to places that are exceptional for their landscape photography potential, we may not be arriving at the most optimal time frame. What can you do to still take exceptional imagery that recreates the look of beautiful light?
Portrait photographers know how overwhelming it can feel to create work that depends on collaboration with a complete stranger. With this in mind, I asked five professional photographers in central Texas for their top portrait photography tips.
Today, cameras are easy to use. The skill of photographers has shifted from learning how to handle a camera to learning how to handle what happens in front of it. Do you have this skill?
One of the most important aspects of any portrait is the eyes. The eyes are what any viewer is naturally drawn to when looking at an image, and thus, it is worth spending just a little extra time making sure they are just right. This great tutorial will show you a technique for enhancing the eyes in Photoshop.
In today's Fstoppers video, I set out to create some conceptual fashion images with Puerto Rican model Krystal Xamairy. Using the brand new Tamron 35mm f/1.4 lens, a few strobe lights, and a couple colored LED panels, I will walk you step by step through the entire process.
The bright reds, oranges, and yellows of trees in autumn make for compelling subjects, but it can be tricky to plan travel around nature. If you want to give yourself the best odds for success, you need to plan ahead. Crowd-sourced foliage maps and reports can let you know when and where the color is at the peak.
What do Monet, Van Gogh, and Manet have in common? They were all underappreciated in their time, thus struggling with the poverty endured by so many creative artists. Why do such geniuses of visual craft have to cope with rejection and low sales of their work?
Once you have mastered the basics of how artificial lighting works and what you can accomplish with it, it is time to move on to more complicated multi-light setups to better bring your creative ideas to fruition. This great video will show you the process of creating a three-light portrait from start to finish.
Modern editing applications offer a veritable plethora of tools to both evaluate the information in your photos and to edit them to whatever creative vision you have in mind. This excellent video will show you five fundamental tools that every photographer should know how to use to edit their photos efficiently and effectively.
The eternal debate: to prime or not to prime. Here are a few thoughts on why less can often be more.
Lightroom is an intricate program full of numerous features — sometimes so many that it can be easy to miss out on a particularly useful tool that can make your editing life both easier and more efficient. This excellent video will show you one of those tools.
