In this week's article and video I go over my process of capturing an image from start to finish. Everything from how I found my location, captured the photo in the field, and my entire Lightroom editing process.
If you haven't noticed from my previous articles, I love Lightroom Classic. Lightroom has many powerful features that are easy to access, and I love its digital asset management capabilities. However, some powerful features are hiding in Lightroom that you might not know are there.
Lightroom has been around long enough now that most photographers are au fait with it, many even experienced. But with modern software — particularly in our industry — the depth is almost unknowable. So, here are 15 tricks which can save you time, and I'd bet there are very few photographers, if any, that already knew all of these.
A double chin is one of the most common cosmetic issues a client is likely to want you to correct, but once you understand how to retouch it, it is not particularly difficult to do. This great video tutorial will show you how to use Photoshop to retouch a double chin.
When editing in Lightroom Classic, it's normal to edit as quickly as possible in order to share your finished photograph online, but by doing that you run the risk of missing out on some hugely powerful settings that can save yourself a lot of time and headaches further down the line.
Using something in the foreground of your landscape image can add a lot of depth, but placing a foreground in your composition without consideration is not the way. It can be smart to give it a little thought. In this article, I will give you a couple of things to consider that may lead to a better composition.
My biggest post-processing challenge in photography is image noise. Unlike studio photographers who can precisely control every aspect of lighting, I've been photographing most of my campaigns handheld in natural light for more than 15 years.
There's often some confusion among beginner Lightroom and Photoshop users about how they should be exporting files. In this video, watch how a professional photographer prepares his files for use on the web and in print.
Many photographers are dealing with stress and worrying which leads us to be up all night. During the last recession Brett Missick turned his insomnia into a lifelong project.
Finding commercial clients is a minefield. Working out which agencies to contact, who to contact within the agency, and as importantly, how to do so and what on earth you should say can all be a nightmare. In this video, I cover all of this and more.
Capture One is multifaceted image processing and asset management software. As a raw processor, it is considered the gold standard, supporting over 500+ cameras, and with it comes a uniquely powerful tool-set for developing, color grading, and tethering. But that is just the tip of the technological iceberg that is Capture One. With a focus on user experience, its mountain of capability and complexity is hidden under a veneer of simplicity so as to make working with your images fast, focused, and easy. What we'll address today should help in understanding how the software works and how to bend it to your liking, hopefully resulting in an even better experience.
Spending your Covid-19 isolation time working on your business now could mean art sales later. Seattle-based Fine Art Photographer Jason Matias, who runs a program that helps artists sell their art, has a few tips for how to go about snagging those sales.
Panorama photos are huge, sharp, and fascinating. In this article, I will show an easy way to automatically stitch a panorama in CameraRaw and finish them off in Photoshop.
Softboxes are some of the most fundamental and versatile lighting modifiers out there, and they are a great tool for anyone looking to learn how to use artificial lighting and build their skills. This educational video will show you five different ways to use softboxes and give you some helpful tips for using them.
One of the most subtle but crucial aspects of any portrait is the skin tones. And while you can spend lots of time in Photoshop tweaking them to be just right, sometimes, you do not want to invest that much effort into an image. This excellent tutorial will show you how to get better skin tones using only Lightroom.
Given the way DSLRs work, it is sometimes the case that your lenses will need what is known as an "autofocus microadjustment." This excellent video will show you how to perform one to improve your lenses' autofocus performance.
Most of the adjustment sliders in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw are self-explanatory, for example, highlights and shadows. But do you truly understand what is happening when you move that slider?
Photography is expensive. Even a budget camera is expensive, so for many of us, a career in professional photography seems out of our reach. Here are some tips for getting there.
The Lens Corrections panels in the Lightroom Develop Module and Adobe Camera Raw provides the ability to correct lens problems such as distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. These settings are often turned on and never given a second thought.
If you're like me and primarily use Lightroom Classic for your photo editing, you probably occasionally edit a photo in Photoshop. If you do, you might be making the same Photoshop file mistakes I made.
Range masking is one of the less used yet more powerful features in Adobe Lightroom. If you haven't used them, check out this tutorial covering the ins and outs.
Strap in people, because this is a tough love lesson for anyone whose goal is to “make it” as a professional in the photography industry.
The cinematic headshot is an eye-catching look that can really stand out from the more standard headshot against a normal background. This great video will give you a look at how it is done and the sort of results you can achieve.
Photoshop is an extremely intricate program for which there is a multitude of ways to accomplish any one task. Nonetheless, one of the most fundamental techniques almost every photographer should know is how to create and use luminosity masks. This great video tutorial will show you how to use them.
Photoshop is a tremendously complex and intricate program, and it can take years to master all its various functionalities. This helpful video will move you along that road by showing you 25 tips and tricks to improve your Photoshop skills in no time at all.
If you’re reading this, the likelihood is that you are currently or were recently a Lightroom user and are looking for better software with which to treat your images. That quest to find the best software is not necessarily an easy one, but it is necessary. While you may change camera bodies, lenses, lights, locations, and styles, the one constant that touches all of your images is the software used to develop them.
Email is not going to stop being a vital tool for photographers anytime soon. It's for this reason that you should be making the most of each and every one you send. If you want to stand out, get more work, and look professional when corresponding online, this article is for you.
If you constantly struggle to come up with new ideas for your photography work, then your career could be in serious trouble. Try one of these seven strategies to help you get that next big idea and keep those creative juices flowing.
With over 20 million YouTube channels on the platform in 2019, it's important to stand out. Check out a selection of my favorite YouTube channels in the photography and filmmaking category that you should be following today.
Let's face it, when you're in business as a portrait photographer, the person who usually ends up in front of your camera is not going to be a professional model. That's why it's all the more important that you can give a regular person the guidance they need to look and feel like a superstar.
How do you spot a good retoucher from a novice? It's in the skin. Sure, that’s an oversimplification, but one thing that separates the best from the lesser is how they treat skin.
Creating a tight, accurate selection is the most challenging part of changing the color of an object in an image in Photoshop. You don't want to leave any pixels bleeding outside the edge of your selection making it obvious that a color was changed. So why bother making a selection at all when you can use this handy trick from Colin Smith at PhotoshopCAFE?
If you spend a lot of time under the night sky, you already understand the challenges: weather, setting up in the dark, and processing. Astro Panel 2.0 is a nifty Photoshop Plug-in that can automatically ease a lot of processing challenges and greatly improve your night sky photos.
You saw that wonderful long exposure image on the internet, with a smooth water surface and moving clouds in the sky, and you thought; I want to shoot images like that. So you invested in a dark neutral density filter that makes it possible to shoot with shutter times that are 1000x longer. Now you can start making those long exposure images.
Skin retouching is an art form in itself, and there are thousands of different ways to retouch skin in Photoshop. Skin retouching is such an essential part of creating the final image in the beauty and fashion industry that there is a whole industry of artists who only specialize in skin retouching.
Last month B&H helped us build an extremely expensive workstation. Today, we built a computer that rendered footage faster in Adobe Premiere for 1/3 of the price.
Are you tired of your images looking flat? Of course, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to add a little punch to flat photos. Some techniques are complicated and require lots of time in Photoshop or Lightroom, and some are easy to learn and quick to execute like this one from PiXimperfect.
Landscape photographers spend a lot of time outdoors at strange hours of the day to capture a few shots at sunrise and sunset. But have you considered exploring astrophotography to broaden your shoot options to include breathless starry nights?
Can outstanding customer service take your portrait photography sales to the next level? Megan DiPiero thinks that it can, and she’s here to tell you how.
This exciting shoot came about when photographer Aaron Anderson was tasked to creating content for Elinchrom’s new ELB 500 TTL and Lifted Up Fitness’s web page, making it a multiple clients shoot.
Blackmagic Design has published eight hours of videos that teach you how to edit a video from start to finish inside DaVinci Resolve 15, not just the color grading part of the process. You can get familiar with their tools for VFX and audio processing as well.
One of the hardest parts of becoming a professional photographer is that initial jump from amateur work to being paid to create photos. This quick and helpful video will give you some tips on how to start making money as a photographer.
Canvas backdrops are seen all over the world in magazines, online, and fine art prints. You see celebrities and politicians photographed in front of them all the time. However, they are extremely expensive, ranging anywhere from $400 to over $8,000 depending on the exact brand (if you can find a price for them at all).
When you're first starting out in lighting, it's always a good idea to start out with single-light setups, so you can master the different parameters and qualities of light before moving into more complex and intricate designs. This helpful video will show you the vast versatility you can get out of a single light and an octabox.
Dodging and burning remains one of the most classic and powerful techniques to shape the light in your photos and emphasize your subject in a straightforward and natural way. This quick and helpful tutorial will show you an easy way to dodge and burn your images using Photoshop.
One of the most popular questions is: "what are your camera settings?" If you are a boudoir photographer looking for the optimal settings for taking photos, you will find a few recommended settings in this video.
Often, we think a landscape has to be photographed with a wide angle lens and a large depth of field. Some think it is even better to use extreme wide angles and always in combination with a maximum depth of field. But have you ever thought of photographing a landscape with a minimum depth of field?
In the vast majority of my photos, I aim for one specific thing during editing.
Have you ever been confused about which color space you should use and wondered what the differences are? This video will help you understand, and most importantly, choose the correct one.
Even with levels on tripods, visual displays on cameras, and optical perception, getting your image aligned how you want both horizontally and vertically may sometimes take some post-production adjustment. Here is a more effective way to do just that.
