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.
The beauty of artificial lighting is that you can create shots in just about any situation no matter the ambient light, and you can create a wide variety of looks in one location simply by varying parameters like the position of the light or its distance to the subject. This excellent video shows a photographer discussing how he got three different shots in one location with the help of artificial lighting.
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.
Few creative decisions have a bigger impact on the final look of your photos than your choice of lighting. Direct sunlight, backlighting, and lighting crafted from strobes all have their place, and this excellent video comparison will show you the different images you can achieve with each.
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.
Wide angle lenses are normally the optic of choice for the majority of landscape photography, but they come with their own unique set of challenges and potential pitfalls. If you are new to landscape photography, this informative video details some of the common mistakes beginner landscape photographers make with wide angle lenses and what you can do to fix them.
Attempting to color correct skin tones in video using your naked eye is not going to be easy or accurate. Here’s the right way to make skin looks its best using Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or Final Cut Pro X.
You probably own one. Your favorite photographer probably owns one. That sketchy guy seeking boudoir models on Craigslist probably has one. But is a ball head really the best option out there for all photographers?
Beyond technical applications like retouching, Photoshop is a fantastic place to really explore your creativity by pushing your edits further. Using textures and overlays is one way to enhance your edits, and this great video tutorial will show you how it is done.
Are you tired of always leaving your personal projects unfinished? Or do you lose your motivation halfway through? Here are some tips to see you from start to finish, whatever your project is about!
Breaking into commercial photography is hard, especially with so much misleading information out there online in 2020. However, there are a few key aspects that will help to get you the big bookings.
There are many ways to skin a cat (please don't skin cats) but you're never too old or experienced to learn new techniques, and this is a good one.
Whether you take photographs of products for fun, for some money on the side, or as your primary income, there is a common mistake that many photographers make that is holding them back.
There is almost no area of videography that won't use B-roll at one point or another. In this video, add three great B-roll transitions to your arsenal that are quick and easy to learn.
Lightroom is the tool of choice for cataloging and performing basic edits on images for a ton of photographers. If you are new to photography and Lightroom, this fantastic video tutorial will show you how to edit an image using the program in just 10 minutes.
