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How To Turn Your Garage Into a Professional Portrait Studio

When it comes to portrait photography, most professionals employ a range of lighting equipment to dial in the exact images they are looking for no matter where they are or when they are shooting. That being said, you will be amazed what you can accomplish with natural light and the knowledge of how to shape it to your needs. This great video tutorial will show you how to create professional portraits in a garage using just natural light and a few modifiers. 

Custom Shooting Modes: What They Are and Why You Definitely Should Use Them

One of the great benefits of using modern digital cameras is the high degree of customization options available. Menus, button configuration, touchscreens, and more can be customized for specific scenarios. In addition to programmable buttons and menus, all modern cameras include a feature called Custom Shooting Modes, which allow the user to save and recall personalized user profiles. In this article and video, I explain CSMs and how using them can greatly improve your photography and user experience.

7 Lesser-Known Tips for Working With Layers in Photoshop

Perhaps no Photoshop feature is more fundamental to taking full advantage of the application than layers. Without them, there would be no way to edit an image without destructively altering the original, nor would it be possible to go back to adjust edits after you initially create them. This excellent video tutorial will show you seven lesser-known tips for working with layers to help you take your edits in Photoshop even further. 

How to Get More From the Histogram in Lightroom and Camera Raw

The histogram is one of the most useful tools available to any photographer, no matter the genre in which they shoot. You can do a lot more with it than simply reading the tonal content of your images, though. This excellent video tutorial will show you three lesser-known aspects of the histogram and how to use them in Lightroom or Camera Raw to get more out of your image edits. 

How to Improve Your Photos Using Constraints

Modern cameras and lenses are so good that they can handle just about anything you can throw at them, and while it is wonderful to have such powerful capabilities at your fingertips, it can also be a bit paralyzing in a way. If you are in a creative rut and unsure of how to get out of it, check out this fantastic video that will show you how adding constraints to your photography can actually jumpstart it. 

A Start-to-Finish Guide on Creating Great Portraits With Smoke

There are certain rights of passage in photography that we all should try at some juncture of our time with a camera. They act as both important learning tools but plainly, they're good fun to do. In this video, Pye Jirsa walks you through how he created a great-looking portrait using a smoke bomb.

AI Skin Retouch Is Here and It's Pretty Impressive

Innovators and philosophers like Elon Musk and Sam Harris have been theorizing what our world will look like once artificial intelligence completely takes over our everyday lives. We aren't quite there, but if you've ever dreamed of a day when all your skin retouching might be completed using AI and neural networks, well, the future is a lot closer than you might think.

5 Portrait Looks With Just One Background

You don't need a ton of equipment to create a number of looks in a single shoot. In this video, John Gress discusses which background you should go for if you're looking for maximum versatility, showcasing five different looks.

5 Tips to Radically Improve Your Headshots

Headshot photography is one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry and for good reason. With more people working from home and using technology to collaborate, our online personas have become more important than ever. Many people have started new careers and businesses due to the pandemic and need to update their branding images. This creates an excellent opportunity for aspiring headshot photographers, and in this article, I give you five tips that will radically improve your game.

How to Compose Successful Photos Using a Wide Angle Lens

A wide angle lens is one of the most useful tools a photographer can have in their bag, but they can be deceptively difficult to create compelling images with. If you struggle with your wide angle lens and want to improve your photos, check out this great video tutorial that will give you some helpful tips to send you on your way.

A Common Mistake Landscape Photographers Make With Wide Angle Lenses

Landscape photography is a challenging genre, and the tool of choice is often a wide angle lens. Wide angle lenses can be particularly tricky to work with, however. This excellent video tutorial will show you a common mistake landscape photographers make with wide angle lenses and how to correct it and improve your images. 

How to Quickly and Easily Remove People From a Crowded Photo Automatically Using Photoshop

There are a ton of beautiful tourist spots out there begging to be photographed, but the problem is that unless you are extremely lucky, you will likely have to deal with people in the shot. You could take a bunch of photographs as people move around and then painstakingly mask in different parts of the image, or you could try this neat method that lets Photoshop take care of it automatically in just a few seconds, as this helpful video tutorial shows. 

The Importance of Taking Stock of Your Photography

Amid a busy week, I figured I’d share a few brief thoughts on why it’s important to keep moving forward and why it’s just as important to sometimes remain still long enough to see where you stand.

How to Pitch to Brands and Land Photography Clients

If you want to shoot for brands and land large commercial projects, you have to know how to pitch to brands in a way that matches their expectations while still helping your own work stand apart from the other portfolios they have seen. If that is something you are new to or if you want to improve your chances, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will walk you through the entire process step by step to get you up and running in no time. 

7 Ways to Be Way More Productive in Your Landscape Photography

Some genres of photography allow you to produce a large number of images in a given span of time, while others tend to be more methodical and require a fair amount of patience. Landscape photography tends to fall into the latter camp, but that does not mean there are not things you can do to make yourself more productive on location. This helpful video will detail seven ways you can make yourself a bit more efficient and productive the next time you head out. 

3 Important Tips for Photographing Blue Hour

Trying to capture a perfectly balanced shot during blue hour has its challenges. These three tips will have you capturing more successful images for your portfolio. 

Stop the Scroll: 3 Tips for Mastering Your Use of Color

Have you ever seen those bold modern ads that just force you to stop and look? One got me this week. I was driving, and a billboard had a colossal burger, most likely shot with the 16-35mm lens, and a bold, canary yellow background with that primary McDonalds red. "I need that burger! Wait... I'm a gluten-free vegan!"  I tipped my hat to the photographer and kept driving. 

The Many Ways to Photograph a Tree

The tree is a timeless and deceptively simple subject, capable of being rendered in numerous ways, each compelling and interesting in its own way. And so, with all those different ways, how do you pick? This interesting video discusses the topic and shows some options. 

Why Make Black and White Landscape Photos?

Hop on Instagram and look at landscape photography, and you will often be greeted by a veritable plethora of eye-catching images awash with vibrant colors. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that, but black and white images can be equally compelling. So, why make black and white landscape images? How do they differ in their impact? This great video explores the topic. 

The Uncomfortable Truth About Selling Prints

A lot of truths about photography are hard to hear when you're looking at making a career out of it, but they are necessary if you want to go into the profession with a complete understanding of what's to come.

Helpful Tips for Editing Black and White Landscape Photos in Lightroom

When you think of landscape photos, you likely think of vibrant, eye-catching colors. And while that is a popular look for sure, a black and white image can be uniquely powerful. Lightroom contains some surprisingly versatile tools for creating black and white edits, and this helpful video tutorial will show you some great tips for getting the most out of those features.