Recent Education Articles

Why Color Grading Is so Important to Your Work

Color grading is one of the most important techniques for giving any video a professional touch and developing your own personal style. This helpful video tutorial features a cinematographer and colorist discussing a wide range of color grading techniques, theories, and examples and how you can apply them to your own work.

How To Get the Most Out of a Photography Trip

Photography trips can be a really exciting time and a fantastic way to build your portfolio and come home with once-in-a-lifetime images. But with the time constraints imposed by a vacation, it can be difficult to get everything you want. This helpful video discusses how to get the most out of a photography trip.

Learn How This Dramatic Beach Portrait Was Lit and Shot

Dramatic portraits that mix the natural light of the sun behind the subject with a strobe to emphasize the model are a popular look and a fantastic way to practice lighting skills and to build your portfolio. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to shoot one such portrait to produce professional results.

These 5 Adobe Lightroom Sliders Ruin Your Photos

Adobe Lightroom is a very powerful editing tool for your landscape photos. It is also an easy way to ruin your photos during the editing process if you don’t understand the sliders. This video talks through five sliders in Adobe Lightroom that will destroy your images.

How to Light a Group Portrait

It takes a lot of skill and experience to light a portrait of a single person, but lighting groups can be an entirely different challenge. Nonetheless, depending what you shoot, you may be called upon to photograph groups. When that happens, you will want to be ready to transition quickly. This great video tutorial will show you an effective and straightforward approach for producing quality group photos.

How to Choose the Right Lens for Landscape Photography

When it comes to landscape photography, the standard lens of choice is the wide angle, as many scenes demand a large angle of view to get everything into one frame. And while wide angle lenses certainly have their place, other focal lengths are just as useful. This excellent video tutorial discusses how to choose the right lens for a specific landscape scene.

5 Tips to Improve Your Photography in Low Light

Shooting in low light can be tricky for lots of reasons ranging from needing slower shutter speeds to having difficulty acquiring focus. If that is something you struggle with in your own work, this helpful video will give you some great tips to improve your low-light photography.

How to Convert Negatives to Positives Using Capture One

Last week I showed you how you can use just a DSLR and a few accessories to digitize your negatives. However, that article wouldn’t have been complete without explaining how to convert the scanned analog picture to a positive image. The process is quite easy and only a few steps are required to achieve a great result. Let’s dive in!

The Power of Persistence in Getting the Photos You Want

Photography can be a frustrating pursuit, particularly when you don't come home with the image you wanted. That's when a bit of persistence can really be your best friend in helping you get the shots you want.

A Beginner's Guide to Why Photographers Use High ISOs

Along with aperture and shutter speed, ISO is one of the three fundamental exposure parameters, and mastering it is crucial to being able to produce successful images. If you are newer to photography, this helpful video tutorial will show you what ISO does and why photographers sometimes use high ISOs.

Tips for Working With HDR Images in Lightroom

High Dynamic Range (HDR) images can capture a range of light and detail that’s difficult to achieve with a single shot. Using Lightroom, you can merge bracketed photos into an HDR image with minimal effort, even if the photos are handheld or noisy.

Turning the Lumix S5 II Into the Ultimate Cinema Camera

The Lumix S5 II is the first full-frame mirrorless camera from Panasonic to offer hybrid phase detect autofocus and a plethora of other cinematic video options. With all of the new improvements on the S5 II, could it be an ideal choice as a full-fledged cinema camera?

How to Ensure You Never Lose a Photoshop File

There is perhaps nothing more frustrating than spending hours working on a Photoshop file, only to discover that you saved the wrong version or that you can't undo a certain step a few changes back. So, what can you do to ensure you never encounter that situation? This fantastic video tutorial will show you three important tips to ensure you always have access to the history of your Photoshop files.

The Basics of Landscape Photography in 15 Minutes

Landscape photography is a popular, fun, and fulfilling genre that allows you to enjoy the outdoors and challenges your photographic technique and creativity. If you are new to the pursuit and wondering how to get started, check out this great video tutorial that will show you all the basics you need to head out and start shooting in just 15 minutes.

Wet Plate Collodion and the Joys of Being a Beginner

In my research to come up with ideas for blog posts, I watch a lot of videos. A few months ago I came across a few videos about the wet plate collodion process and I was hooked! The results are so unique that I just had to participate in it myself.

The Best Way to Respond to Clients Asking for Raw Photos

As a wedding photographer, you’ve likely had clients ask for raw files, thinking they’re getting more value by having access to every shot taken. But there are several reasons why raw files aren’t something you want to hand over, and your clients may not understand why. When this conversation comes up, it’s essential to explain the realities of raw files clearly and calmly, so they know what they’re really asking for.

5 Ways to Precisely Undo in Photoshop

As a photographer, you understand the delicate balance between enhancing an image and overdoing it. Too much editing can quickly make a photo appear unnatural and detract from its original beauty. Fortunately, Photoshop offers several tools and techniques to help you maintain control and achieve subtle, realistic edits.

A Simple Two-Light Setup for Dramatic Portraits of Couples

The beauty of artificial lighting is that you can create whatever look you want, wherever and whenever you want. That does not mean things need to be overly complex, however. In fact, just two lights can offer a ton of versatility, and this excellent video tutorial will show you how to use them to create some dramatic and compelling couples portraits.

What Happens When a Photo Book Disappoints?

Photo books provide a curated, immersive experience that allows viewers to engage with photographs at a slower and more deliberate pace. So what happens when one challenges your perspective on your own photography?

Tips on Capturing Successful Light Passes in Automotive Light Painting

There are several different ways to light your subject in photography. While light painting isn't a new or exclusive technique within automotive photography, it is a fundamental technique car photographers should understand how to use. If you are new to light painting or never used this technique to photograph a vehicle, you may have some questions on where to begin.

Learn How to Restore Vintage Photographs

Old and damaged photographs are easy to come by. Most have been stored in boxes in the back of a closet left to dust and wither without a second thought. That is until said person goes to tidy up one day and finds an invaluable treasure trove long forgotten.

Three Helpful Tips for Running a Successful Photography Business

There is a very distinct and fundamental difference between being a successful photographer and being successful in the business of photography. This helpful video will give you three tips to ensure you're successful when you start a photography business.

The Many Ways You Can Mix Strobes and Natural Light in Your Photos

Shooting with natural light or strobes doesn't have to be a one or the other proposition: you can easily mix them in the same shot to create interesting outdoor images. This great video shows you that there are quite a few ways to do that.

5 Tips for Organizing Your Photography Business

Running a successful photography business takes a ton of work, and it is important to keep things well organized to make your life easier. This helpful video discusses five tips for organizing your photo business to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

A Mathematical Look at What 'Light Softness' Really Is

We talk qualitatively quite a bit about the softness or hardness of light, as it's one of the fundamental qualities and something every photographer and videographer should consider when choosing how to light their subjects. This neat video takes a more scientific approach by asking how we can quantify the softness of light.

Exploring the Camera Direction of David Fincher

"Fight Club" and "Se7en" Director David Fincher's distinct camera work has polarized film critics throughout his career. But with the release of "Mindhunter" on Netflix, this video delves into the nuts and bolts of Fincher’s style, and what this means to the audience.

How to Take Advantage of Lightroom's Powerful Filtering Features

Lightroom can be a surprisingly intricate program, and as such, some of its best features can be easily overlooked. Lightroom has some powerful filtering features, and if you are someone with a catalog of images in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of images, you will find it highly beneficial to learn the ins and outs. This fantastic video tutorial will show you everything you need to know.

Helpful Advice for Improving Your Portrait Photography

Portrait photography is a challenging but rewarding genre that requires not just competence with a camera and lighting, but the ability to direct subjects and make them feel comfortable in front of the camera. If you are new to the genre and hoping to improve, check out this helpful video tutorial that features an experienced portrait photographer discussing a range of helpful advice and actionable tips sure to help you take better photos.