Despite the rise of social media, having a website is still imperative in order to showcase your best – and not just latest – work as a photographer. Here, five professionals, including editors from the Guardian and the British Journal of Photography, offer an insight into what makes a photographer’s portfolio stand out.
Landscape photography is a popular yet difficult genre, and while you can learn to create a technically apt photo, finding your creative voice is another issue entirely. Why is it so difficult to be creative in landscape photography? This fantastic video essay looks at the question and offers some useful insights you can apply to your own work.
Aside from the Perseid meteor shower, the summer hype is on for viewing Saturn. Indeed, Saturn is a great target for visual observers, especially if it’s your very first view through a telescope. But for astrophotographers, it’s a tough target. A bit of an easier target is Jupiter, which is “following” Saturn across the summer sky.
When you think of exposure settings for landscape photography, you likely think of using your camera's base ISO and nothing else. But when it comes to getting the shot, there is nothing wrong with raising your ISO if needed, and this excellent video discusses why.
Does it even make sense to compare these high-megapixel cameras? Does it even matter which one you choose when it comes to picture quality? As it turns out, not really.
A few months ago, I started processing all my raw photos with a new Lightroom plugin. It led to a significant increase in image quality, as I show in this article.
Are you guilty of only using a wide angle lens for landscape photography? If that is the case or you just want some confirmation that both a standard zoom and a telephoto lens also work, you might want to check out this video.
When you're working in either Lightroom or Photoshop, there are often many paths to the same destination, but some are more efficient and straightforward than others. This great video will show you everything you need to know about using curves.
We all know about golden hour and how it can offer you warm, soft, and flattering light for your photos, but if you're only working with natural light, restricting yourself to only golden hour can make it quite difficult to get shoots done. This great video will give you some helpful tips for dealing with harsher midday sun.
I first came across the compressed cRAW files when I reviewed the Canon EOS M50 a few years ago. The new Canon mirrorless cameras also have cRAW available. This compressed raw file will enable you to save even more images on one memory card without loss of quality.
Millions of people wear glasses, and that can be a real difficulty for portrait photographers, as they tend to pick up a fair amount of glare that can distract from or entirely obscure the most important part of a portrait, the eyes. Removing such glare can be a bit tricky both on set or in post, but this excellent video tutorial will show you the technique a Photoshop pro uses to get rid of it and restore the subject's eyes.
Most portrait photographers have a preferred focal length that they tend to use for most shoots. Two of the most common focal lengths are 85mm and 135mm, and this great video compares the two to help you choose the right lens for you.
Being able to properly shoot in manual mode seems to be a rite of passage for many photographers, representing professional-level abilities. This helpful and comprehensive video will show you everything you need to know to consistently nail your exposure in manual mode.
There are a ton of different modifiers available for working with artificial lighting, and it can be a bit overwhelming (and expensive) to pick one when you are just starting out. Umbrellas are some of the cheapest modifiers out there, and as such, they are a fantastic tool for learning how to work with artificial light, and they can do a lot more than they often get credit for. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to create compelling portraits using just one light and an umbrella.
Photoshop is a powerful program full of hundreds of functions, many of which seem to behave very similarly, but definitely have distinct purposes that make them more or less appropriate than related tools depending on the situation. This video examines one of the most common cases, vibrance vs. saturation, and how you should use each in your editing.
Got a new camera for Christmas but you're not Lindsey Adler yet? Here are some great tips to send you on your way to mastering your new gear.
I have only been shooting photography for a little over 3 years now. Things have progressed so quickly during that period of time that I haven't really had the chance to look back at the evolution of my photography. I had to think thing long and hard about the investments I have made over the 3 years and the things that really changed the game for me.
Luminosity masks are a fantastic way to make precise selections based on luminance values (hence the name). As with all things Photoshop, there are multiple ways to achieve the same result. I find using channel selections to be the easiest way to manually create my masks. I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir, but for those yet to join in on the singing, I hope you find this information useful as you continue to build your editing tool set.
Science tells us there are somewhere north of 13.1 billion ways to convert an image to black and white. It's time to add another method to your arsenal, but this one is pretty cool. Here's how to use Channel Calculations to convert a color image to black and white in Photoshop.
When you are a hobbyist, you can drop whatever money you can reasonably afford on gear if it makes you happy. However, when you are a professional, gear is a business expense, and as such, you have to pay more careful attention to its impact on your bottom line and if you truly need it. This great video tutorial features an experienced photographer discussing just what gear a professional really needs.
With their latest updates to Lightroom and Photoshop, Adobe has shown that they are serious about extending their software with AI capabilities. I was already impressed by the new Noise Reduction in Lightroom. And as Nick Page shows in this video, Photoshop also has a new, impressive AI feature.
G.A.S (Gear Accumulation Syndrome), is something all photographers feel it at some point in their careers. That feeling the gear they have is never good enough. Learn how to overcome that, and start taking the photos you've always dreamed of today.
Water reflections can transform a basic landscape photo into something captivating, but they don't always look their best straight out of the camera. With a little fine-tuning in Lightroom, you can make those reflections more vibrant and balanced. It's a quick and easy technique that can instantly elevate the look of your landscape photography.
One of the best ways to achieve a nice soft light on your subjects is to use a scrim. These scrims can range from large reflectors to giant sheets, but they all perform the same task, and that’s diffusing hard light. The problem with scrims is that while diffusing the light, they also lower the power of that light. This loss in power is dependent on the specific scrim you are using and can range from a quarter stop of light all the way to one and a quarter stop of light. The problem with this is that as you lower the light on your subject, while still getting a proper exposure on them, you are in turn raising the exposure of your background. In this video you can see how Joel Grimes uses a scrim net to help control this added brightness to his background.
Color toning is one of those final steps that can really make your photos both pop and add a very personal stylistic touch. This awesome video will show you an advanced color toning technique using Photoshop.
Weather and conditions permitting, the Perseid meteor shower puts on an annual show that blows stargazers away. Use these five photography tips to capture this dazzling spectacle.
It used to be that continuous lighting was either way too hot or simply not powerful enough for lighting portraits, but LEDs have come quite a long way in recent years, and they are now a viable alternative to strobes in certain situations. This great video examines the two options while showing off a unique light that can do both.
The Nikon 58mm 1.4 and The now famed Sigma Art 50mm 1.4 are two lenses that arguably have a lot in common and at the same time polar opposites. The fact of the matter is the Sigma series which is marketed under the “art” moniker has received its praise because of technical proficiency while the release of the Nikon 58mm fell flat due to misguided expectations.
There is no doubt that the wide-angle zoom lens is the most popular for landscape photography and is my go-to lens in most of my work. It is however, not necessarily the easiest lens to use as it takes in a lot of the landscape.
You might think of Photoshop as the place to do deep color grading work, and that used to be the case, but Lightroom recently added new color grading tools that can also make powerful edits and are arguably more intuitive than those in Photoshop. This great video tutorial will show you how to use them to color grade your photos quickly and easily.
