Recent Post Production Articles

Determining If A Photo Should Be Left In Color Or Converted To Black And White

After a recent trip abroad, I was excited to go through and process my images. I came across an image that I felt looked great in both color and black and white. Unsure of what to do, I started questioning the criteria that I use to determine if a photo should be left in color or converted to black and white. In the process, I decided to ask my colleagues and came up with a guide.

Lightroom Import and Export Tips and Tricks

Lightroom is undoubtedly a great tool for Digital Asset Management (DAM). Some people use it for Digital Asset Management and Editing while others use it just for Digital Asset Management and do all of their editing in Photoshop or some other external application.

[Fail] You Won't Believe This Enormous Photoshop Failure

A user on the popular social website Reddit was the first to bring our attention to this enormous Photoshop fail. A recent Target advertisement left one of the models sporting a little something extra. You won't believe your eyes when you see this, nor will you believe that somehow, nobody caught the mistake.

Post Production Faux Pas

Isn’t Facebook time hop great?! Every day I get to see the last seven to eight years of my photography. Like almost every photographer, I sucked when I started out. My actual composition and use of the camera weren't too bad, but my post-production was horrendous. The best way to describe the post processing is “heavy-handed.”

22 Photoshop Tricks That You Probably Didn’t Know About

Getting familiar with Photoshop is a long process, and who better to reveal some little-known features than someone with more than 20 years of experience? This excellent video from Jamie Windsor will speed up your workflow and uncover some powerful features that you might not have known exist.

Working With A Creative Retoucher On A Concept From Start To Finish

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to work with a retoucher on a concept you've had in mind, this may be just what you're looking for. Photographer Justin Bettman wanted to create a concept but didn't have the ability to do so on his own, so he teamed up with creative retoucher and manipulator Krzysztof Rejek to bring his idea to life.

How To Print Your Photography at Home: The Basics

If it’s not on paper, it’s not a real photograph. You must’ve heard this sentence at least once in your photographic journey. For many, it rings true. The best way to appreciate our captures is to hold them on a physical paper. But how to best print at home? Which printer to get? How to use it?

Blend Your Mask in Photoshop Better Than Ever With the Feather Slider

Masking plays a crucial role in the quality of your retouching. There are so many tools available to create and refine masks, that’s often times we forget the most basics and useful ones. One of them is a bit hidden and it seems like many don’t even know it exists! However, it’s probably amongst the most useful options to refine a mask and make your adjustment shine through in a more natural and convincing way. It’s the feather option and I’m going to show you how you can use it with a real-world example.

Low Budget, High Scale - Incredible Action Sequence With BTS

Whether you’re a photographer or you focus on video, this article highlights the high octane visual set piece created by Slaughterhouse Pictures, who successfully combined principles of both stills and motion work to create high impact visual media with zero budget and very limited resources. Read the exclusive FStoppers article and watch the BTS video to get some simple and highly effective little tips that you will be able to apply to all aspects of your own work.

The 2017 Monitor Buyers Guide for Photographers: Top Recommendations

Even with all the notes and advice, it’s typically a tough job to find a quality monitor in any price range. This is why I’ve decided to hand you my top recommendations as of November 2017. After sifting through literally hundreds of monitors, I’ve distilled five classes of monitors, among which are Fstoppers top recommendations in either class.

How to Get the Best Colors From the Canon EOS R5

The Canon EOS R5 is a landmark camera from Canon. It's the first full frame mirrorless camera to shoot 8K raw video along with 4K at an impressive 120 frames per second. What we're really impressed with is how well this camera produces color. This is why in our latest video, we show you how to get the best color and image quality out of the Canon EOS R5.

The Difference Between Curves and Levels

In this super useful video by the good folks over at Phlearn, we delve into what separates 'Curves' and 'Levels' adjustments in Photoshop and when to use one over the other. These reasons 'when to' and 'when not to' use aren't the end-all-be-all, but you will definitely walk away with a better grasp on these two types of adjustments after watching.

Why I Switched From My Stock Wacom Stylus To The Classic Pen Stylus

I've been using Wacom tablets for almost ten years now to the date. I picked one up on a whim during the holiday season and have become hooked ever since. For these past few years, I've never considered changing the stylus that came with every tablet I've used. The stock stylus always felt great to me. Recently, I decided to give the Wacom classic pen stylus a try.

A Brilliant And Precise Way To Correct And Match Tones In Photoshop

It's a common problem to have a variation of colors across the skin in any image. This may occur for many reasons, such as blood flow, skin quality and texture, or lighting changes. It's always been a hassle to fix this since it requires some guess work and tweaking. It's often not as precise as it could be either. Michael Woloszynowicz has come up with a brilliant way of color correcting skin in a way that I've never seen before!

6 Important Lightroom Features Most Photographers Forget About

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.

How To Make Sure Your Pictures Are As Clean As Possible

It is no secret that a picture will rarely look the same on every media. Even from one screen to another there can be a huge difference! Blacks that might look like pure black on your laptop might be a very dark grey on your phone. Having so many media support and manufacturers makes it really hard for a photographer or a retouching to have a picture that will look great despite of it.

Not All Heroes Wear Capes: A Series Worth Viewing

Brandon Cawood, from Dalton GA, has taken appreciating first responders to the next level. What began as a personal project to photograph local EMS personnel, soon blew up and went viral. Cawood captures priceless moments in the daily lives of firefighters, police and other public safety personnel. He has a movie poster style and pulls it off in a flawless manner.

The Ten Commandments of Photography

By “commandments,” I simply mean photography truths that have worked for me. Everyone has photography truths to believe in, but here are my 10.

How Color Theory Improves Your Photography and Retouching

The wrong elements of color can disrupt the harmony of photographs and distract the viewer from the story you’re trying to tell. When we’re deliberate though, we can use color theory while planning the components of our photos and use color grading to allow us to create compelling images that add emotion to help us create a story. Dynamic images are created through complementary colors that develop harmony in wardrobe and location, lighting, and mood. Fortunately, there are numerous resources to understanding and implementing color.

Lightroom Color Grading for Dummies

How do you move beyond using someone else's actions and presets to tone your images? It’s a lot simpler than you’d think. There are so many different ways to achieve similar results in post-production, and having so many options can be extremely intimidating when you’re just learning how to edit. This is the reason that many photographers will rely on actions and presets to “color grade” and tone their images when they are first starting off.

How The Film ‘Anomaly’ Is Changing The Game For Us All (BTS And Interview With Co-Director Salomon Ligthelm)

Last week saw the release of ‘Anomaly’, a film that is redefining the approach and model for independent, narrative film making. Co-Director Salomon Ligthelm outlines how he managed the project as it grew from “a 2 minute art film” into the astonishing 38 minute-long final masterpiece, and provides key takeaways for all of us that we can apply to our own stills or motion projects. If you have any interest in what's coming over the horizon for cutting edge, independent, visual media production, this is for you.

One of the World's Best Compositers Reveals His Complete Workflow and Retouching Techniques

Erik Almas, one of the best commercial composite photographers, has recently teamed up with the team at PRO EDU to create a fully comprehensive tutorial on his complete shooting and retouching process. In this video Almas takes us through an hour-long tutorial, retouching and completing the backplate for one of his tutorial images. I'm always impressed when photographers and retouchers, especially those at the top of our industry, open the doors and reveal their entire process and Almas has done no less here.

An Emerging Artist’s Approach To Fantasy, Steampunk, And Victorian Portraits (NSFW)

In this interview, I speak with Russ Turner, a photographer who is relatively new to shooting fantasy portraiture, but has already received awards and praise for the quality of his work. Russ talks about working with costumed models, how he incorporates Photoshop, and shares some of the places where an aspiring shooter can get started doing photography in this genre.

These Basic Color Theory Tricks Will Take Your Images to New Levels

It’s obvious that color is important in our work; Hand selecting that perfect blend can take our images from decent to legendary. And it's not just photographers that notice the color mishaps. Everyone is influenced by colors. Our eyes are always naturally observing and comparing them. Color is so impactful on the masses that they are meticulously chosen for ads that reach millions of faces a day, there's no reason why you shouldn't start using the same tactics in your work.