Recent Post Production Articles

Adobe Faces Harsh Backlash After Removal of Features and Stability Issues Plague Lightroom 2015.2/6.2

Many photographers recently upgraded to the newest version of Lightroom, only to have their work come grinding to a halt as the program became completely nonfunctional. Others found their standard workflow disrupted by the removal of longtime features. Either way, many are very displeased with the latest update and have taken to the Internet quite vocally to make their concerns known.

These Photos Show the Thin Lines Between Coincidence, Plagiarism, and Inspiration

What follows is one of the strangest and most remarkable coincidences I've ever come across in the world of photography. We've heard of photos that were blatantly stolen, but what happens when the concept of a major digital art project is copied? Is it even possible to copy a "copy" of an idea, or can two different artists be inspired to come up with the exact same concept completely independently? This is the tale of two composite photographs.

Preview ESPN's Body Issue 2012

If you're a sports fan, or even if you just like toned and tan bodies, you're going to want to pick up the next issue of ESPN (hits newsstands Friday). It's filled with some pretty sexy images of the United States' favorite athletes in nothing but their birthday suits.

Making Color Grading Easy Using Color Palettes

Color correction and grading are probably amongst the most difficult parts of a retouching workflow. What seems to make it difficult in Photoshop is usually the understanding of the different tools available, such as curves and levels. However, there are a couple of tricks that can make it much easier, color palettes and fill layers being some of them.

Why You Should Care About Apple's Quietly Released Powerful New iMacs

On Tuesday, Apple quietly (and I mean VERY quietly) released the newest update to the iMac line of personal computers. It's curious why they (Apple) didn't make any sort of major announcement, or even blend this into the September 10th announcement of the iPhone 5S. I personally think that this update is fairly newsworthy, not only because the iMac has become one of the staples in a lot of professional studio's digital labs and Tech carts, but it's a huge leap in performance over it's predecessor, if you believe the info on Apple's website that is.

FS Original: Mike Kelley Shows the Secrets to Shooting Architectural Images

It's been a while since we've released an Fstoppers original video, so today we want to take you behind the scenes with Mike Kelley. If you've been following Fstoppers then you know he's been a writer with us for a while and is also one of the most talented architectural photographers in the country. Mike's workflow and style is truly incredible and the amount of hours he spends on creating just one image is - as cheesy as it sounds - a work of art.

12 Tips On How To Work From Home As A Freelance Video Editor

While sharing drinks with a friend, he started inquiring as to how I’m able to supplement my income with video editing projects. The more we talked, the more I realized that a lot of people have the ability and skill to do it, but they don’t understand the small things that can make or break being successful at it. In this post, I’ll share what I’ve learned about being a freelance editor.

The Five Tips to Creating Amazing Landscape Photos

In an instant, one can feel as though they are in another world. As a landscape photographer you have the power to transport someone in the blink of an eye and send them on a journey into your photography to see the incredible world we live in. Creating amazing landscapes goes far beyond just snapping photos using the HDR setting on an iPhone. Landscape photography can seem daunting, but after reading these secrets to landscape photography, there will be no excuse to why you can’t take mesmerizing landscapes yourself!

creative-wedding-shoot

When I saw this wedding shoot I was stunned into silence for a few moments. I really didn't know what to think of it! In my mind, when I think of wedding photography, I think of a world of immaculate white dresses, expensive shoes, thoughtful furnishings and of course, smiling wedding couples and their guests.

Intel AI Tool Makes GTA V Look Incredibly Photorealistic

Just when you thought your brand new super-spec gaming machine was powerful enough to handle anything, something new comes along to dash your hopes and monster rig dreams. A recent video from Intel demonstrates an AI tool that "enhances" graphics to look photorealistic. The implications of this could be incredible for gaming and photography industries.

Relight Your Portraits: Testing Out Luminar Neo's New AI Tool

Artificial intelligence has begun to have a real impact in photography via post-processing. This may be a contentious subject, but whichever side of the fence you are, it's interesting to see what it's capable of. In this video by Manny Ortiz, he reworks some images with Luminar's Relight tool.

Never Open Photoshop Again with this Lightroom Workflow

Over the last couple of years I have received more than a few inquiries about how I use Lightroom to edit my photos. The embedded video is a screen recording of my entire workflow, from import to export. It's sped up for the sake of time, so if there is any part that isn't clear, feel free to ask questions in the comments. So without further ado, here is my Lightroom workflow.

Watch a Photographer's Photoshop and Lightroom Portrait Editing Workflow

Post production has been a significant part of photography ever since the beginning of the medium. Back before digital, it was all about how you handled the development of the film and then the enlargement of your print, now it's about how you handle your digital files.

A Simple Guide to Editing Colors in Adobe Lightroom

For most photographers color is a crucial element of their work and one that can have a huge influence on the quality of the final result. There are many ways to manipulate color in post-production, so here is a simple guide for using Adobe Lightroom for that purpose.

4 Mistakes Photographers Make Editing Landscape Images

Most landscape photographs require at least some degree of post-processing to produce a complete image, and as such, you need to be comfortable with your skills not only behind the camera but at the computer as well. If you are working on improving your landscape image edits, check out this excellent video tutorial that discusses four mistakes photographers make in the post-processing stage and how to fix or avoid them.

Advanced Lightroom Effects From Lens Distortions Will Change the Way You Edit

Without a doubt, Lightroom is an extremely powerful editor. So much in fact, that I can edit an entire wedding without ever leaving the program. The main things I find myself doing that cause me to leave Lightroom and enter Photoshop are multiple exposures, liquefying, more advanced cloning and healing, and adding certain overlays. What Advanced Lightroom Effects from Lens Distortions does is make it so I no longer need Photoshop to add these overlays. It saves me time from switching back and forth between programs and having to create multiple copies of the same image.

Brilliant Time-Lapse Video On Retouching A Rolex Watch

Retouching jewelry is an extremely time intensive task, especially when it is done correctly. It can involved hours of work to fix the most minute details. When it's done right, it looks effortless and this time-lapse video is no exception. The balance of artistry and technicality makes the final image what it is.

Awesome Video On How To Retouch Shiny Skin

Have you ever taken a great portrait, but the subject's skin was distractingly shiny? I think this has been an issue faced by every portrait photographer that doesn't travel with a makeup artist in tow for every shoot. Lee Varis takes you through an extensive detailed process on how to realistically remove oily skin shine on your portrait subject's face. Check out the post below to learn more:

Innovative New Photo Sharing Site In a League Of Its Own

*Edit* Since writing this article I have since moved from PASS to Pixieset as my online gallery of choice for my clients. You can read more about why I feel Pixieset is the best solution here, "Top 10 Reasons Pixieset Makes Sense for Professional Photographers."

I am a self professed tech nerd. I am always on the search for the latest innovations and products that will better my life and business. Over the last few months I have been using one that is a real game changer in my business. In a very short amount of time PASS has become an extremely valuable asset helping me book more clients and get my images in front of more faces.

How to Give Your Photos 3D Pop Using Color Grading

Three-dimensional "pop" is a sort of nebulous thing that portrait photographers often chase in certain lenses, as it can take an inherently two-dimensional representation of a person and make it feel more lifelike. You can also contribute to the effect through your editing, and this fantastic video tutorial will show you how to do it through some clever though not difficult use of Photoshop.

Professional Retoucher Natalia Taffarel Shows Us Her Techniques And Workflow

You are probably familiar with Natalia Taffarel as we've featured her in the past. In case you aren't, you can check out her work here. What I love about Natalia is that not only is she a great retoucher but she's also very open and giving. Ever since I've known her when she started, she's always had a great attitude about sharing and helping others grow. This video really shows her character come through.

The Ultimate Guide to the Dodge & Burn Technique – Part 3: Curves Setup & More

This is the third part of The Ultimate Guide to the Dodge & Burn Technique. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 where we talked about the fundamentals and tools. Today we finally get to one of the actual setup variations for the Dodge & Burn technique in Photoshop. But before we begin, I'd like to share a few words of caution with you.

Beyond The Technique

Form my teaching practice I have found that knowing the technique - the HOW-TO - never guarantees its successful implementation. In fact, when it's only the technique that a...

Why I Switched From Lightroom to Capture One for Wedding Editing

Capture One has been known amongst high-end retouchers and commercial photographers for quite some time, the main reasons probably being its powerful tethering and color editing tools. Wedding photographers seem to think Capture One is not tailored to suit their needs. At least, that is what I thought. After a full year using only Capture One to process my raw files, I wanted to share with you why I stopped using Lightroom.

How Culling the Color Blue Can Improve Your Images

I don't have a vendetta with the color blue, or any colors for that matter; that would be odd. I do, however, remove the color blue either entirely or nearly entirely from the lion's share of my images, and for good reason.

Gradient Map For Perfect Skin Color

When retouching, it is not rare to come across color problems on a model’s skin. Whether it is from a sun tan, dodge & burn, spots or skin discoloration issues, it can be really painful to treat it in post. Despite being all about having it right in camera and doing as little as possible in post, there is an easy way to correct this in Photoshop -- a method that is going to make your makeup artist want to stop correcting redness, yellowness or under-eye bags. It is so easy to use you are going to wonder why you did not think of it earlier!

Video: Top 5 New Features In Lightroom 5

Adobe announced the release of their beta version of the new Lightroom 5 today and with it I dove in and quickly discovered my five favorite new features. A few of these are true game changers in how we edit our photos and will in the end save us as photographers quite a bit of time while using the innovative software. Read on to see some examples of the features and what my first impressions are on the new Lightroom 5.

The Complete Guide to Color Management: Color Made Easy

Color management can be one of the most boring topics to learn as a photographer, right up there with topics like digital asset management and accounting. They all have one thing in common, however: they’re important parts of being a photographer. Learning how to manage color doesn’t have to be difficult, however. Consider this your crash course introduction in learning how.

Using an Anamorphic Lens - Sam Hurd Is at It Again!

Photographer Sam Hurd is sharing yet another one of his artistic photography techniques with his followers. He mastered The Brenizer Method, he basically had all of Amazon on backorder for Prisming, he ripped the lens mount right off his 50mm for Freelensing, and then he did some convex Lens Chimping. This time around, Sam attached an old anamorphic movie lens to his 85mm in order to shoot a very cinematic wide field of view. Take a look at how it works!

Men Watch Themselves Get Photoshopped to the Same Standards As Women

"We're constantly looking at images that have been Photoshopped; we only notice it when it goes a step too far," note the Try Guys. There's an ongoing debate about society's conception of the female body and just how much post-processing is too much. To really explore the idea, though, the group held a shoot in which they recreated infamous Photoshop disasters to understand just how far these "ideals" are pushed.

Top Lightroom Tip That Your Clients Will Thank You For Learning

If you are photographing people than you understand the importance of sharpening areas of your images while masking out other parts and keeping them soft. For example, I love to sharpen the eyes, the lips, the hair, but don't want to bring out any unnecessary detail on the cheeks. Fortunately in Lightroom there is way to apply sharpening to your image while masking out areas where you would otherwise not want to apply the effect.

New Corporate Head Shot Technique In Photoshop

Phlearn has something ridiculous like 500 free photoshop tutorials to help you polish your images. This tutorial series, so far, has been one of my favorites. Aaron Nace, the founder of Phlearn, shows us a new technique with custom brushes for giving your subjects a unique corporate head shot look. This tutorial is a 4 part video series, enjoy.

PSA: What You Need to Know Before Upgrading to OS X 10.11 El Capitan Today

While some physical improvements with Spotlight, Photos, Safari, and other Apple apps are definitely welcome with today's new OS X release, perhaps the most exciting aspect of El Capitan are the under-the-hood improvements for performance gains. There’s no need to explain how time-saving performance upgrades can be for working professionals — and for those reasons, everyone will want to update immediately. But there are some things to always take into consideration before an operating system upgrade.

How Handheld Focus Stacking Works

I always take a tripod with me in addition to my camera when I'm out on a hiking or scouting trip because there can always be an unexpected photo opportunity. And since I apply focus stacking to nearly all of my photos to ensure optimal sharpness, photographing handheld is not an option. Or is it? In this article, I show you how to use the automatic focus bracketing feature of modern cameras to perform handheld focus stacking.

5 Reasons to Choose Capture One Over Adobe Lightroom

If you’re not a fan of Adobe’s subscription plans or find that editing your photos isn’t quite as quick as you’d like, you might want to consider checking out Capture One. Here are five reasons to make the move and five more reasons to stick with Lightroom.

Our First Look at Luminar Neo Noiseless AI

I've had a preview release of the Noiseless AI extension that will be offered for Luminar Neo users on August 30. It's not quite finished it terms of GUI, but basic functionality is there. My copy only runs under Rosetta on my Mac Studio, but at release, it will be Apple Silicon Native.

5 Best Plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom

In this video, I share my five favorite plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom. Those are tools I don't want to live without, and the best part is: two of those are totally free.

How To Create A Textured "Dodge And Burn" Look In Seconds

My buddy and Germany-based Photoshop World instructor Calvin Hollywood has created a site called Photoshop Freaks which gives countless post-production tutorials. Recently he posted a video about how to give your photo that extra textured look and feel in a matter of seconds. It like a slight "high-pass" appearance without all of the messy glowing contrast lines or over-sharpening.

8 Steps to Better Milky Way Editing in Lightroom

Editing pictures of the Milky Way is difficult to get right. Which white balance do you use? How bright should the scene be? How do you remove excessive noise without stars disappearing? Well, follow these eight steps for image editing success on the galactic scale with Lightroom Classic.

Five Editing Tools Every Photographer Should Know

Modern editing applications offer a veritable plethora of tools to both evaluate the information in your photos and to edit them to whatever creative vision you have in mind. This excellent video will show you five fundamental tools that every photographer should know how to use to edit their photos efficiently and effectively.

5 Editing Mistakes That Make Your Photos Look Amateur

Post-production of your photography can feel like a minefield when you first start; overwhelming, endlessly complicated, and confusing. In this video, Pat Kay goes over five common mistakes that can ruin your images.
How to Straighten a Tilted Photo in Photoshop Without Cropping

We've all done it: you've taken an image you like but the horizon isn't quite straight and you didn't give yourself enough room to crop without sacrificing your composition. Here is how you can easily straighten a tilted photograph without cropping by using Adobe Photoshop.