The character of your portraits is conveyed by many different elements, but a crucial one is the eyes of your subject. In this short tutorial, I’ll show you how to make eyes pop without making them look fake.

From a retouching standpoint, there are few things more unpleasant or challenging than dealing with chunks of hair on the face, missing patches of skin texture and large folds of skin. Generally the existing tools in photoshop such as the healing brush or patch tool fail in these situations and we often end up with unnatural or unpolished results. When all else fails I often turn to a technique called texture grafting to deal with a multitude of issues.

In short, no it is not. But a few minor dealbreakers are all that stand between leaving this camera on the shelf, and making it best digital camera in its class.

After nearly a month of capturing video, stills, and timelapse media with the Panasonic GH4, I laughed, I cried, and I almost threw it off a mountain. At times it was a joy to shoot with, and other times it wouldn’t even power on with a full battery. I’ll give you a complete, unbiased rundown in my full review, complete with video samples.

With the multiple methods of sharpening in Photoshop, a big issue is that many of them are applied globally without any consideration to edges and areas with varying level of per-existing sharpness. The result of these techniques can enhance issues of fringing or inconsistent results across the image. This method by Michael Woloszynowicz is by far the most intelligent method I've seen so far.

You read that headline correctly. After making a huge splashes in the motion-capture industry since 2005, Red has big plans to be the only camera system you use on set for both your motion AND still photography needs, and it's closer to being a reality than you would think. Prepare to have your minds blown.

Adobe has rolled out some impressive updates to Photoshop and Lightroom, particularly when it comes to automated tools. The new masking tool in Lightroom allows for automatic selections of skies and subjects, but how good is it?

Topaz Labs Photo AI has been officially released, so take a look here to see what it is, how to use it, and how well it sharpens a blurry photograph.

Our ability to perceive the environment around us in the visual spectrum, or visual perception, is a combination of molecular biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology. These various vision mechanisms often change how we perceive what we see and can even vary depending on the environment in which we see them.

Have you ever wondered when, and why you should crop a photo? In this post I'll explain how using the crop tool effectively can hugely improve the storytelling abilities in your photography. I'll also show you how cropping a photo can take your shot from average to great by allowing you to follow some key rules of composition.

Every photographer has been faced with the task of photographing subjects in front of beautiful sunrises or sunsets. Ideally, you'd have a light, but if you don't or the subject is too large to light, you're going to have to fix the image in post.

When speaking of retouching, most people think of cleaning skin and altering the body shape. However, retouching goes further than that. Colors play such a significant role in an image, that forgetting about them would be a great mistake. Just like a good makeup artist shouldn't limit their job to the model's face, a good retoucher shouldn't stop the job with cleaning skin.

There are lots of presets out there for sale emulating the look of film. Enough so that when I heard that Mastin Labs released one I didn't pay too much attention. Fortunately, because of the nudge of a friend, I decided to look into it a little further and I am glad I did. This is the first time I have seen a Lightroom preset designed by a film shooter for film shooters to help them match their digital images from a wedding with those shot on their film. Fortunately for those only shooting digital, you can benefit as well.

How far should you actually go in post-processing a landscape photograph?

Imagine yourself under a starry night sky. Wouldn’t it be great to capture the Milky Way to show it at home or on the web? Unfortunately, you are left with a black frame after you’ve pointed the camera upwards at settings you are used to. It's time to open up the aperture, lengthen the exposure, and bump up the ISO. You will introduce noise, but do you really care? Aren’t there tools out there to reduce noise but still keep the detail?

When it comes to processing your digital images, there are so many tools available to you and sometimes the process can seem a bit convoluted. Personally, I like to use a mix of both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to make the most out of my images. Perhaps I'll throw Capture One in the mix one of these days, but for now all of my postproduction work is done using Adobe software. This brief tutorial goes over one of the lesser-known tools that exists both in Lightroom and Photoshop, the Dehaze tool.

I’m a big fan of getting images right in camera, and it's something that strive to do. I think there is something to be said for the skill that it takes, especially when shooting an event like a wedding. Getting the perfect light, the perfect composition, and the perfect moment while dealing with all the different variables of the day is quite a feat. The main image I’m going to be talking about today, though, does not fit into this category, but it still manages to be one of my favorite and most "liked” images.

Nail white balance in Lightroom every time with these simple steps and techniques you can use on any photograph.

Photos often lack a real punch when we import them for editing, this is especially apparent when importing raw files to Lightroom because it strips the shot of the overriding camera settings making them seem lackluster. Luckily, there are 10 simple ways you can make your colors pop once again.

Apple's iPad line, particularly the iPad Pro, is more powerful than ever and features fantastic displays paired with useful accessories for creatives on the go, making them a more viable solution for post-processing work than ever before. If you are thinking of editing your photos on your iPad and wondering where to start, this great video will show you three editing applications and discuss their pros and cons to get you up and running in no time.

Have you ever had to shoot a photograph at f/11 while wishing you were shooting f/1.8? If you've ever wanted to change the depth of field of a photograph, you know that creating a depth map isn’t the easiest thing to do. Instead of struggling to create the perfect depth map in Adobe Photoshop, using selections and brushes, this video guides you down a simpler path.

We're going to build our very own photographers PC, capable of working at blazing speeds with 50-megapixel images and dozens of layers in Adobe Photoshop. The high-end system we will be discussing here will have a budget of $1,500 in mind. For this, we're going to build our post-processing dream PC, but it doesn't include a monitor. Let's start comparing specs.

A new year and another Photoshop AI feature to get excited about. This time, we're going to look at how you can take poor, low quality images with tiny file sizes and plenty of ugly artifacts and turn them into images of such quality you could even consider printing them.

Liquify gets a bad rap. Its misuse accounts for a pretty alarming number of Photoshop disasters. And although it is easy to learn, it does take a great deal of time and energy to master. Luckily, Aaron Nace over at Phlearn is here to help. Known primarily as the "digital plastic surgeon" of Photoshop, the liquify tool can also be applied to tremendous effect when it comes to making clothes fit to perfection - and that's exactly what this video shows.

A new app update is bringing depth-based photo editing into reality.

The long awaited version 3 of Luminar from Skylum arrived this month. It held the promise of new features, and digital assets management tools (DAM) that would rival Lightroom. That's important, because some percentage of photographers don't like the Adobe subscription model, and while powerful, Lightroom's Library management can be a pain. Of course others love it, and would never switch.

A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed ACDSee's latest photo editing software release and even said it could replace Adobe products in many ways for Windows users. It was only wise to back that statement up with two complementary articles, this one being the first, showing to Adobe users how they could switch from Lightroom to ACDSee. In today’s write-up, I’ll concentrate on bringing files from previous Lightroom catalogs into ACDSee and also on how to manage your pictures in ACDSee Ultimate 2018.

Lightroom has become even better and more powerful the past few years and knowing all the little tips and tricks in the software with each new update can be a class in itself. Here’s five techniques you may not know that the Adobe raw processor can do to help you make better images faster and easier.

The mistakes you make in life, including photography, leave a tart, bitter taste in your mouth, especially when they’re your fault and entirely avoidable. The solution? Don't make them. Here are three easy steps photographers from any genre can implement to immediately improve compositions and eliminate unnecessary errors.

When shooting digitally, more information is almost always better. Here’s an exposure technique that maximizes the available information your camera can gather in a photograph.

Lightroom is sometimes underutilized during post-production and IPS (in-person sales) during a boudoir reveal. Here are some tricks to increase the speed of your IPS sessions in order to move fluidly through the sales process and increase the number of clients who upgrade to your next collection.

Photography is all relative to the creator and the viewers, so the decision of whether to underexpose, overexpose, or to expose your portraits evenly is obviously subject to personal preference. There is merit to any of the methodologies that you could apply to your own photography and it really just comes down to figuring out what works best for you and your gear.

The times of oversaturating and selective coloring might be over, but clarity is here to pick up where those post-processing horrors left of. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that clarity is an amazing effect that can do wonders on your images… just not if you use it on the whole image and crank it to the max. I realize, that seeing this sudden increase in drama and grittiness might feel satisfying to some but too often has it used in attempts to turn uninteresting photos into something that they are not.

Talk to a photographer long enough and the question of screen calibration will be brought up. Often many will say it's an incredibly important tool in your post production workflow, and often many more disregard it all together. So what is screen calibration? Is it still a viable issue within photography today, or is it becoming more and more obsolete, like sync cables and light meters? I'm here to explain it to you.

We need a new PC for our new studio in Puerto Rico and for this build, we are going all out.

ChatGPT has been a breakthrough moment for some industries this past week. It can literally turn ideas into reality, but is it good enough to create motion graphics in Adobe’s After Effects?

For many photographers, particularly hobbyists, making an image black and white is almost arbitrary. I remember in the early days of my photography, I was the same. I would mutter: "I wonder if this would look good in black and white," and then, I'd try it. Sometimes, it would look better, but usually, it would not. I presumed it was all just down to taste, but that's not true. After years of reading around the subject and experimenting, I began to understand why it worked when it did and conversely, why it often didn't. Here are some key elements that ought to be present in black and white images, and why.

We have all been guilty of watching someone’s Instagram account and wonder how the hell the pictures are edited. Sebastian from TechGenie has recently been creating videos to demonstrate how to mimic some famous Instagramers editing style. The latest one on the list is named Sam Kolder and his desatured teal and orange look.

In the vast majority of my photos, I aim for one specific thing during editing.

A woman from Arizona has had her late fiance's images imposed into wedding photos. She is absolutely thrilled with the results but it opens a wider discussion in this age of digital photography: where is the line drawn when it comes to creative editing?

Since the beginning of my adventure into photography, Photoshop has been the go-to tool for cutting out a subject and creating complex masks. With ON1 Photo RAW, this process has become so much simpler.

During the last weeks I took a look at the free and open Software “Darktable”. In this round-up I’ll explain why Darktable is a true and legit alternative – but not suitable for everyone.

Just like everything in life, Photoshop techniques change or require slight adjustments. What may have been perfect two years ago might not necessarily be perfect now. And so it is with changing colors of objects in Photoshop. Here is the latest on how to do it effortlessly.

If you're open to more heavy-handed retouching of your images, you have almost limitless possibilities of what you can do with even the blandest of images. In this tutorial, learn how to create realistic light rays and dappled light to add some atmosphere to a photograph.

One of the best climbing photographs that I’ve ever taken came out of my recent trip to Switzerland. Here’s how I edited it using Lightroom, deploying a few subtle techniques using adjustment brushes to make the most of the colors and dramatic conditions.

When looking at portraits, we have a tendency to look at the eyes first. We can't help it, it's part of human nature. This is why I personally believe it is extremely important to capture and refine the eyes in your photos to create more engaging portraits. Retoucher Michael Woloszynowicz created an awesome 4 part video series about how to make your eyes look amazing in post production. See the rest of the post below to watch video parts 2 through 4.

Kim A. Thomas, a photographer out of San Francisco, recently shot an entire wedding using just her iPhone. She processed everything using Instagram as well. The couple, Jonathan and Brandi, wanted her to do so by request. She never used an SLR for any of the shots. Her main camera was the iPhone 4s with an iPhone 4 as a backup. She did use an SLR mount for her lenses and a tripod. Take a look at the shots and let us know what you think of them!