Composite

Don't get me wrong, natural light and golden hour are gorgeous and a huge part of what we do. But, in addition to these types of photographs, we have built our name on imagery that differs from the typical wedding or couples photograph. Our studio (Lin and Jirsa Photography) has become known for unique and epic environmental portraits. While almost every client wants golden hour imagery, these stand-out epics help draw clients to our brand in the first place.

Let's chat about stock photography. I've used stock sites for nearly a decade while working as a designer and commercial photographer with great success. Most of the options I used in the past left a lot to be desired, which is why last year, I switched over to Adobe Stock. I made the change for many reasons, but the most important was their integration into Adobe Creative Cloud.

Mark Duffy is an Irish photographer, graphic designer, and drummer with a shaved head and a glorious beard. He has a pretty slick new YouTube channel where he intends to teach people how he goes about editing his photos using Photoshop and Lightroom. In this video Duffy teaches us how to create double exposures in Photoshop.

NO SPOILERS HERE! Just in case you were worried. They say inspiration can come from anywhere, and I have to say that definitely couldn't be more true. For one photographer, it came in the form of one his favorite TV Shows. Commercial automotive photographer Pepper Yandell took his work with automotive photography and digital retouching, and combined it with imagery and concepts from the Netflix Series "Stranger Things" to make a truly unique photograph featuring one Lamborghini, and a monster from the show.

Thomas Heaton created a new set of videos last week about one of my favorite topics and shooting styles: landscape panoramas. I love photographing night skies and landscapes this way and the technique overall is very simple yet can give fantastic results. The best time to start learning how to shoot panoramas is during the day and Heaton takes us through his photography of a great autumn scene and explains what, why, and how he is capturing the images before he goes into his post processing.

Making composites look seamless and realistic is the ultimate goal of a digital artist. In this tutorial, you will learn a simple and very effective technique for matching the degree of saturation of your background and subject.

Antti Karppinen is a digital artist, photographer, retoucher, and instructor from Finland with a unique eye for visual storytelling through photography. His work relies on traditional photography skills combined with an active imagination and complex Photoshop editing work to create fantastical images. He spoke with me about his work, process, and the inspiration behind a couple of his most popular composites.

One of the biggest challenges society faces today is modern technology. It's a double-edged sword that if not handled properly, can quickly become a problem where human-to-human interaction digresses. Photographer Andreas Varro believes this is a problem that needs attention, and he sought out to bring awareness to this issue the best way he knows how.

They say the best camera is the one that is with you, but what if that particular camera is lacking in megapixels? Here's how to take advantage of the camera you already own and make some giant image files and extra large photo prints.

Matching the tones is the most challenging part of creating composite images. You may find numerous tutorials on the Internet about matching tones and smooth blending of the composite elements, however this technique by Antti Karppinen is the best I’ve seen so far as it even helps with blending images that are shot under different lights.

Landscape photographer Thomas Heaton has been releasing one hit after another on his Youtube channel lately and his newest video is one of my favorites. Focus stacking is a great and relatively simple trick any photographer can use to add a unique look to your images.

When you're creating a composite image, it's a game of balancing and matching a ton of parameters to make the different elements convincingly look as if they all originated in the same frame. This helpful tutorial will show you some of the most important aspects you need to have mastered to create your best composite work.

Love it or hate it, Halloween is right around the corner and it’s the perfect time of the year for spooky costumes, creative photography, and in the case of this video, some slick composite work in Photoshop.

Sometimes our creations behind the camera simply cannot be taken with just one frame, or perhaps you cannot travel to the destinations that would work perfectly with your concept. This is why some photographers choose to composite their images. Antti Karppinen shows off his most used composite image technique from his latest project "Kuopio Inspiration is a Force of Nature."

The Get Well Tree is the latest touching project from the talented collaboration The heART Project. Many of the previous projects have been featured here. Each one brings amazing artists and sponsors together to help bring love and smiles to a family that has experienced some form of hardship. This time the project follows two childhood cancer survivors on a fantasy journey through a dream-like world. 12 photographers came together to create a 14-page photo storybook staring these two heroic little girls.