Photography Education

Want to improve your images? Here are seven rarely talked-about approaches, not involving the camera settings or composition, that may help you take your photography to the next level. 

Luminar AI offers a lot of impressive automated capabilities to allow you to quickly and effectively tackle a wide variety of edits and creative styles. If you are new to the program or wondering what it is capable of, check out this awesome video tutorial that will show you how to enhance an image using Luminar AI. 

There are few more frustrating feelings than boredom, particularly if you need to be creative for a living. However, if you can harness that and make it work for you, boredom can be the catalyst for outlandish creativity you might not have otherwise thought of. 

A photographer has built his own DIY ultra-large format digital camera from scratch. The rig uses a 600mm f/9 lens and has a projection area of one meter, making for some crazy images. 

Most portrait photography tutorials focus on photographing women, but of course, the vast majority of photographers will spend their careers photographing men in addition to women. This fantastic video tutorial will give you a lot of very practical and helpful tips for posing men and getting better portrait photos.  

What makes a good lifestyle photo? Lifestyle photography has a specific charm to its viewers. Effective photographs allow the viewers to relate and catch a glimpse of what the subjects represent. There are, however, certain challenges that make the process a little bit harder.  

If you're like most photographers, you think there are three factors affecting depth of field. In that case, you would be incorrect - there are indeed four factors affecting depth of field. Do you know what they are? 

One of the marks of a professional photographer is a strong command of the use of color, particularly the ability to make colors pop and grab the eye without crossing the line into gaudy and tacky. This excellent video tutorial will show you three different ways to make colors pop in Photoshop.  

No doubt, a good sunset picture is a classic that will never go out of style, but that being said, given the extreme dynamic range, it presents a challenge to the photographer when it comes to exposure. This excellent video tutorial features four great ways to ensure that you get a properly exposed sunset photo that captures all the drama and beauty of the scene.  

Perhaps no lighting modifier is as versatile for the price as a v-flat, filling in as a flag, reflector, or even a background. This fantastic video tutorial will show you how to use one both to create dramatic hard light and flattering soft light for compelling portraits. 

You probably traditionally think of dodging and burning as something used mostly for sculpting facial features in portraits, but at its core, dodging and burning is about shaping light and is thus applicable in any genre. This fantastic video tutorial will show you how to can use it to add more dimension to your landscape photos. 

The light and airy look is highly popular for weddings, family photography, and more, and one of the most important aspects of it is the skin tones. This helpful video tutorial will show you three great tips for getting luminous skin tones in Lightroom. 

When it comes to portrait photography, one of the most important choices you will make is the focal length you will use, both because it determines the overall look of the frame and because separate focal lengths can render your subject in drastically different ways.

Business portraits live in their own world distinct from normal portraits, and they have their own considerations and techniques you should be aware of before you set out on a shoot. This helpful video tutorial discusses five common business portrait mistakes photographers make and how to either fix them or avoid them altogether.  

Profoto sent us a couple of newly released softboxes. Let's test them out.  

Landscape photography and camping seem almost meant for each other, especially if you want to capture things like a sunrise or early morning fog. So, if you are headed out for such a trip, what do you need to pack? This excellent video tutorial features a seasoned landscape photographer discussing what he packs on overnight trips.  

Green can be a particularly unflattering color to have present in the skin, as it can make people look rather sickly. If you shoot portraits outdoors, it will often appear in the subject's skin. Luckily, it is not particularly hard to correct, and this excellent video tutorial will show you how to fix it quickly and effectively using Photoshop. 

There’s so much more to black and white than the simple removal of color. We must understand both color and tone, plus their relationship with the world of monochrome. Here are 10 tips to help you become a better black and white photographer. 

Minimalist long exposures of moving water are a highly popular look for landscape photographers, but they also take careful consideration of your composition to avoid crossing the line between minimalist and simplistic.

Headshots really aren't rocket science, but sub-par images being created, which can break the personal brand for which they are intended. This short video points out five relatively simple things that can be fixed with a little preparation before your next headshot session. 

Even if it is not your specialty, product photography is a great genre to practice because it will seriously challenge your lighting and editing skills, both of which will likely carry over to other genres in which you work. This fantastic video tutorial will show you how to light, shoot, and edit a dramatic multiple-product shot using just three speedlights.  

As busy at professional photographers are with a myriad of different things, it might seem ridiculous to suggest adding a personal project on top of the pile. However, many professionals will tell you that a personal project can be the most important thing you do with your camera.

The histogram is that graph that accompanies your image. It tells you a lot about not only about the exposure, but also the contrast of your photograph. Knowing how it works can help you improve your photography, and it’s not a difficult thing to learn.

Wedding photography requires you to be at the top of your game, as there are a lot of must-have shots and no second chances. One of the most important sets of images is the family formals, and this helpful video tutorial will show you how to shoot them quickly, effectively, and with as little stress as possible.  

Unfortunately, wedding reception venues are not really designed with photographers in mind and are often quite dark, but your clients will still expect high-quality photos of their special day. So, how can you ensure that you are getting top-notch images?

We talk a lot about the many things it takes to be a successful photographer, including strong creativity, good technique, and excellent business skills. However, before anything else, it requires the proper mindset for success. If you struggle with that, this fantastic video essay will help you get back on the right track.  

It might seem like a strange thing to reduce the size of stars in a night sky photo, but if you want to better show off deep-sky objects, it can help bring them to the fore. With so many stars in the sky, it can be a bit of a tedious task, however. This great video tutorial will show you three different methods for reducing the size of stars both easily and efficiently.  

The basic workflow for most photographers is taking a photo, pulling out the memory card, putting it in the computer, and importing photos into their processing application of choice. However, many professional studio photographers use tethering to more efficiently transfer their images to their computer, but it comes with a lot more benefits than just making the pipeline more efficient.

For most photographers, Lightroom is the place where their photos start and often, where they finish. When you are first starting in photography, it is probably the program you will first need to master, and this excellent video tutorial will show you how everything you need to know about editing a photo with it.  

Sensor size is one of the most fundamental and influential aspects of a camera, and often, when you buy into a certain camera system, you are committing yourself to a certain sensor size unless you spend a lot of money to switch systems again. So, what is the right sensor size for your work?

Kit lenses frequently get a bad reputation as it is, but one photography instructor took things to the next level and banned them from her course. As is typical on the internet, outrage ensued.

Composition and camera settings reign above all in landscape photography, and a good image is made in the choices you make at that stage. This fantastic video tutorial follows a seasoned landscape photographer as he visits four different locations and discusses the light, his composition, lens choices, settings, and more that lead to his final images. 

In landscape photography, a single scene can yield vastly different images simply by how you choose your camera settings. As such, this is a place where a lot of things can go awry.

I love using reflections for my landscape photography. A nice sunrise or sunset with a reflection of the colored sky in a pond or lake is very rewarding. But you can find reflections everywhere. I tell you about it in this article. 

Chromatic aberration is by far one of the most common lens issues you will have to deal with, particularly with cheaper lenses or wide-aperture primes, and it can be quite distracting if not addressed. Thankfully, most post-processing programs can handle it quite easily nowadays.

Once you have the basics of using artificial lighting down, you can start to really explore your creativity and develop a recognizable personal style by exploring more unique ways of using lighting. This quick and to-the-point video tutorial will give a few helpful tips and ideas for creative lighting for portraits.  

How do you go about choosing lenses for what you're going to shoot? In this video, Roger Deakins shares his methods. The rules aren't made up by filmmakers. It's about how you want your audience to experience the shot.  

A photography workshop is a fantastic way to fast-track your learning, but going into it completely blind might cost you time and money, so it's essential you do these eight things before attending. 

Photoshop offers a huge range of ways to make selections for extracting parts of a frame or creating layers masks, each appropriate for different situations.

Macro photography has many challenges that are unique to it, but when you can overcome them, you can produce entrancing photos of seemingly mundane things right around you.

In landscape photography, some locations are just tricky to shoot, even if their photographic potential is plainly obvious. And while it is tempting to just pack it up and move to the next location, before you do that, try returning to the basic principles and working the scene to get as many compositions as possible.

Depending on what genre you shoot in, you can often come home with literally thousands of images from a shoot, and culling them can be a tremendously tedious and annoying process. While you can cull in Lightroom, it is not always the fastest, particularly when it comes to rendering previews.

We live in a world where most of our images are intended for an audience. In this article, I’ll share some ways to circumvent that way of thinking to create simply to create.

When you're a new photographer, there is an abundance of information to take in, some of it useful, much of it not. The question is, what is white noise? Here are six things that one photographer believes people new to craft ought to ignore. 

Printing professional-quality images can be an intimidating task if you are new to it. However, it doesn't need to be overly complicated. By following a few simple steps you can easily create high-end prints ready for your walls or print sales. 

Astrophotography is by far one of the most specialized genres out there, requiring quite a bit of specific equipment, software, and technique, but capturing things that are unfathomable distances away can be really rewarding.

Bird photography is a very challenging genre that requires a lot of specialized knowledge, top-tier technique, and patience, but when it all comes together, it can reward you with stunning photos.

Photography is something we all choose to do willingly, and as such, it should be something that makes us happy. Nonetheless, a lot of photographers are not particularly happy, which is a shame. Why is that, though? This insightful video essay discusses some of the possible reasons.  

You could spend a lifetime out in nature with your camera and still barely scratch the surface of what is out there to photograph. If you would like to improve your landscape and nature photography, check out this fantastic video tutorial that features five helpful tips that will improve your work and expand your creative palette.  

Doing photography professionally will change the way you shoot and operate. If you are planning to go professional or have recently done so, these might be of help.