There are many different ways to accomplish the same thing when it comes to editing your photos. I absolutely love learning new and more efficient techniques for my workflow, and I hope this method will do exactly that.
No doubt, zoom lenses are extremely convenient and useful for a wide variety of applications across a wide range of genres. Nonetheless, prime lenses can help you improve by forcing you into creative problem-solving, and this fantastic video essay discusses why you might want to try using them more often.
There are hundreds if not thousands of posts discussing why creative vision is the most important aspect of photography. Why, then, are we so obsessed with gear?
Got dust? Yea, thought so. In this article we'll delve into the surprising array of effects that different types of lens and sensor contamination can have on image quality. Some of them kind of cool. None of them good.
Focal reducers are relatively rare compared to teleconverters, though they work based on the same idea (simply employed in reverse). If you have not seen them in use before, this awesome video tutorial will show you how they work and why they are useful.
In this video tutorial, watch as Dean Samed gives you the low down on all things stock image related. The video is from the perspective of a photo manipulator.
Diffraction is a fundamental physical property, and no matter how expensive your lenses are or how advanced their designs might be, there is no hiding from it. If you are unfamiliar with diffraction, this fantastic video tutorial will show you why it happens and why you should be aware of it in your own work.
Foggy, misty, and moody. Landscape photographs don‘t always need to be epic and colorful. In this article, I share a few tips on how to find foggy and misty landscapes.
Of all the cosmetic imperfections you might be asked to retouch, one of the most common by far is dark circles under the eyes. This great video tutorial will show you how to easily and convincingly remove them using Photoshop, and it will only take a minute to learn how.
In this Photoshop layer breakdown, watch as I talk you through all the various Photoshop layers that it took to create this huge composite.
Learning how to use artificial lighting for portraits can free you from the constraints of natural light and enable new creative opportunities that simply would not be possible otherwise. Nonetheless, it can feel very foreign when you are first starting and also trying to manage directing your subject.
When it comes to artificial lighting, your choice of modifier is one of the most fundamental and crucial creative and technical decisions in the entire process.
When a storm hits it is time to grab your camera and get out shooting because the light and dynamics of the weather are phenomenal!
Using a very shallow depth of field is highly popular for portrait photography, but when you combine that with flash, you can run into a tricky situation when you bump into your flash sync speed. There are two ways around this: high speed sync and ND filters. Which is right for your work?
In this video tutorial, watch as Abbey Esparza shows you how to use advanced blending with Blend if in Photoshop.
Landscape images frequently demand extreme dynamic range, often beyond the capabilities of even the most modern sensors. There are a few ways around this issue, with exposure bracketing and graduated ND filters being two of the most common solutions, and this great video tutorial discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Food photography is a tricky genre that requires a strong sense of composition, great lighting techniques, and a large working knowledge of various tricks of the trade. If you are struggling with your food photography, this excellent video tutorial will show you seven common mistakes and how to avoid or fix them.
When I teach someone photography, one of the things that I make sure the student knows is how the camera meters a scene. Once you understand how the camera meter actually works, you learn that your camera isn't as smart as you thought it was.
You can learn a lot about the objective nature of photography — settings, editing techniques, and more — and you can learn to create well-polished images. But knowing how to create images with meaning is something a bit more nebulous, particularly when your photos are devoid of people.
Feeling stagnant in your editing recently and looking for some fresh ideas? While you might not use all of these tips, they should help reinvigorate your editing flow and get you thinking outside of the box for tools you might be familiar with or completely new to.
Part of the difficulty of finding success as a photographer is that the pathway there is a bit more nebulous and less codified than more traditional careers. If you are struggling a bit right now, this excellent video essay discusses an array of things that might be holding you back and what you can do to correct them and increase your chances of finding success.
It might seem like there is a pretty straightforward correlation between sensor size, resolution, and maximum reasonable print size, but the relationship is a bit more complicated than just those specific variables. This great video examines the sort of print sizes you can reasonably create using photos from an iPhone, an APS-C camera, and a medium format body.
Infinite view, the soothing repetitive sound of crashing waves, and probably the most romantic sunrises draw us to the sea. Where many people relax and leave their care behind, photographers start to struggle: what's the right shutter speed?
Photographing forests is one of the harder parts of landscape and nature photography. This editing trick might change how you approach your subject.
Having talent and refined skills as a commercial or fashion photographer is only half the equation; knowing how to properly price your services and market yourself is just as crucial to getting paid what you are worth. This excellent video discusses five pricing mistakes fashion and commercial photographers make and how to fix them.
After the year that was 2020, a lot of us need to reevaluate our photography businesses and find ways to make them more efficient and more effective in the future to come. This helpful video tutorial discusses five ways to improve your business in 2021.
When we learn about portrait photography, we generally focus on things involving the subject: posing, retouching, etc. However, your subject also needs to be surrounded by a compelling composition to complete the image, and this fantastic video tutorial will give you some great tips for improving yours.
The difference between the saturation and vibrance sliders might seem small or even imperceptible at times, but the two have distinct purposes and functions that make them useful for separate applications. This fantastic video tutorial will show you the differences between vibrance and saturation as well as how to use them to improve your photos.
Knowing how to pose your subject, light them properly, and take a good photo is only half of what it takes to create a good portrait. Knowing how to retouch your subject effectively while still maintaining a natural look is the other half of creating a successful portrait, and this fantastic video tutorial will show you how to do it.
There has been a concept in self-improvement that has been quietly growing for me, but one book I read in 2020 caused the eruption of the idea, and it has changed the way I approach photography, as well as every other area of my life.
Lens filters are some of the most common and often misunderstood photo accessories out there, but they can be tremendously useful for a wide variety of applications. This excellent video tutorial will introduce you to the various types of lens filters, their purposes, and how to use them to take greater control over your images.
Running a successful YouTube channel is the dream of a lot of creatives, but with the platform more inundated than ever before, it takes a lot of careful planning and skill to stand out from everyone else. If you are ready to start your channel this year, this excellent video tutorial offers lots of helpful advice and guidance to put you on the right path.
Lightroom isn't just powerful editing software, it can organize your entire photo library so efficiently you'll never have to go searching for photos ever again.
In this video tutorial, watch as Redouane Naouri shows you how to create a gel color lighting effect in Photoshop.
In this video tutorial, watch as Abbey Esparza shows you the best ways to use select and mask in Photoshop. Using select and mask can be tricky, to select hair, but this tutorial will show you how to do it in seconds.
When you are working with artificial light, you often have to think about not only controlling the flash, but the ambient light as well.
You might think that Photoshop is the place for serious color grading work, but Lightroom can accomplish quite a bit, particularly with its new, upgraded color tools. This great video tutorial will show you a variety of tips and techniques for color grading images using Lightroom.
Editing is a huge part of landscape photography and the chance for you to add your personal style to your images. If you are looking to improve your own editing, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you seven different editing techniques that are useful for working with landscape photos.
In this video tutorial, watch as I show you how to create a cool glitch effect in under five minutes in Photoshop.
Creating a successful landscape photograph is just as much about your post-processing technique as it is about the process of shooting it. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to shoot and edit a landscape image from start to finish.
Waiting for that new camera or gear to arrive can be a somewhat anxious time. I don't know about you, but when I finally decide on a product after much research, I want it right away. However, there are some things you can do while you're waiting for that new camera to arrive.
After a recent landscape session in the rain, I was shocked. Reviewing the files at home, I found that I accidentally shot in JPEG. Is all lost now? Let’s take a look at this very underrated format.
Any genre has bad habits that people routinely fall into, and that includes fashion photography. This excellent video essay discusses eight common bad habits fashion photographers fall into, why they are bad, and how to avoid or fix them.
ISO is one of the three fundamental exposure parameters and something you need to have mastered to take successful photos. If you are new to photography and still working on learning the basics, this great video tutorial will show you everything you need to know about ISO.
Artificial lighting affords you a wide variety of creative and practical options, but it is not always reasonable or feasible to use it, particularly at home. That does not mean you can't create professional portraits, though, and this fantastic video tutorial will show you how to do it.
Portraiture is a popular genre that challenges both your technical skills behind the camera and your ability to interact with people to draw the best poses and expressions from them. If you are new to shooting portraits, this fantastic video tutorial will give you three tips to keep in mind no matter how far you advance.
After you have been photographing for a couple years, you are likely to amass quite the collection of photos, and it can be a bit difficult to find what you need once you have thousands upon thousands of images to sort through.
Flash can be an excellent tool to freeze motion, especially when you are working in the studio or do not have extreme amounts of available light for using ultra-fast shutter speeds. But you can get even more creative results by mixing the freezing power of a flash with a long exposure that captures motion, and this fantastic video tutorial will show you how it is done.
There are moments when it's difficult to go out photographing. Perhaps the weather is too bad, or it becomes dark too soon during wintertime. I have a couple of suggestions to spend these periods with less inspiration in a useful way.
When you upload your image to Facebook or Instagram, are you noticing a loss in image quality? Are you uploading optimized images for social and the web?