One of the most discussed topics I see all over the internet, is about this lens being sharper than that lens, etc. and splitting hairs as to which one is 5% sharper.
One of the basic skills of video post-production is color correction. While Adobe Premiere Pro is full of tools to help you both read and correct the color in your work, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to tackle them all at first. This great video will walk through the basics to get you off and running.
Filmmaking is a tough thing; you need to be thinking on multiple levels simultaneously, and any one mistake can derail the final product. This great video will walk you through 15 such mistakes and how to recognize and avoid them.
A lot of people came to visit when I shared why most of us are not exactly the best at Instagram due to lack of hustle and effort. When someone takes the time to comment or like a few photos I will usually take the few seconds to go see their profile and immediately judge it. We all do it. Sometimes it is a good impression, but often since the majority of us don't plan the posts much, it is not. There are people out there doing it much better than us though. Let me show you some profiles that have a stunning first impression.
If you're looking for a fresh, clean look to your images, diving into minimalism can be a great exercise. This tutorial gives seven quick tips on how to work with such a style, which is often popular with brands and on social media.
The video has some great points with practical tips on how to get your creative juices flowing and basically setting yourself up with some barriers to challenge yourself and making the best of the situation. Peter McKinnon goes through a list of things he does to challenge himself to keep being creative and to get out of the comfort zone and push your creative being to another level.
Shooting with flash can seem daunting at times, but it also opens up a whole new world of possibilities to take some truly epic photos that just wouldn't be possible with natural light. As a minor control freak, I was drawn to shooting with flash pretty early on in my career because I wanted to have control of the elements that made up my image. I didn't like the idea having to rely on what the sun was doing to determine whether or not I would be able to create the image that I envisioned. I wanted control so I took it. If you’re on the fence about whether or not you should start shooting with flash, this tutorial is for you.
So, you decided to kick iPhoto to the curb and step up to Lightroom, but you need a little help getting started. This great tutorial will show you the ins and outs of the application and get you up and running in no time.
As a professional wedding photographer, I spend a lot of time with people in front of my camera. But because I grew up racing motocross and driving fast cars, I have always been intrigued by automotive photography. So when I was asked by a friend of mine if I wanted to help shoot a 80s-styled cafe racer motorcycle, I jumped at the opportunity. Add to this that the shoot was going to be inside of an arcade filled with old-school machines, and this shoot sounded like one amazing time.
Whether you're shooting for a client or just creating something for your portfolio, working with a team of people can be one of the most difficult and intricate parts of the job. Don't worry, because there is a simple piece of paper that can make your life a whole lot easier; it's called a Call Sheet, and I'm going to tell you why you need one.
We all work so hard preparing, shooting, retouching, and giving our all to creating our images. After everything is finished and the photos look amazing, we can't wait to share our photos to the world! But how do we know we're uploading the highest quality photos possible? Last year, I shared with you all a preset that I use daily to export photos out of Lightroom for Facebook. In this article, I'll add to my list of recommendations and show you two options that I swear by and have tested over-and-over to make sure I share crisp not only Facebook, but other mediums such as my website; so you can share the same quality!
Importing files from a memory card onto a computer doesn’t seem to be a complicated task, and it shouldn’t be. However, it’s probably one of the most crucial parts of your workflow. If you forget a file on your card or format and reuse the wrong one, it can generate bigger issues than any photographer would like to face. Because let’s be honest, no one wants to tell a client that files have been lost… let alone a full job! There is a trick to avoid that kind of problem, and if you’ve never heard of it, you may be surprised by how simple it is!
Can photography be more than just work? Can it be a calling? How do you know? And what if that calling coincides with a transformational period in world history and you are called upon to document every move? Lauren Greenfield’s new exhibition and book, “Generation Wealth” is a time capsule a quarter century in the making.
Lightroom is full of little hidden features and settings, but perhaps the least addressed setting of all is the Camera Calibration tab. Hidden at the very bottom of the Develop module, here's what that tab controls.
With great power comes great responsibility, or something like that. Photoshop is an enormously capable application with a multitude of uses and misuses. Here are 10 such misuses you might not have thought of.
Blending modes are one of the fundamental features of Photoshop: they allow you to combine layers in varying fashions. It can be a bit of an experimentation game working with them, though. This comprehensive video will show you exactly how each blending mode operates and allow you to take more control of your work.
So, you want to learn filmmaking, but you don't want to go to school for years to learn how to do it. This great tutorial will set you up to power through a month of learning both the art and craft of filmmaking, quickly improving your chops.
This video describes the relevance and importance of black n white films. And all the points can be said for black and white photography. We mostly shoot in color, because we can. Our cameras give a very sharp photograph and the raw file gives us the ability to change it to make sure everything is evenly exposed. But when we think about the images that we hold dear, it's often printed photos of our parents, grandparents and family members.
Movies exist to tell stories. Through writing, performance, sound, and photography, they share with us worlds and visions that help us interpret the real world outside of the theatre doors. So what are the best films made about our lives as photographers?
If you're a photographer you've used bokeh. It's a defining element in your work and your style is partly due to it's existence, whether intentional or by accident. Do you know how to pronounce the word that you so often use? Here is a fun video by Photo Gear News to show us how.
I absolutely love post production as a photographer. For me, a job is 50% photography and 50% retouching. One compliments the other. I get just as excited photographing my images as I get to retouch them. And when I captured a lightning storm in Cape Town a few weeks back, it was no different.
For most photographers, magic hour is just as the sun is setting, but for Photographer Jordan Matter, it occurs after dark. In this video Matter gives us five tips for shooting nighttime portraits using only street and window light. Using this simple technique he is able to achieve three differently lit portraits in just a couple minutes.
We all know that one of the necessary parts of starting as a photographer is working for free in order to gain exposure. Working for free is a great starting point to build your portfolio, develop your technique, and build a name for yourself as a photographer without the pressure or expectations of a client. The hard part is knowing when to accept free jobs and when to start charging for your services.
Spring has arrived, which means the time for gorgeous golden hour shoots in wonderful weather is nearly upon us. Sunset (and sunrise) are indisputably the most consistent crafters of amazing natural light for portraiture. The warm soft glow of the sun as it falls towards the horizon not only creates fantastic atmosphere but also some of the most flattering light that can be found. For portrait photographers the golden hour as the sun rises or sets is the perfect time to shoot.
Everyone looking to be a photographer, or at least a good one, should understand their camera's functions and lens mechanics. This means understanding things like f-stops, depth-of-field, effects of shutter speed, ISO, fast lenses verses slow lenses, and of course, aperture. Fortunately, independent filmmaker Vincent Ledvina has created an ongoing, animated series about, "Camera Basics." As part of that series this handy little animation explains all you really need to know about aperture, in just five minutes.
In any service industry, frustrations can run high. Clients sometimes run late, don't always read contracts, show up with spray tans, don't pick the most beautiful venues for their weddings, fail to understand the cost involved in producing quality images, price shop, compare prices, question your prices, don't love their face in that photo, show up with a whole Pinterest board full of ideas, and expect you to just "fix it in Photoshop."
As photographers, most of us eventually stumble onto the world of flash and the myriad of options available for producing light as well as modifying it to produce different results. Speaking from personal experience, I have often been perplexed as to whether a softbox or an octobox would be a better choice or better yet, a cheap umbrella.
When planning a dog photography session, one of the most important details to consider is the place where the photos will be taken. There are a number of factors that come into play when choosing a setting, and the optimal location can differ from one dog to the next. Here are a few tips on choosing the perfect location for your next dog photography session.
By and large, one of the most common uses for Photoshop is editing portraits. Retouching skin is a delicate art that takes a while to master, but this great video will help you get started.
If you're starting out and you want to improve your portrait photography, or just be able to take someone's portraits, Peter McKinnon's video takes you through a quick crash course in how you can do just that.
Pratik Naik was featured on a recent Phase One webinar and showed some of the techniques he uses when processing commercial, beauty, and fashion images in Capture One. Most of what he demonstrated was centered around color and was extremely instructive, no matter the viewer’s level. The hour and a half long recording is now available on YouTube for free and worth a watch if you are serious about color edition and your raw processing.
Being a working photographer today absolutely requires finding ways to get more mileage from your photographs. They're called assets for a reason, and we typically have way more content than we make use of, and just because images are old doesn't necessarily mean they're obsolete. Adding value to images you’ve already created is a fantastic way to work smarter and create new growth opportunities. Below are some workflow tips and specific concepts to help guide you in that process.
Recently, I’ve found myself relying on cinematography educational content more and more to improve my photography work. The way light is constructed in movies and the thoughts a DP puts into framing their shots make the results look a tad more flattering and natural than what most photographers seem to be teaching and doing nowadays. So when someone such as Canadian Director of Photography Pierre Gill, who has worked on beautifully lit movies such as "Upside Down,” "Casanovas,” and "Polytechnique,” is giving out free tips, I sit down, listen, and, of course, share it with you.
Learning and improving our craft should be as important as producing content. Online educational resources have made training and workshops accessible to everyone worldwide. One fantastic example is this year’s CineSummit. If you are into cinematography, want to get into it, or even if you are just curious to learn more about content production, then this is for you!
In one of my recent articles, I showed you how to create dynamic luminosity masks manually. In my opinion, it’s the best way to create masks based on brightness levels and confirming this idea is the introduction of a similar feature in Greg Benz’s panel, Lumenzia. The recent update of the luminosity masking panel added a couple of new features, including a "blend if" method for masking layers.
One of the differences between a great image and a snapshot is story telling. If your picture doesn’t narrate anything, it won’t serve any purpose. It’s crucial that your viewers understand what you tried to say with your work, but it's not always an easy task! Thanks to Joe McNally, we now have three tips to keep in mind for stronger journalistic images.
Joe McNally is one of those photographers that almost everyone in our industry knows. Perhaps you’ve seen his name in a Nat Geo, Life Magazine, or Sports Illustrated, or you’ve learned from his educational content, or maybe you simply have discovered him through his role as Nikon Ambassador. McNally is really everywhere. He’s one of those versatile photographers who can do everything from commercial to journalistic work! He’s the proof that specialization is great but not always required to be successful. Recently, he sat down with Chase Jarvis and shared his experience as a professional photographer.
As photographers, we talk incessantly about gear. And you know what? That's ok. Gear does matter. But it's important to carefully compartmentalize where and how gear matters versus where and how it doesn't to avoid falling into common traps.
No, this video isn't about choosing the wrong aperture or going overboard with your frequency separation. These seven mistakes are a bit more philosophical in nature and can have a big impact on the course of your photography development and career.
Luminosity masks are well known amongst landscape and nightscape photographers but often underrated by many other creatives. They are an incredibly powerful tool and can help you apply adjustments only to certain areas of an image according to their luminosity. In past articles I wrote, I’ve shown different ways to create these masks. However, with time, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is one way that seems to always be the most effective and yield the most natural-looking results.
Meeting face-to-face with a potential client is the best way to introduce them to your work. Here are just a few helpful tips to help you turn that handshake into a profitable relationship.
Teleconverters seem like a dream come true: a cheap and easy way to increase the focal length of your lens. However, like most things in photography, there are pros and cons. This great video will walk you through what you need to know about teleconverters.
It’s common knowledge that to master a craft you have to practice it every day. As Twyla Tharp says in her classic book The Creative Habit, “I’ve learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns… The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.” But what does that mean for filmmakers whose craft is so macroscopic? A film takes years. It includes writing, casting, financing, producing, editing. So how, exactly, do you practice filmmaking?
After releasing a tutorial video together, Phase One and Pratik Naik are teaming up again but for a 60-minute webinar this time. It’s your chance to see and learn all the color tricks the beauty and fashion retoucher uses to get incredible results with any image using Capture One Pro.
I'm a symmetry snob. If you are going for the down the center shot, get in the middle. It may seem obvious but at the end of the day a few inches can make a huge difference and actually make or break your photo. So as much as you want to start filling that memory card, slow down and make the fine tune adjustments.
I love visiting the countryside. It's a great way to unwind, relax, and forget about the daily office hustle, the traffic, and whatever else is synonymous with a suburban lifestyle. As a photographer, the first thing I pack is my camera bag in the hopes that I'll get a chance to capture some landscape shots. What I did not expect is to get more than I bargained for. Especially this last weekend.
When you're in a bit of a photographic rut, where do you look for inspiration? Do you look at other photographers? If you're stuck and wondering how to reinvigorate your creativity, perhaps the answer is to look outside photography completely.
Going through retouching related Facebook groups, it seems like the frequency separation trend is fading away. Some people even call the images edited with split frequency "filtered" as if it was as bad as using some kind of filter. Instead, many are learning to grow some appreciation for the art of dodging and burning. It’s said that with the latter, you won’t lose skin texture and it’s not destructive. But if it really is this great, how can some people still manage to have a plastic-like effect on their model’s skin? Let’s have a look at the most common mistake that may keep your images from that sought after natural look.
When creating portraits in your studio, there are instances when you may opt for a shallow depth of field, which produces portraits with a more artistic flair. In this video, Gavin Hoey describes some techniques for maximizing that look of a shallow depth of field portrait.
Editorial assignments can be both boring and quite interesting. Most of the time that depends on the photographer's attitude, not the budget. Let me show you how I approached a project where I had to make portraits of a motivational speaker and influencer.
