It seems as though almost every time I ask one of my close friends about a particular aspect of their photo, I usually hear the same reply: "I forgot" or "I didn't think of that." My answer is, typically, "make a checklist."
Getting familiar with Photoshop is a long process, and who better to reveal some little-known features than someone with more than 20 years of experience? This excellent video from Jamie Windsor will speed up your workflow and uncover some powerful features that you might not have known exist.
V-flats are one of the most useful lighting items a studio photographer can have. In fact, they can allow you to create much more complex lighting setups just by shaping a single light. This great video will show you how you can create three different lighting setups using just a single strobe and some v-flats.
One of the most important aspects of any portrait is the eyes. The eyes are what any viewer is naturally drawn to when looking at an image, and thus, it is worth spending just a little extra time making sure they are just right. This great tutorial will show you a technique for enhancing the eyes in Photoshop.
Do you believe that your images are objective representations of reality? You might be mistaken. Here are a few arguments why.
Copying our files to a computer after a shooting session is mandatory step. But there is more than Windows file transfer utility. TeraCopy not only copies your files but it makes sure that your precious data arrives at destination safely.
I’m rubbish at taking portraits. I’m definitely better than I was, but it’s very much a work in progress. Other than shooting more, how can you make yourself improve?
I am lucky enough to have hosted or been a part of workshops around the world. One thing I teach in my workshops is that photographers should not look at other photography to be inspired.
A strong composition is the holy grail of landscape photography, and there are always new things to learn.
Dodging and burning is an old school technique that existed long before digital cameras and software. This does not mean it shouldn't be in a modern photographer's bag of tricks.
When color grading your work, don't overlook the importance of targeting the skin tones in your workflow. Perfecting the skin color can drastically help your images, but how would you color grade skin?
We look at the world in color, even when we want to shoot black and white photos. Color can be very distracting in that case. Thanks to digital photography it is possible to change the world into black and white before you take the picture.
Range masking is one of the less used yet more powerful features in Adobe Lightroom. If you haven't used them, check out this tutorial covering the ins and outs.
We can always do more to improve our photography, and it certainly helps to hear how an established professional thinks we can best accomplish that. This excellent video features a photographer discussing eight tips that will help you improve your photography.
Each niche in photography has its own requirements when it comes to post-production. In this video, I go over my process for editing images in Adobe Lightroom.
In my opinion, if you really want to progress the level of your photography or your photography business, then finding a niche is vital. In this video, I go over some key steps to finding your niche.
In my never ending pursuit for the perfect lighting modifier, I tested shooting beauty with a 7” reflector as my key light.
Let me first say, for reasons that will become clear momentarily, that I’m a six-foot-seven-inch tall male who weighs approximately 200 pounds and has about a week’s (…okay, week-and-a-half’s) worth of stubble. And my favorite color is pink. Did you just do a double-take?
When you are new to photography, there are numerous settings and parameters on your camera that are important to get to know. Amidst things like exposure settings, it can be easy to overlook the importance of really understanding every intricacy of your autofocus settings. This great video will get you up and running in no time.
Our lives are collections made up of people and moments. Every day, there is a plethora of wisdom that passes by, but sometimes, you get one piece of advice that can change the course of your entire life or career. In this article, I share the five pieces of advice I've gotten over my eight-year career that helped shape me into the photographer I am today.
You can have all the artistic and technical talent in the world, but if you are not a savvy business-person, you are not going to have a lot of luck making a living from photography. This excellent video features an experienced photographer discussing seven things you should do before you start your photography business.
Autumn has arrived here in the Northern Hemisphere, and with it comes the opportunity for vibrant, colorful photos of the changing leaves. It is often just a few weeks that we get with those brilliant colors, however, so it is important to do some scouting and planning to be ready when the times arrives.
Do you have a location where it seems no matter what you do, you just can't seem to take a good picture? This great video explores what happens when you have a nemesis location, why you should keep pursuing it, and what you can do to get past your difficulties.
Whether I'm teaching someone Lightroom or only showing a friend my photos in Lightroom for the first time, the one thing they usually comment about right away is my use of Lightroom's Secondary Display feature. It's a great feature that really makes me more productive.
Astrophotography is a very unique and tricky genre, but if you take the time to dive into it and learn how it is done, you can be rewarded with stunning images of the heavens. If you are interested in astrophotography, this great beginner's guide will answer a lot of questions to help you get you on your way to pointing your camera toward the night sky.
What is the most important step in the photographic process? Is it sitting at the computer, post-processing your images into perfection? Or is it the act of taking the shot itself? This thought-provoking video investigates that question and posits that when it comes down to it, the act of taking the image is actually the least important of all.
Once you have mastered the basics of how artificial lighting works and what you can accomplish with it, it is time to move on to more complicated multi-light setups to better bring your creative ideas to fruition. This great video will show you the process of creating a three-light portrait from start to finish.
Modern editing applications offer a veritable plethora of tools to both evaluate the information in your photos and to edit them to whatever creative vision you have in mind. This excellent video will show you five fundamental tools that every photographer should know how to use to edit their photos efficiently and effectively.
If you are new to artificial lighting, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to understand how all the technical terms and processes come together to create a successful photo. One of the most important concepts is flash sync speed, and this excellent video will show you why it matters and how to work with it.
Dodge and burn are one of my favorite go-to techniques. It can be used in so many different ways by using numerous techniques. You can use dodge and burn to retouch, to globally guide a viewers eye around an image. It is great for adding contrast to specific areas for detail, as well as stylizing your images it gives it that painterly feel. The list goes on and on.
The Masters of Photography courses are aimed at offering instruction from those who have mastered their genre, to those who are entering it. The Albert Watson course covers his whole career, working in portraiture and commercial advertising as well as shooting landscapes and personal projects. Here’s what I thought after giving it a go.
Instructional Style
It can get exhausting, inefficient, and even expensive constantly trying to find new photo locations for your landscape work. But with a little bit of work and creativity, you can get numerous shots and looks from a single location. This great video discusses why it is important to keep returning to the same location and how it can improve your work.
Instagram is the most popular platform for photographers to display their work and reach an audience. If you know how, you can even turn it into a business and make a living off it. Imagine now, you wake up and Instagram has deleted all your family photos, favorite memories, connections, friends, and portfolio work?
When you shoot an image, a tight crop might make it difficult to make the photo work at different aspect ratios later on. This helpful tutorial will show you how you can stretch the background of an image to alleviate that exact problem.
With over 3 million Instagram followers, and a client base that includes Apple and Nikon, Brandon Woelfel is doing something right. Now, in his new Skillshare Original online class, the photographer is sharing not only the secrets behind his shooting and editing techniques, but how he achieved his successes.
Lightroom is an intricate program full of numerous features — sometimes so many that it can be easy to miss out on a particularly useful tool that can make your editing life both easier and more efficient. This excellent video will show you one of those tools.
I guess you will have a zoom lens in your camera bag. It is a very handy tool that allows you to zoom in, and to zoom out. But you can also use it to manipulate the size of the background compared to your subject. Let me explain.
There are many people out there who call themselves photographers. Probably most of them are able to take decent images, a few are professionals, and hardly anyone is a master of the art. Where do you put yourself?
Camera sensors are incredibly complex pieces of engineering prowess, bringing together mankind’s attempt to replicate the behavior of the human eye in perceiving light, but there are still many limitations. Cameras are rarely good at capturing decent photographs of rainbows, but some cameras are significantly worse than others, thanks to a strange quirk of science.
I recall reading an interview years ago in which Steve McCurry — a master at assembling powerfully wrought imagery — claimed not to think about composition. I was dumbfounded, even more so when I realized he was telling the truth.
Shooting out on location in a busy environment like New York City can be extremely difficult. When dealing with police, public safety, traffic, and pedestrians, it can often be near impossible to create the look you want without sacrificing your lighting. The way videographer David Geffin tackled these issues in his latest project, "Let's Dance," is pretty brilliant.
The thing that I have always enjoyed about photography is that it blends both artistic and technical challenges, forcing one to think on multiple levels to create successful images. This great video discusses seven of the most difficult parts of photography and what you can do to get past them.
As photographers, we choose many things. We select our camera bodies, lenses, filters, gear, and settings galore. Why do so many photographers settle with the natural aspect ratio of their camera sensor?
When you look at a photo, what are you looking at? Composition? Lighting? Color grading? With your knowledge and expertise, you look at certain things with more intent than others, but are you seeing the whole picture?
Product photography is a tricky genre that takes a multitude of different techniques and problem-solving skills to be successful in. One of the most difficult situations to deal with is a product that has a lot of reflections. This great video tutorial will show you how to deal with reflections and take better product images.
Have you ever been to a spectacularly picturesque location and envisioned a perfect image in your head, only to never commit and follow it through? I’m far too guilty of that, but this time, I was determined to get the shot I wanted, no matter how many ridiculously hilarious mistakes it took along the way. Here’s how I did it.
Whether you are planning a video shoot, touring the grounds of an upcoming wedding, or looking ahead to a sunset shoot at your favorite landscape spot, the importance of location scouting cannot be overstated. This helpful video will give you lots of great tips and techniques to improve your location scouting.
The Dehaze tool in Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Lightroom is fantastic for landscape photography. Here are some examples of its use.
Landscape photography is a difficult genre that combines a lot of technical ideas with nuanced artistry and detailed vision, making it a challenge to create a successful image. So, what should you be thinking about as you are standing behind the camera, readying your shutter finger? This excellent video explores that exact question.
If you are new to photography, you are probably wondering what a lot of terms mean, and one that you have probably heard quite a bit with regards to post-production is "nondestructive editing." This excellent video tutorial will both explain what the term means and show you why it is an absolutely crucial thing for photographers of all genres.