Photoshop

Affinity Photo was released over a year ago on Mac OS X. Its success on the App Store definitely shows how great the software truly is. It is also proof that people are looking at different options than the traditional Adobe workflow. Until now, one thing refrained many: Affinity Photo was available only on the Apple platform. But today is a new day and the software is now Windows compatible.

In the latest updates from Adobe for Photoshop CC 2017, not only is the software faster, but Face-Aware Liquify comes with a new feature.

Last week, we covered my all-time favorite tip for creating expressive children’s portraits outdoors this fall. As a follow-up, in this short video, Photoshop master Aaron Nace from Phlearn takes us through simple techniques for editing photos of children in Photoshop. His advice centers on drawing the focus to the eyes and face by adding a vignette, enhancing eyes, and warming skin tones.

Adobe concentrated its Creative Cloud 2017 updates heavily in newer media areas as it announced an After Effects improvement to render 3D elements up to 20 times faster, a Premier Pro update that automatically detect and create settings for different types of virtual reality content, and a new project, Project Felix, to aid in the creation of photo-realistic images by combining 2D and 3D assets. Meanwhile, cloud-based document collaboration across Creative Cloud, universal search in Photoshop, and other new features improve usability across a number of applications.

We've all attempted multiple exposures. We do it when we want to create a specific feeling when shooting portraits, and we do it when we want to expose correctly for an architectural photograph client, to correct in post. We use a tripod, to make sure the images are identical, and we either use the camera's automatic stop metering to compensate and expose all the needed information correctly. And then Grant Legassick goes and changes the way I always considered multiple exposures and how they can be used.

Have you ever wondered what that obscure tab called “Channels” in Photoshop does? You know, the one with black and white layers of your photograph that are anything but red, blue, or green? Turns out they do some pretty amazing things and aren’t really that hard to understand once you get familiar with them.

With Halloween fast approaching, people are either revealing the costumes they've been prepping for the past year since the last Halloween, or they're scrambling to figure out what they're going to be. However for one dad, with a custom hand made leather outfit, some know how, and a team of assistants, this Super Dad gave his 3-year-old daughter a Super Makeover. Inspired by the upcoming Wonder Woman Movie with Gal Gadot, he used some very clever photo manipulation to create the photo series.

Are you a fan of the HBO's hit series "Games of Thrones?" Have you ever wondered how different the actors actually look compared to their Westeros counterparts? Creative retoucher and digital artist Gianfranco Gallo complied an amazing set of work with his personal project to help us compare reality to fantasy.

Remember that first time you've looked at those dream portfolios? How did they happen? You've probably compared your portfolio against those and thought, "How would clients put their trust in me for something as big as that?" The hard truth is, those dream-portfolio photographers had a great website issued by the hospital they were given birth at. Face it, if you don't have your portfolio website printed on your birth certificate, you won't ever have one. Of course that's not true.

Photoshop is an amazing tool for photographers and retouchers alike, but with its numerous features and options, it can quickly become confusing. Everyone knows confusing software is far from being a fast workflow element, but Aaron Nace from Phlearn is always there to help out, and this time, he gives us six tips to improve our productivity.

Crushing blacks is a popular trend in Photoshop for achieving a more film-like matte effect that pairs well with vintage styling. It won't work with every image, but if it's a look you are after, photographer Mathieu Stern has put together a video suggesting three ways you can go about achieving and customizing the effect. In this article I will add on one more quick method in addition to the video which will give you plenty of options to play around with this effect and see which method works best with your workflow.

The mixing brush tool is one of the most underutilized tools in portrait retouching. When used correctly, the mixing brush tool can be used to blend blotchy skin together, fix makeup in areas where a makeup artist may have missed applying makeup, etc. Here is a quick introduction to using the mixing brush as a portrait photographer.

Image processing has always had very specific tools for very specific jobs. You have your raw processor for the basic editing of images, but for things such as layers and cloning, you had to jump to Photoshop. Then we have software such as Nik, On1, and Alien Skin that can be used for creative effects, film simulations, etc. But the new On1 raw processor is looking to combine all these elements into a single platform with no need to jump from program to program.

Photoshop is an amazing tool that most photographers find themselves using on a daily basis. It has countless features, and with the new Photoshop CC, more are added with each update. As a beginner to the program, it can get a little overwhelming on where to start learning all of the complex elements. In this, video you will see 10 of the features you need to know.

Our images are growing fat — so fat that the software we like to work with isn't able to cope with their file sizes. But along comes Sean Bagshaw with a great tutorial on how you can save files that exceed 4 GB in Photoshop that still retain editing capabilities in Lightroom and Bridge.

I am not a fan of altering the initial colors and setup of photos after the shoot is done. I prefer to look for the perfect matching background or surrounding to complement the subject I photograph beforehand. However, color grading is an essential step in my work, which completes the overall mood I aim to achieve through my photography. Being one of the most important steps in my workflow, the process usually involves a play with the luminosity, saturation, and some slight tonal tweaks. But there are times when we might have a striking color scheme, but not the perfect surroundings to complement the subject.

There was a time when file limits were considered near impossible to reach ceilings. Each was designed many years ago for photos made by cameras with single-digit resolution. Times have changed, and unfortunately the formats have not. We now are faced with file size limits that are becoming more and more restrictive as cameras collect bigger and bigger chunks of data with every photo.

Earlier this year Fstoppers teamed up with Miami-based swimwear photographer Joey Wright to produce a full blown tutorial on all things related to swimwear photography. All in all, Joey's tutorial Swimwear Photography - Lighting, Posing, and Retouching is 8 hours of on-location photography and 12 hours of Joey's full postproduction workflow. Today we are releasing a short 50 minute excerpt from the tutorial as well as the included raw file so you can follow along at home.

As an automotive photographer, one of the most useful tools in our arsenal is the Pen tool. At first, you may not like it, but after learning the tip and tricks on how to make it curve around the object like you want, it becomes a very useful tool. For some, it's just a necessary evil that you just have to deal with. What if there was another way to learn how to use the Pen tool? Would you play a game to learn the basics? Thanks to interactive designer Mark MacKay, there's now a website you can visit to do just that.

If you're using a color checker to only correct white balance, then you're not getting the most out of it. A color checker is the only way to replicate true to life skin tones accurately.

Photoshop is a fantastic tool, but it is not always the fastest software on earth. Large files such as PSD, TIFF, and PSB that contain numerous layers can require a few seconds, if not minutes, to load. When all you want to do is quickly check that all the files in a folder are the final versions, it can be tedious! However, there is a neat trick to open your big files much faster. Here is how.

For most beginners, distinguishing hues, or noticing over saturated areas, can be an issue. Even some most advanced retouchers still have problems color correcting their images. Reaching the point where our eyes see colors properly takes time and a lot of practice. Fortunately enough, visual help layers in Photoshop can aid us separate luminosity, hue, and saturation. In this article, I will show you how to isolate the latter two to facilitate your color correction.

Despite being one of the best jobs in the world, photography and retouching are both technical processes in which you usually deal with some problems and find solutions afterwards. Every shoot is a different problem to be solved, and mostly, this is the fun part of this job. But sometimes, you have to be prepared when dealing with large amounts of photos with a tight deadline. So, here are some tips for fast-paced workflows for a commercial photo shoot.

In case you missed it, President Barack Obama and Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton shared a hug after the President's speech at the Democratic National Convention. Naturally, Photoshoppers were ready and waiting with Wacom pens in hand, and the results didn't disappoint.

The weather outside is heinous. Seemingly perpetual rain batters the windows as we fire up the computer. The northern autumn is definitely on our doorstep and one of the first signs of this change of seasons is the increasing number of mushrooms in the forest. We’ve bagged 69 shots of just one composition previously and this is a great time to post-process them. Let’s get into Lightroom before more fungi start to come up after the showers have passed. Let your imagination run wild with the post-processing of glowing mushrooms that are straight out of a fantasy film. Here is how I process my own little fantasy world.

Our current Fstoppers Photographer of the Month, Felix Hernandez, recently shared a simple and easy, but highly effective technique for compositing objects into different images and transferring textures and shadows along with them.

If you ever do any sort of composite work, chances are that you'll need to add shadows. They're one of the biggest aspects of making a composite image convincing, and yet, they're also very subtle and tricky to pull off. Phlearn is here with a great tutorial to get you started.

Highlights that glow can be a great way to give your portraits and beauty work some pop, but there is a fine line between skin looking dewy and just straight oily. Shiny skin can be overwhelming to an image, but when faced with that problem you don't have to scrap the shot. In this quick video, photographer Joe Edelman shows us a quick and easy fix for controlling that shiny skin using Photoshop.

We spend so much time talking about how to retouch faces in portraits, but we rarely pay as much attention to the hair. However, hair can take up just as much (if not more) space in a portrait as the face, and it's what frames the features. Phlearn is here with a great tutorial on how to really make hair pop and take your images up a notch.

Beauty and fashion retouching has been controversial for so long that some of the argument's ground has been conceded. For example, skin retouching is rarely debated anymore and it's merely a "given" that someone in an advert or magazine will have had their skin corrected. However, criticizing body manipulation in Photoshop is very much still in vogue (if you'll excuse that glorious pun).