Post-Production

Post-production is where raw files become finished images — and for most photographers, it's where a significant portion of their working time goes. This section covers the full post-production process: from culling and raw processing to retouching, color grading, and the workflow systems that keep a high volume of work manageable without sacrificing quality.

Use Lightroom to Breathe New Life Into Wildlife Photos

Wildlife photography can be incredibly rewarding when things go right, but it's incredibly difficult to master. That's why when you have a good photo that's let down by a few of the camera settings, you should use Lightroom to transform that drab shot into something much more beautiful. 

7 Over-Editing Mistakes Photographers Make and How to Avoid Them

Going too far with an edit is something we have all been guilty of at some point, and it is something for which the temptation never quite disappears. Here are seven signs you have taken that edit of your landscape image from refined to gaudy and what you can do to fix or avoid the issue. 

Create a Cinematic Orange and Teal Color Grade in Lightroom

For the past decade modern cinema has opted for the orange and teal color grade to provide a wonderfully cinematic feel, and thanks to the new tools in Lightroom you can turn your shots into cinematic masterpieces, too. 

Perfect Skin Texture in Portraits Using Lightroom

Perfecting skin in portraits is one of the hardest edits to do well, as it involves an interplay between removing unwanted blemishes and retaining skin texture. That's why in this tutorial, I'll show you how to make simple, well-balanced edits using Lightroom. 

10 Ways to Make Colors Pop in Lightroom

Photos often lack a real punch when we import them for editing, this is especially apparent when importing raw files to Lightroom because it strips the shot of the overriding camera settings making them seem lackluster. Luckily, there are 10 simple ways you can make your colors pop once again. 

How to Give Your Videos a Filmic Look With Color Grading

There are many ways to edit your videos and images, but one lasting method is in fact just to mimic the past. In this video, watch how one videographer color grades his work to get that vintage feel without sacrificing quality. 

10 Steps to Incredible Landsape Composites in Photoshop CC

Capturing a great landscape photograph is extremely rewarding because a lot of things have to come together in order to nail it. But sometimes no matter how hard you try there's just a little something missing. In this walkthrough, I'll show you how to enhance your landscape images with a composite in Photoshop CC. 

How to Get 55 Free Skies From Photoshop’s Latest Update

Adobe has been ramping up its AI features in the last couple of years, including its sky replacement functions. With the latest update to Photoshop, Adobe offers you 55 free skies to download. Here's how to get them. 

How to Create a Hologram Effect in Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is one of the deepest pieces of software in our industry and mastery of it is all but impossible. In this tutorial, learn how to create a convincing hologram effect for some creative edits of your images. 

Use Toys to Push Your Creative Photo Editing

As a photojournalist, I often have subconscious blocks against excessive editing that seep even into other genres of photography. That’s why I often try my hand at toy photography when I want to flex my editing muscles. 

Are You Missing Out by Staying With Photoshop CS6?

When comparing the two, Photoshop CC and CS6, it's clear that the CS6 users don't want to upgrade because of the rental business model Adobe enforces. But, what are the actual advantages, and, is it possible to be more productive and make more money when you deliver more work because it's easier to do?  

How to Use HSL to Enhance a Photo

When it comes to landscape photography, being able to control and fine-tune the colors in your images is crucial to creating better edits and adding more of your personal creative identity. One effective and fun way to do that is through the use of the HSL panel, and this helpful video tutorial will show you how it's done.  

Have You Ever Tried This With Your Photos?

If you're not exploring all the possibilities that modern digital editing software offers you then you're letting potential earning opportunities pass you by. This article explores how you exploit different markets with single images.

Sky Replacement Is All the Rage: Is It Acceptable?

Sky replacement has been a thing for a long time now, but new tools that automate what used to be a tedious process have made the practice explode in usage. Should we be really doing it, though? This great video debate discusses the topic.  

How To Get an Incredible SSD for Video Editing for Less Money

High-end Solid State hard drives (SSDs) have all but replaced the traditional spinning drives, but for the best SSDs, you're going to have to spend a fair amount. In this short video, learn how to easily create your own which will outperform many on the market. 

How to Remove Harsh Shadows and Highlights in Photoshop

Strong, direct sunlight can be a real pain when you have to shoot at certain times of the day. Here is a video that will walk you through how to remove the ill effects of such bright natural light, without having to spend hours dodging and burning. 

3 Ways To Fix Mixed Lighting in Your Photos

If you're a wedding or event photographer, chances are, you've encountered mixed lighting situations. Though mixed lighting can be used creatively, there are times when it just isn't ideal. Today, I'll be walking through several examples of mixed lighting conditions with solutions on how you can work around it on location or fix it in post-production. 

Can You Spot Fake Bokeh?

Small, affordable cameras with small sensors and small lenses are doomed to produce images with deep depth of field, but what if you could add shallow depth of field in post?  

How to Edit a Portrait Using Luminar AI

Skylum software has come a long way, and Luminar AI can now tackle a wide range of images quickly and easily to produce professional-level results. Editing portraits can sometimes be a tedious and time-intensive process, but this fantastic video tutorial will show you how to efficiently edit a portrait from start to finish using the program. 

5 Common Portrait Retouching Mistakes

The vast majority of portraits you shoot will involve at least a small degree of retouching to create a finished image, and there are a lot of places where things can go awry. This excellent video tutorial will show you five retouching mistakes portrait photographers make and how you can either fix them or avoid them completely.  

How To Edit/Fix Backlit Photos

Every photographer has been faced with the task of photographing subjects in front of beautiful sunrises or sunsets. Ideally, you'd have a light, but if you don't or the subject is too large to light, you're going to have to fix the image in post.  

How to Fake Eyeshadow in Photoshop

Many photographers and artists say that your subject's eyes are the most important element in an image. But trying to enhance them or add a little eyeshadow can be very tricky. This tutorial will show you exactly how it's done and teach you great Photoshop techniques in the process. 

How To Automatically Blur Backgrounds in Adobe Photoshop With Neural Filters

If you're somebody who hates heavy-handed post-production, you might want to keep scrolling. For those of you who are happy to do whatever they can to get the image they want, here is an example of Adobe Photoshop's new beta Neural Filters in which the background of an image can be blurred. 

Photographers, Don’t Delete Your Bad Photos, You Might Be Surprised To Learn Why!

Do you often return from a photography session or trip to upload your photos and immediately delete the bad photos from the set? While getting rid of the obvious blurry image can save you disk space, I find that deleting can sometimes do more harm than good. Had I culled my images right away I never would have created this photograph. 

Does Luminar AI or Photoshop Produce Better Fake Bokeh?

No doubt, a few years ago, any sort of bokeh added in post was noticeably fake. However, software has come a long way in the last few years, especially with the proliferation of things like artificial intelligence and neural network capabilities.

5 Great Ways To Take Your Photo Editing To the Next Level

Improving your editing doesn’t necessarily mean getting your head around the Tone Curve or finding new ways to use the Color Grading panel. Check out these five practical tips to help you be more thoughtful in your editing and discover how to create your own style. 

Pacific Northwest Escape Mission 2: Driving to Oregon

If you were inspired by the majestic beauty of Washington State’s North Cascades in the first leg of our Pacific Northwest Escape (you can read all about the adventure here), wait until you see the magic of Oregon’s coastline through our lens. 

3 Tricks for Making Your Photos Look More Cinematic

Making your images more eye-catching and appealing is almost always a worthwhile goal, but how can you achieve that? One way is to take pointers from cinema where such metrics are crucial to the success of a picture. 

SRGB or AdobeRGB: What's the Difference Anyway?

Color is one of the most important aspects of photography. It's good to know what your settings should be if you're planning on printing or publishing to the web. This video explains the difference in a simple way.  

Improve Your Portrait Retouching With This Full Tutorial

Post-production is core to most genres of photography, though it is more important to some than others. Portraiture is one of the most intricate areas of retouching with tricky tasks like skin retouching. Watch as one photographer talks you through his entire portrait editing workflow. 

A Quick Video on the Eight Special Blend Modes in Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is unfathomably complex with so much nuance, it would be difficult for any person to ever say they have mastered the software. In this brief video, you'll learn how eight of the blending modes are different from the rest and in the same way, and just how powerful they can be. 

How Long Should You Spend Editing a Photo in Lightroom?

The ideal situation is to take a photo that requires no editing whatsoever. But those shots are few and far between. In most cases, it's important to edit photos in order to develop them properly, but how long is too long when it comes to image editing? I'll be taking a look using Lightroom. 

Here's Why You Should Stop Worrying About ISO Noise

Most photographers try their absolute best to avoid ISO noise in their photos and some spend an age trying to rid their images of it in image editing software. But it's not as much of a problem as you think and here's why. 

Is the New NIK Silver Efex Pro 3 Really Worth the Upgrade?

As a long-time user of Silver Efex, I wanted to answer the question for myself: is the update to the Nik Silver Efex Pro plugin alone worth the upgrade? So, I downloaded the latest version of the Nik plugin suite from the DxO website and gave it a test drive. Here are my initial impressions.