As we’ve mentioned in the past, photographers tend to think Adobe created Photoshop exclusively for them. But the truth is there are many other types of avid users, from graphic designers and art directors to web designers and other content creators.
It‘s no secret that there’s been a dramatic shift from DSLR to mirrorless camera systems on the part of consumers and manufactures alike. But some photographers are hanging on to their trusty DSLRs for making certain types of images.
The wide-angle lens is a popular choice for capturing expansive landscape vistas, travel photos, and architectural shots. But depending upon the scene, your vantage point, and whether or not you’re able to avoid tilting the camera up or down, unsightly perspective distortion may occur.
There are worse things than being a beginning photographer. After all, you can make big improvements in your skills in a relatively short time. But if you consider yourself a more advanced shooter, and you still make beginner mistakes, that’s a cause for concern.
Sometimes you take a photograph and while the main subject looks great, the background is really weak. The solution is to simply place your subject against a more interesting background, right? Well, not so fast.
Pro photographer Toma Bonciu (AKA Photo Tom) teaches landscape photography to beginners through his photo workshops. And during these tutorial sessions, he witnesses the many mistakes beginner landscape photographers often make.
Serious landscape photographers tend to carry a lot of lens filters, including those for enhancing colors, to others that reduce the amount of light entering the camera and enable slow shutter speed effects. In the video below, you’ll see what an experienced pro says is the one filter he never leaves home without.
Not everyone has an opportunity to go on safari to photograph rare and wild animals, but most of us have a zoo nearby which is often the next best thing. The problem is that most images shot at the zoo look like were shot at the zoo.
For those new to wildlife photography, birds provide a great opportunity for capturing impressive images. If you’re lucky enough to have a wildlife refuge nearby, that’s a great place to start. But you can also make some great photographs in your own backyard.
Arriving at perfect exposures by combining multiple images can be a rather complicated task. But today you’ll learn how to use Photoshop’s relatively unknown Apply Image Tool to get the job done fast with great results.
Mads Peter Iversen is a professional landscape photographer, but he freely admits that he still makes mistakes. Iversen even says that two major photography mistakes he makes are ones that beginner photographers typically struggle with.
The practice of dodging and burning to manipulate exposure in different areas of an image dates back to the early days of film photography and the wet darkroom. Today we do the same thing in the digital darkroom to add drama and depth to our photos.
All photographers strive to make images with maximum sharpness and detail, but depending upon conditions that goal isn’t always easy to accomplish. Sometimes you can improve soft photos during the editing process, but the preferred approach is to use proper shooting techniques so you get what you want in the camera.
If you want to really turn heads with your portraits, you might consider giving them a little glow. Yes, this can be done in-camera in radiant backlit or direct window light shooting scenarios, but you can also add an awesome glow to portraits in post-processing. In the below tutorial from f64 Academy, Blake Rudis shows you how.
Photoshop has a number of tools for accomplishing similar tasks, and sometime the approach you take is a matter of personal preference. Other times, however, like in the case of Flow, Fill and Opacity, tools may appear to control the same variables but the differences are worth noting.