Photo How To

OK, be honest: How often have you skipped past the Color Calibration tool when processing images in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)? If you’re like most photographers, the answer is something along the lines of “quite often.”

In this article we’ll be exploring various in-camera creative options. Today’s cameras contain microprocessors that are like having a custom photo lab and graphic art studio built-in. In the color realm they allow you to choose color saturation (vividness), neutralize or enhance color casts (white balance) and even create custom color renditions to match every subject and scene. Drive modes allow you to capture fast action “in a hurry” and pick out the best frame, aiding you in getting the best sports shots you ever made.

There are many kinds of white light. At first this statement seems like it doesn’t make sense, but if you look closely at a typical light bulb in your living room (the old kind, not the new florescent type of bulbs) and compare it with, say, a daylight florescent fixture, the light bulb is much more yellow than the florescent light. Similarly, if you compare sunrise and sunset lighting to the light from an overcast sky at noon, the lighting from low angled sunlight is very yellow—it looks golden, in fact—and the cloudy sky produces a white light that is more bluish.

One of the first things we do when configuring a new camera is deciding whether to set the Color Space to Adobe RGB or sRGB. And this isn't a set-it-and-forget-it choice because the mode you select depends upon how you plan to use the photos you capture.

Most of the tutorials we post involve techniques for shooting various kinds of photos, image-editing methods for enhancing your work, or a discussion of different types of gear. This post is a bit different, as it quickly explains an important imaging concept that will enable you to make more compelling photographs.

Dealing with ever-changing light and maximizing depth of field are two of the biggest challenges when making landscape photographs. Tonal values often range from dark shadows to bright sunlit areas, and some scenes call for sharply rendered areas from foreground to background.

The best travel and nature images include a bit of artistic flair, but there are also several common mistakes to avoid if you want your images to be really special. In the two-minute video below, an accomplished New Zealand pro summarizes the most consistent errors we make and explains how to fix them.