Photoshop How To

Ask a bunch of experienced Lightroom users to name their most essential editing technique and most will respond with one word: "Masking." This is particularly true among landscape shooters who frequently encounter scenes with a wide range of tones that exceed the density range of their camera.

A few days ago we posted a tutorial for making simple cutouts of hair in portrait photos using a “futuristic” Photoshop tool. Today we’re taking things a bit further, with two tricks for making more difficult clip outs in Photoshop.

Expansive vistas often include a variety of tonal values that can make it difficult to nail exposure and get colors correct in the camera. This tutorial from the popular PHLOG Photography You Tube channel illustrates how to use Target Adjustments to achieve proper balance throughout the frame without merging multiple shots and time-consuming image-stacking techniques.

Lightroom's easy-to-use Contrast tools are useful in a wide variety of situations, but here's the deal: When you make these adjustments selectively using masks, you've just hit on a very powerful combination. That's what you'll learn how to do in this eye-opening tutorial from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel.

Experienced photographers tend to shoot in the Raw file format because of enhanced image quality and greater flexibility during the editing process. But shooting Raw comes with a penalty because these files are significantly larger than Jpegs and other available formats.

Let’s face it: Processing images is often an arduous time-consuming task, regardless of the software you use. Another truth is that most photographers would rather be out shooting than sitting behind a computer.

Today's detailed post-processing tutorial from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel demonstrates a straightforward technique for creating what one of our favorite pros refers to as "impossible" photos. In fact he says that you'll achieve "otherworldly" results—not due to outlandish effects, but rather because the job can't be easily accomplished in other ways.