Portrait Photography How To

So you have a bit extra cash to spend on photo gear, and you’re about to go shopping. Before you do we want to remind you of something we’ve stressed in the past; namely, it often makes far more sense to upgrade your optics than it does to invest in a new camera.

Creating soft, blurry backgrounds is a popular technique for making subjects stand out from their surroundings. It’s also useful for eliminating clutter, and directing a viewer’s eye to the most important element of a scene.

Motion blur is a very popular technique in which slow shutter speeds are used to give photos a sense of movement, and appropriate subjects span the gamut from flowing water, clouds blowing across the sky, and even action shots of athletes. This effect can be achieved in the camera or during post processing.

Have you ever returned from a vacation to a popular city, or to an iconic destination in the great outdoors, only to realize that your images look pretty much the same as those shot by everyone else? In the quick tutorial below you’ll learn simple techniques that are guaranteed to make your photos stand out from the crowd.

There was a time when lens flare was considered a negative attribute of photos shot outdoors. Often caused by using a lens with inferior coatings (or no coatings at all), flare can also result from failing to use a lens hood when shooting on sunny days (depending on your position relative to the sun).

Boudoir photography is a unique form of portraiture in which you use many of the skills employed for other types of people pictures, and a few more. In the quick tutorial below you’ll learn an important technique that’s often ignored.

There are plenty of amazing new features in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), and we featured five hidden tools in a recent post. Today’s tutorial explains how to use a new capability that an experienced pro calls “unbelievable.”