Outdoor Photography How To

The eye-opening tutorial below begins with a question from instructor Simon d'Entremont: "Do you find that some of your photos aren't as good as you hoped, but you're unsure exactly what's wrong?" Maybe they're blurry, lacking in detail, unsharp, or simply uninteresting. We've all faced this dilemma at one time or another, regardless of our skills.

All outdoor photographers look for a creative edge that make their images stand out from the crowd, especially when shooting iconic sites that have been photographed time and time again. Today's quick tutorial from the KPM YouTube channel  demonstrates how to do exactly that by including a perfectly defined sunstar that adds drama and depth when framing up a shot.          

Do your wildlife, nature, and landscape photos appear blurry or wavy even though you used the "proper" settings and achieved precise focus? The problem may not be a faulty camera or lens, but rather what instructor Matthew Gehly calls an image-killing "invisible threat" that's easy to avoid.

Nailing exposure can be be difficult once the the sun drops below the horizon, and one of the biggest challenges is controlling highlights for proper tonal balance throughout a low-light scene. This quick tutorial from the My Photo Journey YouTube channel describes the necessary in-camera adjustments in barely nine minutes.

Photoshop's Gradient tools serve a wide variety of purposes for bringing outdoor photos to life by gradually blending colors or opacity. There are various options available for better colors, smoothing transitions and applying creative effects. The rub is that it takes a bit of time to get the adjustments just right.

All of us who shoot in color have experienced the disappointment of capturing a unique scene that fails to meet expectations. The video below from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel explains why some images can be significantly more compelling in b&w, with a basic workflow for making a dramatic transformation.

Regular Shutterbug readers are well-acquainted with extraordinary German Landscape pro Christian Mohrle, not just because of his inspirational images but also for the post-processing tutorials shared on the popular PHLOG photography You Tube channel that's loaded with helpful how-to tips.