Ron Leach

Seascapes, mountain lakes, and other water scenes offer nature and travel photographers a wealth of opportunities for compelling images. In fact, the vast majority of the global population lives near water in one form or another—along seashores, rivers, waterfalls and lakes.

Dirty camera sensors are a common source of degraded image quality, resulting in tedious post-processing work to clean up the photograph. This problem is the bane of those who shoot outdoors in dusty conditions, and is particularly acute when using small aperture settings that tend to exaggerate imperfections.

We’re not quite sure what the folks at the Waterjet YouTube channel have against Canon gear, but in this somewhat sacrilegious video they use a 60,000 psi hydraulic tool to slice open a perfectly good Canon 17-85mm f/4-5.6 zoom lens. Just because.

Many photographers are unfamiliar with Photoshop’s powerful Sponge Tool, and that’s a shame because it’s a great way to punch up colors in an image while retaining a natural look. In the three-minute tutorial below you’ll learn how to make the Sponge Tool your friend.