News tagged with "technique"

In the second, concluding article of his 2-part tutorial explaining Photoshop's Gradient tool, Jean Miele explains how to use linear, reflected and radial gradients in layer masks to improve your digital photographs. In this article Jean takes us through four clear, easy steps, and also includes more tips for making the most out of gradients in both Photoshop and Lightroom. Click through for links to the article. 

Lindsay Adler and Erik Valind, both working professionals and educators, have written a beginner’s guide to photographic lighting with an unusual conceit at its core. By structuring a book around a list of common challenges - what they call the 'top ten worst situations' - they've created a digestible, useful 'lighting 101' guide. In this short review, Adam Koplan takes a look at their book 'Shooting in Sh**ty Light: The Top Ten Worst Photography Lighting Situations and How to Conquer Them'.

In a 'Master Series' video posted by lighting maker Profoto USA, celebrated photographer Greg Heisler shares a behind the scenes tale of how he created a unique on-location portrait of then-NBA star Alonzo Mourning. In explaining a lighting setup that even most other pros would struggle to pull off, Heisler breaks down his lighting diagram for a shot that he conceived, 'just because I think it looks cool'. (via Strobist)

Sometimes a single photo doesn't convey the experience of your eye exploring a scene, or you find your wide-angle lens simply isn't as wide as you'd like. In such situations, it can be interesting to think beyond a single frame and consider a photo collage. In an article we hope might provide some inspiration for your shooting this weekend, Barnaby Britton looks at the steps to make your own creative digital collages.

Adobe Camera Raw 7 and Lightroom 4 feature a revamped tool set for making tonal edits to raw (and non-raw) files. The changes are substantial and allow for more refined and intuitive editing options. Professional photographer and best-selling author Martin Evening shows how you can use these latest tools to make extreme corrections to both high and low contrast images.

Introduced in the Photoshop CS6 beta, a collection of photography-styled blur filters makes it easy to simulate depth of field adjustments using tools that let you adjust the effect directly on the image. Photographer and author Ellen Anon explains how to make the most of these tools with a tutorial that shows you how to selectively blur an image as well as mimic the effects of lens bokeh.

In addition to its powerful editing capabilities, Photoshop's actions and batch processing tools can help increase your productivity by performing tasks with little or no user intervention. Photographer and author Ellen Anon explains how to make the most of this automation, taking you step-by-step through the process of recording individual actions and incorporating them into automated routines that can be applied to multiple images in a single go.