Here’s a quick tip that will help you be more creative while shooting and manage details. You need to know your software tools at least as well as you know your camera and lights. This has been on my mind, lately, behind I’ve been demonstrating Luminar for lots of folks and it’s amazed me how quickly I’ve been able to integrate it into my workflow and understand how it can affect my pictures.

Photoshop isn’t New

“Getting it right in the camera” is often invoked as the hallmark of a good photographer, but it’s a big misconception. Ever since the beginning of photography, pictures have been heavily processed. When you click the shutter button on a film camera, that’s only the first mandatory step; you’ve still got to develop the film and print the photo, and both of those processes have lots of room for manipulation and completely changing the way the picture looked at capture. So photoshopping your pictures isn’t new.

Knowing is Half the Battle

But when you’re standing there with a client and you review your photograph you need to know the abilities of your software. If you look and see that there’s an object in the background that is a little distracting, you need to know that it’s either easier to move to a different location or use your software to remove the object from the final. You need to know whether it’s better to change your lighting or rely on your software to lift the shadows a little bit. You need to know that the processing you want to do will be supported by the way you’ve posed and lit your subject right now.

Knowing what you can do and knowing what you want to do will allow you to be confident behind the camera right now.

Portrait Tips come out each week, and you can see them all right here.