You reviewed the camera manual and completed an online tutorial. You did everything you thought you were supposed to do. And yet, your photographs aren't exposed the way you want them to be. When I was a new photographer, shooting transparency film, I was always frustrated by exposure. I kept asking myself why some exposures worked and why others didn't. What exposures worked The exposures that worked for me usually depended on the brightness of my subject and the size of the subject in the frame. If my subject contained the brightest … [Read more...] about Exposure beyond the camera manual
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Photography Marketing: Using Instagram stories and highlights for a mini-portfolio
Instagram is a powerful tool, and one that I use on a daily basis. While posting and seeing everyone's photos as you scroll down your feed might be great (and fun), there are actually some other tools within the app that can help enhance your profile. Take one that I just updated — Instagram Story Highlights. These are those little circles you see on people's profiles. You can use this to save past Instagram stories, whether they be video or stills. This is a great way to show off your work, in a sort of mini-portfolio of sorts. For me … [Read more...] about Photography Marketing: Using Instagram stories and highlights for a mini-portfolio
Photography 101: How to read and understand a histogram
Whether you use it in-camera or in your post-processing software, you ultimately will come across a set of mountains that help to describe the pixel distribution by the brightness of your image. This mountainous graphic is known as a histogram. What the "mountains" mean Histograms in Lightroom and Adobe's Camera Raw are broken up into five main sections — blacks, shadows, exposure, highlights, and whites. Some cameras and image editing programs divide it a little differently — shadows, mid-tones, and highlights, or blacks, quarter tones, … [Read more...] about Photography 101: How to read and understand a histogram
Portrait Tips: A Layered Workflow for Retouching
Retouching the portraits you make can be a lot of fun, and it can be a lot of frustration. I realize that I've retouched thousands of portraits and one thing that makes it more fun than frustration is simply the way you go about it — the workflow. Let me show you how using layers in your retouching allows you freedom and creativity and reproducibility. I'll demonstrate using Luminar, but you can get similar results using any layered app. Basics Start by doing your basic tweaks — adjust the camera profile and white balance, which are in … [Read more...] about Portrait Tips: A Layered Workflow for Retouching
Quick Tip: Detailed Clipping Preview
If you want to set the white point and black point in your photos with precision, you'll want to take advantage of the detailed clipping preview option in Lightroom. Go beyond the clipping display you can enable from the histogram, with this quick tip that will help improve the accuracy of your tonal adjustments. Want more tips like this? Check out my "Lightroom Quick Tips" course on GreyLearning, part of the "Mastering Lightroom" bundle of courses. … [Read more...] about Quick Tip: Detailed Clipping Preview
Bringing Back the Depth of Grey Skies
I just got back from an amazing trip to Ireland! We went everywhere from the Ring of Kerry to the Cliffs of Moher, capturing the beautiful landscapes. Along with foggy, grey skies. I'm used to crazy Michigan weather, but Ireland seems to not want to make up its mind on the weather! But I couldn't let that hold me back. Don't Forget to Bracket If there was one thing I learned during the trip, it was the importance of bracketing. At the Cliffs of Moher, we had foggy, grey skies to deal with, but I was determined to capture an iconic … [Read more...] about Bringing Back the Depth of Grey Skies
HSL Panel – The Secret for Local Color Adjustments in Lightroom
There are two kinds of tools in Lightroom – global adjustment tools and local adjustment tools. Global adjustments refer to sliders that adjust the overall image. Things like Exposure, Contrast, Whites, Blacks, Clarity, Saturation, Sharpening, etc. Sometimes you just can’t push an image far enough with global changes and you need to target specific areas of an image. The HSL panel specifically targets color adjustments across an image. Let’s look at each feature while editing this photo. We’ll start in the basic panel, adjusting highlights … [Read more...] about HSL Panel – The Secret for Local Color Adjustments in Lightroom
Spot Metering: The Trick to Perfect Exposures
We all have had experiences where the lighting isn’t perfect — either inside or outside. And we might think we need to boost our ISO, change our aperture or play around with exposure compensation. Often, there’s one simple switch you can make. Instead of using matrix / evaluative metering (which is usually the default on today’s cameras), switch your camera to use spot metering. What is Spot Metering? Unlike matrix / evaluative metering, which averages the light across your entire frame, spot metering evaluates the light on your sole focus … [Read more...] about Spot Metering: The Trick to Perfect Exposures
Using Shadows and Highlights Adjustments in Photoshop
When used effectively, Photoshop's Shadows/Highlights sliders can help you transform your images. Learn how to use it in this tutorial form lynda.com. You'll see that overblown skies and muddy shadows can be recovered (even from A JPEG file). This is an essential tool for the toolbox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekJRSoLMY00 … [Read more...] about Using Shadows and Highlights Adjustments in Photoshop
Fixing Shadows and Highlights with Lightroom
Editors Note: The following is an excerpt from a new book called the Photofocus Guide: Develop Great Images in Lightroom. This book is almost done and well be giving away free copies soon to all our readers thanks to Mosaic. Be sure to check out the Lightroom Learning Center. There is a direct connection between the histogram and the tonal adjustments in the Basic panel. If you hover your cursor over the left end of the histogram you will see the word Blacks appear under the histogram and the Blacks slider lights up in the Basic … [Read more...] about Fixing Shadows and Highlights with Lightroom
Stop Clipping Your Highlights and Shadows in Photoshop or Lightroom
Clipping can really screw up a photo. As you make adjustments to a developed image, its possible to clip data (essentially create a loss of detail in the shadows or higlights). Crush the whites or blacks in an image and you'll lose important areas and range. Sure, the problem shows up most when you print, but it can still really screw up an image. Fortunately, Photoshop and Lightroom can warn you (if you turn on an important option. Shadow Clipping Warning Press U in Camera Raw Highlight Clipping Warning Press O in Camera Raw Show both … [Read more...] about Stop Clipping Your Highlights and Shadows in Photoshop or Lightroom
Avoid Clipping Your Highlights With Adobe Camera Raw
A popular stop for photos is to pre-process them using Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Fortunately both provide access to the Adobe Camera Raw engine which allows for powerful processing of Raw files. As you make adjustments to the developed image, it is possible to clip data (essentially a loss of detail). One of the greatest benefits of shooting raw is the ability to rescue details in the Shadows and Highlights. Heres how to put the commands to work. Select one or more of your Raw files from a series and open them. Choose an image … [Read more...] about Avoid Clipping Your Highlights With Adobe Camera Raw
How to Fix an Underexposed or Overexposed Photo in Seconds
Do you want to lift the shadows in your photos? Give me two minutes and I'll show you the powerful Shadows Highlights Adjustment in Adobe Photoshop. In seconds you can fix exposure problems for just about any image. Can't see the video? Click Here. This is just one way to fix exposure problems.... I hope its helpful. ______ … [Read more...] about How to Fix an Underexposed or Overexposed Photo in Seconds
