What is an Adjustment Layer, and when should you use it?
One of the most commonly used features in Adobe Photoshop is the Layers panel. There are several different types of layers — Adjustment Layers being
One of the most commonly used features in Adobe Photoshop is the Layers panel. There are several different types of layers — Adjustment Layers being
This morning, Skylum unveiled additional details about Luminar Neo, set to be released winter 2021. Specifically, the company talked about four upcoming features — layers,
We’ve all heard the common complaint about the lack of layers in Lightroom Classic. And up until now, I never really understood it. If I
If you have ever wanted to take a picture of a popular outdoor location, there are many times that other people will make it into
Photographing large groups of people is the most challenging assignment you’ll get as a portrait photographer. Each person expects you to make them look great
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
When using textures to enhance your photos in Photoshop, blending is how you reveal your image below the texture layer or tell the texture layer
What is a Layer? Layers are a powerful way to “build up” your images. They allow you to add filters–or stack several filters together–to apply
Sometimes we get stuck with a plain background that we’d have preferred to be more interesting. The solution is often to dress it up in
For this composite, my goal was to produce a version of my galloping wild horses image that looks like it’s been drawn and woodburned onto an old board. Not sure why, I just thought it would look cool, the inspiration behind many my composites. Having an idea of what you want to make before you start usually produces the best results. But, don’t be so in love with your idea you can’t change as you create your composite.
At this point, I have my horse picture processed and saved as a high resolution TIF file, and have found a nice wood texture I want to use as the background texture. Ideally you want these texture files to be high-resolution also, so that you can print your finished piece later. Using a 400 pixel wide texture will result in a blurry grainy mess, it’s too small to print it big later.
In the digital darkroom, we can take two paths with our images. The first is to use your photo processing software to get your image looking as close to what you saw when you took it. This is your standard digital darkroom workflow, adjusting your exposure, getting rid of spots, cropping, etc., with more of a focus on realism.
The second path is to take that photo and transform it into something completely different. It may be combined with other photos as a composite, have various effects applied, and generally will look completely different from what you started with, but in a good way! Here the focus is on creating something new, using your original image only as the first ingredient. This is compositing, combining multiple images and effects to produce an original piece of art. In this article I’ll take you down the second path, introducing how to use Skylum’s new Luminar 2018 to start doing your own composites.
How to deal with the unfortunate facial expression in group portraits Ah… it’s that time again! The time when we are challenged to capture the