Tutorials, Guides and Free Resources for Photographers
Dodging and burning is nearly as old as photography itself. Traditionally applied in the darkroom, dodging and burning techniques are used to selectively alter the exposure of photographic prints. Using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop, we’re able precisely manipulate the brightness of pixels as if we’re working in a darkroom. Dodging and burning [...]
“The easiest kind of a job to cover was a murder. The stiff would be laying on the ground.” Arthur (“Weegee”) Fellig is a widely respected photographer and photojournalist who became well known during the 1930s and 40s for his gritty crime scene photographs and street photography of the lower east-side of New York. He [...]
I absolutely love creating dynamic environmental portraits! Understanding how to control and modify off-camera lighting is the single most important skill a portrait photographer can learn. Whether natural or artificial, well placed lighting is what separates mediocre portrait photographers from exceptional ones. In today’s competitive market, it’s increasingly difficult to stand out. Exceptionally lit portraits [...]
There are times when it is impossible to capture the entire dynamic range of a scene in a single image. Recently I ran in into this problem during a short trip I made through a beautiful farming valley. I found a lovely old shed and decided to stop to photograph it. After securing permission from [...]
Prior to 2007, when Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 was released, photographers had to rely on an assortment of image processing programs to import, rate, sort, process, share, print and upload their images to the web. For example a photographer might use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to initially import images from a flash card, ACDSee Photo [...]
Have you ever wanted to make a high resolution image look old and grungy, but didn’t know how? Have you ever considered adding scratches and a retro border to an image to give it a film-like feel? In this 21-minute video, Elias explains how to distress ordinary images using basic tools found in Photoshop. He [...]
How many times have you witnessed and photographed an amazing landscape scene just to discover later that your images look dull and lifeless? It’s as if somehow the vibrance you remember seeing wasn’t recorded in your pictures. This can be so frustrating This quick tip will show you how you can increase the contrast and [...]
In the old days (not that long ago!) creative photographers used unconventional darkroom techniques to create composite images. The results were not always consistent – sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Today with a bit of planning, a tripod and Photoshop, you can reliably create interesting and unique composites images. In this quick guide, [...]
Note: Over the last several years I have received numerous questions and comments about the “Least of These” urban portrait series. I do the best I can to personally respond to each person who contacts me; however it’s difficult to provide thorough answers via email. This page is a summary of most commonly asked questions [...]
Debate continues among photographers about the pros and cons of shooting JPEG versus Raw images. Opinions vary depending on who you ask. This can be particularly confusing for new photographers trying to nail down an efficient workflow. The bottom line is that the file format you choose to capture your photographs with will have a [...]
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