Jayphen Simpson

Articles by Jayphen Simpson

Marketing vs. Reality: 10 Memory Cards Tested for Real-World Speed

High-speed memory cards can be pricey, so you want to know that you’re getting the performance that you are paying for before you lay down the cash. This 8-minute video from Tom’s Tech Time compares 10 microSD cards for their read/write performance, and the results show that the numbers used in marketing cannot always be trusted.

3 Tips for How to Pose Men Who Don’t Know How to Model

In this typically short and sweet 1.5-minute video from Mango Street, the photography duo run through some techniques for posing a male subject. These tips are especially helpful when posing someone who is not a model and has little experience in front of a camera.

How to Reply When Clients Say You’re Too Expensive

No matter what industry you are in, if you’re selling your services you will inevitably come up against clients who balk at your prices. This 9-minute video from The Futur is a role-play of that very situation and will teach you some ways to respond and close the deal without selling yourself short.

A Profile of Photographer Keith Carter

Keith Carter is a Texas-based photographer whose ethereal style and beautiful depiction of “truth and beauty” have often led him to be referred to as a “poet with a camera”. In this moving 15-minute interview with The Art of Photography, Carter discusses his career, how his projects come together, illness, and his legacy.

An Advanced Look at Photoshop’s HSL Adjustment Layer Tool

You’ve probably used Hue/Saturation/Lightness adjustment layers in Photoshop before, but there's likely more to it than you may have known. This 8-minute video from f64 Academy looks at the tool in detail and shows how you can use it to enhance your control over color ranges.

How to Clean Your Camera Sensor

When was the last time you cleaned your sensor? Even with weather-sealed equipment, dust particles can eventually make their way inside your camera. Peter McKinnon runs through how to clean the sensor and lenses in this 13-minute video.

Shooting a Dramatic Portrait Using a Beauty Dish

This 12-minute tutorial from photographer Joel Grimes demonstrates two methods for creating dramatic portraits using a minimal amount of gear. Both techniques use a beauty dish; the first with a single light source and the second with the addition of 2 edge lights.

Enlight Photo Editor for iOS V2 Brings a Freemium Model

Lightricks, the creator of the selfie-editing app Facetune, has released Enlight Photofox as the second version of their popular, more advanced photo editing suite. This new app is free to download but requires a $4 per month subscription to unlock all features.

Apple to Bring 3D Laser Autofocus to iPhone Cameras, Report Says

Apple is reportedly adding a rear-facing 3D laser system to coming iPhones as part of the hardware improvements necessary for full utilization of its recently announced augmented reality development kit (ARKit). As well as depth-sensing for augmented reality application, the laser system will improve autofocus for iPhone photographers.

3 Ways to Find Clients While You Sleep

Being a great photographer is only one part of turning it in to a full-time job. You’ll also need some business chops, and these 3 tips from photographer Moshe Zusman will give you some ideas on how automate client acquisition.

You Can Now Buy Snapchat Spectacles Directly on Amazon

Snap Inc’s experimental foray into wearables may not have had much of a financial impact for the struggling company, but they did create some buzz with their pop-up ‘Snapbot’ vending machines. Now they’ve made their Spectacles available directly on Amazon at the same $130 price.

How To Use Photoshop’s Dehaze Tool… in CS6

Photoshop CS6 lacks the powerful Dehaze feature Adobe released in 2015 and the program no longer gets updates, but for those unwilling to switch to Adobe’s subscription model it’s the latest version available. If you're on CS6 and you want Dehaze, there's actually a way: these free presets from Dave Cross will “fool” Camera Raw into applying Dehaze in CS6.

Quick Tip: Refining Local Adjustments in Lightroom

Making local adjustments in Lightroom can be a great way to bring attention to a specific part of your image, but they lack an opacity slider to retroactively change the strength of the effect. This 4-minute video shows you how to tweak the impact of your adjustments after they’ve been applied.

How to Optimize Photos For Facebook

Saving images for the web, and specifically Facebook, can require a little bit of extra attention to get them looking sharp. This 10 minute video from Francisco Hernandez of FJH Photography explores some sharpening, sizing, and exporting tips to ensure your images look their best on Facebook.

How to Create a DIY Car Camera Rig on the Cheap

Action shots of cars in movement are often taken with a ‘car rig’ – basically a long pole that is attached to the car, with a camera mounted on the end. A professional car rig can cost in the thousands, but this 13 minute video from Practical Photography will teach you to make your own for under $40.

Improve Your Astrophotography Focus With a Bahtinov Mask

Finding razor-sharp focus when shooting astrophotography can be hard – stars appear as point light sources, and there are no detailed surfaces to aid the eye in achieving focus. The Bahtinov Mask is a widely used tool that cleverly uses diffraction as a focusing aid.