techniques

Tips for getting started in film photography

How to Get Started in Film Photography

We’re beginning to see a resurgence in film photography and for those of you who are looking to get into it but have no experience, it can be hard to decide where to start.

Street Photography Tips

5 Essential Tips and Techniques for Better Street Photography

Street photography is a category of photography that is dear to my heart. It’s the first category of photography that I tried to learn and master and over the many years, I’ve learned many skills and techniques.

What is Split Color Lighting, and How Do You Use It?

After I published a story on sunglasses for photographers, I got a ton of emails asking how I lit the series. So, while on the road for a recent photo shoot, I took some time at my AirBNB and wrote out how I approach what is called "split color lighting."

How to Find and Photograph the Northern Lights

The northern lights, otherwise known as aurora borealis, are the winter-time spectacle that sees northern skies filled with incredible dancing lights. Caused by the interaction of photons exciting the gas molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, they can appear as green, pink, or blue. Photographing them is near the top of almost all photographers’ wish lists, but getting a good shot is decidedly difficult.

11 Tips for Great Nature Photos That Stand Out From the Crowd

So, you just bought a fancy new telephoto or macro lens and can’t wait to get in super tight, frame-filling photos on a cool subject of animals or plants set off against a posterboard smooth background. After all, that’s why you spent lots of money on those lenses, right?

How To Get Super-Sharp Photos Every Time, With Any Camera

As a professional photographer, I use a lot of different cameras. At any given time, I can use really expensive full-frame cameras combined with the best glass money can buy, to mid-range cameras with kit lenses, all the way down to even compact cameras that fit in my pocket.

Landscape Photo Editing: Why You Need a Plan

When I started my journey in photography, one aspect that fascinated me the most -- and this extends even to today -- was photo editing. I remember my first edits. I was so delighted to see how my images changed drastically by just moving a few sliders in Lightroom or Photoshop.

The Lost America Project: 30-Years of Urban Exploration Light Painting

It was the late-eighties. I had been working at Galoob Toys as a designer on the Micro Machines line, creating cars and playsets for several years. A dream job, drawing and painting cars and roadside architecture for a living, but I also craved something different that I could do for personal work.

A Simple Four-Step Framework for Better Landscape Photo Compositions

In photography, many aspects can make an image successful, and in my opinion, what defines the bones of a great photo is a good composition. Instead of thinking composition like a series of canonical rules, I much prefer to use principles like connection, tone, colors, shape, relationship, light gestures, and so on.

What is the Difference Between Opacity and Fill in Photoshop?

A common post-production question involves Opacity and Fill, and what the differences are between them when it comes to photography. In this 14-minute video, Marc Newton from The School of Photography explains what sets them apart and how properly using them can dramatically improve your images.

6 Professional Tips for Awesome Product Photography

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of shooting some product photography for my friends over at HDK Snowmakers. They are a snowmaking machine manufacturer for some of the country’s largest ski resorts and specialize in hyper-efficient machines that keep skiers on the slopes, while not guzzling up tons of water.

Is Back-Button Focus Becoming an Outdated Photography Technique?

As camera technology continues to progress, the way in which we operate them is changing as well. Photographers should always use the most familiar and effective technique to get the shot, and to that end I want to be clear about the purpose of this article: I’m not trying to convince anyone to blindly stop using back-button focus.

5 of the Most Overused Landscape Photography Techniques

Landscape photographer and LUMIX Ambassador James Popsys has put together a video breaking down five of the most overused photography techniques in landscape photography. From long exposures of water, to sky replacement, he explains why he feels that each of these are either used badly, too often, or both.

7 Ways to Enhance Eyes in Photoshop

Here's an in-depth 28-minute tutorial from the Photoshop Training Channel that will show you how to enhance and create amazing eyes in portrait photos using Photoshop.

‘Make It’ is a New Weekly Video Talk Show by Adobe for Creatives

The Creative Cloud team at Adobe has launched a new weekly interview series title “Make It”. The show runs at around 10 minutes, and features members of the Adobe team interviewing guest creatives, including photographers. The first episode featuring a photographer is embedded above, with Lindsay Adler in the hot seat.

28 Composition Techniques That Will Improve Your Photos

There are no unbreakable rules when it comes to how you should compose your photographs. After all, who likes rules except for your old school principal or heads of H.R. departments? There are, however, several photography composition guidelines you can use to help improve the composition of your photos.

28 Tips, Tricks, and Hacks for Adobe Photoshop CC

In this video and post I’ll cover 28 great features, tricks, hacks, and more of Adobe Photoshop CC 2015. Some are simple, some are difficult, some are well known, and some are more like Easter eggs.

If you want to learn about multiple layer styles, layer mask tricks, whitening teeth, black and white photos, precision with the Brush tool, and a bunch more, this is the tutorial for you!

10 Tips for Optimizing Your Photos with Lightroom: A Primer on Basic Techniques

If you're just starting out in Adobe Lightroom and would like some guidance on how you can use the software to improve your photographs, here's a free lesson that may be of interest to you. Photography instructor Tim Grey shares his top 10 tips for optimizing photographs in Lightroom.

The talk runs for nearly 2 hours, so you'll need to carve a chunk out of your day to watch it, but it could be helpful for anyone in need of a primer on some basic tools.

Beautiful Firework Photographs Captured Using Clever Camera Techniques

Firework photographs are generally pretty uniform in their appearance: a dark sky, glowing sparks that are either points or lines depending on exposure time, and perhaps some views of the surrounding area. When photographing a major fireworks show last week, photographer Rob Shaw of BackFromLeave Photo wanted to do something different. He played around with various camera techniques and captured a set of firework images that is quite different than most of the images you'll see online.

Film Photography Technique Tips for the Digital Photographer

Film photography is similar in many ways to digital photography, and most of your standard digital photography techniques apply to film too. You just have to understand the peculiarities of film and its limitations and you’re good to go.

That will be explained in detail in this article, which presumes readers are already reasonably proficient at digital photography and are embarking upon film photography for the first time.