Tutorials

Whether you are a beginning photographer or a seasoned professional, there are always new things to learn and more areas to improve in. PetaPixel regularly publishes in-depth tutorials on a wide range of subjects, from Photoshop tips and post-processing techniques to ideas on building your own cameras and do-it-yourself equipment.

How to Use Studio Strobes with Fuji Instax Instant Film

Fuji's Instax film is typically thought of as a "snapshot" product, not something you'd use in a studio, but Brooklyn-based photographer Anthony Tripoli hasn't let that stop him. He's figured out a way to shoot studio portraits on Instax film, strobes and all.

How to Make Photoshop’s ‘Object Selection’ Tool More Precise

One of the most useful AI-powered tools in Photoshop is the relatively new Object Selection tool. But if you're finding that the tool isn't quite as precise as you would like, Unmesh Dinda from PIXimperfect has a few tips that will help you dial the feature in just right.

Camera Basics: Understanding Shutter Speed

Do you know your camera basics? Today we dive into shutter speed and teach you all the ways you can use shutter speed to unlock your creativity and expand your photography style. Learn how to show fluid movement or capture a split second and what styles of photography these shutters speed options are best for.

How to Shoot Portraits Through FaceTime

If anything good has come out of the current lockdown, it’s the many wonderful ways people have been finding to stay creative. When the coronavirus began to take hold and necessary government instructions rendered my wedding and portrait photography business inoperable, I had to deal with the shock and financial implications of it like any other photographer. It also threw up another challenge: how do we as creatives stay creative?

How to Easily Remove Color Casts in Photoshop

In this post, I'll share how I do quick and easy color cast removal using Photoshop. I will provide some examples to show you that it can work for a wide range of images. The color cast removal process I will explain may not be a universal solution but it seems to be very resilient.

How to Change Someone’s Eye Color in Adobe Lightroom

When it comes to major retouching like changing eye color, most of us choose to use Photoshop or a similar pixel editor rather than a RAW editor like Lightroom. But as Anthony Morganti shows in the tutorial above, you don't actually have to leave Lightroom to make this kind of edit.

How to Do Top-Down Light Painting in a Room

I'm light-painting photographer Russell Klimas, and in this article I'll share how I do top-down light painting in a room. I was originally inspired to do this technique because when I had done it with a drone I had a troll complain that the images weren’t clear enough.

Make Your Own Film Developer and Fixer Using These Household Items

Last week, photographer Brendan Barry created a timely tutorial on how to turn your bedroom into a giant camera, and use it to take actual pictures. But what if you don't have any photographic chemicals around for developing and fixing those images? Barry's got you covered.

SEO for Photographers: 3 Ways to Improve Your Website

When most of us began pursuing a career as photographers, we pictured idyllic days spent behind our beloved cameras photographing all the things. We quickly learned that our time behind a camera would be precious, as most of us would spend way more time sitting at a computer editing, communicating with our clients, managing marketing and social media campaigns, and well, just running the business.

Shooting Stacked Macro Photography on a Budget

Need a photo project while confined to your home for weeks due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic? Here is a guide on shooting stacked macro photography on a budget!

How to Build a DIY ‘Pixelstick’ for About $22

You might have heard of the Pixelstick. “Nothing compares” is one of their tag lines. And this is true... at least price-wise. I have always wanted one to at least try out some light painting with it, but the Pixelstick retails for €400 here in Germany and $349 in the United States.

Intentional Camera Movement: An Intro to ICM Photography

I have been getting quite experimental with my photography this year and recently stumbled upon Intentional Camera Movement, or ICM, photography. I fell into the work of photographer Andy Gray and was immediately blown away by the painterly feel of his images.

How to Shoot Powerful Foregrounds

I love shooting foregrounds in my big vista landscapes but it has taken quite a while to find out the things that work well and what doesn’t. I still don’t think I have mastered it but really enjoy the challenge of going out and finding a powerful foreground. In this article, I wanted to share the things that I believe have the biggest impact on creating great shots like this.

Adding Foreground Flare to Portraits

There are a million-and-one ways to add creative flares and effects to your shots in post-production after you’ve taken the image, but nothing beats the look and feel of an image that has used in-camera flares and bokeh effects.

Three Ways to Use RGB Lights in Your Portrait Work

RGB LEDs are a relatively new piece of technology, and a wonderful addition that photographers should be taking advantage of. Before this technology existed, we were forced to resort to adding gels to our strobes in order to add a pop of color into our images. This worked well (and still does) but having the ability to change the hue and saturation of your lights with the flip of a switch or turn of a dial is incredibly useful.

A Complete Guide to Using Off Camera Flash for Wedding Photography

Wedding photographer Reggie Ballesteros gets a lot of questions from aspiring wedding photographers, and one of the most common is: how do you use off-camera flash? So he's created a comprehensive guide that covers his entire process—from the gear he uses, to his thought process during setup, through execution.

How I Built a Custom Charging Board for All of My Camera Batteries

Recently I became—as I’m sure many of you already are—utterly sick of the endless chargers and cables in my studio. It's a mess of wires that always seem to get tangled and it always ends up looking like Medusa on a bad hair day.

Creating Homemade Photography Backdrops on the Cheap

Anyone who has had any exposure to still life photography or studio work will know just how expensive backdrops can be. I have a couple from Kate Backdrops company, one of which I use very often, but I've been hankering after a few more.

5 Reasons Your Couples Portraits May Look Awkward (And How To Prevent It)

So you’ve just finished your first couples portrait session and once you’ve gotten home and started looking through the images, you realize that something just feels “off” with your shots. Oftentimes it’s just little things we never really pay attention to, especially when we’re trying to catch the last bits of daylight, but they’re all easily avoidable. In this video, we’ll show you 5 reasons why your couples portraits might look awkward, and what you can do to avoid them.

Refracted Rose: A Fun Valentine’s Day Macro Photography Idea

It's Valentine's Day and a good opportunity to grab some flowers and celebrate our love for photography with another creative project. I didn’t want to miss my chance, so I grabbed some red roses and in today’s post I will share my set-up for a Valentine's Day 'Refracted Rose' photo.

7 Tips for Taking the Perfect Beach Silhouette Photo

Silhouette images can really pack a punch -- they can be very striking and have the ‘wow’ factor. But how do you take them? Follow the tips below to take your own perfect beach silhouette images!

How to Shoot Creative Macro Photos of Skeleton Leaves

Today we are going to use skeleton leaves and glycerin for a creative macro project. Skeleton leaves are fascinating and intricate structures that make great subjects for macro photography and creative projects.

Why Umbrellas are the Most Under-Appreciated Lighting Modifier

In this short tutorial, well-known portrait and fashion photographer Lindsay Adler will show you how to use "the most inexpensive and under-appreciated" lighting modifier to capture beautiful studio portraits. She's talking, of course, about the lowly umbrella.

There and Back Again: Passing Photos Between Lightroom and Photoshop

Lightroom and Photoshop are designed to work hand-in-hand, so you can easily pass photos between the two programs while you're working with them. Photography instructor Phil Steele of Steele Training made this beginner's 17-minute tutorial on doing "round trips" (and even "nested round trips") with photos between Lightroom and Photoshop.

5 Shots You Need to Get When You Are the On-Set Photographer

The first time I was hired to photograph on set at a music video was decades ago. The client was a record label and they didn’t give me any detailed instructions. I was just starting out and it didn’t even occur to me to ask just what I was supposed to take pictures of.

Shooting a Portrait with Light, Shadow, and Highlight

Light, shadow, and highlight -- this is always a great combination for creating portraits from a lighting point of view. This is the interesting part: changing the intensity of the highlight or the tone in the shadows while maintaining the exposure can produce a different feel to an image, from being dramatic to soft and subtle, and that is what is so intriguing about photography.

Three Posing Tips that Will Improve Your Portrait Photography

Posing is one of the most difficult "arts within an art" to master when it comes to photography, but this short video from Eli Infante might help. Eli shares three tips that you can use to liven up your posing and improve your portrait photography in the process.

Turn Your On-Camera Flash Into an Off-Camera Softbox

Wondering how to make the most of the gear you have on hand? Here is a quick tutorial on how you can use your on-camera flash and a simple 5-in-1 reflector to create the look of an off-camera softbox.

5 Primary Light Patterns and Their Purposes

In this 8.5-minute video, we’ll explain the 5 primary key light patterns and the ‘why’ or purpose behind each of them. It's all about “key” or main light positions and namely, understanding the why or purpose behind each one of these 5 primary lighting patterns.

3 Things Most Photographers Get Wrong About Flash

In this video, we’ll talk you through 3 common misconceptions when it comes to flash. These are easy mistakes any photographer can make so pay attention and see how to correct them with these easy tips!