Watching old family photographs fading away in treasured photo albums is a sad reality. However, bringing the digital age to these old film photographs can deliver them back to life. Colorizing old black and white photos can immediately transform an aged, washed-out capture into an image full of realism.
A little while back, I was working for a small local newspaper outside of Houston, Texas. I was working on a series about adrenaline junkies around the area. One article I really wanted to write was about skydiving at Spaceland Houston.
The photographers at Mango Street wanted to show that it generally takes more than "pro" camera gear to shoot "pro" photos, so they decided to do a shootout to test this.
Photographer Jessica Kobeissi is back again with another portrait challenge, and this time she invited photographers Brandon Woelfel, Jerry Maestas, and Derrick Freske to participate. For the latest challenge, they pointed their lenses at model Tashi Rodriguez.
In the fall of 2008, Barack Obama had just become the Democratic candidate and was heavily favored to win the White House to become the first African American President of the United States. His popularity created media frenzy as the world was thirsty to learn more about the young Senator from Illinois. Because Obama was a presidential candidate, a media corps began to follow and report on Obama’s every move.
When packing your gear bag for a two-week street photography trip, the last thing you might think to bring is an underwater housing. Most of the time you would be completely right to leave that item at home. But if your trip happens to be going to India during the celebration of Holi, an underwater housing may just be the protection you need.
After the fantastic experience I had hosting my first Dog Photo Booth at Glens Falls Pet Fest in City Park, Glens Falls last year, I knew I had to return for the 2nd annual event. As simple as the concept may sound, hosting a photo booth (let alone one for dogs) involves a number of technicalities. Having never hosted a photo booth before, last year was a tremendous learning experience for me as a photographer.
My model triggered this photo of herself holding a light-painting tube with lightning in the background. I did a 30-second edit of this picture at the airport in Albuquerque and posted it right away on Instagram. It went bananas.
If you have never printed your own work before, you might not know that some careful preparation is needed to make sure the colors in your print match what you see on your screen. This 20-minute video from photographer Michael Woloszynowicz will teach you how to print your images with confidence.
If you have been following anything drone-related lately, chances are you have seen one of the mind-bending images like the one above that are very reminiscent of the scene from Inception when the ground is bent up at 90-degree angles.
I recently captured this 8-second handheld photo of the Milky Way from my seat in a Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplane. Here's a look at how it was done.
Adjusting colors of specific elements in a photograph can be used to bring harmony to an image or to add creative flair. Here’s a 5-minute video that shows how to match colors in Photoshop.
We've shared some impressive work by photo colorizers who use Photoshop skills and hard work to add realistic colors into historical monochrome photos. If you're wondering how its done, check out this 7-minute video by Vox that discusses the process. (Note: there's a bit of strong language.)
Photographers Francisco Hernandez and Vanessa Tellez recently did an experiment: photographing the same model, Hernandez used an off camera flash and Tellez used natural light to see how their styles and results differ. You can watch the shootout in the 5-minute video above.
Conceptual photographer Erik Johansson created this beautiful and surreal image titled "Full Moon Service," showing a couple of workers swapping in a full moon to maintain the lunar phases. Johansson has also released a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how the project was done, from concept to final shot.
What do you do when you find a roll of film that expired 34 years ago? Shoot with it, of course! Colin Wirth of This Does Not Compute shares the results of a recent experiment in this 8-minute video in which he shoots with some ancient Kodak Plus-X black and white film.
Viktoria Solidarnyh is a Ukranian digital photo artist who creates surreal, dreamlike scenes by cutting out and combining elements from a large number of photos. She has released a number of behind-the-scenes diptychs showing her source images to reveal how her composites are made.
Sometimes the excitement of another photographer seeking out the perfect landscape shot is all the inspiration we need to get outside ourselves. Join landscape photographer Adam Karnacz on a quest for the perfect sunset photo in this 12-minute vlog shot among the stunning vistas of the Lake District in Northwest England.
I had been itching to do a composite photo series for quite some time. It’s something I had never actually done up to this point, but I was and currently am a huge admirer of the art form. I’ve been following the great composite photographers like Dave Hill and Drew Lundquist for the past several years.
My name is José Ignacio, and I'm a commercial and wedding photographer from Spain. I read a lot of blogs and magazines in search of inspiration -- in this job there is a constant search for new ways of telling stories. The '2.5D' technique always attracted me. I’ve seen it applied in other genres, but I wanted to use it in wedding photography.
I'm not usually one to talk about celebrities that I keep in touch with from photo shoots. Some of this comes out of professional courtesy, and another part of it is that I'm a bit of a private person. However, a current project and fun day in the studio has made for some new images and behind the scenes video that I think you will all enjoy. Here's a look at the shenanigans that take place when I share the studio with my photographer friend (who plays football), Larry Fitzgerald.
Here's a 15-minute video tutorial from photographer Nathaniel Dodson that'll help you learn how to create the perfect black and white image using only Lightroom.
All of the drives we are using to store our precious photos and videos are not 100% reliable. Everybody should know that by now (and back everything up) but even if you are doing it properly, there are times when a drive fails and you have nowhere else to get its contents except from the drive itself.
I recently found myself with a spine injury, which proved to kinda be a big road block to my photography. My photo projects usually involved lots of driving and walking, two things that proved to be extremely painful due to my crappy health. One day, sitting around bored, I decided to create a camera that was as immobile as I was. Armed with a rough sketch, and a misguided sense of self-confidence, I built a 20x24 camera over a weekend.
Native Nebraskan Bill Frakes has had a long career in which he has photographed in 138 countries and all US states. He has captured everything from Pulitzer Prize-winning images of Hurricane Andrew for the Miami Herald, where he was a staffer, to commercial work for Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola, Mars and Reebok.
If you're interested in product photography, Dustin Dolby's channel workphlo is definitely worth a bookmark. Using minimal equipment, he's able to capture distinct looks like this makeup shot, and in this tutorial he'll show you how a single speedlight can produce a bold beautiful wine bottle photo that looks 100% pro.
Are you stressed? What better way to de-stress is there than to break things while making cool photographs at the same time? You can break anything, from spaghetti to fancy glassware, there is no limit. It will take you about half an hour to build the Arduino circuit and write the code for this sound triggering photographic system.
Here'a neat trick for you Photoshop lovers out there. If you've shot a subject in front of a gray background, you can actually swap that gray background very easily using only Blend Modes. No selection or refine edge necessary.
Australian wedding photographer James Day recently shared a beautiful wedding photo and story that are tugging on heartstrings around the Web. It's a terrific example of emotion being captured and conveyed in a shot.
I’m Alastair Philip Wiper, a British photographer based in Copenhagen and working worldwide. From the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, to giant shipyards in South Korea and radio observatories in Peru, I work with the weird and wonderful subjects of industry, science, architecture. Finding a niche has been very important for my career, so I’m going to share a bit about how I went about it.
Lots of photo editing tutorials these days focus on one specific technique or edit—how to sharpen, or how to use the HSL tool, for example. But if you're just starting out and you need a complete photo editing walkthrough, this tutorial will take you through a landscape photo edit from start to finish.
As wedding photographers, we often work in conditions that are far from perfect. We also often need to make decisions in a split second so the day runs smoothly for the bride and groom. Everyone of us is also afraid of doing something that may prevent us from completing the job. And unfortunately... that happened to me. I fell into a fountain.
Hang around a group of landscape photographers long enough, and you'll undoubtedly hear them talking about location scouting.
Plenty of photographers these days try their hands at making their own cameras, but Swedish photographer, inventor, and camera maker Mats Wernersson recently did something a little more unusual: he made his own 90mm f/2.8 lens from scratch.
This simple step-by-step tutorial comes to us from Dustin Dolby of Workphlo, who's got a knack for shooting high-end product photography with minimal gear. This time, he's showing us how to quickly and easily capture a professional wine photograph using just two speedlights and a kit lens.
The best time to shoot portraits (or almost anything) is golden hour, but it's not the only time. Grab an ND filter, a strobe, and this tutorial by Portland-based photographer Levy Moroshan, and you can capture dramatic portraits in the mid-day sun.
July 2nd, 2015. The weather forecast is dreadful. Warm and sweaty and with a chance of tornadoes. European Storm Forecast Experiment (Estofex for short) issued a level 2 warning, which means that there’s a 15% chance of severe weather.
My name is Jake Hicks, and I'm an editorial and fashion photographer based in the UK. In this article, I'll share a look at some of the sharpening techniques I use in Photoshop to give my images a little visual-pop before I publish them.
My name is Trey Cockrum, I am a wedding and portrait photographer based in Indiana. This is the story of how I recently traded my photography for a haircut.
There’s just something about shooting New York City at night. While the city is intriguing and beautiful in the day, there’s something about it when it's lit up at night. The assortment of lights truly jolt the city into existence.
My name is Brandie Sunley, and I've been working full-time as a portrait and event photographer for nearly eight years. It's been a massive learning curve getting into this industry, and a lot of things had to be learned the hard way. The following story is one of those hard lessons...
Photographer Mithun M Das captured this creative and romantic photo of a kissing couple's silhouette in a drop of water hanging off the end of a leaf. What's not obvious from the photo, however, is how it was shot: Das made it from the comfort of his own home. In fact, he didn't even leave his computer.
There are 27 different blending modes in Photoshop, and unless you're a real retouching junkie, chances are good you haven't explored each and every one of them in detail. But have no fear, to paraphrase an old Apple ad, "there's a [YouTube tutorial] for that."
In the world of Instagram, there is a practice known as botting -- and I hate it. For the uninitiated, botting is the process of tying your Instagram account to a wide variety of automation software, which charge users small sums of money to juice their profile. At the heart of it, it’s a pay-to-play relationship where you’re paying money to grow your following on Instagram.
A video is made up from 25 single photos per second, that, when placed back-to-back, trick our mind into seeing motion. But what would happen if we only took one photo every minute, and then played them back at 25 frames per second? The result is a magnificent hyper-realistic compression of time.
Commercial photographer Vatsal Kataria of New Delhi, India, shoots big photos with small budgets. Instead of taking expensive cars and motorcycles into grand outdoor locations, Kataria builds detailed miniature sets in his studio.
Adobe is getting creative on Instagram. Taking advantage of Instagram's new ability to publish multiple images and video in a single post, they've created this simple, step-by-step tutorial that will show you how to create a 'double exposure' in Photoshop.
Many a photographer knows from experience that getting a credit line for his or her work may often be the only compensation available. That was my situation when I was employed as a student and photographer at UCLA back -- make that WAAAYY back -- in 1966-68. My job consisted of photographing just about anything on campus – student government, rallies, “love-ins” and, this being UCLA, football and basketball games.
Photographers Jessica Kobeissi, Irene Rudnyk, and Ruby James are back again with another photo challenge. And this time they've invited photographer Derrick Freske to join in on the fun.
Want to see what goes on inside Sony's main factory for digital cameras and lenses? Here's a 4-minute video that shows how the Sony a7R II is assembled, tested, and boxed up at the Sony Digital Imaging factory in Chunburi, Thailand.