This category is concerned with the craft of photography. Here you will find articles about technique, cameras, lenses, the things the experienced photographer uses to help make an image successful.
Color Efex and Viveza I’ve been looking closely at Color Efex and Viveza, two plugins from the Nik Collection recently. I’ve dabbled with Color Efex in the past, but in terms of a coherent Color Workflow with Nik Collection plugins, well I didn’t really have one. Until now. Video I have a playlist on YouTube…
In landscape photography, the issue of focus and the related issue of depth of field lead inexorably towards trying to get to grips with hyperfocal distance. In this article I am simplifying hyperfocal distance so that the principle can be easily used by landscape photographers to get sharp focus front to back. It’s not what…
Windmills, Snow and Gigapixel Panoramas This week, with the help of the Mountain Nomads, I found a location that has eluded me for months: the Atalaya de Marchal. The Atalaya de Marchal is a watchtower built by the Moors on a hilltop outside Conchar, just off the Albenuelas road. Its purpose was to spot incoming…
This article explains how to approach printing like a pro in DxO PhotoLab 7, using the Soft Proofing tools. In truth, printing has long been a tortuous task for me, I believe that printers and photographers are different beasts and rarely are the two skills combined. There’s always Ansel Adams to disprove this theory, but…
Creating a signature in photoshop suitable for use across many images is quite straightforward in Photoshop, this is how it’s done. Video New Photoshop Document Choose a layout that is large and approximates to the shape of your signature. So if you are called Archibald Merryweather Smyth , then choose a template such as the…
Using Luminosity Masks effectively has been a game changer for many photographers, myself included, and I’m delighted to see them arrive in DxO PhotoLab 7 courtesy of DxO FilmPack 7. (You need to have both products installed for Luminosity Masks to become active in PhotoLab). Before PhotoLab 7, Photoshop was the only option for Luminosity…
The key to managing a large photo library is organisation. Of course this very rarely happens straight out of the gate; new photographers organise pictures randomly, if at all, ending up with images splattered across multiple hard drives, desktops, USB keys, microSD’s and so on. By the time you realise you have a problem, you’re…
Mastering colour grading is key to creating your own style in photography. This article explores the options available for Colour grading in Lightroom Classic, describing the available tools and explaining what they are for and why you would use them. What does Colour Grading Achieve? Why is the colour straight out of the camera not…
Photographers guide to shooting video is a two-part post, this part focusing on kit, and the next part on technique. Video is a Different Skill For photographers transitioning to video, and I absolutely include myself in this problematic category, shooting video exposes the Dunning-Kruger effect in spades. If you don’t already know, the Dunning-Kruger effect…
Last week I talked a little about Colour Theory in my article How to Take Better Photographs using a Shared Visual Language and realised that it’s a subject that many photographers are intimidated by or confused about. I promised to write a full post on the topic and so today I’ll be describing how you…