Portrait Photography How To

Last week we posted an eye-opening tutorial describing common "myths" about ISO settings than can easily compromise the quality of landscape, nature, and wildlife photos. We're following up on that today by demonstrating how so-called "bad photography habits" may actually improve your imagery in several ways.

It's a simple fact that some photos look more powerful in b&w, whether you're shooting landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, or other high-contrast scenes. And all modern digital cameras have a setting that enables you to do that directly.

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Lightroom's Selective Color tools enable you to target and adjust specific colors independently of one another to accentuate or deemphasize certain elements within the frame. In this tutorial from one of our favorite post-processing experts you'll learn a unique twist on this technique for transforming a color shot to b&w while retaining colors in the main subject of the shot.

So what in the heck are bokeh lights? The term bokeh describes an eye-catching effect that's achieved by shooting with a fast lens at maximum aperture to create soft-out-of-focus backgrounds that accentuate the main subject in an image. It powerful method that can be employed at any time of day.

Mastering color selection is an essential post-processing skill, whether you're working on images captured in the field, indoor portraits, or a variety of other artist projects. Today's step-by-step primer from Obi-Wan Adobe demonstrates the power of two powerful Photoshop tools and illustrates how they'll enable you to achieve eye-catching results.

This Photoshop tutorial from NBP Retouch Tools discusses a variety of concepts and techniques for the best ways to give photos a necessary saturation boost while retaining a realistic look. There are several ways to get the job done, some more effective than others, and there's a good chance that your everyday method can be improved.