Software How To

Hot spots and highlight blowouts are the bane of portrait photographers and others. They can occur with images shot in the studio under artificial illumination, as well as those captured with natural light outdoors. Fortunately there’s a simple and effective Photoshop fix, as you’ll see in the quick tutorial below.

A primary goal of all photographers is to capture images with precise focus. The challenge is getting the job done when shooting scenes like landscapes that have important objects in the foreground, background and mid range of the frame.

Have you ever captured what you thought was a great photograph, only to discover ugly white edges when viewing the image on your computer? These image-killing artifacts are known as “halos,” and today you’ll learn how to quickly eradicate them in Photoshop.

Creating soft, blurry backgrounds is a popular technique for making subjects stand out from their surroundings. It’s also useful for eliminating clutter, and directing a viewer’s eye to the most important element of a scene.

If you’re like most folks, photographers and “civilians” alike, you probably have a bunch of old family photos lurking in shoeboxes and tattered albums just waiting for some TLC. And because you’re a photographer, relatives will likely solicit your help to restore their often-damaged mementos.

The past month has been special for Shutterbug readers thanks to the weekly installments we’ve posted of an amazing free Lightroom masterclass from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel. Part 1 covered the basics. #2 dealt with masking, and last week’s episode explained the finer points of using Lightroom’s Tone Curve.

Photography is all about maximizing light, and landscape photographers are always at the mercy of prevailing conditions. The quick tutorial below demonstrates how to make necessary adjustments in Lightroom when Mother Nature fails to cooperate.