Perfecting Lightroom Sky Selections With Ease
When dealing with intricate details like tree branches against skies, creating precise masks in Lightroom can feel like an uphill battle. Precise masking is essential to control edits effectively, especially when working with scenes involving complex edges, such as foliage or fine structures.
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Creative Techniques for Wide Angle Portrait Photography
Wide angle portraits are uncommon because most people assume distortion ruins them. But understanding distortion can elevate your photography by giving you deliberate, dynamic control.
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The Meike 85mm f/1.8: Affordable Sharpness for Fujifilm Shooters
The Meike 85mm f/1.8 Pro AF offers photographers a compact and budget-friendly alternative for capturing striking portraits and detailed telephoto shots. Can it keep up with more expensive options?
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The Power of Using Channels in Photoshop
Mastering color channels is a powerful Photoshop skill, crucial for achieving precise cutouts and unique creative effects. Channels can significantly elevate your editing capabilities, especially for handling images with intricate details or soft edges.
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A New Faster SanDisk SSD For Your Travel Adventures
I’ve been a fan of SanDisk’s portable Extreme Pro SSDs for many years. When I travel with my laptop, I take a couple with me so I can back up my photos and videos each day. The ones I’ve been using transfer data up to 2,000 MB/s (sustainable read and write speed). They’re also very durable, with good water and dust resistance (IP65).
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Behind the Photo: Photographing an Observatory Underneath the Starry Night Sky
How might you take a night photo of an observatory near the entrance of Joshua Tree National Park? We take you behind the scenes to discuss photographing this image for a local magazine and some quick problem-solving. And you'll learn more about how to create photos such as this.
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What It Was Like to Be a Portrait Photographer in 1890
The chemical stains on Samuel McKinney's hands told the story of his profession before he ever opened his mouth. Fine brown flecks of silver nitrate freckled his fingertips; years of handling pyrogallic developer had yellowed his nails. His clothes reeked faintly of sulfur and ether no matter how many times his wife scrubbed them.
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Street Photography Camera Settings Simplified: Essential Tips
Camera settings can make or break your images, yet sorting through endless menus to find the right combinations can be overwhelming. Getting comfortable with just a few important settings can greatly speed up your process and improve your results.
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Is the Fujifilm X-E5 the Interchangeable X100 You've Wanted?
The Fujifilm X-E5 is a mid-range mirrorless camera aiming to deliver the aesthetics and experience of the popular X100 series, with the added flexibility of interchangeable lenses. For many, a compact form with powerful image quality and lens versatility is exactly what's needed, making the X-E5 an intriguing option to consider.
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From Lens to Listing: How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Real Estate Visuals
Real estate photography has always been about precision, speed, and aesthetic intuition. Photographers are the unsung heroes behind listings that sell fast and above the asking price. But as the housing market shifts faster than ever, the expectations for visual content have reached new heights. Enter artificial intelligence.
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Lightroom AI Face Retouching Made Simple
Lightroom's AI tools offer a practical solution for common touch-ups when time is limited. Here's how to make the most of them.
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The Fine Line: Forced Shots vs Finding Photos
Landscape photography often brings you face-to-face with frustrating situations where great images feel just out of reach. You know that sinking feeling returning home with a card full of disappointing shots and a sense of wasted effort.
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Core Photography Truths for Lasting Growth
Photography often gets tangled in gear debates and technical perfection. You might be overlooking simpler principles that actually strengthen your work long-term.
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Are Modern Superzoom Lenses Good Enough for Serious Landscapes?
Landscape photographers often argue about the practical value of superzoom lenses. A lens with a broad focal range sounds appealing, but is it truly effective in real-world use?
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Photograph With the End in Mind
Always photograph with the end in mind. Make life easier for the guy in the darkroom, or the person in Lightroom—usually you.
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Why Artistic Vision Doesn't Pay the Bills
The photography was stunning—moody, atmospheric, deeply personal. Each image told a story through dramatic lighting and unconventional composition. The photographer's Instagram followers loved it, fellow artists praised the vision, and it even won a local competition. But six months later, the photographer was struggling to book paying clients, questioning whether to continue pursuing photography professionally, and wondering why artistic recognition wasn't translating into business success.
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Professional Results from Lightroom's Advanced Masking Capabilities
Masks are essential tools, but many photographers keep their use pretty basic. Complex masks, where you combine or modify multiple masks, can transform your editing process and dramatically improve your images.
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Pelican’s Re-Set Kit Is the Insert System We’ve All Been Waiting For
Pick n’ Pluck, TrekPak, foam hybrids—Pelican has given us plenty of ways to organize our gear, each with its own quirks and trade-offs. But once you commit, you're stuck—cut the foam wrong or rearrange the...
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Why Your Shots Look Flat and How Toning Can Fix It
If your shots sometimes look flat or you're not sure why certain images work better than others, toning might be the missing ingredient. Toning is crucial because it helps you shape dimension and guide a viewer's attention within your photo, yet many photographers completely overlook it.
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Finding Your Perfect Film Stock: A Practical Beginner's List
Film choice makes a bigger difference than you might realize. Picking the wrong film stock can leave you frustrated with results that don't match your expectations or your budget.
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