Same Aperture, Different Lens

How focal length, depth of field and angle of view impact your photographs

William Sawalich

Let’s talk about focal length, depth of field and angle of view. How do they change based on lens selection? A wide-angle lens up close to a subject and a telephoto lens from far away may render something the same size on the sensor, but still, the images will look very different. Why? Depth of field is the area of the frame that’s in sharp... Read more

3 Ways To Add Depth To A Photograph

Create the illusion of depth in a two-dimensional photograph

William Sawalich

A photography instructor long ago told me that photographic technique is often about trying to recreate the three-dimensional world in a two-dimensional medium. As such, we’re always looking for ways to create the appearance of depth and dimension in our images. Here are three ways to add depth to a photograph. Use Backlight To Add Depth To A Photograph One... Read more

How To Optimize Your Camera For Burst Shooting

Get the most from your camera’s high-speed shooting capabilities

William Sawalich

If you’re a sports or wildlife photographer who periodically likes to put the proverbial pedal to the metal and crank out a rapid-fire series of several dozen frames in a few seconds, you may already know that this takes a bit of pre-planning—not only in choosing the right camera but setting it up for burst-shooting success. Here’s how to optimize... Read more

How To Use A Collapsible Light Reflector

Get the most out of your Flexfill collapsible reflector with a few simple tips

William Sawalich

Are you carrying around a collapsible reflector and unaware of all you can do with it? Boy, are you missing out! These simple tools are convenient, versatile and affordable—a real triple crown for photography accessories. Here are three ways to use a collapsible fabric reflector better than everybody else. Use a Collapsible Light Reflector as a Reflector First,... Read more

Removing The Green Spike

Some fluorescent and LED light sources cause a green colorcast that doesn’t look great in pictures. Here’s how to fix it.

William Sawalich

St. Patrick’s Day is here, so be sure to sport some green clothing to keep from getting pinched. Be sure to drink some green beer, and if you’re in Chicago, go downtown and watch them dye the river green. It’s the one day of the year when everything green is good. Except for one thing: the green shift produced by many inexpensive fluorescent and... Read more

Restoring Old Photos

How to reclaim vintage photographic prints from the damage that often occurs with aging images

By William Sawalich

Stash some snapshots in a photo album for a few generations, and something special happens: They transform into family heirlooms. These photos are memories made tangible, connections to ancestors unknown and loved ones long gone. It is with this mindset that thoughtful photographers can rescue precious prints from the ravages of time. Here’s how to... Read more

Custom LUTs In Photoshop And Lightroom

How to turn Photoshop adjustment layers into a custom lookup table that can be used in Lightroom too

William Sawalich

Custom Look-Up Tables (or LUTs) are a great way to apply color, contrast and exposure adjustments to digital images and video. In video and movies, this process is used to apply a “look” to the image without fundamentally modifying the pixels themselves. Think of it like a nondestructive filter through which a moving image is viewed. A handful... Read more

Understanding Various Video “Rates”

How bitrate, frame rate and refresh rate impact the way we shoot and view video

William Sawalich

For photographers making the transition into moving pictures, there’s a lot to learn—not the least of which are several video-specific technical terms. Some of them—such as bitrate, frame rate and refresh rate—sound awfully similar, but they refer to very different things. Here’s an explanation of the differences between these important “rates”... Read more

How To Go Remote With Studio Lighting

Options for lighting off the grid with battery-powered strobes and LEDs

William Sawalich

If you like the look of studio-style lighting but don’t want to be tied down to electrified locations, consider investing in lighting equipment that allows you to take studio lighting out into the world. These battery-powered lighting options include speedlights, LEDs, monolights and pack-and-head strobe systems. Monolight Strobe: Profoto B1X Every... Read more

Make Digital Photos Look Like Film

Three simple things that add an authentic film look to digital image files

William Sawalich

I love my clean, crisp digital image files, don’t get me wrong. But, sometimes, whether it be for nostalgia’s sake or just for a creative change of pace, I want to make an image that looks a little more like film. So, I do a few simple things in Lightroom and Photoshop to make my digital images approximate film. 1. Color When it comes to film photos,... Read more

Flash-Based Motion Blur

How to mix flash with ambient to create intentional motion blur

William Sawalich

I admit it: I love using strobes. And I love using strobes because they allow creative photographers to do things with light that simply aren’t possible with ambient-only lighting or continuous light sources. One of my favorite strobe-specific creative tricks is to create a blurry edge around my sharp subject to enhance the separation between them... Read more

Use Smart Objects For Nondestructive Editing

This versatile Photoshop tool provides a great way to preserve detail and increase image-editing options

William Sawalich

Introduced back in Photoshop CS2, Smart Objects allow photographers to preserve image detail and make edits that don’t modify the original image-forming pixels. This is called nondestructive editing. Yes, duplicating an image onto a new layer and using adjustment layers always preserves image-forming detail, but Smart Objects work a little bit differently... Read more

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