Fine-tuning the information displayed by Photoshop’s Info Panel puts all sorts of useful data at your fingertips
William Sawalich
One of the many windows you can have open in your Photoshop workspace is the Info Panel. By default, this window shows you RGB and CMYK color values of pixels as you mouse over them, along with the mouse coordinates on X and Y axes and width and height measurements of any selections or transformations. This information can be very useful, but it’s...
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For a fun and funky portrait, consider combining multiple exposures using Photoshop’s layer modes and masks
William Sawalich
Multiple exposures have made a comeback in recent years, with some digital SLRs allowing photographers to combine frames in camera to mimic the approach taken in the film era when photographers would make multiple exposures by exposing the same piece of film twice. The effect produced can definitely be quirky, and with some practice, photographers can...
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A rundown of five priceless options in the low-power, low-price studio strobe category
By William Sawalich
There are many ways to spend a whole lot of money buying photographic lighting equipment. From LED panels the cost of a reliable used car to high-power studio strobes that take a home equity loan to fund, there’s no shortage of really great but really expensive lighting options out there. But what fun is a new lighting toy when you have to go into...
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Learning how to work with and shape light is critical in image making
Text & Photography By Tom Bol
Behind the scenes on a photo shoot using a Lastolite Skylite. Nikon D3, AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm F2.8G ED, 1/600 sec. at ƒ.8, ISO 400
Every photographer knows light is what makes or breaks an image. One of my favorite quotes about photography is, “You’re not photographing the subject; you’re photographing the light on the subject.” Photograph a...
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When you’re producing low-key lighting, subtle fill light becomes especially important
William Sawalich
When you create a low-key lighting scenario, it’s especially important that you implement a fill light—but not too much fill light. Otherwise, the shot can simply turn into an abyss of shadow without any detail or, at the other extreme, you can overfill and eliminate the drama inherent with low-key lighting.
Low-key lighting is any scenario in which...
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Countless photographers have started their careers by shooting portraits. Find out what it takes to have a successful portrait business.
By William Sawalich
Ask a photographer how they got their start, and you’ll often hear a similar story. “I loved taking photos, and my friends started to ask me to shoot portraits. Soon enough, I started taking portraits for clients, and that launched my career.” There’s a constant demand for portraits, and an even greater demand for photographers who can take...
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Combine multiple black and white adjustment layers for total tonal control in Photoshop
William Sawalich
One of the best ways to convert a color photograph into black and white is to utilize Photoshop’s black and white adjustment layer. Simply open any color image, open the Adjustments palette and click on the “Black and White” icon found there. (It’s a square divided vertically in half, one side dark, one side white. Simple.) This will immediately...
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How to update a new computer with the presets and shortcuts that make Lightroom and Photoshop work as you want them to.
William Sawalich
Adobe allows the installation of its Photoshop and Lightroom software on two different computers. If you work on different machines, as many of us do, it can be incredibly handy to have the same presets, shortcut keys and settings apply when working with Photoshop and Lightroom, no matter which machine you’re working on. For me, I have a desktop computer...
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No other Photoshop tool provides the intuitive, hands-on control of Puppet Warp.
William Sawalich
Photoshop’s Liquify tool gets a lot of attention for its ability to do some pretty remarkable things simply by clicking and dragging on scene elements in order to stretch, distort and reshape them. But there’s another tool that works in a similar fashion and provides its own unique set of controls. It’s the Puppet Warp tool, found under the Edit...
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Master lighting with the ideal tool for precision exposure control
William Sawalch
There’s an often-overlooked device that some photographers say is outdated, but which in fact is just as useful today as ever. This necessity of the film era should still find a place in photographers’ bags, especially those who want total control over their lighting and exposure. It’s the handheld light meter, and it’s treasured by many photographers...
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Should you ever trade photography in exchange for no money?
William Sawalich
There are a lot of young photographers out there working to figure out how to earn income with their cameras. Making the transition from “shooting for fun” to “shooting for pay” can be challenging, especially when young photographers are so often inundated with generous offers to work for free. Cheapskates offer “exposure” and the promise...
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A look at the options for cloud-based storage of image files, with applications for professional photographers and amateurs alike.
William Sawalich
Whether you’re a professional photographer churning out gigabytes of image files every week or an occasional smartphone snapshooter, every photographer needs a place for the long-term storage of their image files. Sure, that’s what hard drives are for, but hard drives fail. And they don’t exactly make it easy to access files remotely. To solve...
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