The Importance Of Subtlety With Low-Key Fill

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... Read more

Selective Control With Photoshop’s Black And White Adjustment Layer

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... Read more

Importing and Exporting Photoshop and Lightroom Presets

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... Read more

Photoshop’s Puppet Warp Tool

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... Read more

When To Work For Free

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... Read more

Cloud-Based Storage for Photographers

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... Read more

Lightroom Shortcut to Open Files as Layers

When compositing image files, this simple shortcut can open many image files from Lightroom as layers in a Photoshop file.

William Sawalich

There are lots of photographs I make that incorporate elements from multiple different frames. I might shoot a portrait and take the eyes from one shot and replace closed eyes in another. Or maybe I’ll shoot a landscape and clone the tree from one exposure into another frame. Every once in a while, though, I shoot something with the knowledge that... Read more

Macro Photography, Winter Style

How to get your close-up fix even in the dead of winter—whether you’re shooting outdoors, indoors or somewhere in between

William Sawalich

When folks think of macro photography, they often picture close-ups of blooming flowers and honeybees and all sorts of bright and sunny summer imagery. But winter can also be an ideal time to have fun with a macro lens—whether you feel like working indoors or out. Here are some suggestions for ways to work with a macro lens this winter, braving the... Read more

SEO For Photographers

Want to draw more eyes to your website? Try these tips to rank your website higher in Google search results.

William Sawalich

Do you want people to find your photography website? Whether you’re displaying your images for fun or, more than likely, with the hopes of making a profit, it’s important to optimize your website so search engines will be more likely to return your site in the search results much earlier. The sooner you appear in that list, the better, because studies... Read more

Winter’s Here, Protect Your Gear!

Great ways to protect your camera equipment this winter and all year-round

William Sawalich

Winter weather can wreak havoc on expensive camera gear. When it comes to cold and moisture, even rugged camera equipment is fairly fragile. The kiss of death comes from moisture—whether that’s from rain, melting snow or condensation. Here are a few great ways to protect your gear in some popular precarious situations. In Transit Getting your gear... Read more

Five Tips For Improved Video Storytelling

How to discern if a potential subject has the right ingredients for a good visual story

William Sawalich

With so many photographers picking up on video thanks to its inclusion in so many cameras, there’s a lot of room for still shooters to learn the ins and outs of video. In a recent conversation with renowned travel shooter Bob Krist, the still photographer turned videographer explained that one of the biggest challenges for photographers learning video... Read more

Winter Evening Photography

Make the most of early sunsets with techniques for shooting magic hour light as well as after dark

William Sawalich

Sunset is very early this time of year, which makes this the perfect time to head out for dusk and after-dark shots in the late afternoon and evening. What sorts of things can you shoot without bright sunlight? Well, the same things you might shoot at midday—just with different techniques. Here are a few interesting ways to take advantage of winter’s... Read more

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