Using The Ultrawide Tilt-Shift Lens For Interior Photography

There are several great reasons to use ultrawide perspective control lenses when photographing architectural interiors

William Sawalich

There are challenges associated with all types of architectural photography, but I find one of the biggest challenges with interiors is working in small spaces. Even homes that are big and beautiful, in reality, get much more compact once you’re looking through a lens. Utilizing an ultrawide perspective control or tilt/shift lens is a great way to... Read more

Searching Lightroom Via Metadata

Lightroom’s powerful use of metadata embedded in image files provides plenty of unique opportunities for sorting and finding photographs with the Library Filter

William Sawalich

When you capture an image with a digital camera, there’s information about the circumstances of the image’s creation that gets embedded in the file. This is called EXIF data. For instance, the date and time a picture was taken, the camera that was used, the lens, even exposure details such as ISO, aperture and shutter speed are embedded. This data... Read more

One-Light Portrait Magic

Understanding this one simple lighting trick will revolutionize your photography

William Sawalich

Put the key light closer to the subject and they’ll get brighter right? Yes, that’s true. But why does putting the light closer to the subject—and, consequently, the background—end up making the background darker? It’s all about the relationship between the distance between the background, the subject and the light. Yes, it’s true: If you... Read more

Email Photos Directly From Lightroom

This image management software includes easy-to-use controls for sending photos of all sizes without leaving the application

William Sawalich

Want to send someone a photo? Well if you’re a Lightroom user, you can email that photo without ever leaving Lightroom. It’s pretty simple, actually. Here’s how. First, in the Library module, navigate to the image (or images, by control-clicking to select multiple images) you’d like to send, then click on the File drop-down menu and look for... Read more

The Basics Of Baseball Photography

How to successfully photograph the fast action of a baseball game

William Sawalich

Spring is in full swing and with it comes the boys of summer. If you’re interested in photographing baseball—whether that’s little kids in the weekend league or big kids in high school, college or the minors—here’s what you need to know to try your hand at photographing this fast-action sport. Start With the Ideal Equipment It used to be that... Read more

Backyard Birding With A Super-Telephoto Zoom

See birds in a whole new light. Try a long zoom lens to get up close and personal with the your local feathered friends.

William Sawalich

I don’t know much about birds, but I know lots of them inhabit my yard. I hear a woodpecker on occasion, and I can identify a blue jay and a cardinal when I see them, but that’s about the limit of my avian expertise. So, when I rented a super-telephoto zoom lens to get a better glimpse of the birds in my backyard, I was amazed by the world of detail... Read more

Crop To Open Images As Same-Sized Layers

Automatically open multiple images in a single Photoshop file while keeping each layer the same size

William Sawalich

One of my favorite shortcuts when working with images in Lightroom that I want to open in Photoshop is the “Open as Layers in Photoshop” option in Lightroom. With it, you can select as many images as you’d like and then, in much the same way as you can right-click and choose “Edit in Adobe Photoshop” from the popup menu’s “Edit In” heading,... Read more

Fixing Moiré In Lightroom

A simple and straightforward fix for unappetizing interference patterns known as moiré

William Sawalich

As someone who photographs a lot of corporate portraits, I’ve seen my fair share of business suits. And one of the most common things you’ll find in these suits is very fine patterns and woven textures—the kind of thing that’s perfectly suited to causing moiré. (These patterns can be found in all types of clothing, however, and other surfaces... Read more

Look Up To Portrait Subjects

Create a hero angle by getting low when shooting portraits

William Sawalich

I’ve been studying the work of master portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz lately and something finally caught my eye. Not about her pictures, which are consistently great for going on five decades now, but about her process. No, it’s not about how she typically uses a single light source balanced with the ambient light. And no, it’s not about... Read more

DIY Studio: Build a Faux Brick Background

Make your suburban garage look like a downtown loft with a whitewashed faux brick wall

William Sawalich

I have a big, empty wall adjacent to my shooting space that is ripe for transformation into something more usable for photography. This wall typically collects clutter; lights and stands end up leaning there, as do tables and chairs and really anything that needs an out of the way home for a little while. In an effort to turn the fairly plain space... Read more

Use Color Fill For Mood Modifications

From vibrant to subtle, toning an image with color is a great way to impact the feel of a shot

William Sawalich

I regularly add a subtle color overlay to my images in order to help influence the mood of the finished photo. For a portrait in which I want to convey a sense of warmth and comfort, for instance, I’ll use a warm color like yellow, red or orange, applied ever so lightly. I like to use an adjustment layer in Photoshop in order to add this hint of color... Read more

Customize Photoshop’s Info Panel

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... Read more

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