Portrait Plus from ArcSoft packs powerful facial retouching tools into a user-friendly program One of the most difficult tasks in Photoshop is also one of the most common. Since we are in the business of making people look good, solid portrait retouching skills are perhaps some of the most important

Whenever I see “How I Got The Shot” articles, they are typically landscape or nature shots, or difficult lighting situations.  Rarely do you see a detailed account of the taking of a portrait image.  Maybe because for portrait shots, it’s often more about the connection

First off, I am certainly not a lawyer and am not giving legal advice in this article, I’m simply telling my story and how I handle image theft. If you have questions about legal advice, please consult with an attorney. Recently I received a phone call from a family member who believed a loca

I usually write about tips for Photoshop and Lightroom, but today I’m going to cover more of a workflow solution, solving the problem of duplicate photos on your computer or hard drives. If you’re like me, from time to time you’ve encountered the problem of duplicate photos. You m

Top 6 Reasons NOT to do Street Photography: 1 – Your pics won’t get many ‘likes’ Most people on social media don’t appreciate the art of street photography. Cats and flowers do get more ‘likes’. 2 – Your prints won’t sell People usually don&rsquo

Recently I wrote a New Photographer’s Guide to Camera Settings. Once you become comfortable with your camera settings, the next step is to learn the rules of good composition and design for your photography. So here are the 10 most important tips to take into account when framing your scene. Y

Over on our Facebook page this week we shared our recent ‘Small World‘ post featuring some of our readers shots of miniature figurines shot in larger scenes. On Facebook one of our readers – Dave Flynn – commented that he used to take these types of photos but now does someth

I was reading through the comments left on a recent post that I wrote here on DPS and one of them really spoke to me and ultimately inspired me to write this post for you today. For reference I’ve quoted the comment below by Justin Donie. What really stuck out to me was the way Justin closed

If you read my articles about long exposure photography and intentional camera movement in the landscape you may have noticed a common theme amongst the photos illustrating the articles – most of them were in black and white. I’ve been thinking about the reasons that black and white pho

When I quit practicing law ten years ago, I knew I was trading in my briefcase for a camera bag and the courtroom for a studio, but I had no idea that contracts were still going to dominate so much of my time. The importance of the contract between you and your client is pretty much a given, but jus

So you have this idea for a photograph where you’ve smoothed out the water on a lake using a long exposure, but want to capture the wildlife swimming on said lake frozen in place – or something similar?  I had that same vision and I’m going to show you how I accomplished it be

Adobe Password Resets Definite Cause For Concern A guest article by Kevin Yank Update: we recently held a Google hangout on this topic – see a recording of it below. As a digital photographer, you have probably used Adobe software (be it Photoshop or Lightroom) to manage, tweak, or publis

Getting to know Picasa If you’re looking for an image browser and editor that is feature packed and easy to use then Picasa just may be the only bit of software you’ll ever need. It may not have all the advanced features you would expect from some of the more well-known image editors bu

This article is written by Andrew S. Gibson, the author of Square, on sale now at Snap N Deals for a limited time. The square format seems to have gone in and out of fashion over the decades – and there’s no doubt that it’s currently experiencing a resurgence in popularity. This i

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting the Digital Photography School headmaster, Darren Rowse, in person at a conference we both attended called the World Domination Summit in Portland, OR. The message of the conference (yes, the name invokes much curiosity) is simple: community,

Perhaps one of the most important things we do as portrait photographers is preserve memories.  While the digital era and its ever-evolving technology have made it easier to ensure that the photos we take today will last longer than their analog counterparts, there are still things we can do to

by Elena Wilkins If you ever had my family as your clients, you could feel a tad lost at how to photograph us. Why? Well, there are three of us, and we come in a wide range of skin tones—from my fairly light skin, to my husband’s, pretty dark and handsome; our child fits right in betwe

by Tom Di Maggio In this article I’ll show you how the “Samurai Girl” picture was done step by step. In addition there is a speed art video at the end of the article that shows the whole process from start to end in a 05:47 minutes Youtube video. It should make the whole process cl

I know what you’re thinking.  “Flowers?  Really?  Didn’t he just write about shooting football?”  As a matter of fact, I did.  I shoot lots of different things– a statement which frustrates the hell out of business mentors and advisers who like

Good photographers learn to work within the limitations of their equipment and learn to cope with scenes where the brightness range is too great for the camera’s sensor to handle. Here are some ideas for you to explore – and none of them involve HDR techniques. 1. Look at the light I su