In Photoshop speak, the term “texture” refers to an image that adds a textural patina to a photograph. By altering the opacity or blending mode of a textural layer positioned over a photograph, you can easily add greater depth and creativity to an image. The technique is often used

If you’re a serious photographer, you probably occasionally feel that twang of regret – or even a tinge of envy – when you meet someone, discover you both love photography, and then find out that your new friend is actually a professional photographer. Should you really be jealous

This tutorial is a lot of fun, transforming photographs into kaleidoscopic wonders, often with surprising results. The resulting kaleidoscope patterns make fantastic desktop backgrounds and wallpapers too. Remember kaleidoscopes? Those curious tubes with an array of mirrors and colorful beads inside

Whether you drive a beat up station wagon from the 80s or a finely tuned Porsche, light painting is an excellent way to photograph your car and truly make it shine! Light painting results in incredibly unique and impressive images. With a bit of persistence and creativity, you can create pictures th

Sometimes as a photographer, you are lucky enough to get a family session full of models with perfect natural smiles in every photo. It doesn’t take much to get a photo that is ready to hang on the wall. However, most of the time with family portraits it isn’t that easy. Maybe you&rsquo

Who doesn’t want special super powers? Popular culture is awash these days with characters with added extras. To date, these include wizards with magic wands, Jedi’s with light sabers, and now there are photographers with pixelsticks! That’s right, welcome to the future becaus

Have you ever watched a television system receiving a corrupted signal – misplaced squares, static, jagged frames, freezing, misplaced or inverted colors – and thought “hey, that actually looks pretty neat?” Being eager to get your favorite show going again, the answer might

Live View versus optical viewfinder on your DSLR, pros and cons? If you shoot with a DSLR you probably use the same method for taking pictures that most people do, holding the camera up to your eye and looking through the viewfinder before snapping the shutter button. This tried-and-true method has

Are you interested in taking your photography to another level? Do you like the bokeh effect, or images that have a painterly look to them? Then perhaps you might want to give the Lensbaby lenses and optics a try. Taken in the garden with using the macro converters, giving this image a ver

I have yet to meet someone who loves getting their picture taken with the whole extended family. The thought of getting all the dramatic aunts, crazy uncles, wild kids, and tired grandparents together and smiling all at the same time seems nearly impossible, and not at all fun. I know of many photog

There are lots of ways to use color in photography. One is to look for strong, complementary colors – those on opposing sides of the color wheel – and include them in the same frame. The opposite is to use a very limited color palette. Here’s an example of the first approach. There

Usually, when you buy a new lens you are trying to get a wider angle or maybe more of a telephoto view, but with some lenses, you are trying to get more of a special effect. The Lensbaby Velvet 56 lens (price it out on Amazon.com or B&H Photo) is one of those. You can almost get normal images, b

This is one of those tutorials that’s great to play around with, maybe do it once or twice. But in the end, the thing they are great for is that they always teach you something. It may not be much, but it might help you think in a different way, or learn a skill you didn’t know about. Th

One of the first things that new photographers often hear is “your kit lens is garbage.” While there are certainly benefits to upgrading your glass as your budget allows, it’s also important to know that there is so much you can do with your kit lens if you understand how to use it

We’ve all been here before. You get home from an afternoon with your kids in the park, at the ball game, or even a formal photo session only to load your pictures on the computer and realize that many of them are fuzzy, blurry, or just plain out of focus. It’s a problem that has pl

In the early days of digital cameras, noise was a much bigger problem than it is these days. DSLRs routinely top out at high ISO ratings that film shooters and early DSLR users could only dream of. In those early days (the early 2000s), when ISO 800 was typically the upper usable limit of high ISO,

As soon as humans discovered that it was possible to capture black and white tones in a photographic image, a practical means of color photography was sought by those who dreamed of harnessing the full spectrum of visible light. Some of the very first photographic color experiments began i

What is photomicroscopy There is a whole world right under your eyes where everyday and unique objects take on a fascinating new appearance. This world is microscopic and even though it is right in front of you, the tiny scale makes it difficult to see the incredible detail. Photomicroscopy in its s

I know you’ve done it. It’s okay to admit it. I’ve done it too! We all have! You’ve shot some terrible photographs. Perhaps you shot the whole time in the wrong white balance, or you didn’t pay attention to shutter speed and everything is blurry. When this happens it&rs

A favorite photography subject of any parent is their child’s sporting activities. But, sports photography can be challenging for the beginning photographer. It requires a robust understanding of camera settings and how they relate to one another. It can also be hugely rewarding to capture exh