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

New to Photography? Check out our free Ultimate Guide to Photography for Beginners. If you’ve bought yourself a DSLR (or mirrorless camera) and, after unpacking it from the box, you are intimidated by the number of buttons and dials, and by the thickness of the manual, it can be very tempting

I have a rule when it comes to Photoshop, Lightroom, and post-processing in general. I have always felt that image manipulation should be a tool, not a crutch. Photoshop can make a good photo better, but a bad photo is just a bad photo. I strive to get it right in the camera. When people look at my

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

Introduction The Following is an excerpt from the SLR Lounge Lightroom Preset System v5 and accompanying workshop from the Lightroom Workshop Collection v5.  The Lightroom Preset System is designed to take you from Ordinary to Extraordinary photos in just a few seconds and c

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

Photography is a fantastic tool to explore the world around you, especially in ways normally invisible to our eyes. Landscapes at night often reveal untold treasures in the sky, and the stars can be made to swirl around like a dream. The process for photographing the movement of the stars isn’

How do you create successful HDR photos? It’s a question that I’ve gotten from time to time, and before we get started with this post I do want to make clear that there’s no question that HDR photography is one of those never ending battle grounds in the photography world. Much lik

Hello there! I’d just finished writing this Synology 1512+ review and subsequently deleted it all… Why, you ask? Well – I have a bit of a history in I.T. and as such, found myself getting TOTALLY geeky with my review.. Those of you that have read any of my reviews to dat

The image above is a long exposure taken of the Second Severn Crossing, a motorway bridge that crosses the River Severn, just outside Bristol, England.  I have been asked a number of times how this image was processed, what software/plug-ins were used, so I thought it would be a useful exercis

Some see the arrival of cameras such as these as indicative of camera companies responding to the market by taking on smart phones as a camera to take everywhere. While phone cameras are damned useful and most of them take pretty decent images, they fall down in many respects. Some, but not all, fa

Introduction This tutorial has been transcribed from the SLR Lounge Lightroom 4 Workshop on DVD, a 14 hour Lightroom 4 A – Z guide with over 130 tutorials for mastering Lightroom from start to finish. The Digital download can be purchased from SLR Lounge while the physical copy is available th

Unless you haven’t been on your computer at all in the last 24-48 hours, you have probably heard by now that Adobe announced an end to their Creative Suite of products and will now be moving to a subscription only based service. This news was not received well in the photography community on

You can put this image collection down into the slightly silly category but I just spent a fun hour looking at portraits that feature people with freckles. I’m not sure why I ended up on this quest – perhaps it’s some subconscious therapeutic activity from growing up as the red he

One of the principles behind using colour in photography is that of using contrasting colours. To understand the concept we need to look at a colour wheel – a type of diagram used by designers to show the relationships between colours: Diagram by Wikipedia contributor Jacobolus Contrasting c

Well, it’s here! Version 7 of onOne’s Perfect Photo Suite has got to be the most anticipated release from onOne in this review we’ll see if it lives up to the hype. One rule I have for reviews is that I won’t review stuff that I don’t use on a regular basis. Well, I&rsq

One of my favourite things to do when I travel is to go on a quest to find a body of water that has a reflection of a landmark. Photographing a reflection creates a unique image of an often photographed subject by adding interest and depth to your photograph. The next time you travel add these to yo

HDR is a bit of a buzz word in photography in the last while and there is much debate about it, whether it’s good or bad, appropriate or not, or even real photography or not.  Even right here on Digital Photography School, you can find articles for, and against, doing HDR.   I’