The scene setup – by placing parking a car in the shade of a building on a sunny day, you can use the ambient light as your main light, illuminating the contours of the vehicle. Photographing reflective surfaces is no walk in the park. So, as you can imagine, photographing cars, which are ess

A six image photostitch of BC Place in Vancouver My first image editing software was Photoshop Elements 6 and the photostitching function was really erratic to say the least. I was doing real estate and architectural photography and needed a reliable and accurate tool that could quickly and properly

A before and after using the Adjustment Brush on the buildings. What is the Adjustment Brush? The Adjustment Brush is an editing tool in Adobe Camera Raw (known simply as ACR). This tool is possibly the equivalent of the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop. So what is dodging and burning? To dodge is

In early February, software company Serif announced the free beta version of Affinity Photo, a Mac-only photo editing program said to rival the likes of other editing tools, including the standards for creative professionals, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. In this article, I

In an old dressmaking shop in Paris, a master-tailor has finished stitching a bridal gown. He is eager to show it to the world, but he knows that the job is not yet done. He has a few thoughts passing through his mind, and he has to make sure that the dress is presentable before the bride arrives. H

Whether you’re an amateur or professional photographer, whether you usually photograph people, products, landscapes or insects, the time will come when you will be asked to photograph a large group of people. Of course large is a relative term. If you are used to photographing couples or taki

You have probably read about it. You may have a friend who bought one. You may have noticed it on the streets. You have most certainly seen one in a camera store window. The Fujifilm X-T1 is currently one of the most popular mirrorless cameras, and is the model that is persuading many people to leav

Are you a minimalist in terms of your photography? Do you crave simple composition and clean lines in your images? There are many wonderful articles on minimalist photography and simple imagery. In fact Valerie Jardin has a fantastic article on Minimalist Photography – 4 Tips To Keep It Simpl

Better images from capture to output A comprehensive look at the essential steps and principles in an effective photo editing workflow with highlights of key tools. Have you ever tried to find a digital photo you know you worked on, but couldn’t remember where you saved it, or even what it&rsq

Implementing water into a shoot ratchets up the drama in the images but also the difficulty in the execution. I equate the learning curve of lighting water to learning how to light metal objects and other reflective surfaces. It’s not a quick learn, so be patient with yourself. Rain puddles

If you want to obtain accurate colours in your photos in Lightroom (or indeed any other software), no matter what you may read elsewhere, you need to calibrate your computer monitor. If you don’t, the colours in your photos won’t be accurate, and you will never produce a print (or any o

Macphun Software announces new program Macphun Software, a photography app developer with over 20 million users worldwide just recently released their latest photo editing software program, called Tonality. This is a program dedicated entirely to editing your photos in black and white, and it i

I’m baffled when my workshop students tell me that they find image post-processing to be a chore, a dreaded task that prevents them from even looking at their beautiful photographs more than once. If you’re one of those types, I’m here to tell you that you’re missing out on a

Do you use Lightroom for processing portraits but get frustrated by its limitations? One way around this is to use a plug-in or buy some Develop Presets. But these can be expensive, so you may be interested in a cheaper alternative. One of my favourites is Nerve Center’s CameraBag 2. It&rsquo

Topaz Labs recently released a new standalone image processor called Topaz Impression and I wanted to show you how it works and the kinds of things you can create with it. However, I should make it very clear up front, that this is not a standard keep it real kind of image processor,

The Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 APS-C sensor lens is without a doubt my favorite lens in my camera bag and it also has some great reviews throughout the photography community. But is this lens for you? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Ultimately, what kind of photographs can you take w

Panoramic HDR image of Coal Harbour – Vancouver, Canada I am convinced that digital photography has changed so many aspects of photography forever.  HDR and photo stitching are just two of those aspects. In the film era you could achieve a lot in the darkroom with blending, dodging and bu

You can convert colour photos to black and white in Photoshop and Lightroom (or your Raw conversion software of choice). But the last few years have also seen an increase in the number of plug-ins built to do nothing else, other than convert photos to monochrome. Today I’m going to look

I have a background in black and white photography – using actual film and processing in a darkroom. The entire first year of my two year college photography program was spent doing black and white photography only, nothing else. I came to love working in the darkroom and seeing the image appe

Intensify Pro is a Mac only image editing program from MacPhun. With apologies to Windows users (I really wish this software was available for PCs as well) let’s dive in and see what this software can do. One of the reasons that you buy plug-ins is to take advantage of the ways you