4 Techniques for Enhancing Details in Your Images

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Often, you will find yourself trying to get out some of the fine details in your images to give it more punch. Details enhancement is typically done using a variety of Photoshop plugins like Topaz Adjust, Nik Color Efx or Photomatix. But there is also a number of native tools that Photoshop provides to enhance detail, and it's good to have these at your disposal as they give you lots of flexibility. In the videos featured here, some very cool variants of the typical details enhancement process are shown. You will learn lots of advanced Photoshop tricks. So buckle up and lets go!

3 Ways to Manipulate Selected Colors in Photoshop

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If you have a good understanding of composition and photographic techniques, you have many tools at your disposal for making your images stand out from the crowd. There's one aspect though that is usually out of your hands, at least when it comes to the photographic side: Color. The objects in your images are the color they are. Period! And apart from creating black and white images, there is not really a good way of changing that in your camera. But luckily, there are some tricks in post-processing for changing the colors of the elements in your images. Why would you want to do this? For example, in order to create appealing color contrasts that where not there in the original image. In this article, I feature three video tutorials that show you some cool techniques for manipulating colors in Photoshop.

Refine Edge - Your Best Friend in Photoshop

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Being able to create precise selections of objects, even if they have fuzzy edges is of major importance in Photoshop. You're not only going to need this ability if you want to create a composite image (two or more images blended together). It's also super helpful for selective editing where you apply different adjustments to the different objects in your images. No matter which method you're using to make your selections, the Refine Edge tool is your universal weapon for cleaning the edges of complex selections. However, when you open the tool for the first time, it may not be intuitive to use. In this article, I will show you how three Photoshop masters use Refine Edge in their Photoshop workflow.

4 Digital Blending Techniques in Photoshop

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Digital blending is a set of techniques that allow you to combine different versions of the same image (or different images) into one. The final image is created by revealing and hiding different parts of each layer. These techniques typically involve using layer masks and varying techniques for manipulating them. However, there are also techniques that do not rely on masks at all. In this article, you will learn a set of basic digital blending techniques that allow you to deal with most situations in which you need to blend layers.

Photoshop Blending Modes - What They Do and How to Use Them

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Layers and the blending of layers is the defining characteristics of Photoshop. Stacking different layers on top of each other and blending them together gives you all the power to create whichever look you want. But if you are only relying on layer masks to blend your layers, you are missing a very important aspect of Photoshop: Blending modes. Blending modes allow you to combine layers in much more complex and powerful ways than just changing their opacity. This opens the door to many very advanced techniques. In the featured videos in this article, you will learn how to unlock those techniques.

6 Methods to Create an HDR Image

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Over the years, different software solutions for creating an HDR image from a set of source exposures have emerged. First, it was Photomatix and other dedicated software tools that where mainly used. In parallel, people always used to do manual blending for more subtle results. Then HDR was added to Photoshop and with Lightroom CC/6, it was finally possible to merge your source exposures directly in Lightroom. In this article, you will get an overview of the most commonly used methods and techniques. They are quite diverse and can be used to achieve different types of results, ranging from a classical colorful, detail-rich HDR look to very subtle and natural looking images.

12 Essential Tips for Your Wide-Angle Photography

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Wide-angle lenses - you use them to cram more stuff into your photos. Now wait... If that's what you know about this type of lens, you're missing the whole point. A wide-angle lens can be a very powerful tool for different types of photography ranging from landscape and architecture to creative effects and even to portraiture. But you really need to know what you are doing. Otherwise, you're going to fail miserably and be disappointed with your results. In this article, I am giving you an overview of the most important aspects of wide-angle photography and a bunch of essential tips that will make your wide-angle adventures so much more rewarding. I have collected some video resources for you that will really teach you how to take the right approach. There's lots to learn, so let's dive right in!

4 Non-Destructive Dodge & Burn Techniques by Photoshop Masters

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In Photoshop, there are many different techniques to dodge and burn an image. You may know the Dodge and the Burn tools that let you work directly on an image layer to darken or light areas selectively. The problem with the direct application of these tools is that they are destructive. This means, they directly change the image pixels and you cannot really undo or change them once they are applied. In this article, you will learn 4 different techniques by Photoshop masters for actually applying dodging and burning non-destructively. These are very important skills that will make your workflow faster, more flexible, and more robust, no matter which type of photography you are into.

The 'What' and the 'How' of great photography!

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This video by Joel Grimes ties in nicely with one of my prior posts about How to Become an Outstanding Photographer. Joel talks about what makes a great photograph, and his main point is that photographers get sucked into the technical side too much. Creating a great photograph is a creative process, above anything else. Of course, the technical side is important, but all the photography gear, all the shooting techniques and all the post-processing tricks are just tools. It's your creative vision that counts. Therefore, you should ask the 'What' questions before you ask the 'How' questions.

How to hold your camera correctly

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The way you hold your camera while you're shooting has profound effects on the quality of your photos. Remember: If you are shooting hand-held, you are the tripod! It's surprising to see how many people are actually having trouble with that. Now, as with most things in life, it's hard to give you a definite right and wrong here. After all the exact way you hold your own camera is still depending on you and your body. But there are some best practices, and in this article, I will share how some professionals go about holding their camera when they are shooting hand-held.

Focus stacking in Photoshop - How to get any depth of field you need

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In this featured video, Photoshop Principal Product Manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes shows you how to apply focus stacking to a series of images that was shot at a very shallow depth of field. The resulting image has a much larger depth of field than any of the source photos. Focus stacking is probably one of the unknown gems in Photoshop. At first glance, it really seems like this is a highly specific tool that you probably never need, right? Well, not so fast. What this tool allows you is to take a series of photos with a shallow depth of field and varying focus (different elements are in focus in each of the images) and combine them seamlessly into a single image where everything is in focus.