I was slightly stung by a comment on one of my reviews on Life after Photoshop: “Photographs do not lie , unless they are retouched.” I don’t know who posted it, or why, or whether it was the random output of some spambot – but it made me think. Why are some people so preoccupied […]
General
Improve your compositions with two graduated filters not one
If you want to add a dark and brooding sky to your black and white photos then a graduated filter is the obvious way to do it. As long as the sky still has a full range of tones, i.e. it’s not burned out to a solid white anywhere, you can practically do what you […]
Create a tiny scene with this miniature effect
The so-called ‘miniature’ or ‘tilt shift’ effect can be very convincing. It makes everyday scenes look like tiny models. You can apply it with lots of different programs and apps, and many cameras now have a ‘miniature’ effect built in. It’s often referred to as a ‘tilt shift’ effect too, because it’s associated with lenses […]
Top 10 graduated filter tips
01 Shoot raw You can’t recover detail in an overexposed sky if it’s been clipped and lost forever in the original image. With a JPEG, what you see is what you get, but with raw files you’ve generally got an extra 1EV of ‘invisible’ highlight detail which can be recovered with a good raw converter. […]
Top 12 HDR tips
HDR photography can produce spectacular images. It can also produce a supersaturated, overcooked look that we’ve probably all seen too much of. Getting that balance right is an art in itself. For now, though, here some HDR tips for shooting and then editing your images. HDR tip 01: In-camera HDR In-camera HDR is becoming more common and it can […]
6 tips for getting an authentic analog film effect
Modern cameras can reproduce the world with utter, clinical accuracy. The trouble is, it turns out that’s not what we wanted after all. A lot of the time, what we actually want is the faded, distressed, imperfect look of analog photography. So here are six top tips for getting that analog film effect ‘look’ with […]
10 tips for curves adjustments
Almost any image-editor worthy of the name offers curves adjustments, but they can be tricky things to get right. It’s easy to overcook the results or fix a problem in one area only to cause a problem in another. So here are ten top curves tips to show how they work, what they can and cannot […]
In-camera RAW: the Photoshop alternative under your nose
If you shoot RAW files you’ll have noticed by now that the colours and tonal renditions you get from third-party RAW converters like Adobe Camera Raw, DxO Optics Pro or Capture One do not quite match those of the in-camera JPEGs.
The ticking time-bomb of non-destructive editing
I had a horrible thought today. Like everyone else, I’ve been saying non-destructive editing is fantastic. It’s smart, it’s efficient, and it changes the way we work. It’s the most important innovation in digital imaging this century… But wait a minute. What if I had to stop using Lightroom or Aperture tomorrow? How many images […]
Is there an Aperture Google Nik Collection problem?
Actually, I can answer this one straight away. I’m running Aperture 3.5.1 on a 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina under Mavericks, and using the latest version of the Google Nik Collection, and whenever I launch any of the Nik plug-ins from Aperture, edit and the save the image, the preview may or may not update in […]