Nature Photography How To

You’ve no doubt marveled at the beauty of starlit skies, and scenes with the sparking Milky Way are among the best. Many photographers pass up these great opportunities, thinking that astrophotography is beyond their skills.

Blue Hour is that magical time right before sunrise and immediately after sunset, that provides an extra-special opportunity for making spectacular images. Getting the job done right requires more than good timing, and that’s what the following tutorial is all about.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: The old adage that, “you’re not a real photographer unless you shoot in Manual mode” is sheer and utter nonsense. Plenty of pros use Aperture or Shutter Priority depending upon the situation at hand. Feel better?

Outdoor scenes often appear less impressive on the computer than they did through the viewfinder, and the problem never seems to be better colors and contrast than we remember. The opposite is usually true, which is why most photographers edit their work.

The Luminosity Mask is a versatile image-editing tool, enabling you to make selective tone-based adjustments to specific portions of an image. In other words, you can modify highlights, shadows, or midtones in one area without affecting other parts of a photograph.

All photographers strive for maximum photo quality, no matter what type of images they shoot. One way to achieve optimum results is to use the lowest ISO setting that conditions permit.

We’ve discussed many times what the “Rule of Thirds” is in photography and why it’s such a good tool for creating visually appeally photo compositions but not everyone is a fan of the concept. In fact, some photographers think the Rule of Thirds might be ruining your images if you adhere to it too strictly.