Outdoor Photography How To

We recently featured a tutorial demonstrating how to create jaw-dropping landscape photos with Lightroom’s oft-ignored Calibration tool. That lesson got a lot of attention, and we have an equally great one for you below.

When most photographers think of macro photography the first things that comes to mind are the balmy days of spring, and the warmth of summer. During those times interesting subjects abound, from budding plants and blooming flowers to colorful insects and other creepy-crawlies just about everywhere you look.

Sometimes the photos we capture don’t appear as vibrant as they did through the viewfinder. That could be because of flat light, incorrect exposure settings, or a passing cloud blocking the sun.

As you’ve no doubt learned by now there are often several ways to accomplish the same task in Photoshop. And sometimes the methods you choose depend upon what you plan do with the finished image.

As the great Ansel Adams once said, “Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationship.” And that holds true whether you’re working with film in the darkroom or editing digital images on the computer.

Photo composites are a lot of fun to make, and they enable you to create eye-catching images by combining two or more shots. The problem is that there are a few hurdles to understand if you want to achieve natural looking results.

Selecting the appropriate shutter speed for a given scene is important for most types of photography if you want the best possible results. This decision is important with landscapes and wildlife shots—particularly when shooting hand-held, for scenes with motion, and while using long lenses.