Outdoor Photography How To

Regular Shutterbug readers are well-acquainted with extraordinary German Landscape pro Christian Mohrle, not just because of his inspirational images but also for the post-processing tutorials shared on the popular PHLOG photography You Tube channel that's loaded with helpful how-to tips.

Not long ago we featured a comprehensive guide to photographing the Milky Way, with camera settings advice, gear recommendations, post-processing tips, and more. We're following up on that today with this primer for inexperienced photographers who want to capture awe-inspiring images of starlit skies, even when the Milky Way isn't visible.

We were all taught early on to always shoot with the sun to our back, and that worked OK for beginners looking for the easiest way to capture a "Kodak moment." If you're still following this familiar "rule," it's long past time to be more creative, and one effective way to do that is by setting aside what you learned about composition and try shooting towards the sun.

The first step for capturing breathtaking images in the field is analyzing light intensity and direction to determine the necessary settings for achieving a balanced exposure. One foolproof method for accomplishing this task involves using your camera's histogram to get the light right every time without time-wasting experimentation.

Skillful composition is an essential attribute of all amazing photographs; especially when shooting complicated scenes in the field. Do things right and you're headed for success, but thoughtless framing will ruin an otherwise great scene.

This post-processing tutorial explores some of the most useful (and underutilized) sliders in both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. If you're in the habit of skipping over Lightroom's Classic's Basic panel, or Lightroom's Light and Color panels in search of more advanced tools you'll want to pay close attention to this tutorial with pro Forest Chaput de Saintonge.

This quick tutorial with instructor Chris Baitson will get your creative juices flowing by illustrating how to give landscape photos a fine-art look by removing the horizon line. Once you understand this simple Lightroom trick you can go back and give an artistic boost to images you've edited in the past.