Photo How To

High Dynamic Range (HDR) is an important technique that enables you to shoot or edit photos that appear more like what one sees with the human eye. The concept involves balancing out light and dark areas of a scene to capture more detail in both highlights and shadows.

There are numerous methods for upscaling images using Photoshop, Lightroom, or third-party plugins and apps. Unfortunately, the results you achieve may barely be acceptable or less, depending on the technique employed.

Dodging and burning is a traditional darkroom technique that can be used with great success using software in today’s digital era. These easy-to use tools enable you to selectively adjust different areas of an image to arrive at a balanced exposure.

Adobe updates their software frequently, with powerful new headline-grabbing features and tools. That’s a good thing for all of us, with one exception: sometimes we get so excited about all the new stuff that we forget about tools we used with great success in the past.

There are times when photos of a beautiful outdoor scene appear flat and dull, and that could be due to bad light, incorrect camera settings, or a myriad of other problems. You can always return on a better day, with your camera configured properly, but why do that if you can transform an unimpressive image into something really special with a few quick adjustments in Photoshop?

If you’re just getting started in landscape photography there’s plenty to learn for capturing dynamic images. The tutorial below will accelerate the learning curve with a very helpful checklist of the “best practices” to use.

Some photographers shy away from employing presets when editing their work because of a misconception that they’re difficult to use. Nothing could be further from the truth, and as you’ll see in the quick tutorial below, you can even create your own custom presets with ease.