Software How To

This is the perfect time of year for macro photography, with vibrant flowers, colorful insects and other creepy crawlies just about everywhere you look. In fact, you can often find great subjects in your own backyard.

If you’re shooting JPEG photos because you think Raw files “aren’t worth the “hassle,” the video below is likely to change your mind. One of our favorite image-editing instructors transforms a severely underexposed landscape photo into a beautiful image using the power of Raw.

Photoshop’s Free Transform tools handle a number of important tasks, and they do so with precision. This feature enables you to alter an object in a variety of ways, by rotating, scaling, flipping, or distorting a selection with relative ease.

Experienced photographers are always on the lookout for distracting background elements that can ruin a photo. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to find a different vantage point from which to shoot that excludes the offending junk.

While we all strive to capture awesome photos in the camera, it’s often possible to make a great shot even better with a few post-processing enhancements. But image editing is a mixed bag, and you can actually degrade a nice photo if you’re sloppy on the computer.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “destructive editing” occurs when you process an image in a way that overwrites the original file and there’s no way to undo the adjustments once the image is saved. In other words, if you make a mistake, you’re out of luck.

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?