Software How To

Today's tutorial from landscape pro Steve Arnold begins with an attention-grabbing question: "What if I told you there are two things you can start doing right now that will save you hours in Photoshop, freeing you up to editing more photos in less time?"

 “What is a LUT?” you ask. In technical terms, LUT is an acronym for “Look-Up Table”—a precise mathematical means of modifying RGB image values by changing hue, saturation and brightness of a photo to create a specific look. In basic parlance, a LUT is nothing more than a bunch of adjustment layers compacted into a single file that you can save and use with most editing programs available.

Most photographers use their images in a variety of ways. We post them to the Internet, share them on social media sites, print them for friends and family, and deliver hi-res files to clients. The task of outputting images for various purposes is time-consuming—unless you create custom presets as explained in the video below.

Human visual perception is a wondrous thing—it allows us to see a wide spectrum of colors, with all the subtleties and shades, lights and darks, pastels and richness of the earth and the heavens. To see in black and white is an abstraction of that world, one that perceives luminance, or brightness, without the benefit of hue. Yet hue, or color, and its shades, often determine what tones, or grayscale values, will be seen in black and white. If one were always to see the world only in black and white it would be considered a deficiency of vision. But to see that way occasionally, and to be able to render what we see in a monochrome fashion, opens the door to different perceptions and feelings about the world, and yields a unique form of expression in the bargain.

Yesterday we featured a straightforward guide to using Selective Exposure adjustments to get the light right in complicated images with a wide range of brightness levels throughout the frame. Today's tutorial from another image-editing expert demonstrates how to take a similar approach with Lightroom's powerful Selective Color tools.

We're back with another tutorial from Patrick's Boudoir Photography Secrets, a popular YouTube channel intended for those new to this unique form of portraiture. Today's video is episode #13 of an ongoing series.

One primary task of all photographers is to guide a viewer's through an image to the primary subject within the scene, which is one reason why judicious sharpening is so essential. It's also a well-established fact that the human eye is generally most attracted to the brightest and sharpest areas in a photo.