Photoshop How To

It took landscape photographer Mark Denney a while to get comfortable editing his photos using dodging and burning techniques. He admits that when he was a beginner, dodging and burning was something he often heard about, but always assumed was too complicated for him to try.

The history of photography and camera technology is littered with controversies about the “best” way to capture an image. For a while shooters questioned the value of autofocus, then there was a debate regarding the quality of digital images vs. those shot with film.

Have you ever wondered why your photos look sort of ridiculous after dropping a person or object into the scene? One common culprit is that you neglected to evaluate the light and add realistic shadows where they belong.

Abobe has provided photographers with exciting new features for removing distractions as Photoshop continues to evolve, and we've covered most of them in the past. But as all of us become enamored with these innovative capabilities we tend to ignored older tools that can still be very helpful.

Adobe recently updated Lightroom CC and the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop, and one of the upgrades is a new algorithm for the “Auto” button that now employs the company’s Sensei Artificial Intelligence technology. If you’re using a version of Lightroom or Photoshop that supports this feature, you really should give it a try.

Photoshop’s Select Subject tool uses artificial intelligence to make automatic selections for a variety of tasks. It enables you to remove people and objects from backgrounds, makes it easy to isolate key subjects, and does a great job—even in complex scenes.

Photoshop has so many capabilities that there are often several methods for accomplishing the same task. As a result, it’s common to wonder why you should use one tool instead of another.