Photo How To

If you’re ever tried to manually mask out a sky in Photoshop, you know that achieving a precise selection can be difficult—especially when your shot includes complex objects in the foreground. There are many methods for tackling this challenge, and today you’ll learn one of the easiest and most effective.

Every so often we photograph a beautiful outdoor scene even though the light isn’t quite right. That’s because it’s not particularly difficult to add depth and drama to an otherwise great shot with a bit of help from Lightroom.

Long exposure motion-blur effects can really enhance landscape images, creating soft, flowing water and fluffy cotton-like clouds. Some photographers use expensive neutral density filter to achieve the necessary slow shutter speeds, but there’s a simple way to mimic this effect during the editing process.

There are many reasons you may want to cut out the background of a photo and create a composite image. Sometimes the goal is to replace a boring sky with something more compelling. Other times you may just want to place a portrait photo on a more interesting background.

(Editor’s Note: Exploring Light is a monthly Shutterbug column featuring tips, tricks, and photo advice from professional photographers in Canon Explorers of Light education program. This month's column is by Roberto Valenzuela, with five essential techniques for posing people.

It’s amazing how a basic tweak in Photoshop or Lightroom can make a huge difference in an image. Sometime all that’s required is a boost in saturation, while other times a bit more sharpness or contrast is what takes.

Photoshop’s Selection tools offer a variety of ways to improve an image. They enable you to lighten or darken one portion of a scene without affecting the rest of the image, selectively adjust colors, remove distracting elements, or cut out an object from one photo and place it on another.