Photoshop How To

Should you crop your photos or leave them alone? How much can you crop an image without degrading resolution and ruining the quality? Are there specific cropping rules to follow, or does the technique vary from photo to photo?

When it comes to editing images in Photoshop, Lightroom, or Adobe Camera Raw, some photographers aren’t quite sure about the difference between the Vibrance and Saturation tools. And others don’t know when to use one instead of the other. If that sounds like you, read on.

Most photographers strive to “get it right in the camera” without resorting to an abundance of post-processing tricks. But every so often a bit of photo editing is called for, either to correct a mistake, maintain the mood of an image, or make the photograph match one’s vision.

Whether you know your way around Lightroom or you’re just getting started, it’s good to discover unfamiliar features that deliver big results. And if these helpful tricks are easy to use, that’s all the better.

Landscape photography at golden hour is one sure way to capture truly stunning images. But what about all those photos you shot during the day that are really nothing special? Of course you could simply delete them, but a better option is to turn these so-so shots into jaw-dropping sunset images with a little help from Photoshop.

What if there was one software tool that could take your photos from "bleh" to "heck yeah!" in just a few minutes of editing? Well, according to Lightroom expert Alex Armitage there is, and it's called the "tone curve" feature.

One sure way to ruin an otherwise great photo is to miss the exposure and end up with ugly blown-out highlights. The problem typically occurs with landscape images when the sun peaks out from behind the clouds. But this unsightly mistake also happens with other types of images—both indoors and out—and doesn’t necessarily mean you have to blow off the shot.