Videos

We’ve posted countless landscape tutorials in the past—some with so-called “rules” of composition, and others with tips from top pros. And guess what? Many of these lessons include very similar advice.

All photographers strive to create photos with accurate focus, and most of us prefer to get things right in the camera. This saves time during the editing process, and helps avoid the temptation to take things too far—ending up with an unsightly, “crispy” effect.

Many photographers limit their use of Photoshop’s Crop tool for simple tasks like making subtle adjustments to the composition of a shot, or getting in tighter on the main subject of a photo that was captured without the use of a telephoto lens.

Last week we brought you the premiere episode of a free online photo editing masterclass from our friends at the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel. That one demonstrated Lightroom’s most basic tools.

One of the primary goals of landscape photographers is to arrive at a “correct” exposure, and we regularly post tutorials on this subject to help get the job done. But in the quick tutorial below you’ll see why certain types of scenes look much better by adding a bit of intentional overexposure during the editing process.

Camera technology these days is amazing; it’s practically magic. The problem, though, to my way of thinking and photographing, is that the magic offers a very wide and deep comfort zone—you might call it a zone of automatic decisions, and it’s probably best not to spend a lot of time there, certainly not if you want to create individualistic images.

Photographing birds is a great way to try your hand at shooting wildlife because traveling to exotic locations isn’t required. All you need is a nearby park or nature reserve, and you can even get started in your own backyard.