Videos

Here's something that occurs all too often when composing images in the field: We tend to ignore what's right in front of our face, and instead we concentrate on accentuating the midrange and background of a shot.

Most outdoor photographers understand that mid-day light is one of the worst times to shoot. That's because at this time of day illumination tends to be harsh—thereby resulting in boring, unimpressive results. And this holds true whether you're photographing landscapes, wildlife, and even environmental portraits.

We're all looking for a creative edge when editing outdoor photos captured in difficult light. One goal is to create images with maximum impact, and the other is to accomplish that task in way that makes our imagery stand out from the crowd.

Last week we featured a tutorial explaining a foolproof way to install, organize, and manage image-editing plugins so they work most efficiently for your specific needs. We're following that up today with what one pro says are "the five best plugins for Lightroom and Photoshop."

Today you'll learn how to elevate your landscape photography game by using an oft-ignored Lightroom tool to process images that need a bit of help. The method known as "midtone contrast" is both easy and effective, and it's guaranteed to add impact to just about every image you edit.

We've all heard the blather from so-called "purists" who insist that images should be presented straight out of the camera without any post processing at all. Not only are we told to avoid adjusting exposure, color, sharpness and the like, but creative cropping is verboten as well.

Most photographers rely upon the Tone panel in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) when processing their images. But guess what? There's a good chance you're not using these important tools correctly. In today's quick tutorial from the Photoshop Café YouTube channel you'll learn what you may be doing wrong, and the proper way to proceed.