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September 2019 – Histogram, Travel Photography, Remove Reflections on Glasses, Content Aware Fill Tool, Lightroom Profiles

We’ll start off this month’s tutorials with a video from Chris O’Donnell from Creative Raw.  Here Chris goes into the Histogram in great detail.  When you look at the back of your camera, the most important thing you should be looking at is your Histogram and he tells us why.

https://creativeraw.com/the-histogram/

 

While summer may be wrapping up, a lot of us are still traveling.  I know I always come back hoping my pictures don’t look just like the postcards. Here’s an interesting article from the Picture Correct site by Roger Lee titled “The Challenge of Photographing Classic Sites”.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/the-challenge-of-photographing-classic-sites/

 

Here’s a little tip that I’ve found useful a few times from Colin Smith of Photoshop Café titled “How to Remove Reflections from Glasses in Photoshop”

https://photoshopcafe.com/remove-reflections-glasses-photoshop/

 

Sometimes I’ve found I get back to the computer and find a picture that would be fantastic if only I had composed it differently.  Here’s an article from Blake Rudis of f64 Academy that shows us how we can pull some magic out of the Photoshop hat to fix it.  It’s titled “How to Fix a Bad Composition with the Content-Aware Fill Tool”.

https://f64academy.com/fix-bad-composition-content-aware-fill/

 

We’ll close off this month with a more advanced Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw topic, hoping this will make it simpler.  Remember about a year ago, Lightroom added profiles to the program.  Profiles allow us to make slight changes to how Lightroom interprets the Raw data and displays the image.  (Profiles work the same way in Adobe Camera Raw in case you don’t use Lightroom).  Here’s another video from Chris O’Donnell titled “Choosing the Right Profile in Lightroom and ACR”.

https://creativeraw.com/lightroom-profiles/

July 2019 – Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, Waterfall, Better Contrast, Lightroom Tips

We’ll start off this month with a refresher course.  Weather you’re new or at the expert level, it’s always good to go back go back and review, relearn because of bad habits or just learn the basics for the first time.  Here’s a article from Andrew Goodall posted on Picture Correct Titled. “Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual Mode.”

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/aperture-priority-shutter-and-manual-mode/

 

One of the fun things we as photographers get obsessed about shooting during the summer is Waterfalls.  With all the rain we’ve had so far this year, they should be flowing all over the state.  Here’s an article by Ron Bigelow also on Picture Correct titled, “Waterfall Photography Tips and Techniques.”

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/waterfall-photography-tips-and-techniques-2/

 

Every once in a while, we’re able to get our contest judges to come to the meetings where we announce our contest results and critique our images.  One of the recurring suggestions, no matter who the judges were, is “It needs More Contrast.  Here’s a video tutorial from a site called Shutterbug.com titled “5 Ways to get Better Contrast In Your Landscape Photos So They Pop.”

https://www.shutterbug.com/content/here-are-5-ways-get-better-contrast-your-landscape-photos-so-they-pop-video

 

One of my favorite quotes, and I think it was Scott Kelby who first said it, is “There are two types of Photographers in the world, those who use Lightroom and those who should.”  Here’s a video from our favorite Frenchman, Serge Ramelli, that further emphasizes that point titled, “Why You Should use Lightroom in 2019!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL5A3RudiyY

 

Now that you understand why you should always use Lightroom, we won’t leave you hanging.  Here’s Serge back with a video tutorial “Master Lightroom CC in 15 minutes.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-KlYlldjIY

June 2019 – Texture Slider in Lightroom, Make Subject Stand Out, Pop, Macro, Day to Night

Well last month we had a Lightroom and adobe Camera Raw update with all the usual maintence stuff to add new cameras and lenses to the camera raw data base but this time they slipped in a new feature called the Texture Slider.  Here’s a tutorial from Blake Rudis for the f64 Academy showing you exactly how to use it.

https://f64academy.com/texture-slider-acr-lr-video/

 

Sometimes when looking at an image it’s difficult to identify the subject.  This is tough because we all know what the subject is when we take the picture, right?  Here’s an article from Picture Correct by Andrew Goodall to make sure everyone can always identify our subject.  It’s titled “Make Your Photo Subject Really Stand Out”.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/emphasize-main-subjects-in-photos/

 

A lot of us seem to like to take Cityscape pictures.  I know whenever I visit a city, I spend at least one evening trying to get a representative picture of the skyline.  Here’s an article from Light Stalking titled “15 of the Best Cityscape Photography Tutorials to Make Your Shots Pop”.

https://www.lightstalking.com/cityscape-tutorials/

 

Light Stalking was on a role this month for tutorial collections.  Here they covered one of our Club’s most popular subjects, Macro Photography.  Here’s 13 Extremely Useful Tutorials On Macro Photography.

https://www.lightstalking.com/cityscape-tutorials/

 

We’ll finish off this month with a visit from our favorite Frenchman, Serge Ramelli with his Lightroom Tutorial Dark Moody – Day to Night “American Night:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gJ2Jjd-kGw

May 2019 – Better Selection, Clean Edges, Change Color, Tulip Tips, Sketch Effect, Wacom Tablet

Colin Smith from Photoshop Café was very prolific this month so I’m using a few of his articles.  One thing we all seem to have to do occasionally, is cut out stuff from our images.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.  At least for me anyway.  Here’s a tutorial from Colin titled “5 Tips for Better Selections and Clean Edges in Photoshop.”

https://photoshopcafe.com/5-hidden-tips-cutting-selecting-photos-photoshop/

 

Calling on Colin again, we’re going to learn another Photoshop trick for something we want to do occasionally, Changing the color on something in our image.  Here’s his tutorial on “How to instantly and Easily Change the Color of Something in a Photo Using Photoshop”.

https://photoshopcafe.com/change-object-color-photo-photoshop

 

Now that we learned how to change colors in Photoshop, we can’t leave the Lightroom users out so here’s Aaron Nace from Phlearn on “How to Select and Change Colors in Lightroom”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWU9IR57CEs

 

With PSC’s next quarterly contest being flowers, this next article comes at a good time.  From Picture Correct by Laura Greenwald we have an article titled “Tulip Season Photography Tips”.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/tulip-pictures/

 

This is a kind of interesting technique for something different.  Here’s Colin Smith’s tutorial on “How to Turn a Photo into a Pencil Drawing in Photoshop, The New and Improved Sketch Effect”.

https://photoshopcafe.com/turn-photo-pencil-sketch-new-improved-way/

 

Lots of us are using Wacom Tablets for our phot editing, it just gives you so much more control than simply using a mouse. If you think you might want to look into getting one or just make sure you’ve got yours set up properly, here Arron Nace from Phlearn gives us a tutorial on “How to Set Up and Use a Wacom Tablet”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BMtSqETvjg

April 2019 – Crop, Custom Brush, Photoshop Curves, Paint Splash Effect, Add Clouds

Here’s an article by Colin Smith of Photoshop Café Addressing a question I get asked a lot.  “Cropping to an Exact Size in Photoshop, The Ultimate Photoshop Crop Tutorial”

https://photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/crop-photoshop

 

Let’s continue with a subject from last month about adding things to your images in Photoshop.  I’ve actually done this before because I’m too lazy to stay up to all hours of the night to get the picture.  But here’s our favorite Frenchman, Serge Ramelli, with a “How to Add the Milky Way to your Night Skies Photoshop Tutorial”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7vOi6vsnqI

 

Our friend from Phlearn, Aaron Nace, was pretty active this month. So, we’ll have a couple of tutorials from him. The brush tool in Photoshop is such a powerful tool, I’ve got brushes for clouds, birds, fairy wings and other stuff.  Here Arron teaches us “How to Create a Custom Brush in Photoshop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TkvUwUWIys

 

One of the most powerful tools in Photoshop is the Curves tool.  It adjusts lightness and darkness, color and you can even use it to set white balance.  Here Aaron explores “The Amazing Power of Curves in Photoshop”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZX7H6DuMPU

 

Here’s a creative tutorial from a Natalia Seth who is what they call an Instagram Sensation.  I’m not sure I’d ever use this technique, but I try to have an open mind and try to learn everything.  Here’s Natalia with “Create a Paint Slash Effect in Photoshop”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX3avbMYLpo

 

Now that we know how to create brushes, well finish up with another tutorial from Serge Ramelli titled “How to Add Clouds with Photoshop Brushes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv6a2_Odgqc

March 2019 – Depth of Field, B&W in Lightroom, Add Sun to Photos, Replace Skies, Enhance Details in Lightroom

Let’s start out this month with something basic: Depth of Field.  You need to be able to control depth of field in order to control what your viewer sees in your image.  Make them focus on the important part and, in a sense, skip over the stuff that supports your subject.  Here’s an article in Picture Correct this month by Andrew Goodall called
Do You Understand Depth of Field.  You can find it here. 

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/do-you-understand-depth-of-field/

Here’s quick Lightroom tip from Colin Smith of Photoshop Café on converting your images to black & white.  He uses an unexpected slider to initially set up his image before working on the detail.  He shows his whole process in the B & W conversion.  The articles called “Secret Slider for Better Black and White in Lightroom.

https://photoshopcafe.com/secret-slider-better-black-white-lightroom/

We’ll jump over to our French buddy, Serge Ramelli, for another photoshop trick.  In this one Serge shows you “How to Add the Sun to Your Photos”.  The neat thing about this one is his discussion on Photoshop Libraries, I wasn’t even aware they existed, yet I’ve got Lots of stuff to put in there to make my live easier.  Here’s the tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9jt9iIup5A

While were working with Libraries, here’s another one from Serge showing something I do frequently that’s going to be so much easier now that I’ve found Libraries.  It’s called “Replace the Sky in 2 Minutes Using Photoshop Libraries”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntqc-hlYSa8

Earlier this month, Adobe introduced a new feature in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom called Enhanced Detail.  Here’s Blake Rudis from f.64 Academy with a tutorial on how to use it.  The feature is getting a lot of chatter on line but It’s not something to apply to every image.  Blake has a good discussion of the uses of this feature.

https://f64academy.com/enhance-details-in-acr-and-lr-video/

February 2019 – Photoshop Curves, Remove Distractions, Smooth Skin, Light Painting, Radial Filter

We’ll get a little technical in this first article from our French buddy, Serge Ramelli where he takes us through one of the main tools in Photoshop: Curves.  This is from Serge’s YouTube channel and titled “Master Curves from Start to Finish in Photoshop”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW0cKg-2wXc

 

We’ll stick with Photoshop for a while and visit with Aaron Nace from Phlearn.  Here’s how to get the unwanted objects out of your images in Aaron’s tutorial titled “How to Quickly Remove Distractions in Photoshop”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmCbs0IJrvk

 

This must be Photoshop month.  One of the things portrait and glamor photographers do to get that perfect skin on their subjects is to use frequency separation.  Colin Smith of Photoshop Café fame shows how to use this technique in his tutorial titled “Frequency Separation, Silky Smooth Skin in Photoshop”.

https://photoshopcafe.com/frequency-separation-silky-smooth-skin-photoshop/

 

Light painting is a technique where you “paint” or draw with an additional light source on your subject while you’re exposing the image.  Some very creative images can be obtained just with flashlights but there is no end to the different light sources you can use.  Robin Lipton takes us through this fun and interesting technique in a tutorial posted on Picture Correct titled “Light Painting Photography Tutorial”

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/light-painting-photography-tutorial/

 

Finally, in order to not leave the Lightroom users out, we’ll finish up this month with another tutorial from Serge Ramelli titled “How I Shoot and Edit My Photos”. Serge takes us along on a shoot where he does some night photography using ND filters.   Even if you don’t lie his finished produce, (I thought a couple of his images were a little out there), you can learn something from the steps he goes through.  I especially lied his use of the Radial Filter on the B&W image he processed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U5XR_E7oM0

January 2019- B&W Landscapes, Sharpening, Create Snow, Zoom Effect, Animated Rain

Well, we’re off to a start on a new year.  I hope you all got lots of new camera gear to play with.  We’ll start off the year with a workflow tutorial from Aneesh Kothari located on Fstoppers.  Aneesh takes us through his entire workflow from taking the image to editing and printing.  It always amazes me that over 50 years after the adaption of color TV, people still want to look at a picture in Black and White but Aneesh takes us through his Black & White workflow.

https://fstoppers.com/education/great-black-and-white-landscape-photography-workflow-321259

 

One thing we all have to deal with is how to best sharpen our images.  There’re so many decisions to make, what to sharpen, how much to sharpen what to unsharpen etc.  Sharpening is very different for landscapes and portraits.  Here our friend Aaron Nace from Phlearn does this detailed tutorial titled “Here’s the Best Way to Sharpen Portraits in Photoshop”.

https://www.shutterbug.com/content/heres-best-way-sharpen-portraits-photoshop-according-tutorial-resource-phlearn

 

It’s winter.  If you grew up in Chicago like I did, you recognize snow for what it is, pure evil.  If you grew up in the south, you might find it pretty and fascinating.  I’ll let you know now that you can get help for that.  Everybody’s favorite French photographer, Serge Ramelli, has done this great tutorial on How to Create Snow in Photoshop.  This way you can put it in your pictures without having to go out in the stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi-qbu7xYHo&feature=youtu.be

 

One trick we see from time to time is an image where the photographer has zoomed his lens during the exposure.  It can create some interesting effects.  Here’s an article on Picture Correct by Affendy Ahmad titled Photography Zoom Effect: Racking the Lens’ that will show you exactly how it’s done.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/photography-zoom-effect-racking-the-lens-technique/

 

Since we made it snow, we might as well make it rain.  Rain isn’t much more fun than snow but at least you don’t have to shovel it.  Colin Smith from Photoshop Café has done this detailed tutorial titled Making Animated Rain in Adobe Photoshop.

https://photoshopcafe.com/make-animated-rain-photoshop-effects/?mc_cid=cce73c09ac&mc_eid=34dca0478d

December 2018 – Panoramas, Bokeh, Photoshop Tips, Cityscape, Long Exposure

Well, this newsletter will wrap up 2018.  It seems like the year  went by really fast.  The December article is always the toughest one for me to write, there seems to be a lack of new material to report on.  All my favorite sites are devoting all their space to the great deals they have to sell you stuff for Black Friday.  I did manage to find a few interesting one’s though.

I managed to take two major photography trips this year, a week in Chicago and a week in Cuba.  In both locations there were multiple opportunities to take panoramas.  So, having them in the forefront of my mind, I came across this article on Picture Correct by Joaquin Duenas titled “How To Capture and Stitch Panoramas”.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/how-to-capture-and-stitch-panoramas/

 

On the Phlearn site, “The Staff”, (I suppose that means a collaboration of the individuals that work there rather than any one author), posted this article with the grandiose title of “Bokeh Photography: The Ultimate Tutorial”.  While it technically may not be the “Ultimate” we can all learn something by reading it.

https://phlearn.com/magazine/bokeh-photography-the-ultimate-tutorial/

 

If you have the subscription to Photoshop, we got a new update last month to Photoshop CC 2019.  Colin Smith at the Photoshop Café did an article titled “5 Hidden Features In Photoshop CC 2019 You May Have Overlooked”.

https://photoshopcafe.com/5-hidden-features-photoshop-cc-2019-may-overlooked/

 

Earlier I talked about taking Panoramas and most of my panos were Cityscapes.  Here’s a related article on Picture Correct by Rueben Hird titled “10 Tips For Taking Great CityScape Photos”.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/10-tips-for-taking-great-cityscape-photos/

 

Well wrap it up this month with a new tutorial by everybody’s favorite French Photographer, Serge Ramelli.  Here Serge talks about long exposures with his tutorial titled “Long Exposure Photography and Filters Tutorial”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2TyrQzPZfw

November 2018 – HDR Panorama, Lightroom, Photoshop, Birds, Help to find Stunning Locations

Well the big thing that happened last month was that new versions of Photoshop and Lightroom were released.  Needless to say, discussions and tutorials about all the new “Stuff” dominated the web.  Here’s a few of the rundowns that I found helpful.

 

Greg Benz goes into detail on how to create an HDR panorama in a single step with Lightroom.

https://gregbenzphotography.com/photography-tips/lightroom-hdr-panorama?utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Create+HDR+Panoramas+in+just+ONE+step+in+Lightroom

 

Matt Kloskowski has done new feature summary videos for both Lightroom and photoshop titled, unoriginally, “What’s New in Lightroom” and “What’s New in Photoshop”.

https://mattk.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-8/

https://mattk.com/whats-new-in-photoshop-cc-2019/

 

Colin Smith from Photoshop Café also did a new photoshop features tutorial that covers some of the same things, but you may prefer one explanation over the other.

https://photoshopcafe.com/photoshop2019-new-features?mc_cid=461b5224d1&mc_eid=34dca0478d

 

Here’s a link to Adobe’s website talking about all the changes to Photoshop.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new.html#

 

To get off of the software for a couple of minutes, here’s an article in Picture Correct by Wayne Turner on photographing birds in your yard .

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/garden-bird-photography-tips/

 

Somebody once said, “To make interesting pictures, you have to go to interesting places.  Here’s and article by Karen Foley hosted on Picture Correct titled Photography Tools To Help Find Stunning Locations”.  It discusses several phone apps to make finding the right spot to shoot easier.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/photography-tools-to-help-find-stunning-locations/

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