Lens distortion is a common issue we photographers deal with on a daily basis. It can be split into two groups - distortion by perspective and distortion by optics. Be it one or the other, it often causes unnatural-looking deformation of photos we take. As a result, we end up…
Post Processing Category Archive - Page 6
A Few Different Ways to Adjust Image Brightness
A good looking image consists of many different things, most of which are subjective. In this article I want to briefly discuss one specific variable, which is image brightness. While I don't plan on going into much detail and getting very technical, I do want to show you how you…
Photoshop Layers and Layer Masking for Beginners
Arguably the most versatile adjustments in Photoshop are the layering and masking tools. Together, layers and masks make up a large portion of the work most photographers do in Photoshop, both for subtle and complex edits. However, if you are just beginning to work in Photoshop, these two irreplaceable tools…
Best Non-Destructive Editing Software for Photography
With so many editing / post-processing software packages on the market today, photographers might find it rather difficult to go through them all and compare key features in order to pick something that would ultimately work for their needs. Many of us go through that stage, especially when starting out.…
Advanced Post-Processing Tips: Three-Step Sharpening
Sharpening remains a particularly confusing topic among photographers, especially given the tremendous number of post-processing options available. Some post-processing software has so many options that it is hard to know where to start; others do not let you use optimal methods in the first place. If you are trying to…
Google’s Nik Software is now FREE!
The title of the article deserves three exclamation marks, because this is one of the best news I have seen in photographic history! Google has just announced that it has made the best plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom, bundled into a single "Google's Nik Collection" absolutely free (it was priced…
How to Avoid Duplicate File Names
Your earliest photographic habits naturally will build over time, including the ways that you name and organize your images. What seems like a small issue at first – say, keeping your camera's default file names – could spiral out of control when you have tens of thousands of images. It can be…
How to Split-Tone Photos in Lightroom
One of Lightroom’s simplest, most useful post-processing options is the humble split-toning panel. Buried between the HSL and Detail sidebars, split-toning isn’t exactly a go-to tool for most photographers. And why should it be? From tint to saturation, Lightroom already offers several ways to change the colors of an image;…
Where Are My Mid-tones? Deriving Hidden Baseline Exposure Compensation
As we already mentioned in the previous article "Where are my Mid-tones?", most raw converters apply some hidden adjustments to a raw shot, often resulting in a bumped mid-tone, clipped highlights, and compressed shadows. This is done to make the shot look good, but can also lead to all sorts…
Where Are My Mid-tones?
We've gotten several emails, the most recent and the best phrased one from a reader of Photography Life, with questions along the following lines: What happened to my mid-tones? I set the exposure using exposure meter, opened the shot in Adobe Lr (or Adobe Camera Raw, or some other converter)…