Working on your photos in Photoshop, you might have come across the situation where you begin to see weird lines appear in places where they shouldn’t be and weren’t before. This issue is especially common for very smooth gradients, such as skies, and can undoubtedly destroy even the most beautiful...
DIY: Reliable and Cheap Universal White Balance Reference Device
DIY projects are always popular, so we’ve decided to throw another one into the mix. This particular little idea comes from a problem that many photographers have – where do you get a good, small, white/gray surface to use for white balancing your RAW shots in conversion? (more…)
Letting Your Personal Style Find You
I think that so many of us love photography because of its inherently dichotomous nature. On one hand photography is an art form which allows each of us incredible creative latitude for visual expression. That is counterbalanced by the complexity of the technical considerations that can come into play when creating...
The Question of “Good Enough” Image Quality
One of the largest debates in the world of photography is split into two main camps. On one side are people who strive to take photos with the highest technical level of image quality -- in everything from their equipment to their camera settings -- for most of their photos. The...
5 Simple Lightroom Tips You Might Not Know About
Adobe Lightroom is arguably the most widely-used image editing software these days. While most of our readers are probably quite familiar with it, a piece of software as complex as Lightroom is sure to have some tricks and features that not everyone knows about. What I'd like to do today...
An Interview with Street Photographer Valerie Jardin
Valerie Jardin is not only an accomplished street photographer, but also a podcaster, teacher, speaker and writer. Originally from France, Valerie currently lives in the United States. Valerie’s international workshops and speaking engagements often sell out over a year in advance. This is why I feel so lucky to have...
Lightroom 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and CC Performance Comparison
Ever since I started using Lightroom back in 2007, I have been keeping a backup of every single version on my computer, making sure that I had the latest version of that particular release. With the very first version of Lightroom having a few issues and not having 64-bit architecture...
Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 G2 Review
When Tamron introduced the Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 VC a few years ago it really shook things up (Model A011, but hereafter I’ll call it the G1 for simplicity). Priced just over a grand, the G1 offered people the chance to get into wildlife photography without dumping five figures into...
Sports Photography at CMU
Earlier this summer I posted an article about cityscape and architecture photography in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am extremely grateful for the positive response that article received; thank you! Many photographers specialize in one genre, but urban environments make up less than half of my subjects. Sports photography...
Aquarium Macro Photography of Ornamental Shrimp
“There’s such a thing as ornamental shrimp?” This is the typical response of family and friends when I speak to them about my recent hobby of keeping ornamental shrimp. Believe it or not, there is growing interest around the world about breeding and keeping these little freshwater critters as pets....