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Ideas | Tutorials

How I make my digital images look more analog
ByRod Lawton December 4, 2025December 4, 2025

Digital images don’t look like analog. They just don’t. And it’s not just as simple as changing the colors, adding a sepia tone or applying a vignette, or a frame. There are plenty of programs and plug-ins that can recreate that analog look, or they promise to do that, but often they use very obvious techniques to make pictures look old. I’ve done this lots of times myself, I’ve nothing against this approach. It’s fine if you want to create a very obvious effect, but what I want to do today is different.

Read More How I make my digital images look more analog
Ideas | Tips | Tutorials

Is there a Leica ‘look’, how do you get it, and how much is actually your camera work?
ByRod Lawton August 2, 2025August 22, 2025

I’ve had a fascination with the Leica ‘look’ ever since I first went on a shoot with a digital Leica M rangefinder. The contrast and colors were exceptionally intense, the M-series lenses added a subtle vignette at wider apertures and there was an intriguing shift in the color palette compared to the clinical accuracy of other cameras.

Read More Is there a Leica ‘look’, how do you get it, and how much is actually your camera work?
Ideas | Tips | Tutorials

Everyday edits: This minimalist still life shows Lightroom’s AI masking working perfectly
ByRod Lawton June 14, 2025August 13, 2026

Minimalism, brutalism and architecture, three of my favourite things. So when I got the chance to spend a week in a converted WWII bunker, I spent much of my time exploring the objects, compositions and lighting in this strange but extraordinary environment.

Read More Everyday edits: This minimalist still life shows Lightroom’s AI masking working perfectly
Ideas | Tips | Tutorials

Everyday edits: Bournemouth Pier, with Lightroom Classic’s Storm Clouds Adaptive Preset
ByRod Lawton June 7, 2025August 17, 2026

It was a dark, blustery day in May. Bournemouth, on the UK’s southern coastline, was not looking its best. But I didn’t want to try to glamourise it, I wanted to make this place look exactly how it felt on that day – only more so.

Read More Everyday edits: Bournemouth Pier, with Lightroom Classic’s Storm Clouds Adaptive Preset
Ideas | Tips | Tutorials

Have I been looking at dynamic range all wrong? And how much is enough?
ByRod Lawton April 16, 2025August 22, 2025

So until now I’ve been thinking of dynamic range recovery as being a combination of highlight recovery and shadow recovery. But actually, I’m starting to think that if my highlights are blown, that’s maybe not a dynamic range issue, but an exposure error on my part. I’ll explain what I mean.

Read More Have I been looking at dynamic range all wrong? And how much is enough?
Ideas | Tips | Tutorials

Recreating a classic style digitally in ON1 Photo RAW: Josef Sudek
ByRod Lawton April 12, 2025August 22, 2025

Josef Sudek was a photographer from what is now the Czech Republic who had a characteristic style, particularly later in his life, when he drew inspiration from the objects that surrounded him and the effects of light. His images were deep, soft and mysterious. But is it possible to achieve some of that look digitally without producing just a cheap, fake effect?

Read More Recreating a classic style digitally in ON1 Photo RAW: Josef Sudek
Ideas | Tips | Tutorials

I edited this black and white image three different ways and I still can’t decide which is best
ByRod Lawton April 4, 2025August 22, 2025

Editing processes are very selective, and different photographers will have different approaches. Even the same photographer can have different approaches at different times. Just as it’s not always easy to cull your images, it’s not always easy to decide on the best way to edit them.

Read More I edited this black and white image three different ways and I still can’t decide which is best
Tutorials

3 reasons why I edited this in DxO PhotoLab and not Lightroom
ByRod Lawton April 3, 2025August 1, 2026

I know Lightroom very, very well. I’ve been writing about it for years. A large part of this site’s content is devoted to Adobe Lightroom tips and tutorials. That means, though, that I also know its weaknesses, and there are plenty. So I thought I’d run through the editing steps I used on this photo and why I did them in DxO PhotoLab and not Lightroom.

Read More 3 reasons why I edited this in DxO PhotoLab and not Lightroom
Tutorials

This is how Capture One makes your wide-angle lenses even wider!
ByRod Lawton March 31, 2025May 8, 2025

I’ve been puzzling over this for a while but now I think I know the answer. This is how Capture One (and DxO too, by the way), can appear to ‘see’ a wider angle of view than the camera can. It’s a particular characteristic of wide-angle lens corrections that looks like it shouldn’t even be possible but has a rational and extremely interesting explanation.

Read More This is how Capture One makes your wide-angle lenses even wider!
Tutorials

ON1 Photo RAW 2025 has a new Depth Map feature – here’s how it works
ByRod Lawton March 30, 2025May 8, 2025

A depth map is a mask that can separate objects at different distances from the camera. Some phones have depth mapping built in, but cameras don’t. However, ON1 Photo RAW 2025’s new Depth Mask tool can use AI to analyse the objects in a scene and work out their distance. Imagine a luminance mask, but applied to distance not brightness!

Read More ON1 Photo RAW 2025 has a new Depth Map feature – here’s how it works