The editing tools in Lightroom 5 are steadily improving to the point where many photographers won’t need any other software for their day-to-day image enhancement, and the new Radial Gradient tool in the Develop module takes this one stage further. It offers a way to quickly highlight the focal point of your pictures, subdue backgrounds […]
Tutorials
How to save a preset for Kodak Tri-X black and white in Silver Efex Pro
Anyone who used to shoot with black and white film will have a favourite, and I always had a soft spot for Kodak Tri-X. I didn’t mind the grain because I liked that gritty, ‘documentary’ feel, and sometimes I push-processed during development to get a little more contrast, especially in the depths of the Northern […]
Create a mist effect in Elements with blend modes and masks
Have you ever used a ‘mist’ filter with your camera? These are pretty weak – they usually produce an overall hazy glow to your pictures that doesn’t look that realistic. But there is a way to create ‘mist’ effects in Photoshop Elements that’s a lot more realistic. It uses adjustment layers, masks and blend modes, […]
Adding localised levels and curves adjustments in Color Efex Pro 4
DxO Color Efex Pro 4 isn’t just a collection of special effects. It also has a number of powerful image-editing tools hidden amongst them, and one of these is the Levels & Curves tool. You can use this to make adjustments to your images in the same way you would in Photoshop, Elements and other […]
How to compare different styles with Capture One Variants
Like Aperture and Lightroom, Capture One Pro is one of the new wave of all-in-one image cataloguing, editing and RAW conversion programs that use completely non-destructive editing tools to enhance your images. This means they all have a very special ability – they can create any number of ‘virtual’ versions of the same photo without […]
Get more accurate colours with Lightroom’s Camera Calibration panel
Have you ever noticed that the colours in the JPEGs you get from the camera don’t always match up with your RAW files when you open them in Adobe Camera Raw? That’s because when you shoot a JPEG, the camera still starts off by capturing a RAW file but then processes it in camera to […]
Use edge burning to enhance your composition in Silver Efex Pro 2
Burning in the edges of your pictures is a great way to enhance the composition because it improves the picture’s overall contrast and helps you concentrate attention on the picture’s focal point. The point is that converting your pictures to black and white is just the start, and ‘digital’ techniques like channel mixing are useful […]
Get greener landscapes with an Elements adjustment layer
What I like about Photoshop Elements is firstly that it’s a fraction of the price of Photoshop (and available as a ‘perpetual licence’) and secondly that it’s quite capable of carrying out almost all the image adjustments I want to do. This is one of my favourite techniques for enhancing colours and I use it […]
How to create a moonlight effect in Color Efex Pro 4
If you look at any old Hollywood film you’d see they had a standard technique for creating ‘moonlight’. They’d simply shoot in bright sunlight, reduce the exposure and give the picture a blue tinge. The bizarre thing was that it worked – it did give the appearance of ‘night’. Moonlight isn’t actually blue, though. If […]
Fixing perspective is easy with Capture One Pro’s Keystone Vertical tool
You can fix converging verticals and other perspective problems in many programs, including Lightroom and DxO Optics Pro, but Capture One Pro 7 has what I think is the most easiest and most accurate tool of all. The problem with fixing keystoning is that you need to be extremely accurate in aligning the tool’s marker […]