PHOTOGRAPHER'S LAIR

  • The Power of Curves adjustments

    Just about anything you want to do to edit color and luminosity in your images, can be done with the curves adjustments. It’s a super powerful tool, but like all tools, takes a bit of practice to get the hang of. Within Adobe Photoshop, there are a few extra little features built into curves that…

  • Three Keys to Composite Images

    Three Keys to Composite Images

    I’m sure if you’ve spent much time at all in photography and Photoshop groups online you’ve seen both good and bad examples of composite photos…but what are the KEY elements that help push your work into that good or great category? I’ve spent a good deal of time doing these and reviewing them with other…

  • A birthday photo

    So…our little kidlet just turned 3 years old. She’s super proud of that fact…and has spent a good deal of time learning how to show you three fingers to indicate just how old she is. So yeah…this is my favorite photo from her special day. And I’m just going to share a little bit about…

  • I Need More Sunbeam!!!

    Here’s a quickie but goodie – how to make realistic streaking sunbeams that “filter through” trees, clouds or other background scenery. This is a surprisingly simple technique with one little not-so-obvious selection technique. Load up the original image and let’s have at it!!! To create this effect you want to pick the brightest part of…

  • Demystifying Levels, Curves, and the Histogram

    Ok, so this tutorial is going to get a little more technical and theoretical, but I promise I’ll try to make it as easy as possible. To start with I’m going to describe what the Histogram is and why you should care about it (No really, it is your friend!!). Then we are going to…

  • Custom Brushes – The Secret of Background Effects

        One very powerful feature in Photoshop is the countless ways you can create and modify brushes. Just about any design can be turned into a brush and then “painted” into your image to create all kinds of effects. This tutorial will serve as a simple introduction to working with custom brushes. I was…

  • 3 simple photo enhancements

    Focus, Vignette and Sepia – three simple effects to enhance your photos. This tutorial will delve a little deeper into working with layers while giving you three really simple but cool effects for getting creative and artistic with your photos. A very popular portrait technique has been to use a filter that creates a blurred…

  • Layers 2 – Blurring the background

    Background of original image was blurred In this post we’re going one more step into understanding layers by developing a project around using a layer mask. The first layers tutorial had a brief little intro to them and now it’s time to start really getting a grasp of what they can do. This project may take…

  • Beginning Layers

    This tutorial is written for Photoshop newbies. If you already know what layers are and how most of the tools in Photoshop work but just want to see how to create this effect, scroll down to the end for a quick step-by-step without all the commentary. But you know you really want to read this…