One of the things many people struggle with when it comes to composites is matching the colours of the two (or more) shots. Manually dragging sliders around and trying to match two completely different images is just plain tricky, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience with it. But this tip from photographer and digital artist, Dustin Valkema shows how we can very quickly match up two or more images together for compositing using a simple curves adjustment and a little known option it offers in the “auto” settings....

For those of you who aren’t planning to ditch YouTube and will keep making videos, you know sound is important. People will forgive a slightly dodgy video if the audio’s perfect. But if the audio isn’t great, then it doesn’t matter how pretty the picture is. Getting good audio can be a struggle, although it’s really not that difficult. As with lighting, you just need to understand the principles. Once you do, you can even get good quality audio with your phone....

Saw an ad for a “Styled (Wedding) Shoots Conference.” For those of you unfamiliar with the styled shoots, it’s where models play fake brides who fake marry models playing fake grooms at a fake wedding filled with fake guests and then cut a wedding cake at a fake styled reception while photographers who have paid to photograph the fake-ness happily snap away at the event and then post all the styled fakery in their portfolio as samples of “their work....

It’s a tough time of year for landscape photographers. We are eagerly waiting for Spring to arrive with its fresh new regrowth, blossom and slightly warmer weather, and we are so over Winter, but it’s just dragging on. The snow has gone slushy, the sky is a permanent grey slab of nothing. Should we just put our cameras away for another month? Not according to Mads Peter Iversen who has some great ideas to create magical images in even the most uninspiring time of year....

There are a few ways for changing colors in Photoshop, and it’s not hard to do it. But when you want to change white into another color, it won’t always look realistic. In this video, Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect teaches you how to turn white into any color and make it look natural. And what’s more, you can even use this method to turn white into black. Turning white into bright colors Turning white into any bright color is a bit simpler process than making it dark, so let’s start from here....

If Murphy’s Law has taught us anything, it’s that when you forget something, that’s when you will need it most. If you need to protect your external hard drive and you have forgotten the protective case, Zach Ramelan has a solution for a quick fix. He’ll show you how to turn the hard drive’s packaging into an emergency protective case. Basically, what you need to do is just take the plastic packaging and cut off a piece so you can attach the hard drive’s cable....

Coming up with unique and interesting backgrounds can be a challenge, especially in the studio. But it can be easier than you think. All it takes is a little light in the darkness. Light painting is typically seen out on location. The wonderful work of photographers like Eric Pare and Zach Smidt shows that off amazingly well. You can use it in the studio, too, though. In this video, Joe Edelman shows us how we can use light painting to create some pretty cool unique backgrounds in the studio....

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided us with many iconic and groundbreaking photos for over 30 years of its time in orbit. And now, the telescope has broken another record. Hubble has snapped the furthest star we have ever seen to date. According to Nasa, it existed “only” one billion years after the big bang. This discovery is groundbreaking for several reasons. It’s not only the furthest star Hubble has snapped s far....

Hello my name is Ben Cherry, I’m an environmental photojournalist and Fujifilm X-Photographer. Currently I am midway through a groundbreaking conservation expedition called Flight of The Swans. The project is hoping to raise awareness of the Bewick’s swan, which has a declining European population, that all sounds pretty normal for a conservation project, but here’s the twist. Sacha Dench, a paramotorist and Wildfowl Wetlands Trust (WWT) employee, will fly the entire migratory route of the swans (over 7,000 kilometers), from their breeding grounds in arctic Russia back to the UK for overwintering....

This is a story about my portfolio that went missing for 30 years. I made this collection of photographs while working as a photographer at the Goldstream Gazette, a weekly newspaper on Vancouver Island from 1976 to 1978. Although I have had my portfolio back for sometime now, I thought I would share this story as part of my 40th year of working as a newspaper photographer. A bit of background, I had made up a portfolio of my best photographs, I was eager to move on and was actively looking for work at a bigger paper....

This video was absolutely EPIC to make and a lot of fun. Thank you to all the creators who joined in so that you didn’t have to listen to me the whole time. Also a huge thank you to SONY for letting me borrow all of this Glass. Many of these lenses are not made for portraits so the sample image may not be relevant to the lens. I just thought it would be interesting to see how the lenses looked when compared side by side....

Central Camera Company, an iconic camera store in Chicago, was damaged in fire on Saturday night. The two-alarm fire broke out during a protest, one of those that have been raging across the US over the death of George Floyd. In a tweet from 31 May, Chicago Fire Department wrote that there were, thankfully, no injuries reported in the fire. However, there has been a damage to objects. One of them is Central Camera Company, the camera store that has been in business since 1899....

If the real world worked like the online-photography world of stolen photos posted to websites and ads: Why is everyone so mad? I never said it was MY car. And I didn’t know it was wrong. I mean, I saw a car that I really wished my car looked like, and it was unlocked and the keys happened to be inside and so I just used it to run errands and go to work and drive around town....

I don’t know what’s with me and miniature replicas of random stuff, but I just love them even though they’re completely useless. If you can relate, then you’re gonna love this tiny Sony camera kit. Select Sony stores around Japan give it away for free if you buy a real kit, and even though it doesn’t shoot, it’s cute as a button. The offer is valid for those who buy a Sony a7 or a9 series camera kit....

With two new AI-powered features, Instagram is continuing its fight against online bullying. From now on, the platform will guilt-trip everyone who tries to post a nasty comment. At the same time, you will be able to shadowban everyone who bullies you in the comments. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri posted about the upcoming changes on the company’s blog. As you may remember, the platform introduced some AI-powered features back in 2017 as an attempt to fight online bullying....

If you thought there’s no corner on Instagram without ads, you’re wrong, my good friend. Meta can always make room for more, and that’s exactly what it’s about to do. As the company is struggling with a major financial loss, it needs a way to generate more revenue. So, Instagram is about to get even more ads, and they’re going to be everywhere. There are already ads on your Feed, in Reels, in Stories… So is there even a place where there can be more of them?...

When users started complaining about their content being shadowbanned, Instagram denied that the concept even existed. However, the app now admits that some accounts may be shadowbanned. In fact, it even tells you when it happens and what you can do to have your content visible again. “We know that, for many creators, having Instagram recommend your content is a great way to reach new fans and grow your audience,” Instagram writes in a statement....

Instagram will begin hiding the like counter for some people in the USA this week, according to Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri. The possibility that Instagram would implement hidden likes came about in April after a design prototype was leaked. By July, Instagram had turned off like counters for some users in seven countries. The goal, they say, is to stop the jealousy that we often see on social media. Their plan appears to be working, as Instagram expands the test into the USA and even parent company Facebook plans to follow suit....

While some restaurants want to help you take better photos of food, others are banning photography completely. Japanese sushi chain Sushiro has banned photography from all its restaurants, thanks to a single GoPro camera and YouTuber TkyoSam. It started when TkyoSam placed a GoPro on a conveyor belt in one of Sushiro’s restaurants. He posted the video on his YouTube channel and it reportedly went viral. According to Resource Magazine, this angered Sushiro’s management, so they decided to ban photography from all their restaurants....

This seemed to slip below the radar the other day when Joby announced a whole new range of Wavo microphones, but Joby has also announced a couple of new tools specifically for smartphone content creators. The two new products are called Joby Spin, which is a motion controlled Bluetooth 360° pan head, and Joby Swing, a Bluetooth mini sort-of-slider. Both of them are designed for smartphones with a focus on size, weight and easy of use....