Autumn color is coming and Blake Rudis of f64 Academy has a few quick tips to improve your fall photography. Ultimately, the goal of most fall landscape photos is to showcase the yellow, orange and red colors of fall foliage.

As Rudis points out, the brilliant colors you see with your eyes don’t seem present when you load your RAW files into your image processor of choice. This has been my experience as well. JPEG previews on the camera look great, and the RAW files, especially the red colors, look washed out and bland. Cameras perform quite a bit of processing on JPEG files as soon as you capture the shot, and most of the time, the processing works well and colors pop in a scene. However, RAW files need processing to bring out their best qualities. The relatively blank slate is one of the most significant advantages of RAW files, but it can leave you feeling a bit discouraged at first when you expect to see a brilliant, vibrant photo. How then do we process RAW files to bring out the awesome autumn color we photograph?

One of the first steps you can take is inside Adobe Camera Raw. Within ACR, if you use the Calibration settings, you tweak individual red, green and blue color channels and start bringing back foliage color. The panel can be daunting at first, but as Rudis shows in his video below, it’s straightforward in use. Experimentation works well here.

After performing color calibration, you can then do color separation using the Color Mixer panel in ACR. To see how Rudis uses the Color Mixer for fall photos, be sure to watch the full video above. He also covers how to offset a blue color cast and offers up additional tips for fall color. To see more videos from f64 Academy, visit YouTube.

If you’d like more fall landscape shooting tips and tricks, including a breakdown of recommended gear, check out our article below.

Gearing up for autumn: A helpful guide to shooting fall landscapes from start to finish•

The post Autumn color tips: How to improve the fall color in your photos appeared first on Imaging Resource.

In this week’s edition of ‘In Other News,’ we cover Profoto’s $17,000 new Pro-11 AirTTL Power Pack, Fujinon GF lens rebates, Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI 2.0, 21 Questions with Jerry Ghionis, Blake Rudis’ landscape photography workflow, learn new advanced flash photography techniques with Daniel Norton, and point you toward the excellent work of Olympus Visionary Michaela Skovranova.

Profoto Pro-11 2400 AirTTL announced

This week, Profoto announced the Profoto Pro-11 AirTTL Power Pack. The flash, which costs an eye-watering $17,000, has a short flash duration of up to 1/80,000s, fast recycling from 0.02-0.07s, 2400Ws of power and wireless connectivity.

Compared to its predecessor, the Pro-11 has a better display, improved control layout, user interface adjustments, new sound cues, improved reliability, better circuit design, new panel, new flash and new power circuit boards.

Deals: Save $500 on select Fujinon GF lenses

Earlier this week, we saw on Fuji Rumors that a trio of Fujinon GF lenses include a new $500 mail-in rebate. The promotion applies to lenses purchased through April 18, and the rebate comes in the form of a $500 prepaid Mastercard. The full terms and conditions can be found here.

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The three lenses in the promotion are the GF 45-100mm f/4 R LM WR, GF 110mm f/2 R WR and GF 32-64mm f/4 R LM WR. We have Field Tests available for the latter two lenses, so be sure to check those out using the links above.

Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI 2.0 released and currently 50% off

Topaz Labs has released Video Enhance AI version 2.0. Through March 12, the software is also 50% off, selling for $150 instead of its regular price of $300. Video Enhance AI 2.0 includes a pair of new model updates, a new and improved user interface and many more improvements. A free trial is also available through the link above.

B&H 21 Questions with Jerry Ghionis: How did he master his lighting style?

The latest episode of B&H’s ‘21 Questions‘ video series went live this week. The featured guest is portrait photographer Jerry Ghionis. In the video below, Ghionis talks about how he got started with wedding photography, how he directs his subjects, the evolution of his lighting style and more.

In addition to taking part in B&H’s ’21 Questions’ series, Ghionis also made a video with B&H sharing five corrective posing tips, which you can check out below.

Watch Blake Rudis’ entire landscape editing workflow

Blake Rudis of f64 Academy recently published a video outlining his entire landscape photography workflow. The topics covered in the video below include location considerations, RAW workflow, fixing blown highlights in Photoshop and more.

OnSet with Daniel Norton: Advanced flash photography techniques

As part of his regular video series, ‘OnSet with Daniel Norton,’ Norton did a livestream showing advanced flash techniques. The techniques covered include rear curtain sync, multi-pop, and sequential flash.

Photographer you should check out: Michaela Skovranova

Each week, we highlight a different photographer that readers should check out. This week it’s Australia-based photographer and filmmaker Michaela Skovranova. She is an Olympus visionary and National Geographic expert and has worked with Greenpeace, Time Magazine and more.

To see more of Michaela Skovranova’s excellent work, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.

The post In Other News: Profoto Pro-11, GF lens rebates, portrait tips and tricks, lighting techniques and more appeared first on Imaging Resource.

How many times have you gone to a beautiful location, perhaps even on a special and expensive landscape photography trip, only to be disappointed by a boring sky? It’s incredibly frustrating when you plan ahead, spend time and money and then the conditions don’t cooperate. However, through the use of sky replacement, perhaps boring conditions at the time of capture don’t have to ruin your final landscape images.

In the video below, Blake Rudis of f64 Academy shares his final tips for how to replace your boring skies with exciting and dramatic skies in minutes by using Photoshop. If you have any qualms about replacing skies in your images, Rudis says that so long as you present your works as art and do a good job with your sky replacement, what’s so wrong about the technique? After all, they’re your images.

There are times when you are shooting a specific scene and the light is really nice, but the sky is just better somewhere else around you. An easy way to ensure that a sky will match the overall color and tone of your image is to capture the same sky as your original shot from a different angle. This is what Rudis does in his latest tutorial. To see how he turns his shot from drab to fab, check it out below.

(Via f64 Academy)

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Last week, Adobe announced an update to Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw. This update introduced numerous features, but the one garnering the most attention is the new Enhance Details tool. Enhance Details is a new demosaicing process driven by Adobe Sensei. By leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, Enhance Details promises up to 30 percent more resolution in your converted raw image files. Essentially, Adobe promises higher resolution, more accurate rendition of fine details, better preservation of colors and reduced artifacts.

In the video below, Blake Rudis of f64 Academy goes over the new feature and then puts it to the test. Is it really all it is chalked up to be? Is it ideal for every raw image? Perhaps not, although it does work really well for certain types of images. Find out more in the video below.

Readers, have you tried Enhance Details yet? Have you found it to live up to the hype? Let us know in the comments below.

(Via f64 Academy)

The post Blake Rudis takes a closer look at the new Enhance Detail feature in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom appeared first on Imaging Resource.

“Why do my photos suck?” This is a question, in one form or another, Blake Rudis of f64 Academy receives on a regular basis from his readers and viewers. The list goes on and on of the different ways people attack their own work and put themselves down as photographers. It’s not unusual for someone to share their photos and not get the kind of reaction they had hoped for and when this happens, it’s easy to feel down about it.

While Rudis is an expert in Photoshop and does an excellent job of creating educational resources for photographers, he believes that the best way to counter feeling down about yourself as a photographer and your work is not with an adjustment layer or new Photoshop technique, but rather with an adjustment to how you approach photography itself. You need to be leaving a part of yourself as an artist in your images.

An important aspect to consider is that the way you felt when you captured an image. The experience you were having is not something easily transferred to the viewer of your image. Suppose you are out on a beautiful morning, enjoying a sunrise and you capture an image you love. You feel really good about the image because for you, wrapped up within that image is your experience of having been there and capturing the shot. A viewer of the image will not be approaching the shot with those same feelings, so there’s a disconnect between your experience and the viewer’s experience. While not easy by any stretch of the imagination, an important aspect of creating work you feel better about and getting the reactions to your images you desire is finding a way to inject your personal experience as an artist into the final product. A key component to finding your style is just that, finding a way to make your images uniquely your own.

There are obviously technical ways you can create your own style, such as editing in distinct ways in Photoshop, but before you can get to curves adjustments and color shifts, you need to figure out what feelings you want to evoke with an image and then determine which tools will best allow you to translate those feelings into a visual experience for your viewers. It won’t always work out perfectly, of course, but figuring out who you are as an artist is an important step toward creating images you feel really good about. Watch Rudis’ video below for his full discussion on attacking feelings of doubt and creating meaningful images.

(Via f64 Academy)

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If you’re experienced with Photoshop, you likely know that the software has many different kinds of blend modes, all producing different results and offering varied capabilities. However, even very advanced users often find several blend modes which fit into their workflow and rarely venture outside their favorites. As Blake Rudis of f64 Academy points out in his newest video, seen below, you may want to take a closer look at the hard mix blend mode.

The hard mix blend mode, when applied as-is, is “trash,” says Rudis. However, when you tinker with fill and opacity, such as when using the blend mode in combination with a color fill adjustment layer and drop down the opacity, there is a lot of power to be found in the hard mix blend mode. It is best used with actions, which you can download from Rudis by clicking here. To see the actions at work and learn more about the hard mix blend mode, watch the full video below.

(Via f64 Academy)

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There are 27 blend modes in Adobe Photoshop and many people use only a handful of them in their own workflow. As Blake Rudis of f64 Academy points out in his latest video, there may be blend modes you haven’t tried yet that could significantly improve your photo editing workflow. One of these lesser-used blend modes if the “vivid light” blend mode, which Rudis states is a very powerful tool for color grading.

Upon first look, the vivid light blend mode may not seem particularly useful. However, once you understand how it works, it’s easier to see its utility. The vivid light blend mode utilizes color burn and color dodge as its base. You will want to use it with fill in every case, as this will allow you to dial in the proper intensity via opacity adjustments. It can enhance the contrast of your image, so it might not be a good idea to use with images which are already high in contrast, as the final look could be extreme. To fine-tune your color grading and selectively apply the effect, be sure to utilize masks. You can see Rudis use the vivid light blend mode in the video below.

(Via f64 Academy)

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When you are outside capturing photos, you are often at the mercy of the weather. A boring sky can ruin an otherwise nice scene. However, sometimes if you look in a different direction, you might have a great sky. This happened recently to Blake Rudis of f64 Academy, so he wanted to show us how to capture a separate sky image and put it in your desired photograph using Adobe Photoshop. It may sound complicated, but the process is simple and can be done in under seven minutes.

Rudis was out shooting the Kansas City skyline and he had a nice scene with good light. However, the sky was bland; the clouds were in a different direction. He captured an image of the desired scene and an image of the clouds and because the overall color of the scenes were similar, being captured in the same area around the same time, it’s a very natural-looking final composite. This is important to keep in mind. You can capture images of skies to use in your other images, but it can be tricky to match them in terms of overall color, tone and mood. This is why shooting the two shots at the same time, when possible, is a great option. If you’d like to follow along with Rudis, head to f64 Academy to download the practice images.

(Via f64 Academy)

The post Boring sky? No problem, here’s how to fix the issue using a second shot and Adobe Photoshop appeared first on Imaging Resource.

When you are out in the field, are you a photographer or a data collector? Blake Rudis of f64 Academy considers himself both, perhaps tending more toward the latter. What does it mean to collect data using your camera?

When you capture an image using a digital camera, the sensor captures a lot of data. Light data, color data, etc., and then you can manipulate the data captured in the image file to create your final processed image. That doesn’t mean you can collect data however you want with your camera, however, there are tradeoffs and sacrifices you necessarily make in certain situations. There’s only so much a digital sensor can capture. How can you get the most of your own gear?

Experimentation is key. You need to become familiar with your own gear. For example, at what ISO can you still produce what you consider to be a usable final image? What does your histogram need to look like in the field for you to be able to salvage highlight detail or rescue shadow detail? Are there any shutter speeds where your camera might be more prone to some form of shutter shock? Are there certain colors your camera tends to struggle with? These are all important questions you need to answer with your own camera so you can better determine how to “collect data” out in the field and arm yourself with the best possible files.

(Via f64 Academy)

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Profiles have been a part of Adobe editing software for a long time, although they haven’t always been easy to find. Now, with the latest updates to Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, profiles have a more prominent role in the software. Blake Rudis of f64 Academy takes a look at profiles in his latest video, seen below, and shows off how powerful profiles can be.

Being able to craft your own profiles for genre-specific images is a very useful tool. To ensure we’re all on the same page, it’s important to understand the distinction between presets and profiles. Presets are different looks you can give your images. Profiles, on the other hand, are different ways for Adobe software to interpret your RAW files. You see the results of a profile before you even start editing your RAW images. Put another way, it changes the “before” image rather than the “after” image.

(Via f64 Academy)

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