Digital Projector as Glamour Spotlight

Digital Projector as Glamour Spotlight

An Alternative to Focusing Fresnel Spot Light with the Benefit of Easy Custom Shapes I have been experimenting with digital projectors as a light source in my Glamour Photography Workshops. If you don’t have access to large movie hot lights with focusing fresnel...
Advanced Hair Masking Technique in Photoshop

Advanced Hair Masking Technique in Photoshop

I thought I’d get the year started with a brand new Photoshop technique—another preview of my online course called “The Fundamentals of Photo-Illustration in Photoshop”—this technique works wonders with very wispy hair and preserves ALL of the hair...
Banish that Pesky Sun!

Banish that Pesky Sun!

How to Effectively Shoot into the Sun I’ve just returned from a wonderful road trip to visit my sister in Durango. On the way, I stopped in Zion National Park, my halfway point, and managed to get some photos in early morning and late afternoon before continuing...
Classic Hollywood B&W Glamour

Classic Hollywood B&W Glamour

In advance of our workshop on Hollywood Lighting in Los Angeles, on May 13th & 14th, 2017,  I am posting this detailed tutorial on B&W portrait technique in Photoshop. This is the post processing part of our workshop exploring George Hurrell style lighting...
Neon PhotoWalk – Color & Tone

Neon PhotoWalk – Color & Tone

Guiding the Viewers Eye with Color and Tone This past weekend I participated in the Adobe Sponsored, Neon PhotoWalk in Las Vegas. Along with about 60 other photographers, I roamed up and down Fremont street in the renovated old downtown area. This “Fremont...
How To Create a Cross-Process Look in Photoshop

How To Create a Cross-Process Look in Photoshop

  Here is a detailed step-by-step video tutorial that examines a fairly sophisticated technique for re-creating a classic film processing effect. The tutorial uses a reverse Curves adjustment layer, layers and layer masks, Difference apply mode, Overlay apply...
Old-School Posterize Effect in Photoshop

Old-School Posterize Effect in Photoshop

Here is a technique for re-creating a printing effect popular in the psychedelic 60’s – a posterize effect that was used frequently for Rock concert posters. This step-by-step video tutorial utilizes the Threshold adjustment, layers and layer masks, advanced...
Lighting in Layers Technique

Lighting in Layers Technique

I’m posting a revamped version of one of my older PDF tutorials as a complete step-by-step video. This is a special preview for my sessions at the Florida Birding & Photo Festival  The festival runs from April 26 – 30th, 2017 in and around St. Augustine,...
Aerial Perspective in Photoshop

Aerial Perspective in Photoshop

Very often we encounter a scene where everything works well except for a distracting background. Sometimes retouching out distracting elements can work, but sometimes we don’t want to resort to retouching, or we want to preserve some sense of the original...
California Photo Festival Sessions

California Photo Festival Sessions

It time to start thinking about the California Photo Festival coming this October 10-14th! There are over 170 sessions with 15 industry leading photographers and digital imaging gurus in an all-inclusive price. Classes are starting to fill up so you should register...
What I Learned Shooting DSLR Video

What I Learned Shooting DSLR Video

Video Adventures at Lark Camp I went to Lark Camp—a world music camp nestled in the coastal rainforest of the Mendocino Woodlands—this past July/August, as part of my annual pilgrimage, but also to begin a project to produce a documentary about this unique musical...
My creativeLIVE Experience

My creativeLIVE Experience

Hi all, I just got back from a wonderful 3 days of creativeLIVE workshop in Seattle and now I’m diving into preparations for my next series of classes and workshops! The fall season is very busy with local classes at Calumet Photo in Santa Ana and Los Angeles,...
The Ultimate Skin Retouching Technique

The Ultimate Skin Retouching Technique

Frequency Separation Retouching by Alessandro Bernardi while I was in Italy, I had the good fortune to hang out with some amazing Photoshop experts. One of these was Alessandro Bernardi, who very kindly shared his version of advanced Frequency Separation retouching...
Low Cost Photo Hanging Solution

Low Cost Photo Hanging Solution

Minimalist Gallery Print Installation Some time ago I had a show of my Tarot images hanging in the Calumet Photo Los Angeles store—22, 16×20 prints were displayed in a separate gallery room, in the back of the store.   This was not a traditional gallery...