Candid photography is one of the best ways to capture people in an environment that they feel comfortable in and these photos are generally the ones that will rehash old memories when looked back upon.  There are a few mistakes though that could kill the image, this tutorial will help point out what not to do.

Don’t forget your camera at home.  Candid shots in-the-moment, you never know when that moment will happen, so always be prepared!

Turn the flash off!  You may be able to get away with the first shot but each and every one after that people will be aware you’re around.  The flash isn’t so bad if you’re looking to capture candid shots during a wedding reception, but if your goal is candid street portraits you don’t want anyone to know you’re shooting.

The subject isn’t always the main focus of a candid shot.  Don’t be afraid to zoom in and crop some of the forehead off or shoot at an odd angle.  Take into consideration how the person is currently in the environment and try to either include that into the composition or completely isolate it.

Get down on one knee.  The perspective from three feet is significantly different from your standing eye level and provides more intimate photos.

Blend in, don’t stand out.  The key to candid photography is to capture people in un-posed, natural situations, laughing, crying, enjoying moments of their lives.  If you’re dressed in loud colors or in the middle of a conversation you could be missing out on something fun or important happening.

Have patience.  If you’re in a rush or impatient for a shot you could miss out on the best situation to take photos.  Candid photography isn’t staged, it’s the exact opposite, therefor you must flow and work within the scenario you are created and not try to dictate what happens.

Don’t ever ask someone to re-do a pose, laugh, hug or other gesture because you missed it.  If you missed the shot, take a breath and relax, another will happen, but don’t force people to re-do anything.

Don’t miss the story.  Photography is commonly called painting with light but it’s also all about telling a story.  Before you even put the camera up to your face take a few moments to evaluate the entire area you’re shooting in or walking through.  See what the flow of people is, determine if you should be stationary in one spot capturing people passing by or if you should actively mingle within a crowd.  Look for moments between two or more people and how they interact and frame your shot to capture this engagement between the subjects.

Forget about being selective when shooting.  Digital photography means the cost per shot is near non existent, unlike film where every frame on every roll cost money.  Because the difference between a great candid and a miserable one could be only seconds apart, over-shoot candids and weed them out in post-production.  Better to have several similar shots to choose from instead of one almost great shot.

Candid photography is very much like photojournalism, capturing moments of time that are happening, telling your story through still images.  Many shooters struggle with candids at first because of the inability to not control the situation.  Look at shooting candid subjects like the wind, you can’t control it, you can only capture what it does, where it does it and with your own vision and angle.

Over the last 150 or so years that photography has been in our lives, it didn’t undergo much change until twenty years ago.  While film sizes and developing techniques had minor changes, it wasn’t until the 80’s when the first glimmer of the future of photography started to appear with auto-focus camera’s and faster frames per seconds.  Then digital came and has forever changed our lives.

Here’s a look at what predictions could be forthcoming in the future of photography, some more realistic then others, all are somewhat plausible though.

In camera HDR.

High dynamic range photography has been more of a curse then a blessing as most photographers see it.  Most over-use the ability and create more art images compared with a true photography, layering and layering until what they have more closely resembles a digitally created image, not a photograph.  If a camera can have the ability to do HDR on the fly, in camera it could open up the door for better, more equally exposed images.

Unlimited ISO.  High end DSLRs now seem to be able to shoot in near total darkness, however the blacks still tend to go green in hue.  Working towards better chips that don’t get as hot will lead to better night images without flash.

Simulated grain.

Grain is not a bad thing!  25 years ago photographers chose film based on the grain type, fine, coarse, etc., and the location being shot and how the subject was being shot.  Something about the grain structure in a 3200 speed film shot at noon on a sunny day produced some amazing results.  Digital has noise which is different from grain, so the quest has been to eliminate it; all fine and good.  While post processing techniques can add grain to images, having it in camera would cut down on post processing and allow more creativity while shooting.

3g equipped cameras.  There are already Wi-Fi enabled SD cards, however you must be within a certain distance of an established network with a properly configured router for the transfer of files to a computer work.  Having 3g built into cameras, DSLRs and point and shoots would allow for instant uploads to blogs, photo sharing sites and social media networks.

GPS equipped cameras.

GPS attachments are available for a few of the higher end DSLRs abut the ability to geo-tag your images would allow for better sorting during post-production.

Polaroid film comes back to life. The original instant feedback medium prior to every camera having an LCD monitor on the back was Polaroid.  Hopefully Polaroid will be coming back to life shortly and the company will establish more consumer friendly cameras to utilize instant print technologies.  They can be immensely fun and a nice distraction from digital now and again.

Universal batteries. For whatever reason, camera manufactures like to create a new battery type for each and every camera they make.  There is virtually no difference in quality between the original Canon 5d battery and the 5d mkII battery, other then a huge price increase and very limited availability when the camera was initially released.  One battery shape for all DSLRs and another for point and shoot cameras will allow third party manufactures a chance to make better, cheaper batteries and cross compatibility for all camera owners.

The everything lens.

The dream is a fast zoom lens that covers wide to telephoto, is compact and doesn’t weigh a ton.  Think 15-250mm f/1.8, 2.5″ long and under 10oz. in weight, with macro capabilities.  Every photographers dream!

The future of photography will change, that much is fact, but will manufactures listen to the demands of their customers?

Each and every city across the world has a character all its own in terms of feel, smell and emotions, but they share one thing in common, a skyline of buildings and high-rises that, while put together by different builds, come together to form a beautiful end result.  Each and every building in a city is special, but stepping back to look at all the pieces in the puzzle can be stunning;  this collection of 21 photos captures just that essence.

Photo by Werner Kunz (werkunz1)

Werner Kunz (werkunz1)

Photo by joiseyshowaa

Photo by Burning Image

Photo by wildpianist

Photo by by coka_koehler

Photo by Christopher Chan

Photo by kennymatic

Photo by besar bears

Photo by mugley

Photo by joiseyshowaa

Photo by steena

Photo by discopalace

Photo by stevewhis

Photo by Sprengben

Photo by Auzigog

Photo by `?ccdoh1?

Photo Wolfgang Staudt

Photo by tripleman

Photo by Sarmu

Photo by mischiru

Digital photography has changed all of our lives and given us the ability to sit behind a computer monitor and be our own Ansel Adams with the post production.  But it’s not that simple, there are several pieces of software to edit your photos with after you take them, the most well known being Photoshop.  There is a clear cut rival to Photoshop called GIMP, an open source software that is very similar to Photoshop, and some say better.

Image by Rore

1. Starting with the most obvious and possibly most important, GIMP is free.  Yes free, no charge, nada, zip, zero.  Photoshop costs upwards of $700 for a single license!  The old saying stays true, if it’s free it’s for me.

2. GIMP is a much smaller install, about 20x smaller then Photoshop.  Not only does the install go much quicker, but it takes up far less hard drive making it the perfect image editing software for laptops and netbooks where hard drive space may be at a premium.

3. Photoshop is extremely resource intensive, it will run on older hardware but it’s not optimized to and will be sluggish and slow.  GIMP on the other hand is amazingly fast and stable.  It will install on nearly any hardware running Mac, Windows or even Unix!

4. Gimp is more user friendly.  Photoshop was actually created as a piece of software intended for graphics and photographic editing, never just digital photo editing.  Because of this it’s bloated with features and functions most photographs don’t want or need.  The physical layout of the screen is similar to that of Photoshop, but is also customizable and flexible to fit your needs.

5. Open source architecture means anyone can modify the core code and develop plugins and new features, you don’t need to be approved by Adobes’ development team.

6. Batch processing through automated actions is far superior in GIMP.  Because photographers often need to do repeatable actions to large groups of images, this feature alone is worth its weight in gold.

7. Open, edit and save Photoshop’s native PSD file format with GIMP.  If you’re editing for someone else, it doesn’t matter if they’ve started the job in Photoshop because GIMP can handle the file format.

8. Free upgrades.  Not only is GIMP free to download, install and use, upgrades are free!  Photoshop upgrades, which happen on average every 12-18 months can cost as much as $200, on top of the original purchase price!

9. Replicate the look and feel of Photoshop and its keyboard shortcuts in GIMP.  There are several tutorial sites aimed at skinning and rearranging GIMP to fully replicate the Photoshop layout if that’s what you are used to using.

10. GIMP goes portable! As if the install of GIMP wasn’t small enough already, a portable version is available to load on your USB thumb drive to take on the go and edit programs on anyone’s computer, anywhere!

With all the benefits and upsides to GIMP and the free price of the software, it’s most definitely worth looking at when searching for an image editing software.

The traditional studio shot of families is fine, but boring as call can be!  The reason very few people are excited about having a family portrait done is because they usually lack creativity, involve standing around with fake smiles and wearing a matching outfit with the rest of your family.  BORING!

Taking the ultimate family portrait is about capturing moments within the family dynamic, it goes beyond lining family members up from tallest to shortest or putting on white button down shirts, khaki pants and sitting on a beach.  Think outside the box and look beyond normal standards for ways to get a group shot unlike any other your family, or your client has ever seen!

This great family portrait has some unique characteristics about it.  First of all, Flickr user RKHawaii was both photographer and model, this is a self / family portrait.  He had a trigger in his hand to take the actual shot and utilized a strobe with a power pack to light it since the sun was at his back and he took an interesting angle, by putting the camera low he is able to capture the foreground, the mountains, sky and some of the solar glare from the sun for a really nice capture.  You’ll also notice no one is looking into the camera.  These more casual family portraits are the growing trend, they look far less staged and seem to tell a better story.

Flickr user Mhogan35 took a much different approach to shooting himself with his brother.  This image has been heavily post processed, but at the core is a rather unique image.  Location, attire and posing are the key factors in this photograph.  It works extremely well due to the symmetry and emotion.

The anti family portrait!  Flickr user 1Happysnapper (photography) uploaded this wonderfully rich photograph of a family where none of the faces are visible, yet this is still a family portrait at the purest sense of the word.  Taking some bad weather into account and making the best of it, the use of large colorful umbrellas and punchy post-processing help transform a line of family members into a fun and quirky portrait.

To plan for these types of portraits you need to look for:

• Opportunity
• Location
• Posing
• Focus
• Story

Examining these one by one, you look for opportunity to capture moments between making moments.  By this, I mean don’t always expect to shoot the perfect family portrait by staging the shot, sometimes the best portraits are captured between the staging and positioning of all family members, or when someone cracks a joke, or makes a funny face.  These idiosyncrasies are what make families, and how they remember each other.

When choosing a location, don’t pay as much focus to where you’re shooting, but how you will capture the family in that moment.  Equally stunning photographs can be taken in a living room, garage, open field or studio, it’s how you pose the family and utilize them in relation to the location.

Directly in relation with location is posing, which has been mentioned here a few times.  In the first example the family is very casual, almost as if they don’t know the camera is there.  This style is often called photo-journalistic, but it can be posed.  As a photographer, if this is the style you are after ask that your family just enjoy their company, shoot the breeze and forget you are there.  In the second photo is a much more rigid pose, the two brothers are positioned to mirror one another, side by side.  This is slightly more classic, but given the dynamic of the image, it works really well. In the last photo the family isn’t even facing in the direction of the camera and their faces aren’t visible.  Think outside the box, look towards creative ways to capture people within the environment they are in.

The focus of a family portrait should always be the family but that’s not to say they need to be in focus, or even centered.  The last photo is a prime example of this, however utilizing other photographic techniques like wide open aperture for a creamy bokeh can deliver breathtaking photos.

Every photo tells a story in some way shape or form.  Each of these three examples tell you something about who the families are, what their relationship is like, where they live or what they like to do, and in the last photos, what happened that day.  Step back and try to imagine in your head what words would be used if a monologue was being told while you were shooting this.  What would you title the shot and what would a stranger take away from looking at it; more importantly, will the family look back years from now and remember how the air smelled or what the wind felt like by looking at your photographs?

This is a guide on how to shoot with passion more-so then an any particular technique.  While specific techniques are required to capture the shot, when shooting people and families, how the moment is captured is ultimately the most import ingredient, and sadly one of the most over-looked by photographers.

Photography is a wonderful, amusing, entertaining, though-provoking and emotional medium of art, but it’s also one of many facets, each one different and requiring a specific amount of training to truly excel at.  Recently, a friend asked me to shoot their upcoming wedding, which I politely declined and suggested some friends of mine who are wedding photographers.  They were a bit shocked, as we’ve been friends for some time and they reiterated that they’ve always loved my worked but couldn’t understand why I was reluctant to do it. I explained to them that I’m capable of shooting them, but it’s just not my niche.  Still not understanding, because as they saw it, I am a photographer and can do this, I gave them this example:

A heart surgeon and a dentist are both doctors, both went to medical school, but I wouldn’t want one doing the others’ job, ever.

This seemed to make sense for them finally and the topic changed to something else.

Photo by Ben McLeod

To find your niche in photography, you must look at what in life you enjoy and how you enjoy doing it.  For example, you may really like wildlife photographs but may not be into a three hour hike in misty rain up the side of a mountain to then sit rather motionless and quiet for an undetermined amount of time to get maybe a chance to shoot the elusive fox you think might be in the area.  If on the other hand you enjoy interacting with people and being in a social environment, event photography / wedding receptions could be just right for you.  Choosing a niche in something you are a fan of can also have added side affects.

Some of the more specialized niches in photographer are:

• Weddings
• Portraits (high school, corporate, family)
• Landscapes
• Photojournalism
• Macro
• Music / concert
• Fashion
• Editorial
• Fine art
• Children / babies
• Events
• Motorsports
• Extreme sports
• Sports
• Birding
• … + much more

You’ll notice I split up Motorsports, Extreme and regular sports, and I did this for a reason.  Each one has sub-sections that vary wildly.  A photographer who shoots Nascar events probably doesn’t have the knowledge or the right lenses to shoot skateboard photography and probably doesn’t want to deal with the cold of snowboard photography or sand of surf photography.

Photo by Dude Crush

As mentioned earlier, choosing a niche that you are a fan of or know a lot about can have added benefits too.  I’ve had the ability to see some amazing concerts from the press pit, side stage and backstage because of relationships I’ve built in the concert and music industry.

Photo by Plastic Jesus

If you’re a fan or passionate about something, chances are better that you’re ability to not only capture a great photo but tell a story while doing so increase drastically.

Learning to be a good photography takes time, patience and lots of learning, most of it through trial and error.  There seem to be countless books, classes, tutorials and blog postings how to do, create, setup, finalize, post-process, etc. to yield the best possible image and get that killer shot.  Less talked about is what you should never do as a photographer though, and this article will hopefully help you cut down on some of the errors while you are still in trial phase.

Never disrespect your camera equipment. Treat it with care and respect at all times and try your best to keep it out of harms way.  Utilize protective, quality UV filters on the end of your lenses to aid against scratching and a lens hood whenever possible as a first barrier to it bumping into something.  If there is even a chance of rain while you’re shooting outside, get a proper rain guard for your camera.  Get a properly padded bag that will hold your gear for transport and to work out of.  Never leave your camera gear in a car overnight, no matter how safe your neighborhood is.  Not only could it be an easy target for a thief, you could do internal damage to the gear.  Most all electronic gear, from digital cameras to computers, have a very narrow margin of tolerance for how they work without issue.  The general rule of thumb is, if you are uncomfortable because of heat, cold, dust, dirt,smoke, etc., so are your digital components.

Photo by Jef Harris

Respect the hired photographer. If you are attending a friend of family members wedding and were not hired to shoot the event, respect the photographer that was.  Also understand that most places of worship have fairly strict rules about flashes and where you are and are not allowed during the ceremony.  During these instances, it’s best to approach the hired photographer prior to the event and ask them if they have any issue with you shooting, as you’d like to get some snaps of the wedding and your friends during the reception.  Chances are, they won’t mind and will thank you for showing them the respect.  Remember, they were hired to do a job, let them do their job and don’t interfere.

Photo by Jeremy Brooks

Don’t copy the work of others your own. This is somewhat open to interpretation though.  It’s nearly impossible to photograph something that hasn’t already been photographed, and one of the best ways to learn is to recreate the style or lighting of someone else.  Just don’t claim it as your own original idea if you are only re-creating it.

Don’t judge a photographer based on the gear they use. We all have gear envy from time to time, of that guy who has the newest body or the longest lens, but I’m sure just as much judgment has been passed for someone using what you might assume is inadequate gear.  Famed photographer Terry Richardson was notorious for shooting cheap point & shoot 35mm film cameras because his vision is so terrible.  His work appears monthly in nearly every major fashion magazine and often graces the cover!

Don’t rely on the preset modes of your camera. While you may have a dozen or more presets for snow, action, party, inside and sunny days at your disposal, don’t expect them to give you the best possible result.  There are three main variables to photography at the camera level:

• Shutter speed
• Aperture
• ISO

While other variables come into play such as focal distance, flash and subject matter, learning how those three settings interact within each other is crucial to becoming a good photographer.  The three main modes most photographers shoot in are:

• Shutter priority
• Aperture priority
• Manual

Rarely are one of the presets used because understanding the basics will allow you to recreate their presets.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Swallow your pride and ask for help if you don’t understand something.  If a tutorial on this site doesn’t make sense, utilize the comments section.  If you can’t find an answer by searching Google, stop in your local camera shop, they are often a wealth of knowledge.

Don’t assume your way is the best way. No matter if it’s photography or post-processing, if you taught yourself or someone showed you how to do something, chances are there are still better, different or more efficient ways to do the task at hand.  Be open to how others work and ask what their work flow or thought process is, it could be very enlightening.

Don’t be defensive of your work. Posting your photos to Flickr, DeviantArt, message boards or even your own website / blog could lead to some less then positive comments.  Don’t dismiss them as slants to you personally, be open to critique and inquire what you perhaps could have done better to make the photo more appealing to the viewer.  Soliciting feedback without restrictions is hard for many shooters to swallow as negative comments can crush your feelings, but they can also point out areas to focus and improve on in the future.

Don’t ever stop learning. One great thing the Internet has allowed us to do is continuously learn through blogs, news articles and video demonstrations.  Don’t limit yourself just to the Internet though.  One and two day photo workshops are becoming increasingly common in cities across the country, often hosted by a local photographer.  Most are limited to only a half dozen people with the focus being on one specific niche, such as fine art nudes or macros.  They are often very affordable and a great way to meet fellow photographers.  Photo walks are also another way to learn and chat with other photographers, these too are becoming more popular in both urban and country settings.

With so much emphasis on what we should be doing, hopefully these tips on what not to do will enlighten you in a different way.

By definition, a Portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. But that’s not to say those are the explicit rules of portrait photography. Sometimes going outside the box is needed to evolve and change how we look and feel about a portrait.

Go Square!

The square format isn’t as popular as it was decades ago when medium format camera’s shot 120 film in a square, not rectangular format.  Fill the frame and don’t be afraid to crop in tight!

Tackle the High-Key look!

This one also just happens to be square, but high-key portraits is shooting with a white background and over-exposing the subject so only the details appear.  This was taken one step further and converted to black and white.

Shoot for the emotion!

Portraits don’t always and shouldn’t always be the way you remember them being taken through school.  Look for the raw emotion that one can exhibit and capture it!

Get in a line!

Portrait does not mean one, in this case it’s a grouping of portraits for a holiday photo, but the focus is clearly on the faces.  Utilizing creative techniques like this will ensure fantastic group portraits.

Mirror

Some creative post processing to add the butterfly and flip the side profile in this photo makes a direct impact.  Look to showcase your work in new ways even after you’ve taken the photos.

Don’t focus on the face!

There are no set in stone rules with photography, who says you need to focus on the face for portraits.  In this wonderful example of a new baby, the feet are in focus and make a wonderful portrait I’m sure the parents will cherish for years.

Draw the details in.

This portrait focuses on the makup of the model, to really force your eyes there the photographer and art director had her wear a ski mask.  While one third of her face is obscured by the mask, the details of the shot are in the eyes and makeup, the mask helps draw you to those details.

Environmental portraits.

A portrait can be taken almost anywhere, this image was captured during a parade.  Because the shooter used depth of field to their advantage, they put the focus on the foreground person while still leaving enough in the background to make sense of the parade that is going on.  In this case, an environmental portrait tells a story yet still shows where the focus is.

Get tight.

Get in nice and tight, fill the frame and cut some of the head off in the process.  This portrait shows the intense stair the person has, that’s where the story is.  While his lower lips and forehead are cropped off, it doesn’t take away from how powerful this image is.

Change your perspective.

Utilizing the square format again, this shooter chose to change their perspective and get low to capture the subject and also include the kite they are flying.  By changing the perspective  entire feel and story of the portrait changes too.  Experiment getting low and above your subjects for stunning portraits.

The anti-portrait.

Similar to don’t focus on the face, the anti-portrait deliberately hides or conceals the subject’s face. This technique is especially helpful when doing editorial shots, in this example, the photo could fit very well into a teenage angst article.

The look-away.

This photograph shows a man not looking into the camera, but it’s still very much a portrait in the classical sense of how you’d frame the shot, from about the armpits to the top of the head.  Don’t force your subjects to look into lens, many often find it very uncomfortable and this will translate into the photograph.

Portraits are a very intimate time, one shared between subject and photographer.  The ends result can be a very beautiful thing and utilizing these techniques will enable you to create unique, lasting impressions for years of enjoyment.  One of the best tools to learn how to take better portraits is to have your own done from time to time, to see how it feels on the other end of the lens so you in turn can relate better with your subjects.

Some subjects in photography are so perfect that they almost photograph themselves. With incredible and diverse colours, butterflies are one such subject. Add a little photographic skill from the photographer and the results can be outstanding. We think this collection of photos of butterflies ranks pretty high on the scale. If you like these, you should also check out the work of Thomas Shahan and see our collection of macro photography tutorials. Enjoy!

Photo by TatoodJay

Photo by Raimy

Photo by SpettacoloPuro

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by FCM Nikon d40

Photo by TheFrost

Photo by Nick Wheeleroz

Photo by Marcel Germain

Photo by DDSNet

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by MajaMarko

Photo by Tomothy K Hamilton

Photo by Tomothy K Hamilton

Photo by Wobblymol

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by BugMan50

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by Spettacolopuro

Photo by Dawn Ashley

Photo by Ecarey

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by Albyper

Photo by Kevin Cole

Photo by Vicki’s Nature

Photo by Edivad

Photo by RandiHausken

Photo by Jnarin

Up until about a decade ago photographers had it pretty easy.  Shoot, drop the film off at a local lab, then spend the next two to three days doing whatever you like; shoot more, meet with clients, lounge around your house, whatever.  You’d go pick up your developed film and prints and either build your albums or send the prints onto your clients.  Digital has offered us instant gratification and put more power then ever for developing our files, more commonly called post-production.

With the seemingly endless ways to handle images in post, the seat time photographers now have with a computer in front of them can be as long or longer then a photo shoot itself!  This doesn’t have to be the case though, and this article will lay out some time saving tips for your post-production.

1. Don’t shoot with the attitude of I can shoot a little loose and just fix it in post. Digital is not an excuse to be a lazy photographer and if you start shooting with this attitude it can be a hard one to break.  Try your best to nail exposures, not only will your final image look better, it’s one less thing to do in post.

2. Nail your white balance. This is another part of photography where shooters tend to get lazy and set to auto-wb and figure they can fix it in post.  You will almost always getting a better, more realistic representation if you set the white balance to the proper preset or, in mixed lighting situations do a custom white balance.  Learning to do a custom white balance takes less then a minute with a proper gray card and can be a real time saver.  To drive the point home, say you shoot a wedding and the bride is wearing an off-white gown.  You choose the lazy route to do AWB and now you’re in post, 24 hours after the wedding and you have no reference to whether the dress is supposed to be egg shell in color or a little more warm, even on the cream side.  One annoyed bridezilla is enough to scare you into doing custom white balances.

3. Shut the world out. Turn off your instant messenger client, Twitter client, put your cell phone on silent and close your email.  The only way to really be productive when working on photos for most people is to actually work on the photos.  Anything aside from this adds time to the total production scale.

4. Batch similar photos. Regardless which program  you use, Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture, they all have a way to batch or synchronize similar photos.  Do your edits to one then sync the settings to all similar images.

5. Crop separately from photo corrections. I’ve always found it faster to do photo corrections first then go back and crop images.  Utilizing the sync option allows me to process dozens of similar photos without actually looking at them one by one, so I go back to crop.

6. Learn keyboard shortcuts. Regardless of which program you use, they all have keyboard shortcuts (as does your operating system).  Learn to use and abuse these shortcuts because you can save a ton of time by keeping your fingers on the keys instead of always going for your mouse.

7. Weed out unneeded actions and presets for creative processing. There are dozens of sites to get free actions and presets, plus paid ones from the likes of OnOne, Kubota, Nik and more, but they often contain a lot of actions that you’ll never use.  Out of a typical 50 action set I usually only like a handful, yet they all show up in my Lightroom presets window pane or Photoshop Actions pane.  This confuses and clutters the view.  Delete out the actions and presets you won’t use, that way you won’t waste time trying to find them as you process.

8. Build your own presets and actions. One of the biggest time savers I’ve ever done for myself was to learn how to create custom actions in Photoshop and then run batch actions.  I do this for all types of jobs, whether it’s for resizing and watermarking or for large b&w conversions.  Obviously this works with free or bought actions too, but building your own can incorporate those actions too.

9. RTFM.  Read the fun manual. The manual, help file and tutorials built into software are usually a bit dry but contain a wealth of knowledge on how each and every part of the software works.  Without this knowledge you can’t expect to be efficient with it.

10. Customize your workspace. Every piece of software can be customized to optimize the layout that works best for you.  Perhaps you need the right pane hidden and the tools readily available only on the left.  Everyone is different and only you will be able to figure this out, but once you do expect your productivity to increase.

Post-processing can be immense fun but also labor intensive.  Utilizing these short-cuts will help boost your productivity, speed and efficiency so you can focus more on photography and still deliver top quality photographs.