We all take pictures that are too dark sometimes. Underexposure is a common mistake that happens when you’re in a hurry while pressing the trigger or you don’t have time to change settings, or you use automatic settings while shooting against the light.

In our last infographic, we described the difference between an umbrella, a softbox, and a beauty dish. So this time around, we’ll focus on where to position your artificial light. Now that you’ve got your equipment, you need to also keep in mind how to use it. Let’s take a look at a few traditional and very useful ways to position your lighting in portrait photography.

They say that photography is really painting with light. And so besides mastering their camera, any truly professional photographer will also know their way around work with light. What foundation do they use when choosing their artificial lighting, and what sort of pictures does it get them?

Creating the perfect picture is often a matter of luck. But you can use selection tools to create your own luck. In Zoner Photo Studio X, there’s nothing easier than using one or more of these tools to select just the part of a picture that you want to edit.

Want to upload a photo on a social network or elsewhere on the web while making sure everyone will know you took it? That’s what watermarking is for. It’s usually in the form of a semi-transparent text or logo at the corner of a photo.

Like your camera, most photo editors include a histogram function. And Zoner Photo Studio is no exception here. Do you know the right way to work with a histogram?

What do you do when you want to gorgeously document the look of your shot location, but the weather just isn’t there? One thing you can do is to replace the sky during post-production. This is a creative technique where you take advantage of work with layers. You’ll need both your original photograph and one with a more interesting sky. Ideally they both should have been shot at the same focal length. And what do you do after that?

You can use blending modes both in your work with layers and in your work with editing effects in ZPS. When you’re working with layers, you’ll find the controls for blending modes in the right panel under the Layers line, above the list of layers. During edits themselves, you’ll always find the blending mode controls (“Blending Options”) by the specific adjustment you’re applying (e.g. Curves, Grayscale, Blur, etc.). ZPS offers you over 20 different choices of blending mode. The best way to get to know them is by trying them out.

Have a scene where too many things are distracting from your subject? If those distractions are moving objects, you can easily remove them on a PC using multi-exposures. Just take multiple shots from a single location, with the moving objects located differently in each shot. And then join them all into one picture. Let’s take a look at how.

A camera’s exposure modes determine how the camera works with the light data it measures and decides what settings it uses for the three exposure parameters: aperture, shutter, and ISO.