For many photographers, taking portraits under natural light is the simplest and most common option of all. That way you don’t have to worry about equipment costs. However, you do have to take into account the characteristics of natural light and subordinate your subject’s placement and your exposure settings to these.

Just about every photographer has tried portrait photography at some point. But many of them run into trouble when it comes to portrait lighting. There are several ways to go here. But for all of them, you have to keep in mind basic parameters such as the light’s intensity, quality, and color. Take a look at how to master these.

A truly compelling picture won’t have any distractions that might steal attention from its subject. But sometimes you just can’t avoid having distractions in the shot. Fortunately you can get rid of them easily with retouching. And you’ve got several ways to do it.

Quick and precise focusing even in difficult light. That’s one of the main advantages of DSLRs. They also offer photographers several focusing modes that make it easier to photograph every kind of scene, from static to action-packed. But it can be hard at first to understand them all. So join us for a look at which mode means what and when to use them.

You can get some of the most interestingly lighted photos by shooting against the light. But you also have to keep in mind that this light will expose every imperfection of your lens. Strong chromatic aberration will appear, details will soften, and reflections will appear due to light bouncing off your lens’s optics. Fortunately, you can tone down all of these defects on a computer.

Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority. Take a look at which mode to use when, how to work with them, and when it pays to choose manual mode.

The times when camera makers were waging megapixel wars are gone. And even the smallest resolution that you’ll regularly encounter in new cameras is enough to let you print your photos at fairly large sizes. So how is it with MPx counts, and what do they mean for your printing?

Photo editors have some quite powerful tools available for removing objects from photos—for example the clone stamp and healing brush.

Color adjustments are right up there alongside tone-curve adjustments as the most common edits you’ll make to your digital photos. No matter whether that’s a global repair to a photo that was tinted by a bad white-balance setting, or complicated creative edits using selections.

Perfect sharpness in a photo isn’t always something you want. Blurring can come in handy both when fixing mistakes in your photos and as a tool for creative expression.