Masks are among the most important tools for advanced photo editing, and yet many photographers have no idea they exist, causing extra work for themselves. Would you like to avoid this extra work? Read on.

When you’re taking pictures outdoors, sometimes you’ll run into a composition that’s great except for a few things that are in the way. Usually some signs of civilization. Electricity wires, trash, and other visual pollution are guaranteed to ruin the impression from an otherwise good photo. But with the right edits, you can solve this problem easily. Take a look at how to do this basic retouching.

A transparent background is the perfect helper when you’re preparing product photos, collages, or other creative edits. And meanwhile it’s easy to set up. All you need is some basic work with selections, layers, and masks. And then in a couple of minutes you’ve prepared a picture that you can use for jobs like creating posters and invitations.

Sometimes you want to change the background behind a person, animal, or other subject with a complicated outline... or to change that subject itself. The Refine Selection feature in Zoner Photo Studio will save you lots of time when you’re selecting flowers, people, or anything else with a complex outline.

The main disadvantage of macro shots is their low depth of field. Everyone recommends a tight aperture, but in practice even that won’t get you really sharp macro. But there’s another option—taking multiple shots at varying depths and joining them on a computer.

Many people consider layers to be something complicated that an ordinary person can’t even understand. But they’re really something very simple that will help you and make your work easier on even the simplest jobs. Let’s go make layers a part of your work too!

Sometimes you need to highlight your subject to make sure they’re attention-getting and that it’s immediately clear what’s important in the photo. In today’s article, we’ll show you how you can make a photo’s subject shine using local brightening and darkening. After all, photographs are about light. And today’s edit will be about light too.

When you make a selection in Zoner Photo Studio, you’re really creating a mask. You don’t have to know this to do basic work with selections, but learning to understand masking gives you better insight and control. To learn more about masking, read on.

I don’t know a single photographer who actually loves doing complicated edits, or at least, I don’t know any who wouldn’t rather be shooting than retouching. But sometimes local edits,