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Photoshop's Remove Tool Just Changed How I Handle Distraction Cleanup on Client Work
Video Tutorials

Photoshop's Remove Tool Just Changed How I Handle Distraction Cleanup on Client Work

Every commercial shoot ends with a folder of images that are 90% there. The light is good, the subject looks great, and then there’s a tourist walking through the background, or a web of power lines cutting across an otherwise clean skyline. For most of my career, fixing those problems meant careful selections, Content-Aware Fill, a lot of cloning, and the quiet acceptance that this was just part of the job.

Stop Shooting Blind: How In-Camera Picture Styles Can Replace Half Your Post-Production
Video Tutorials

Stop Shooting Blind: How In-Camera Picture Styles Can Replace Half Your Post-Production

Fifteen years of sitting behind a monitor has taught me one thing above almost everything else: the less you have to fix in post, the more time you have to shoot, refine, and actually think. I track my saved hours obsessively, and the biggest gains rarely come from a faster action or a smarter batch script. They come from decisions made at the point of capture. That is why, when I first watched RC walk through in-camera picture styles in this KelbyOne tutorial, something clicked for me in a way it probably should have years earlier.

Why AI Image Generation Tools Need Better Content Safeguards—And What It Means for Creators
News

Why AI Image Generation Tools Need Better Content Safeguards—And What It Means for Creators

Another Lawsuit Against AI Image Generation Tools I’ve been following the growing legal challenges facing AI image generation platforms, and frankly, the latest development is deeply troubling. A fourth individual has filed suit against xAI, claiming that their childhood photographs were used to generate illegal content through the company’s Grok tool. This isn’t an isolated incident—it’s part of a pattern that’s forcing our entire industry to confront some uncomfortable questions about how AI systems are built, trained, and deployed.

Why I'm Starting Every Landscape Edit with Lightroom's Adaptive Color Profile Now
Video Tutorials

Why I'm Starting Every Landscape Edit with Lightroom's Adaptive Color Profile Now

I’ve spent fifteen years watching editors reach for presets the moment a raw file hits the screen. I get it. Presets are fast, they’re consistent, and when you’re processing a hundred images for a client, speed matters. But presets have a fundamental problem: they apply a fixed look to images that are all fundamentally different. What works on a golden-hour desert shot falls apart on a flat, overcast forest scene. I’ve been hunting for a better starting point for a while, something that adapts rather than overrides.

Stop Freezing On Location: A 5-Step Composition Workflow That Actually Works in the Field
Video Tutorials

Stop Freezing On Location: A 5-Step Composition Workflow That Actually Works in the Field

I’ve spent fifteen years telling clients exactly what their images need. Stronger subject placement. A leading line. Something in the foreground to create depth. The advice rolls out automatically. But landscape photography is a different beast entirely, and for a long time I was humbled by it every single time I went out with my own camera. I knew all the principles. I just couldn’t apply them fast enough when I was standing in a river at golden hour with cold water in my boots and fading light overhead.

One Click to Clean: Photoshop's AI Distraction Removal Tools Actually Work
Video Tutorials

One Click to Clean: Photoshop's AI Distraction Removal Tools Actually Work

Every week I’m handing off images to ad agency clients who need clean, distraction-free backgrounds. Power lines behind a product shot. Pipes crossing a portrait. A random bystander who wandered into a lifestyle image at exactly the wrong moment. For years, my go-to fix was the Clone Stamp tool paired with a carefully tuned Healing Brush action I built to speed up the repetitive parts. It worked. It also took time I often didn’t have.

The Photoshop Slice Effect That Takes 5 Minutes and Looks Like It Took All Day
Video Tutorials

The Photoshop Slice Effect That Takes 5 Minutes and Looks Like It Took All Day

There’s a category of client request I’ve learned to dread over my fifteen years in commercial work: “Make it look editorial. You know, interesting.” That’s it. No reference image, no art direction, just vibes. I’ve built a small library of go-to effects I can reach for in those moments - effects that look considered and intentional without requiring a three-hour compositing session. The portrait slice effect is one of the best of them.

How to Turn a Real Lipstick Kiss Into a Custom Photoshop Brush (Step-by-Step)
Video Tutorials

How to Turn a Real Lipstick Kiss Into a Custom Photoshop Brush (Step-by-Step)

Custom brushes are one of those Photoshop tools I consistently underestimate. I’ve built actions that call brushes, built presets around brushes, and tracked the hours saved because of brushes, but I rarely stop to think about making them from scratch using real-world source material. That’s what pulled me into this tutorial. In this Aaron Nace (PHLEARN) tutorial, Watch the full tutorial on YouTube, he walks through the process of scanning an actual lipstick kiss from paper, cleaning it up in Photoshop, and converting it into a reusable custom brush.

Photoshop's New AI Actions Panel Is the Biggest Workflow Shift in a Decade - Here's What It Actually Does
Video Tutorials

Photoshop's New AI Actions Panel Is the Biggest Workflow Shift in a Decade - Here's What It Actually Does

I’ve been tracking time saved by Photoshop actions in a spreadsheet since 2014. Over 2,400 hours recovered. That number only stays meaningful if I keep paying attention when something genuinely changes the game - not just tweaks, but structural shifts in how the tool works. The redesigned Actions panel in Photoshop Beta is one of those shifts. In this Aaron Nace (PHLEARN) tutorial, Watch the full tutorial on YouTube, Aaron walks through a brand new Actions interface that combines AI-driven suggestions with a searchable library of thousands of built-in actions.

Back to School, Back to Basics: What Tony & Chelsea Northrup's Sale Teaches Us About Investing in Your Photography Education
Video Tutorials

Back to School, Back to Basics: What Tony & Chelsea Northrup's Sale Teaches Us About Investing in Your Photography Education

Every September I do a version of the same audit. I open my spreadsheet - yes, the one tracking saved hours - and I look at which tools are pulling their weight and which ones are collecting digital dust. After fifteen years running post-production for ad agencies and e-commerce clients, I’ve gotten ruthless about this. Education and tools that don’t compound in value get cut. The ones that pay for themselves ten times over?

How Photoshop Actions Actually Work (And Why Most People Build Them Wrong)
Workflows & Automation

How Photoshop Actions Actually Work (And Why Most People Build Them Wrong)

The Day I Stopped Doing Things Twice I was 26, working in a commercial studio in Chicago, and someone handed me a folder of 200 product images that all needed the same crop, the same canvas size, and the same sharpening pass before they went to the client. No one told me about actions. I just started doing it manually, one file at a time, and by image 47 I wanted to quit photography entirely.

Kill the Clutter: A Working Photographer's Guide to Removing Distractions in Photoshop
Video Tutorials

Kill the Clutter: A Working Photographer's Guide to Removing Distractions in Photoshop

Distracting backgrounds are the silent killers of otherwise great commercial shots. I’ve been doing post-production work for ad agencies and e-commerce brands for long enough to know that a stray power line, a piece of reflective tape, or a stretch of chain-link fence can torpedo an image that the photographer spent an hour lighting perfectly. The fix usually takes less than three minutes in Photoshop, but only if you reach for the right tools in the right order.