Not to say that Sandy is a lemon … she was stunningly beautiful on her wedding day! But the room in which she got ready left a little to be desired. But no matter what, never lose sight of the basic rules of lighting! A few post-processing tricks helped but the key is to start with the best possible image. Don’t expect to save an iffy image in Photoshop.

Use Smart Objects and Layer Masks to produce a light painting effect in Photoshop.

Shooting RAW has gotten me out of trouble on many occasions. This is one of those times. I love this photo but the bright lamp on the right draws my eye away from Carrie. Here’s how I fixed it quickly and easily using Smart Objects and a layer mask in Photoshop.

This is so funny! I was sitting here doodling and about to write a blog post when I just happen to remember the photo I shot of Sarah holding up her olive at Jack’s Firehousehouse. So my “True Love Always” headline turned into “True Olive Always.” I thought it was funny so I left it like that.

Anyhoo, I’m waiting for my pizza dough to rise and had time to kill so I made a doodle using Illustrator and Photoshop. I thought it was neat and made me think that maybe I could use the idea for the cover of their wedding album. How funky would that be!

Those of you who get Photoshop User magazine will be seeing yours truly as the Lightroom Featured Photographer this coming issue.

I was kinda bummed they didn’t use all the swell photos I sent but I got a kick out of seeing it anyway. ou can see a more readable PDF version here.

I use Photoshop heavily in my album design work and am always on the lookout for shortcuts to speed up mind-numbingly repetitive tasks and let me spend more time being creative.

This tutorial uses a much-misunderstood feature called Smart Objects. Not since the Pen Tool have Photoshop users been so scared! But fear not. Smart Objects are your friends. So just click here to start!

This is the first of hopefully many more cool tutorials I’m doing to help out photographers everywhere. Yeah, tons of Photoshop tutorials abound on the Internet but not enough focus specifically on wedding photography. Although I may do more in the future that don’t apply so closely to the industry, they’re FREE so you can pick and choose the ones you think will help you.

This tutorial is the Glowing Skin tutorial. Even though every bride is awesome from the get-go, this effect will make your albums really pop. So just click here to start!