Author Archive for Richard Hales

Richard’s first foray into was photography was as an apprentice photographer for Oxford University over 20 years ago. From there Richard went on to study photography at University somehow gaining a BA & MA, he still is rather confused how he managed to do this. After University and an unfinished (and un-started) PhD Richard “retired” from photography for a few years to pursue a career in wine and, oddly, scrap metal before returning to photography and setting up a wedding and portrait photography business in Worcestershire. As well as running his photography business Richard is currently working on a bread & jam making book. He is the average height for a Nut.

Faking a Graduated Neutral Density Filter in Camera, Lightroom and Photoshop

by Richard Hales

Ever been out and with your camera and see a great shot but when you get to process it the sky is all blown out and no amount of processing can get it back to how it looked? Well, one of the ways to get around this is to use graduated neutral density filters, but you may not always have them with you so there is another way. This alternative method involves a few camera controls and (don’t run away) HDR!

Proviso, this method is very good but not 100% foolproof so don’t expect perfect results every time and you need Photoshop CS6 to get the best results.

by Richard Hales

The latest update to Photoshop (only available to Creative Cloud users, don’t blame me talk to Adobe, but I probably agree with you) included something called Conditional Actions. Conditional Actions are a way of adding a clause to an action that will cause another action to run if the clause is applicable or another to run if it isn’t. Clear? No, probably not, so I’ll create a real world example to explain more clearly (hopefully).

by Richard Hales

Like most of the population I’ve been using my phone a lot to take photographs and there is one particular app that I tend use. I really like some of the looks that this app creates and I wondered if could recreate the look of my favourite settings in Photoshop, so after some playing around I finally came up with the following recipe which is a fair approximation.

by Richard Hales

An independent review of Richard Harrington’s Understanding Adobe Photoshop CS6 book by Richard Hales.

by Richard Hales

Its typical, when you plan a tutorial to create a Lightroom preset that evokes a feeling of the long hot days of summer to act as an antidote to the unending days of rain and drizzle the British weather decides that maybe the Olympics (am I allowed to use that word at the moment?) should be welcomed in with sunshine and a mini heatwave!

Oh well, in the full knowledge that the balmy climate won’t continue for much longer I will plough on as if its still hosing it down.

by Richard Hales

Photosmith is an iPad app that claims to be the ‘bridge’ between Lightroom and the photographer allowing them to sort, keyword and organise photographs ‘in the field or when traveling’ and even when ‘hiding from the rain under an awning in Bogota’ when ‘even a slim notebook is unwieldy’. The app works with JPEG and RAW files and integrates wirelessly with Lightroom.

by Richard Hales

A quick and easy tip for a Thursday. This tutorial is really an extension from a post I did a while back on High Pass Sharpening but in this tutorial we’ll be applying it to eyes and controlling it with…

by Richard Hales

In one of my previous tutorials on Silver Efex Pro I may have given the impression that I wasn’t too impressed with control points, I think I may even have used the phrase “I don’t think the control points work very well in SilverEfex and never use them!” Oh dear, what a muppet. I was, of course, wrong and its not very often you’ll hear me say that according to my wife and I apologise for misleading you. That isn’t to say that they are a panacea but they are pretty damn good.

by Richard Hales

Its a new year so time for something that’s good for you but not necessarily fun, sorry. You’ve probably let the new year’s resolution for keywording slip already so here’s something that you only need to do once a year…

by Richard Hales

This month’s tutorial is going to be an in-depth look at a black & white photograph that was used in one of my tutorials on black & white conversion earlier this year. I recently showed this image at Beacon Camera Club, where…

by Richard Hales

Before I go into the how’s and wherefores of this tutorial I think I ought to explain a few things in case any of you are a little unsure of what panoramic photographs are and how they are made. A…

by Richard Hales

NB: This tutorial specifically refers to the Wacom Intuos 4 tablets If, like me, you have a Wacom tablet and have spent hours fiddling around with the settings and options rather than doing proper work you are probably aware…

by Richard Hales

Ever had one of those images where whatever you do with the White Balance sliders in Lightroom you can never get it just right? Its a problem I get a lot working as a wedding photographer especially in churches where…

by Richard Hales

I currently use SilverEfex Pro, although Nik have released a SilverEfex Pro 2 which I’ve downloaded a trial of for the purposes of this tutorial. I’m still undecided whether to upgrade to the new version, but hopefully by the time I’m finished writing Ii’ll have made my mind up if I need to put my money down.

by Richard Hales

Welcome to my third tutorial on black and white photography. In this tutorial we will be looking at ways to further enhance your images once they have been converted into black & white. Contrast The first of these methods we…