200 TIPS & TRICKS
30 PAGES OF EXPERT PHOTO ADVICE
Inspiring quotes
Wisdom from the masters of photography
Pro tips
Advice from top working photographers
Camera craft tips
Shooting skills with Marcus Hawkins
Photo editing tips
Photoshop techniques with Jon Adams
Photo editing
Techniques and smart shortcuts for Photoshop
1 Hide selection lines
If the dotted line of a selection is making it difficult to see an adjustment you’re making, press H to hide the ‘marching ants’ then make the adjustment without any distractions. Pressing H again will reveal the selection.
2 Lose your palettes
To see a pic without distractions, press Tab and you’ll hide all the palettes and tools. To restore them, press Tab again. To lose everything except the Toolbox, press Shift+Tab.
3 Go full-screen
To see your image as large as possible on-screen, press Ctrl/ Cmd+0 (zero). Repeatedly press F to see the pic in different view modes.
4 See a single layer
With a multi-layered image, there are times when you want to see what’s on a particular layer. Alt-click on the eye icon of the layer in the Layers panel. This will turn off all the other layers.
5 Speed up filter use
To repeat a filter and boost its effect, press Ctrl/Cmd+F to reapply the last filter you used. This is a fast way of making blur filters more blurry.
6 Change your mind on filter settings
If you’ve gone too far with a filter effect and want to dial back the settings, press Ctrl/Cmd+Z to undo the filter. You’ll see the image return to its pre-filtered state. If you now press Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+F, you’ll bring up the Filter dialog box without having to reselect it. Change the settings and click OK.
Camera craft
Get better photos from your SLR or CSC
7 Go eye-to-eye with nature
Take the same approach for portraits of animals and plants as you do for portraits of people. That means getting ‘eye to eye’ with the subject with a relatively long lens and using a reasonably large aperture, such as f/4, to help separate them from busy background details. At close distances, only a small part of the subject will be sharp, so care needs to be taken with focusing.
8 Find a frame to shoot through
A framing device can help to funnel a viewer’s attention to the right place in a picture, add context and structure – and mask ‘dead’ areas, too. Frames can be actual frames, such as shooting through an open door or a window, or implied, such as the branches of a tree. They can also be diffuse – try positioning the camera close to flowers and shooting a subject beyond them to add a soft, colourful frame.
9 “During the work, you have to be sure that you haven’t left any holes, that you’ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.” HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON
10 “If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence.” RICHARD AVEDON
11 “Taking photographs is such an instantaneous act. The recognition and acting on the recognition… is close to instantaneous.” JOEL MEYEROWITZ
Photo editing
Techniques and smart shortcuts for Photoshop
12 Go back in time with Undo
To undo the last thing you did, press Ctrl/Cmd+Z. If you want to step back further, press Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+Z. At the default settings, you can go back up to 20 states, but if you want more, you can increase the number of History States in Edit > Preferences. (Select Photoshop > Preferences if you’re using macOS).
13 Make a Background layer editable
If you want to move a Background layer higher in your Layers stack, you need to convert it into an editable layer first. To do this quickly, hold Alt and double-click on the layer’s name. It will be instantly turned into an editable layer.
14 Apply a slick keyline border
To add a crisp, thin, black border to an image, press D to reset your colours to black and white, then press Ctrl/ Cmd+A to select it all. Now go to Edit > Stroke, and in the dialog box, set Width to 10 px and choose Inside under Location. Click OK.
15 Fill with colour the quick way
To flood-fill a layer or selection with your foreground colour, press Alt+Backspace. Use Ctrl/Cmd +Backspace to fill with the background colour.
16 Switch Lasso tools on the fly
When making a selection with the Polygonal Lasso tool, you can quickly switch to the Freehand Lasso by holding the Alt key. Draw around your area, and when you release Alt, you’ll be returned to the Polygonal Lasso.
17 Make new layers without fuss
To create a new layer above the one that’s currently active, press Ctrl/ Cmd+Shift+N and you can give it a name in the dialog box before clicking OK. To do it even quicker without a custom name, press Ctrl/ Cmd+Alt+Shift+N.
18 Using flash in daylight
If you find that you’re coming unstuck with your exposures when you’re trying to mix natural light and flash, switch off the flash and set the exposure for the daylight first. Use Manual mode so that the settings stay locked in on the camera, and base your exposure on the brightest part of the scene. Finally, switch on the flash and use this to brighten up the darker areas of the scene for a balanced result.
Pro advice
Abstract photographer Doug Chinnery says:
19 Take pictures you love
The ‘Photography Police’ can only exist if we allow them to. No-one should tell you what your images should look like. Make pictures that, first and foremost, you love. Then, if others love them too, so be it. But if they don’t, be proud that you are following your own creative path and not being forced to follow the herd. This takes creative courage and conviction, but leads to producing stronger, more fulfilling work.
20 Sharpness is over-rated
Let a little blur into your life. Bring in a bit of wobble. Shallow depth of field and intentional camera movement can be used creatively, allowing your audience to make up their own stories about what’s happening in your images.
21 Print your own work
Would you give your camera to someone else to make your photos? So why let someone else make your prints? The print is the culmination
