Posts

Photoshop's New Auto Dust Removal Is the Tiny Feature I Didn't Know I Needed
Video Tutorials

Photoshop's New Auto Dust Removal Is the Tiny Feature I Didn't Know I Needed

There’s a specific kind of dread that hits when you’ve finished editing a landscape shot, exported it at full resolution, and then noticed a cluster of sensor dust spots scattered across what was supposed to be a clean blue sky. I’ve been there more times than I want to admit. You zoom in, you grab the Spot Healing Brush, and you start playing whack-a-mole with tiny gray blobs for the next 20 minutes.

Vignettes in Lightroom: Why You're Probably Using the Wrong Tool for the Job
Video Tutorials

Vignettes in Lightroom: Why You're Probably Using the Wrong Tool for the Job

I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time applying vignettes in Lightroom the lazy way — drag the Post Crop Vignette slider left, call it a day, move on. And honestly, for a long time it worked fine. Until it didn’t. The problem crept up on me during a client edit where the sky in the upper-left corner was blowing out, the lower-right foreground was already deep in shadow, and slapping a uniform darkening across all four corners made the whole thing look like I’d developed the photo inside a cave.

Build a Holiday Card Collage in Photoshop Using Masks, Groups, and a Free Template
Video Tutorials

Build a Holiday Card Collage in Photoshop Using Masks, Groups, and a Free Template

Every December I end up in the same situation: someone in my family texts asking if I can “quickly throw together” a holiday card. And every year I either spend way too long building something from scratch or I panic-buy a Canva template and feel vaguely ashamed of myself. This year I actually sat down and watched through a proper tutorial on the subject, and the one that delivered the goods was from Aaron Nace over at PHLEARN.

Your Photoshop Workspace Is Slowing You Down — Here's How to Fix It in 20 Minutes
Workflow & Productivity

Your Photoshop Workspace Is Slowing You Down — Here's How to Fix It in 20 Minutes

I once spent 45 minutes on a client call trying to find the Character panel while screen-sharing. It wasn’t hidden behind some obscure menu. I had just, at some point, dragged it off-screen and forgotten about it. The client watched me fumble around in silence. Reader, I did not get a referral from that client. That incident was embarrassing enough to make me sit down and actually think about my workspace setup, instead of just clicking “Reset Essentials” every few months and hoping for the best.

How to Build an Animated GIF in Photoshop Frame by Frame (The Right Way)
Video Tutorials

How to Build an Animated GIF in Photoshop Frame by Frame (The Right Way)

Client work is unpredictable. One week you’re doing logo lockups, the next someone’s asking for an animated GIF for their email campaign or social post and suddenly you’re staring at Photoshop’s Timeline panel like it personally wronged you. I’ve been there. GIFs feel like they should be simple, and they are, once someone walks you through the logic. That’s exactly what this CreativeLive tutorial delivers. Watch the full tutorial on YouTube before or after reading this breakdown.

Photoshop Color Lookup Tables Are the Fastest Color Grade You're Not Using
Video Tutorials

Photoshop Color Lookup Tables Are the Fastest Color Grade You're Not Using

I have spent embarrassing amounts of time manually dragging Curves, nudging Hue/Saturation sliders, and stacking three or four adjustment layers just to get a color grade that feels intentional. Then a client asks for a revision and I get to do it all over again. The whole process is fine, but it’s slow, and it compounds every time you’re working with a batch of images that need a consistent look.

Stop Clicking Through Menus Like It's 2009: How to Build Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Photoshop
Video Tutorials

Stop Clicking Through Menus Like It's 2009: How to Build Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Photoshop

I have a complicated relationship with keyboard shortcuts. On one hand, I genuinely believe they’re the single biggest factor separating a fast Photoshop workflow from a slow one. On the other hand, I spent the first two years of my freelance career almost entirely ignoring them, clicking through nested menus like some kind of digital archaeologist hunting for buried commands. It cost me real time, real money, and real embarrassment when a client watched me do it over a screen share.

Photoshop Libraries: The Feature I Ignored for Years (And Now Use Every Single Day)
Video Tutorials

Photoshop Libraries: The Feature I Ignored for Years (And Now Use Every Single Day)

Here is a scenario I have lived more times than I care to admit: I need to drop my watermark onto a finished photo, and I spend five minutes hunting through folders trying to find the right PSD file, then another two minutes opening it, copying the layers, switching back, pasting, and resizing. For something I do on nearly every client deliverable. That is embarrassing. It took me way too long to realize Photoshop had already solved this problem and I had been walking past the solution every single day without clicking on it.

How to Build a Diptych Collage in Photoshop Without Making a Mess of It
Video Tutorials

How to Build a Diptych Collage in Photoshop Without Making a Mess of It

Client work has a funny way of exposing the gaps in your workflow. For years, whenever someone asked me to combine two photos into a single polished layout, I’d go full Frankenstein on it. Drag things around, eyeball the spacing, swear at the alignment, and end up with something that looked like a ransom note assembled by a graphic design student at 2am. Functional? Barely. Repeatable? Absolutely not. That changed when I sat down with this Aaron Nace tutorial from PHLEARN on building a diptych in Photoshop.

Bye-Bye Blemishes: A Practical Photoshop Guide to Removing Acne Without Destroying Skin
Video Tutorials

Bye-Bye Blemishes: A Practical Photoshop Guide to Removing Acne Without Destroying Skin

I do a lot of freelance portrait work. Not high-fashion editorial stuff, just real people who want to look their best in headshots, event photos, and the occasional engagement shoot. And one request comes up constantly: “Can you clean up my skin a little?” That’s polite for “I had a breakout and I hate this photo of myself.” For years, my go-to was just hammering the Spot Healing Brush until something resembling a face appeared.

From Flat RAW to Moody Black and White: A Full Lightroom-to-Photoshop Walkthrough
Video Tutorials

From Flat RAW to Moody Black and White: A Full Lightroom-to-Photoshop Walkthrough

I’ll be honest – black and white photography used to feel like something I’d slap on a photo when the colors were too ugly to save. Hit the desaturate button, call it art, move on. It wasn’t until I started paying closer attention to how working photographers actually approach monochrome that I realized how much I’d been leaving on the table. In this KelbyOne tutorial, the whole round-trip is laid out from a completely untouched RAW file all the way through Lightroom adjustments and into Silver Efex Pro for the final black and white conversion.

Adobe Finally Added a Remove Button (And It's Better Than What We Had)
Video Tutorials

Adobe Finally Added a Remove Button (And It's Better Than What We Had)

There’s a specific kind of frustration that lives in the gap between “I just want to delete this thing from my photo” and “Photoshop has added a mysterious object to my photo instead of deleting it.” I’ve burned through generative credits on this exact problem more times than I’d like to admit. You make a selection, leave the prompt blank, click Generate, and instead of a clean background you get… a slightly different version of the thing you were trying to remove.