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LUTs in Photoshop: The Fastest Way to Give Your Photos a Cinematic Look
Video Tutorials

LUTs in Photoshop: The Fastest Way to Give Your Photos a Cinematic Look

Here’s a problem I run into constantly: a client wants their photos to have that moody, film-like quality you see in high-end editorial work, and they want it yesterday. I can spend an hour manually pulling curves, tweaking hue/saturation layers, and nudging color balance until my eyes cross — or I can use a LUT and be done in about 90 seconds. For a long time I thought LUTs were strictly a video editor’s tool.

Stop Drawing Terrible Shapes in Photoshop — Here's How Custom Shapes Actually Work
Video Tutorials

Stop Drawing Terrible Shapes in Photoshop — Here's How Custom Shapes Actually Work

I spent an embarrassing amount of time in my early freelance days using the Marquee tool and Fill to fake shapes. Not because I didn’t know the Shape tool existed, but because every time I opened that toolbar I felt like I was reading a menu in a language I kind of spoke but not really. Turns out I was skipping over one of the most flexible, non-destructive toolsets in all of Photoshop.

Stop Flattening Everything: The Layer Techniques That Actually Save Your Skin
Photoshop Tips & Techniques

Stop Flattening Everything: The Layer Techniques That Actually Save Your Skin

I once spent three days building a composite for a client. Product shot, custom background, lighting effects, the works. Felt pretty proud of it. Then a friend looked over my shoulder, asked why I wasn’t using certain adjustment layer techniques, and rebuilt a cleaner version in about twenty minutes. Same result. Fraction of the time. I wanted to close my laptop and go work at a sandwich shop. That moment cracked something open for me.

How to Create a Dreamy Fantasy Photo Effect in Photoshop (Without Overdoing It)
Video Tutorials

How to Create a Dreamy Fantasy Photo Effect in Photoshop (Without Overdoing It)

There’s a specific kind of edit that shows up constantly in editorial and portrait work - that soft, ethereal, almost-painted look that makes a photo feel like it exists somewhere between reality and a fever dream. I’ve tried to reverse-engineer it a hundred times from finished images, usually ending up with something that looks like I smeared Vaseline on my monitor. So when I came across Watch the full tutorial on YouTube from Jessica Kobeissi, I paid attention.

Stop Blaming Light Pollution: How to Add Realistic Stars to Any Night Photo in Photoshop
Video Tutorials

Stop Blaming Light Pollution: How to Add Realistic Stars to Any Night Photo in Photoshop

Night photography is a cruel joke sometimes. You drive forty minutes outside the city, set up your shot, nail the foreground, get home, and open Lightroom to find a sky that looks like a slightly dark version of your backyard. No stars. Just a gray-purple smear of light pollution and broken dreams. I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit, and for a while I thought the only fix was to reshoot or just… accept it.

Fake Light Rays Through Clouds in Photoshop (That Actually Look Real)
Video Tutorials

Fake Light Rays Through Clouds in Photoshop (That Actually Look Real)

Client deadlines have a way of revealing every gap in your skill set. I can’t count how many times I’ve stared at a flat, lifeless sky photo and wished I could punch some drama into it without spending an hour in a rabbit hole of YouTube tutorials. Dramatic light rays cutting through clouds are one of those effects that look like they’d require a PhD in Photoshop, but the actual process is surprisingly lean once someone walks you through it properly.

Photoshop User TV Is Back, and They Brought a New Co-Host Worth Paying Attention To
Video Tutorials

Photoshop User TV Is Back, and They Brought a New Co-Host Worth Paying Attention To

There’s a specific kind of comfort in watching people who actually know Photoshop just… talk about Photoshop. Not in a “here are 47 hacks” clickbait way, but in the way where you can tell they’ve been in the trenches, missed deadlines, and made bad layer decisions at 2am. That’s what Photoshop User TV has always been for me, background noise that occasionally stops me cold with something I didn’t know. So when KelbyOne dropped Episode 341, kicking off a brand new season, I watched it with my third coffee of the morning at my usual corner table.

Stop Making Flat Images: How to Add Texture in Photoshop the Right Way
Video Tutorials

Stop Making Flat Images: How to Add Texture in Photoshop the Right Way

There’s a specific kind of embarrassment that comes from spending three days on a composite, only to have a friend glance over your shoulder and say “why didn’t you just use a texture layer?” I’ve been there. Flat images are one of those things that you don’t notice until you do, and then you can never unsee them. Adding texture is one of those techniques that separates images that feel alive from images that look like they were printed on copy paper.

Face-Aware Liquify Is the Retouching Shortcut I Wish I'd Had Years Ago
Video Tutorials

Face-Aware Liquify Is the Retouching Shortcut I Wish I'd Had Years Ago

Portrait retouching used to eat my afternoons alive. A client sends over headshots, one eye looks slightly more closed than the other, or their expression came out a little flat, and suddenly I’m pushing pixels around with the standard Liquify brush like I’m trying to sculpt clay with a garden hose. Technically possible, consistently frustrating. When Adobe dropped Face-Aware Liquify in the CC 2015.5 update, it solved a problem I’d been brute-forcing for years without realizing a smarter solution existed.

Stop Clicking Through Menus: How to Build Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Photoshop
Video Tutorials

Stop Clicking Through Menus: How to Build Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Photoshop

I have a deeply embarrassing confession: for longer than I care to admit, I was manually clicking through Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur every single time I needed it. Which, when you’re doing any kind of compositing or light painting work, is approximately nine hundred times per session. I just assumed it didn’t have a shortcut. I accepted my fate like someone who refuses to ask for directions and ends up in a different state.

How to Nail the Expendables-Style Gun Composite Using Smart Objects in Photoshop
Video Tutorials

How to Nail the Expendables-Style Gun Composite Using Smart Objects in Photoshop

A few years into freelancing, I had a client ask me for a “gritty action movie poster vibe” for a gym promotion. They sent me a reference image, and it was basically the Expendables poster. Which, fair enough, that poster slaps. I spent an embarrassing amount of time fussing with selections and layer masks before I stumbled onto a workflow that actually made the whole thing manageable. The technique Corey Barker walks through in this Watch the full tutorial on YouTube episode of PhotoshopUser TV is almost exactly what I wish I’d had that day.

Changing Hair Color in Photoshop Without Making It Look Like a Halloween Wig
Video Tutorials

Changing Hair Color in Photoshop Without Making It Look Like a Halloween Wig

A client once asked me to change a model’s hair from auburn to blonde in a product photo. I said sure, no problem, charged them accordingly, and then spent the better part of an afternoon producing what looked like a highlighter had exploded on her head. I eventually delivered something passable, but I knew I was winging it. Hair color is one of those things that looks simple until you try it, and then it humbles you fast.