Photoshop-tip: Adding cinematic color contrast to your images

Adding cinematic color contrast to your photos (usually a warm subject and a cooler background) is a classic way to literally and figuratively enhance your subject. Many movies and television series also work according to that principle. In photography, you can already do this ‘in-camera’ by, for example, lighting your subject with a warmer-than-standard continuous light or by placing a warm color filter on your flash. But what if you only think about it after your shoot, or you want to enhance an existing effect? Then this less-than-three-minute Photoshop tip may come in handy!

Want to learn more about Photoshop? Then my course ‘Photoshop for Lightroom Users' is undoubtedly something for you. Find out more about it here.

Photoshop-tip: putting type on a path

I wanted to credit photographer Michael Schnabl for this picture he took of me. The image is being used in the Visual Storytelling Conference, where you’ll be able to watch choose from over 80 hours of tutorials that are being broadcast live between May 15 and May 17. You can read more about the conference in this blog post.

But… How do you put type on a path? You’ll find the answer in this video tutorial below. Want to see more tutorials and training like this? Then make sure to register for the Visual Storytelling Conference.

The Visual Storytelling Conference

Register for free for the Visual Storytelling Conference

If you’re interested in visual storytelling by means of photography or videography, then the online Visual Storytelling Conference is THE place to be from May 14 to May 17.

The most important part of the Visual Storytelling Conference is a live 'virtual summit' that takes place from Saturday, May 15 until Monday, May 17. There are keynotes by National Geographic photographer Mike Libecki and internationally acclaimed landscape and cityscape photographer Elia Locardi. Furthermore, there are two parallel tracks that offer various one hour lectures about the creative, practical and even business aspects of photography and videography.

The entire three-day summit can be watched live for free: simply register with this link. That’s where you’ll also find the entire schedule and a list of all the speakers.

I’m honoured to have been asked to do two talks: one about flash photography and another about Local Adjustments in Lightroom.

Gigapixel versus Photoshop: From 3 to 50 Megapixel

In this video, I compare Photoshop’s new Super Resolution feature with a dedicated plug-in, Gigapixel AI. You’ll see me upsample a 3 megapixel image to 50 megapixel. That’s 4 times the length and width or 16 times the surface. I’ll also let you in on a little secret on how to actually do this with Super Resolution, as it’s normally only meant to enlarge images to 4 times the surface.

If you are interested in adding Gigapixel AI to your digital toolbox after watching this video, then I have some good news! Until May 7, Gigapixel is on sale for only 79.99 USD instead of 99.99 USD. Even better… coupon code MTW15 gives you an extra 15% off!

Do you have some extra budget? Then perhaps consider the Topaz Image Quality Bundle. This is a bundle with not only Gigapixel AI, but also Denoise AI and Sharpen AI. These tools tackle blur and noise respectively and are at least as impressive as Gigapixel. The full bundle normally costs 259.99 USD but it’s also on sale for 149.99 USD until May 7 and you can use my coupon code MTW15 for an additional 15% off. Highly recommended!

Affliate disclaimer: the links on this page are affiliate links. MoreThanWords receives a commission when you use the links on this page. This helps me to keep this site running and keep on creating free content and webinars in addition to the paid tutorials. It is important to know that this commission does not increase your cost. On the contrary, if you use my links and my discount code MTW15 upon discount, you’ll actually pay less than someone who checks out directly.

Sharpen AI: a one trick unicorn

Sharpen AI by Topaz Labs is a plug-in for Lightroom and Photoshop, as well as a standalone application, that focuses (no pun intended) on rescuing blurry images using Artificial Intelligence. Sharpen AI can deal with motion blur, missed focus or more general lens unsharpness.

Sharpen AI does only one thing, but it excels at that. In the webinar, I called it a ‘one trick pony’, but that doesn’t do it justice. The term ‘one trick unicorn’ might be more suitable! Regardless of whether you already use Sharpen AI or are new to it, you’re welcome to have a look at the replay of the webinar I did yesterday. It’s got a couple of spectacular examples and I have also included a comparison with Photoshop’s sharpening tools.

Limited time deal: save 25% and an additional 15% on Sharpen AI!

Until April 12, the plug-in is 25% off (down to USD 59.99 from USD 79.99) and on top of that, if you use code MTW15 upon checkout, you can save yourself another 15%, which brings the price down to USD 51 or about € 45.

Below you can see the recording of yesterday’s webinar. It will be available until the timer above hits zero – that’s also when the 25% discount on Sharpen AI ends!

Click on the bottom-right corner icon (with the four outward pointing arrows) to view the video full-screen (recommended to see the detail). Hover over the red dots in the timeline to view chapter info. Click on them to start playing that specific chapter.

My personal 5DayDeal top five and two new videos for the weekend

The 5DayDeal irrevocably ends in…

My personal top five

There's so much stuff in the new edition of the 5DayDeal, that annual new bundle for all photographic training and other photographic tools such as presets, overlays, actions and more, that it's easy to be overwhelmed. In a prior blog post, I already covered the full offer. In this blog post I want to dig a bit deeper into my personal top five!

1. Aurora HDR 2019

Aurora HDR 2019 is by the same makers as Luminar and is one of the best – if not the best – HDR software application on the market today. If you think that HDR is only useful to make those exaggerated, cartoonish grungy edits, you're mistaken. Of course you can do that too, but HDR software is also used by landscape and architectural photographers. Something few people know, is that you can also use it to make some very moody black-and-whites, either in combination with Lightroom or Photoshop or not. Aurora HDR 2019 is normally $99. Now, you can get it together with all the other tools in the 5DayDeal for less than that. Aurora HDR 2019 is part of the basic Photography Bundle of $89.

2. Serge Ramelli’s Fine Art Photography Masterclass

Serge Ramelli is somewhat of a phenomenon. This Frenchie-with-the-charming-English-accent has managed to build a proper Lightroom training imperium over the last couple of years. 500,000 YouTube followers? I can only dream of it! In general, I often think his edits are a little over-the-top – which coming from me means something as I don't shy away from a bold Lightroom slider move or two – but as the French say ‘Qui peut le plus, peut le moins’. The Lightroom tutorials in his Fine Art Photography Master class are pretty advanced and they showcase some surprising, out-of-the-box applications of specific Lightroom tools. Amongst others, there is a really nice day-to-night tutorial in which he transforms a picture that he took during the day into a night scene. Serge’s entire Masterclass normally retails for $147. Now you can get it for $89 together with all the rest of the tutorials in the 5DayDeal.

3. Getting Started with Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw

Blake Rudis of f/64 Academy is a big name in the Photoshop training industry. He's also made a couple of Photoshop panels that are very popular with landscape photographers. In this course, he takes a really deep dive into Adobe Camera Raw. After all, not everybody works with Lightroom :-) How deep? Well… I've learned more than one thing and I'm only halfway the course. That should tell you something…

4. The Artist by Joel Grimes

Joel’s signature light setup: twoi strip lights and a beauty dish in a butterfly light position.

I think I've got about every tutorial that Joel Grimes has ever published. The fact that I started to pay more attention in my photography to working with rim light and striplights, I have Joel to thank for. This year's 5DayDeal bundle features his ‘The Artist’ course. This isn't a real hands-on tutorial but rather a motivating, almost philosophical course about how to improve in your photography, also if you're doing this for a living. Throughout the course, you'll see plenty of examples of Joel's work. Amidst all the more practical courses in the 5DayDeal, this course is a welcome and motivating change. In this course, Joel also talks about overcoming your limitations as a photographer and he knows what he's talking about, as he is colourblind! This course normally retails for $179. Now it's in the bundle, with 70 hours of other tutorials for only $89.

5. Complete Posing workshop by SLR Lounge

You know the feeling? During a workshop or on the tradeshow, generally you'll be photographing professional models that can strike a different pose with every click of your camera. But then back home, when you try to apply your recently acquired skills on your neighbour's son or daughter or even worse, on your own kids, things don't work quite as well. Posing is one of the most underestimated skills in photography. Really good models take years to get to that point. But… As a photographer you can lend your models a helping hand. In the Complete Posing Workshop by SLR Lounge there is no shortage of ideas and techniques to give even the most clumsy sitter a camera-friendly pose. This course was an eye-opener, also for me! It talks about posing men, women and – the most difficult skill of all – posing couples! The nice thing about it is that it is in part filmed live and that the public, consisting of amateur photographers, takes turns at taking the pictures while the teacher gives directions. This way, you can also learn from the mistakes that are being made.

My favourites from the Charity Bundle and the Pro-Bundle

The 5DayDeal base bundle is $89, but upon checkout, you can optionally purchase two smaller add-on bundles: the Charity Bundle and the Pro-Bundle, which will respectively set you back 24 and $39 extra. It obviously depends on your budget, but there are a couple of hidden gems amongst those two extra bundles as well. I've picked one from each bundle:

“I purchased the 5DayDeal 2 years ago. Zero regret. This one sounds even better. These packages hold extreme value and they also contribute to a very worthy cause. Such high profile contributors ensure that the quality of product and software is top notch. I can highly recommend these pacakages to anyone looking to lift their game.”

— Philip Weary

The Beginner’s guide to Photoshop (part of the Charity Bundle)

In addition to my own Photoshop for Lightroom Users course, there is another Photoshop course in the 5DayDeal. However it's not in the $89 base bundle but in the Charity Bundle. If one of your goals is to learn Photoshop, I really advise you to add the Charity Bundle to your order. This is a course by Phlearn, an authority in the field of Photoshop courses. After having watched both this course and my own, Photoshop won't have many secrets left for you!

Beverage Photography and Retouching with Rob Grimm (part of the Pro Bundle)

In this beautifully shot tutorial, you get a number of examples of the preparation, lighting setup, shooting and postprocessing of beverages, one of the trickiest forms of product and studio photography. This tutorial normally retails for $99, now it is part of the optional Pro-Bundle of $39 that you can add to the basic Photography bundle of $89.

Watched two videos from my ‘Photoshop for Lightroom users’ course for free, this weekend!

Because I'm humble, shy or both :-) – I haven't listed my own Photoshop for Lightroom users course in the top five. But in the meantime, you should know that this brand-new, seven hour course is also part of the 5DayDeal bundle. My course comprises 25 case studies (‘chapters’) with exercise files about when and how as a Lightroom user, you should go to Photoshop and back. As promised, until the end of the 5DayDeal, each day I’ll stream an entire chapter of my course for free! And because tomorrow is Sunday and I don't want to send out any emails, I'm already putting Sunday's video online today! Twice the viewing pleasure :-)

The first video is about how you can use Photoshop to clone… in perspective! You can do so with the remarkable yet highly unknown Vanishing Point Filter. The second video is about Content Aware Fill, another one of those things that I regularly go from Lightroom to Photoshop for.

Did you pick up something? Then imagine what you could learn from the full seven hour course and from all the other courses in the 2019 edition of the 5DayDeal!

Extra bonus! Buy the 5DayDeal through my link and you will receive one of the bonuses below completely free:

As a thank you for buying the 5DayDeal (and therefore my new course) through my affiliate link, I've got an extra gift for you: you can pick one item from the following list! How about one of my two texture packs, one of my two Creative Profiles packs for Lightroom Classic, a preset pack for Lightroom or a complete introductory course to Lightroom Classic? Once you've purchased the 5DayDeal bundle through this link, this other link will give you all the information you need to claim the bonus of your choice. Important: don't go looking for that bonus during the checkout procedure on the actual 5DayDeal site: this bonus is an extra offered by me personally and therefore delivery of it is handled by me, via this form!

*: + VAT for European citizens. If you have a VAT number, you can enter that during checkout and you can order VAT-free.

Affiliate disclaimer: the links in this blog post are affiliate links. When you use these links, MoreThanWords receives a commission. This commission is paid for entirely by the organizer of the bundle, 5DayDeal. Therefore this commission doesn't cost you anything extra. On the contrary, when you use my affiliate link you will receive an extra bonus that you wouldn't have had when purchasing directly.

Discover the three killer new features of the upcoming Luminar 4

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I think that Luminar by Skylum Software is one of the most interesting new developments in terms of photographic software. There are several reasons for this:

• Luminar is affordable;

• It exists in a Windows and a Mac version

• It can be run by itself as a Lightroom alternative (Luminar 3) but also as a plug-in (Luminar Flex);

• It is relatively simple to use:

• It makes intensive use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to automatically and quickly speed up complex image retouching jobs.

Skylum is currently working on Luminar 4, that is expected somewhere this fall. Every once in a while, they give a sneak peak of the new features that will be in that version 4 and this week, they teased a fantastic new tool for portrait photographers. I was lucky enough to be asked to make a video about this tool for Skylum that will be on Skylum’s YouTube channel later this year but as a reader of this blog, you can already watch it here. But first, let me tell you some more about the new philosophy for Luminar 4.

Luminar 4 ss the future for both Luminar 3 and Luminar Flex

An important new development is that Luminar 4 will be the upgrade for both Luminar 3 as well as for Luminar Flex. Luminar 3 and Flex will kind of melt into Luminar 4. During the installation procedure of Luminar 4, you will be able to choose whether you want to use the application as a stand-alone piece of software, as a plug-in, or as both. Personally, I think it is a good thing because now, Skylum can focus on this one product instead of having to update to different yet very similar pieces of software. This also means that if you want to use Luminar as a standalone and as a plug-in in the future, you’ll only need one license.

AI Sky Replacement: the first new dazzling feature of Luminar 4

Luminar 4 will contain a lot of smaller and bigger new features. One feature that will definitely interest landscape photographers, is the AI Sky Replacement filter. This lets you swap out a boring sky in a landscape or a cityscape for a more interesting one without having to make tedious selections. It all happens automatically. Luminar 4 even makes sure that the perspective matches and that where necessary, the foreground is color graded to match the new sky, for example when you put us warm sunset sky into an image that was shot earlier in the day. As you can see from these animated gifs, the tool works surprisingly well and of course there are sliders for more advanced tweaks should you need them.

AI Structure: the second new feature of Luminar 4

Everybody loves Clarity, Structure and Texture. Lightroom just recently added a new Texture slider and Luminar also has a number of sliders to emphasize details in your images. Yet, up until recently, you always have to use a mask to make sure that all that extra structure and detail didn't add 10 or 20 years to your model. With AI Structure, this happens automatically this tool recognizes things like faces and skies and can give different areas in an image each their own (or none at all) dose of extra structure.

AI Skin Enhancer en AI Portrait Enhancer: the third main new feature of Luminar 4

The previous two tools were mainly interesting for landscape photographers, but this tool will be right up your alley if you are a portrait photographer. AI Skin Enhancer can't automatically recognize faces and can soften the skin in those faces while retaining texture. I was pretty sceptical myself but I think the result is nothing short of amazing. I know photographers that would happily pay the price of Luminar 4 only for this feature. Even more so, the only direct alternative that I know is a plug-in called Imagenomic Portraiture and although that plug-in is really good, it costs more than double then all the tools in Luminar 4 combined and it's not as flexible or automated.

In the video below, I show you these two new portrait tools in more detail.

What if you want to buy Luminar 4 or you want to upgrade to Luminar 4?

If this blog posts as aroused your interest for Luminar 4, there are a couple of options, depending on the scenario…

1. You want to start using Luminar already now as a standalone application
   You can now buy a special, discounted ‘Early Bird’ bundle of Luminar 3 + Luminar 4: you can already start using Luminar 3 now and as soon as Luminar 4 is released, you can start using that. Luminar 4 will automatically upgrade your Luminar 3 catalogue. On this bundle, discount code MORETHANWORDS will knock another $10 off of the prize and you can also receive a number of bonus Luminar presets. The regular price for this bundle is $99. With the code you only pay $89.

   Click here to go directly to the sales page for this bundle on the Skylum website. The bundle you’re looking for is the most right-hand one of the two.

2. You want to start using Luminar already now as a plug-in
   You can now buy a special, discounted ‘Early Bird’ bundle of Luminar Flex + Luminar 4: you can already start using Luminar Flex now and as soon as Luminar 4 is released, you can start using that. On this bundle, discount code MORETHANWORDS will knock another $10 off of the prize and you can also receive a number of bonus Luminar presets. The regular price for this bundle is $99. With the code you only pay $89.

   Click here to go directly to the sales page for this bundle on the Skylum website. The bundle you’re looking for is the most right-hand one of the three.

3. You're okay with waiting until Luminar 4 is officially released, but you want to get it at the best possible price
   In that case, you can pre-order Luminar 4 right now via this link for $69. Choose the leftmost option of the two. The price will increase soon (although I don't know when exactly) but by pre-ordering, you are sure to lock in the current price and you get a number of bonus presets for Luminar on top of the deal. In any case, you have a 30 day money back guarantee that only starts when the software is actually out.

4. You're already a Luminar 3 customer and you want to upgrade to Luminar 4.
   In that case, you can pre-order your upgrade for $59 via this link and you’ll receive a bonus presets pack valued at $49. Until Luminar 4 actually comes out, you can simply continue to use your existing version of Luminar 3.

5. You're already a Luminar 3 customer and you want to upgrade to Luminar 4.
   In that case, you can pre-order your upgrade for $59 via this link and you’ll receive a bonus presets pack valued at $49. Until Luminar 4 actually comes out, you can simply continue to use your existing version of Luminar Flex.

How do you enter your discount code in 1) and 2)

To claim your discount code MORETHANWORDS, in the checkout window, you click on Enter a Promotional Code (1). If you have a VAT number, you can even enter that and VAT will be excluded from the price. For that, click on (2) Enter VAT ID.

DISCLAIMER: The above links are affiliate links: when you use these, MoreThanWords receives a commission. This commission is entirely paid for by the software manufacturer. So you do not pay extra. On the contrary, in some cases, you can use a special discount code that lets you pay even less than if you would buy directly from the software manufacturer. Commissions like these allow me to continue adding free contents tutorials and reviews on this blog.

The Steampunk Sessions, part 1

I’m connected to a lot of photographers on Facebook from all over the world. And as much as I like these virtual interactions, I like it even more when I get the chance to meet one of these Facebook friends in real life. This happened last week with David. David’s a Belgian photographer who lives in Thailand most of the year. He’s an amazing travel photographer and he popped over to Belgium for a couple of weeks. So we decided to go on a shoot together. I like doing these kinds of spontaneous, last-minute freestyle shoots with other photographers because I think we can all learn from each other.

Steampunk @ the factory

I love shooting in abandoned factories and lately, I’ve been into photographing steampunkers, too. These two subjects are a match made in heaven. So I called up Major TC Theodoricus, one of Belgium’s most passionate steampunkers and we all met up in an old paper factory about an hour’s drive from where I live. Another friend, Frank, came along to make some BTS shots.

Gear-wise, I brought the Fujifilm GFX 50S, the GF 110 mm, GF 32-64 mm and the GF 23 mm. As for lights, I packed my three trusted Godox AD600B flashes, my SMDV Alpha 110 gridded softbox and my two Nicefoto strip lights, which have become an essential part of my lighting kit. Last noteworthy item was my Scotty II portable smoke machine. No steampunk shoot should happen without a smoke machine :-)

I was immediately struck by the vast hall with the cast iron pillars and thought they’d make great compositional elements in the frame. Now I’m a slow shooter and I prefer to get a couple of images that I’m really happy with.

In total, I got seven images I like in about five hours of shooting.

That’s actually a nice harvest for me. Here’s the first two in this blog post. With a dramatic subject and a dramatic backdrop like this, I think the lighting and the postprocessing needs to be dramatic, too. So I used a cross lighting setup and I positioned my main light in a way that The Major would be short-lit. I also wanted a moody, atmosphere so although I could have made the entire scene a lot brighter (I was only at 1/32nd power on the flashes), I went for a low-key look.

As you can see from this setup shot, there are two more lights in this shot: one strip light to the left of The Major, just out of frame and a second one behind him, pointed at the steel pillar. I did that to make the lighting more coherent. Apart from editing out the softbox on the right and adding the flame coming out of the gun in Photoshop, the complete styling and color-grading was done in Lightroom, using the profiles in my Creative Profiles Starter Pack.

This ebook teaches you all you need to know to make dramatically lit images like the ones in this blog post.

The Fujifilm GFX, the ideal camera for this sort of work

Two things I love most about the GFX are the incredible dynamic range, which lets me do quite nice things in postproduction as you can see from the before & after above, and the resolution. In fact, this is a 16:9 crop from the 4:3 original and it is still over 36 megapixel! Having more flexibility in choosing your aspect after the fact is also one of the reasons I’m secretly already lusting for the GFX 100S…

Here’s a 1:1 crop in Lightroom. The detail of the GFX is simply amazing. I just love that camera.

Smoking gun

I personally like the version with the understated gunfire best, but I also played around with a more extreme version, as you can see below. Adding fire like that is simpler than you might think. I used an image from Adobe Stock. If the fire’s been photographed on a black background, in Photoshop, just change the blending mode of the layer to Screen, and you’re good. If you still see some artefacts around the fire, that’s a telltale sign that the background isn’t pure black. Just add a Levels adjustment and click with the black eyedropper on the black of the flame’s background to turn it completely black and in the Screen blending mode, the black will magically vanish!

The image above was shot with the 23 mm, which corresponds to an 18 mm on a fullframe camera. That’s a super wide lens so it takes in a lot of the environment. However, because of it being so wide, and having a relatively slow maximum aperture of f/4, it’s difficult to use shallow depth of field to separate your subject from the background. That’s why I also brought the 110, the bokeh monster of the GF lens lineup.

In the image below, I stitched a couple of vertical shots I took with the GF 110 wide open at f/2 into a panorama using Photoshop. I then colorgraded the image in Lightroom. If you’re on a fullframe camera system, try using an 85 mm 1.4 or 1.8. If you’re on a crop camera, try something like a 50 mm 1.4 or, in the case of Fujifilm, the 56 1.2.

With the GFX, I tend to underexpose more than I used to because there’s so much leeway in bringing up shadow detail.

The result is an image with a wide angle of view but at the same time the super shallow depth of field of a portrait lens. And as a bonus, you get an even crazier resolution. The image below is a whopping 10.860 x 8.145 pixels! That’s almost the resolution of the upcoming GFX 100S!

Fujifilm GFX 50S | GF110mmF2 R LM WR @ 110 mm | 1/125 sec. @ f/2 | ISO 250

Again, other than the merging of the panorama which I had to do in Photoshop because it offers more control, the entire look of the image was created in Lightroom. Below is a 1:1 screenshot.

The controlled lighting and the super shallow depth of field really make the subject stand out from the background.

That’s it for this blog post. If you live in or near Belgium, speak Dutch and you’d like to photograph The Major yourself, you might be interested in the next edition of the Epic Steampunk Workshop, which is held on March 8, 2019. More information here (in Dutch). Ticket sales start January 31, 8 PM Brussels time. Below’s a 90 second impression of that workshop.

Also, don’t forget that until the end of January, you can save 25% on my brand new ‘Learn Lightroom Classic in 2.5 hours’ video course. Check it out here.

Save 25% on my new Lightroom Classic Tutorial:

left to save 25% on my new ‘Learn Lightroom Classic in 2.5 hours’ course AND score a bonus set of 10 Creative Profiles

5DayDeal 2018 Flash Sale: a free preview of my new Lightroom Library Beyond the Basics Tutorial

The 5DayDeal irrevocably ends in…

A big chunk of this year’s 5DayDeal bundle is Lightroom-related: there are a couple of tutorials and almost five hundred presets and of course there’s the Luminar plug-in, which I talked about extensively in yesterday’s blog post and video.

“How Piet expertly curates the information is what makes this program truly stand out as one of the best Lightroom training programs I’ve come across (and I’ve seen a lot).”

— Chris O'Donnell (creativeRAW)

One of the Lightroom tutorials is a bit special for three reasons:

1. First of all, because it’s mine and it’s my very first full-blown English Lightroom tutorial, an accomplishment of which I’m quite proud :-).

2. Second because it’s a launch exclusive: for the moment, it’s only available as part of the 5DayDeal and you can’t get it anywhere else yet.

3. And lastly, because it focuses entirely on the Lightroom Catalog and Library. It’s an intermediate to advanced 3+ hour tutorial and I made it because every day, the workshops I teach and the emails I get in my inbox remind me that there are still a lot of people struggling with the whole concept of Lightroom.

Well, I made this tutorial for all of you: after watching it, you’ll be a full-blown Lightroom Library Ninja and you’ll leverage the advantages of Lightroom a lot better and avoid many of the pitfalls the program sometimes throws at its users, too.

Below is a 30 minute free preview of one of the chapters in the tutorial. I’ll leave it on the site as long as the countdown timer is running :-) This chapter’s about Collections and Smart Collections and although I personally consider that to be more of an entry-level feature, each workshop I teach there are quite a number of - even long term - Lightroom users that don’t (or hardly) use these powerful organisational tools. So I decided to include a video about them in the tutorial.

“Piet doesn’t throw a barrage of information at you, overwhelming you with useless data...instead, he’s taken that extra step to create an engaging curriculum that tells you exactly what you need to know.”

— Chris O'Donnell (creativeRAW)

Even if you feel like you already know your way around collections, I’m pretty sure you’ll pick up a thing or two. For example, I hardly know anyone who uses Target Collections and yet they’re super handy! And if you want to know what else I cover in the full course, here’s a list of all the other chapters. This 3+ hour video tutorial is the culmination of 10 years of teaching Lightroom, writing about it and most of all, using it almost every single day!

1. Introduction: 14’ 35”

2. Importing: 41’

3. Tethered Capture: 15’ 16”

4. File & Folder Management: 37’ 39”

5. Two Lesser Known View Modes: 22’ 29”

6. Collections, Smart Collections & Filtering: 37’ 55”

7. Metadata & Keywording: 24’ 30”

8. Exporting: 21’ 23”

9. Publish Services: 10’ 52”

10. Exporting as a Catalog & Importing from Another Catalog: 26’ 19”

11. Working with an External Catalog Drive: 13’ 40”

12. Bonus Chapter: Back up or Back off: 14’ 40”

“If you learned something new in this free 30 minute clip, imagine how much you can learn from the 60+ hours of tutorials in the entire 5DayDeal bundle!”

— Yours truly :-)

Still on the fence? The 5DayDeal also includes Luminar 2018 (a $69 value), one of the most innovative Lightroom plug-ins out there. I did a free 30 minute video tutorial about it. You can watch that here.

And don’t forget, if you buy the 5DayDeal through the links on my MoreThanWords blog, you’ll receive a special bonus: my brand new high resolution Textures Pack, Vol. 01!**

*: + VAT for European citizens. If you have a valid VAT number, you can enter that upon checkout and you won’t be charged VAT.

** Texture pack will be sent out free of charge in the week after January 15 to those people who bought the 5DayDeal bundle via the links on the MoreThanWords blog or in the MoreThanWords newsletter.

The return of the 5DayDeal 2018: my free Luminar 2018 mini-course

When the 5DayDeal originally was released in October, I put up a this mini-course on Luminar 2018. With the flash-sale reprise of the 5DayDeal, only until Midnight, EST, November 25th, I thought it would be a good idea to put bring the mini-course back. Regardless of whether you want to buy the 5DayDeal or not, there’s some interesting information in there, I think :-)

The 5DayDeal irrevocably ends in…

“The inclusion of Luminar 2018 makes this year’s 5DayDeal an absolute no-brainer!”

— Yours truly :-)

So, the 5DayDeal is a bundle of high-quality resources for photographers: tutorial videos, Lightroom presets, textures, actions, you name it. It’s a whopping 50 gigabyte of goodies at a super steep discount. In yesterday’s blog post, I dug a little deeper into the training content that’s in this year’s 5DayDeal. But the 5DayDeal folks really outdid themselves this year, because there’s also two entire software packages included, the most important of which undoubtedly is Luminar 2018. My original plan was to make a quick three minute overview of what Luminar is but you know me: I don’t do quick very well. So it turned out to be a 25 minute mini-tutorial full of cool processing tips in general and Luminar tips in particular.

Unlike with some other bundles, this version of Luminar 2018 is exactly the same as the $69 retail version that you can buy directly on Skylum’s (makers of Luminar) website, but you’d be crazy not to pay the extra $20 and get it as part of the 5DayDeal bundle!

“Buy the 5Deal through the links on my blog and you’ll receive my High Resolution Texture Pack, Vol. 01 for free* !”

— Yours truly

This year’s bundle includes a Luminar 2018 license, an interesting Lightroom and Photoshop plug-in that some people even use as a complete Lightroom alternative. In one of the next blog posts, I’ll go a little deeper into the unique features of Luminar that make it stand out, especially when used in conjunction with Lightroom. Until Sunday, November 25th, a copy of Luminar 2018 is included in this year’s 5DayDeal bundle. Click here for more info.

*: + VAT for European citizens. If you have a valid VAT number, you can enter that upon checkout and you won’ be charged VAT.

** You will receive your bonus textures in the week after November 15, 2018

Surprise return: this year's 5DayDeal is back... for just 72 hours...

The 2018 edition of the 5DayDeal ended over a month ago, but… the 5DayDeal people decided to bring it back to life for 72 hours only on occasion of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So, it’s effectively like a 3DayDeal now :-) If you have already purchased the 5DayDeal back in October (it’s the same thing), no need to buy it again obviously, but if you were on the fence then… now is your chance. You’ll get over $2.500 worth of photographic resources for only $89, including my not yet released Lightroom Library Beyond the Basics course. And… just like in October, I’ll throw in my $24.95 High Resolution Texture Pack if you purchase the bundle through my link!

The Reprise Flash Sale of the 5DayDeal really, positively and irrevocably ends in…

For those of you who don’t know, the 5DayDeal is a unique bundle of training content and creative tools for photographers. If you were to buy everything separately, you’d be out of more than $2,500. Now, and until November 25, 23.59 EDT only, you pay $89*. The bundle contains dozens of hours of top notch video training, multiple eBooks and hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions. In total nearly 50 gigabyte worth of content! Specifically for this year, there’s a lot of attention to drone photography and videography, including a drone course by no one less than Trey Ratcliff.

Look at who’s standing next to Lightroom guru Serge Ramelli? Yes, that’s me and there’s also a brand new Lightroom course by me in this year’s 5DayDeal! That alone should be a reason to buy it :-)

Of course, you’re wondering if the bundle is really worth it. Is it worth $2,500? Maybe not: there’s always something that’s not quite your cup of tea but then again, there’s also a couple of hidden gems each year that you would never think of buying but that turn out to be really interesting. So, the real question is: ‘Is it worth more than $89'?’ And the answer to that question is a solid ‘Yes, absolutely!’ This bundle will do more for your photography than a new camera bag or a couple of UV filters!

Obviously, I’m slightly biased as in those 60+ hours of video training, there’s over three of my own: In 'Lightroom Library Beyond the Basics’ I guide you through some of the more advanced concepts of Lightroom Catalogs, including working with multiple catalogs, leveraging collections and smart collections, using publish services and more. This brand new course is currently only available as a part of this year’s 5DayDeal Photography bundle and is in itself valued at $99, which is more than the price of the entire bundle. As a matter of fact, there are quite a lot of tutorials in the 5DayDeal bundle that have a list price that is higher than the entire bundle.

So what’s the catch, I hear you ask? There isn’t one… by offering so much value, the 5DayDeal folks aim to sell lots of units as to make it worthwhile for all the contributors, even at that crazy discount. The only catch so to speak is that you have to buy before November 26 because the offer is valid for only 3 days. Why is it called the 5DayDeal then? Well remember, the original 5DayDeal ran in October. This is a surprise reprise, on account of Black Friday, and that’s why it only lasts three days. So think of it as the 3DayDeal :-)

If you think that you need insane budgets to produce fashion-style images, you’ll be in for a treat in Lindsay Adler’s ‘Creativity on a budget’: Lindsay first shows you how she makes six different fashion accessories on a shoestring and then continues to photograph all six.

An expensive hat? No, it’s an expertly folded placemat. Or how craftsmanship, light, lighting and pose can turn a cheap kitchen accessory into high fashion. An eye-opening course, and another one that normally retails for more than the entire 5DayDeal bundle.

To make it easier for you to determine if the 5DayDeal bundle is something for you, I’ve highlighted the content by three broad areas of interest: image editing, portrait and landscape photography. You’ll notice that even if you’re only interested in one of these topics, the bundle is already worth purchasing. If you’re interested in multiple topics, it’s really a no-brainer.

1. You’re mainly interested in image editing

The total value of the highlighted items alone is $1495. The full bundle is yours for less than a tenth of that.

In ‘The Art of Black & White in Lightroom & Beyond’, Andrew Gibson explores the beautiful world of monochrome.

Traditionally, image editing is one of the strongholds of the 5DayDeal. This year is no different. In addition to my own advanced ‘Lightroom Library beyond the Basics’ tutorial, on which I’ll expand a little more in a future blogpost, there’s also an entire Lightroom course by Serge Ramelli. Other highlights are:

• Travel Pro Kit:
  A vast collection of Lightroom presets that use a similar structure as I use in my own Black & White preset pack (which is currently being reworked for Lightroom Classic). By working with ‘effect-presets’ on the one hand and ‘finishing touches’ presets on the other, Travel Pro Kit creates a complete click-based editing workflow that yields impressive results in no time. The accompanying PDF shows examples of how specific looks were made in just a couple of clicks.

• The Art of Black & White in Lightroom and Beyond
  A great course on Black & White conversion in Lightroom by Andrew Gibson, who I know from back in our Craft & Vision days. His material is always spot on, well-researched and expertly taught. This is another course that retails for more than the 5DayDeal’s bundle price.

• Adobe Photoshop Foundations
  In this tutorial, Photoshop Guru (and founder of the well-known f64 site) Blake Rudis delves deeper into a number of Photoshop topics, ranging from selections and masks to retouching images.

Great news: this year’s 5DayDeal includes a full Luminar 2018 license!

There are several other editing-related goodies in the bundle, but probably the biggest highlight is the fact that this year’s bundle comes with a complete licence for Luminar 2018 by Skylum (formerly known as Macphun). This license alone is worth $69. Luminar used to be Mac-only, but now it’s also available for Windows. Some people use it as a Lightroom alternative, but I think it’s at its best when used as a Lightroom plug-in. In one of the following blog posts, I’ll show you a couple of the more interesting features of Luminar.

This year’s bundle also includes a Luminar 2018 license, an interesting Lightroom and Photoshop plug-in that some people even use as a complete Lightroom alternative. In one of the next blog posts, I’ll go a little deeper into the unique features of Luminar that make it stand out, especially when used in conjunction with Lightroom. Click here for more info.

2. You’re mainly interested in photographing people, with or without flash

The total value of the highlighted items is $732. The full bundle is yours for less than 15 percent of that. If you’re into photographing people, I found the following tutorials to be interesting:

Zack Arias takes nobody seriously and certainly not himself in his new Photo 101 tutorial. I like that attitude (or lack of it) :-)

• Photo 101.
  A new tutorial by Zack Arias, the man who, along with David Hobby, taught an entire generation how to use flash. This time, he leaves the flashes unplugged, though and focuses on the basics of photography. Photo 101 is Zacks own introductory course. I’m listing it with the portrait courses because after the introduction, Zack takes you along on three portrait shoots where he uses minimal means to produce cool shots.

• Creativity on a Budget.
  Lindsay Adler is another big name in the photo tutorial business and rightly so. Her course to me was the surprise of this year’s bundle. In ‘Creativity on a Budget’ she shows you how you can turn cheap and often everyday items into fashion accessories but she does not stop there: in part 2, she actually photographs the fruit of her handicraft and produces some amazing results!

• Photographing the Bride.
  This tutorial focuses on what is probably the most important type of portrait photography: bridal portraits!

• Finding Rembrandt: Shoot Like the Old Masters.
  One of my favourite tutorials in this 5DayDeal is by one of my favourite teachers. Just like me, Chris Knight has a thing for dramatic, Rembrandt-style lighting patterns. In this video course, he dives deeply into Rembrandt portraits and he also takes you through his postproduction. Another highly recommended tutorial that by itself costs more than the entire bundle.

“A new camera makes you no more of a great photographer than a box of cake-mix makes you a great pastry chef.”

— Zack Arias in Photo 101

My favourite light setup: short light (in this case: short loupe light). In this tutorial, Chris Knight explores the tools and techniques to create dramatic looking portraits. Until October 16, this tutorial and many others is yours for only $89 as part of the 5DayDeal.

3. You’re mainly interested in product, landscape and architecture photography.

Admittedly, this list is shorter but that’s mainly because I only highlighted the courses that deal with the photography side of things, not the postprocessing. In practice, the other courses (such as Serge Ramelli’s Adobe Lightroom Masterclass and the Mastering Luminosity Masks course by Nick Page) contain a lot of content that is geared towards landscape and architectural photographers.

Still not convinced? I’ve got 5 more arguments for you:

1. This way of learning is by far the cheapest way to improve your photographic skills at your own pace, when and where you want. Most of the tutorials are downloadable video files, so you’re not tied to subscriptions or internet access to watch them. The 5DayDeal bundle gives you 60+ hours of video tutorials for less than $1.5 per hour. Yours to keep forever! The eBooks and presets come on top of that. And that’s without counting Luminar 2018!

2. A large part of the 5DayDeal bundle is new and if it is not new, it’s never been offered as part of another bundle.

3. This extra flash sale of the 5DayDeal bundle is gone forever on Sunday, November 25, 23.59 EDT

4. 10 percent of the turnover goes to charity. In total, previous 5DayDeals have collected over $300.000 for various charities.

5. There are two optional bundles that you can purchase upon checkout:

   • The Charity Bundle and the Pro Bundle ($19 and $29, respectively). Here’s the complete list of what these bundles contain. The latter one focuses on pro photographers and includes a full wedding photography course!

*: + VAT for European citizens. If you have a valid VAT number, you can enter that upon checkout and you won’ be charged VAT.

5DayDeal 2018: a free preview of my new Lightroom Library Beyond the Basics Tutorial

The 5DayDeal irrevocably ends in…

A big chunk of this year’s 5DayDeal bundle is Lightroom-related: there are a couple of tutorials and almost five hundred presets and of course there’s the Luminar plug-in, which I talked about extensively in yesterday’s blog post and video.

“How Piet expertly curates the information is what makes this program truly stand out as one of the best Lightroom training programs I’ve come across (and I’ve seen a lot).”

— Chris O'Donnell (creativeRAW)

One of the Lightroom tutorials is a bit special for three reasons:

1. First of all, because it’s mine and it’s my very first full-blown English Lightroom tutorial, an accomplishment of which I’m quite proud :-).

2. Second because it’s a launch exclusive: for the moment, it’s only available as part of the 5DayDeal and you can’t get it anywhere else yet.

3. And lastly, because it focuses entirely on the Lightroom Catalog and Library. It’s an intermediate to advanced 3+ hour tutorial and I made it because every day, the workshops I teach and the emails I get in my inbox remind me that there are still a lot of people struggling with the whole concept of Lightroom.

Well, I made this tutorial for all of you: after watching it, you’ll be a full-blown Lightroom Library Ninja and you’ll leverage the advantages of Lightroom a lot better and avoid many of the pitfalls the program sometimes throws at its users, too.

Below is a 30 minute free preview of one of the chapters in the tutorial. I’ll leave it on the site as long as the countdown timer is running :-) This chapter’s about Collections and Smart Collections and although I personally consider that to be more of an entry-level feature, each workshop I teach there are quite a number of - even long term - Lightroom users that don’t (or hardly) use these powerful organisational tools. So I decided to include a video about them in the tutorial.

“Piet doesn’t throw a barrage of information at you, overwhelming you with useless data...instead, he’s taken that extra step to create an engaging curriculum that tells you exactly what you need to know.”

— Chris O'Donnell (creativeRAW)

Even if you feel like you already know your way around collections, I’m pretty sure you’ll pick up a thing or two. For example, I hardly know anyone who uses Target Collections and yet they’re super handy! And if you want to know what else I cover in the full course, here’s a list of all the other chapters. This 3+ hour video tutorial is the culmination of 10 years of teaching Lightroom, writing about it and most of all, using it almost every single day!

1. Introduction: 14’ 35”

2. Importing: 41’

3. Tethered Capture: 15’ 16”

4. File & Folder Management: 37’ 39”

5. Two Lesser Known View Modes: 22’ 29”

6. Collections, Smart Collections & Filtering: 37’ 55”

7. Metadata & Keywording: 24’ 30”

8. Exporting: 21’ 23”

9. Publish Services: 10’ 52”

10. Exporting as a Catalog & Importing from Another Catalog: 26’ 19”

11. Working with an External Catalog Drive: 13’ 40”

12. Bonus Chapter: Back up or Back off: 14’ 40”

“If you learned something new in this free 30 minute clip, imagine how much you can learn from the 60+ hours of tutorials in the entire 5DayDeal bundle!”

— Yours truly :-)

Still on the fence? The 5DayDeal also includes Luminar 2018 (a $69 value), one of the most innovative Lightroom plug-ins out there. I did a free 30 minute video tutorial about it yesterday. You can watch that here.

And don’t forget, if you buy the 5DayDeal through the links on my MoreThanWords blog, you’ll receive a special bonus: my brand new high resolution Textures Pack!**

*: + VAT for European citizens. If you have a valid VAT number, you can enter that upon checkout and you won’t be charged VAT.

** Texture pack will be sent out free of charge in the week after November 15 to those people who bought the 5DayDeal bundle via the links on the MoreThanWords blog or in the MoreThanWords newsletter.

5DayDeal 2018: my free Luminar 2018 mini-course

The 5DayDeal irrevocably ends in…

“The inclusion of Luminar 2018 makes this year’s 5DayDeal an absolute no-brainer!”

— Yours truly :-)

So, the 5DayDeal is a bundle of high-quality resources for photographers: tutorial videos, Lightroom presets, textures, actions, you name it. It’s a whopping 50 gigabyte of goodies at a super steep discount. In yesterday’s blog post, I dug a little deeper into the training content that’s in this year’s 5DayDeal. But the 5DayDeal folks really outdid themselves this year, because there’s also two entire software packages included, the most important of which undoubtedly is Luminar 2018. My original plan was to make a quick three minute overview of what Luminar is but you know me: I don’t do quick very well. So it turned out to be a 25 minute mini-tutorial full of cool processing tips in general and Luminar tips in particular.

Unlike with some other bundles, this version of Luminar 2018 is exactly the same as the $69 retail version that you can buy directly on Skylum’s (makers of Luminar) website, but you’d be crazy not to pay the extra $20 and get it as part of the 5DayDeal bundle!

This year’s bundle includes a Luminar 2018 license, an interesting Lightroom and Photoshop plug-in that some people even use as a complete Lightroom alternative. In one of the next blog posts, I’ll go a little deeper into the unique features of Luminar that make it stand out, especially when used in conjunction with Lightroom. Until October 16, a copy of Luminar 2018 is included in this year’s 5DayDeal bundle. Click here for more info.

*: + VAT for European citizens. If you have a valid VAT number, you can enter that upon checkout and you won’ be charged VAT.

** You will receive your bonus textures in the week after November 15, 2018

The 5DayDeal: What's in it for you?

The 5DayDeal irrevocably ends in…

Oh yes, it’s that time of year again. Once a year, for 5 days only, you can purchase the 5DayDeal Photography bundle. This year’s edition runs from October 11 to Tuesday, October 16, noon PDT (that’s 9 PM Brussels time). For those of you who don’t know, the 5DayDeal is a unique bundle of training content and creative tools for photographers. If you were to buy everything separately, you’d be out of more than $2,500. Now, and until October 16 only, you pay $89*. The bundle contains dozens of hours of top notch video training, multiple eBooks and hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions. In total nearly 50 gigabyte worth of content! Specifically for this year, there’s a lot of attention to drone photography and videography, including a drone course by no one less than Trey Ratcliff.

Look at who’s standing next to Lightroom guru Serge Ramelli? Yes, that’s me and there’s also a brand new Lightroom course by me in this year’s 5DayDeal! That alone should be a reason to buy it :-)

Of course, you’re wondering if the bundle is really worth it. Is it worth $2,500? Maybe not: there’s always something that’s not quite your cup of tea but then again, there’s also a couple of hidden gems each year that you would never think of buying but that turn out to be really interesting. So, the real question is: ‘Is it worth more than $89'?’ And the answer to that question is a solid ‘Yes, absolutely!’ This bundle will do more for your photography than a new camera bag or a couple of UV filters!

Obviously, I’m slightly biased as in those 60+ hours of video training, there’s over three of my own: In 'Lightroom Library Beyond the Basics’ I guide you through some of the more advanced concepts of Lightroom Catalogs, including working with multiple catalogs, leveraging collections and smart collections, using publish services and more. This brand new course is currently only available as a part of this year’s 5DayDeal Photography bundle and is in itself valued at $99, which is more than the price of the entire bundle. As a matter of fact, there are quite a lot of tutorials in the 5DayDeal bundle that have a list price that is higher than the entire bundle.

So what’s the catch, I hear you ask? There isn’t one… by offering so much value, the 5DayDeal folks aim to sell lots of units as to make it worthwhile for all the contributors, even at that crazy discount. The only catch so to speak is that you have to buy before October 16 because the offer is valid for only 5 days. Once you’ve bought, you’ve got until November 30 to download your 50 gigabyte worth of goodies, though!

If you think that you need insane budgets to produce fashion-style images, you’ll be in for a treat in Lindsay Adler’s ‘Creativity on a budget’: Lindsay first shows you how she makes six different fashion accessories on a shoestring and then continues to photograph all six.

An expensive hat? No, it’s an expertly folded placemat. Or how craftsmanship, light, lighting and pose can turn a cheap kitchen accessory into high fashion. An eye-opening course, and another one that normally retails for more than the entire 5DayDeal bundle.

To make it easier for you to determine if the 5DayDeal bundle is something for you, I’ve highlighted the content by three broad areas of interest: image editing, portrait and landscape photography. You’ll notice that even if you’re only interested in one of these topics, the bundle is already worth purchasing. If you’re interested in multiple topics, it’s really a no-brainer.

1. You’re mainly interested in image editing

The total value of the highlighted items alone is $1495. The full bundle is yours for less than a tenth of that.

In ‘The Art of Black & White in Lightroom & Beyond’, Andrew Gibson explores the beautiful world of monochrome.

Traditionally, image editing is one of the strongholds of the 5DayDeal. This year is no different. In addition to my own advanced ‘Lightroom Library beyond the Basics’ tutorial, on which I’ll expand a little more in a future blogpost, there’s also an entire Lightroom course by Serge Ramelli. Other highlights are:

• Travel Pro Kit:
  A vast collection of Lightroom presets that use a similar structure as I use in my own Black & White preset pack (which is currently being reworked for Lightroom Classic). By working with ‘effect-presets’ on the one hand and ‘finishing touches’ presets on the other, Travel Pro Kit creates a complete click-based editing workflow that yields impressive results in no time. The accompanying PDF shows examples of how specific looks were made in just a couple of clicks.

• The Art of Black & White in Lightroom and Beyond
  A great course on Black & White conversion in Lightroom by Andrew Gibson, who I know from back in our Craft & Vision days. His material is always spot on, well-researched and expertly taught. This is another course that retails for more than the 5DayDeal’s bundle price.

• Adobe Photoshop Foundations
  In this tutorial, Photoshop Guru (and founder of the well-known f64 site) Blake Rudis delves deeper into a number of Photoshop topics, ranging from selections and masks to retouching images.

Great news: this year’s 5DayDeal includes a full Luminar 2018 license!

There are several other editing-related goodies in the bundle, but probably the biggest highlight is the fact that this year’s bundle comes with a complete licence for Luminar 2018 by Skylum (formerly known as Macphun). This license alone is worth $69. Luminar used to be Mac-only, but now it’s also available for Windows. Some people use it as a Lightroom alternative, but I think it’s at its best when used as a Lightroom plug-in. In one of the following blog posts, I’ll show you a couple of the more interesting features of Luminar.

This year’s bundle also includes a Luminar 2018 license, an interesting Lightroom and Photoshop plug-in that some people even use as a complete Lightroom alternative. In one of the next blog posts, I’ll go a little deeper into the unique features of Luminar that make it stand out, especially when used in conjunction with Lightroom. Until October 16, a copy of Luminar 2018 is included in this year’s 5DayDeal bundle. Click here for more info.

2. You’re mainly interested in photographing people, with or without flash

The total value of the highlighted items is $732. The full bundle is yours for less than 15 percent of that. If you’re into photographing people, I found the following tutorials to be interesting:

Zack Arias takes nobody seriously and certainly not himself in his new Photo 101 tutorial. I like that attitude (or lack of it) :-)

• Photo 101.
  A new tutorial by Zack Arias, the man who, along with David Hobby, taught an entire generation how to use flash. This time, he leaves the flashes unplugged, though and focuses on the basics of photography. Photo 101 is Zacks own introductory course. I’m listing it with the portrait courses because after the introduction, Zack takes you along on three portrait shoots where he uses minimal means to produce cool shots.

• Creativity on a Budget.
  Lindsay Adler is another big name in the photo tutorial business and rightly so. Her course to me was the surprise of this year’s bundle. In ‘Creativity on a Budget’ she shows you how you can turn cheap and often everyday items into fashion accessories but she does not stop there: in part 2, she actually photographs the fruit of her handicraft and produces some amazing results!

• Photographing the Bride.
  This tutorial focuses on what is probably the most important type of portrait photography: bridal portraits!

• Finding Rembrandt: Shoot Like the Old Masters.
  One of my favourite tutorials in this 5DayDeal is by one of my favourite teachers. Just like me, Chris Knight has a thing for dramatic, Rembrandt-style lighting patterns. In this video course, he dives deeply into Rembrandt portraits and he also takes you through his postproduction. Another highly recommended tutorial that by itself costs more than the entire bundle.

“A new camera makes you no more of a great photographer than a box of cake-mix makes you a great pastry chef.”

— Zack Arias in Photo 101

My favourite light setup: short light (in this case: short loupe light). In this tutorial, Chris Knight explores the tools and techniques to create dramatic looking portraits. Until October 16, this tutorial and many others is yours for only $89 as part of the 5DayDeal.

3. You’re mainly interested in product, landscape and architecture photography.

Admittedly, this list is shorter but that’s mainly because I only highlighted the courses that deal with the photography side of things, not the postprocessing. In practice, the other courses (such as Serge Ramelli’s Adobe Lightroom Masterclass and the Mastering Luminosity Masks course by Nick Page) contain a lot of content that is geared towards landscape and architectural photographers.

Still not convinced? I’ve got 5 more arguments for you:

1. This way of learning is by far the cheapest way to improve your photographic skills at your own pace, when and where you want. Most of the tutorials are downloadable video files, so you’re not tied to subscriptions or internet access to watch them. The 5DayDeal bundle gives you 60+ hours of video tutorials for less than $1.5 per hour. Yours to keep forever! The eBooks and presets come on top of that. And that’s without counting Luminar 2018!

2. A large part of the 5DayDeal bundle is new and if it is not new, it’s never been offered as part of another bundle.

3. The bundle is gone on October 16, noon PDT.

4. 10 percent of the turnover goes to charity. In total, previous 5DayDeals have collected over $300.000 for various charities.

5. There are two optional bundles that you can purchase upon checkout:

   • The Charity Bundle and the Pro Bundle ($19 and $29, respectively). Here’s the complete list of what these bundles contain. The latter one focuses on pro photographers and includes a full wedding photography course!

*: + VAT for European citizens. If you have a valid VAT number, you can enter that upon checkout and you won’ be charged VAT.

Easier selections with the new Select Subject button in Photoshop CC2018

If you're subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud or the Adobe Lightroom Classic CC + Photoshop plan, there are two nifty new features in the latest update that warrant some more explanation. In this video, I tell you all about the new Select Subject button and how the new Decontaminate Colours slider in the Select and Mask pane will help you create more realistic composites. Check out the video below.

If you like it, please give it a little thumbs-up on Youtube or subscribe to my Youtube Channel to get notified of future videos.

The 5DayDeal is back! $2.500 worth of photo education and tools for only $117

From now until October 18th, noon PDT, it's 5 Day Deal time again! The 5 Day Deal is a unique bundle of photographic training content. If you were to buy every item separately, you'd be looking at a total bill of over $2.750. Now, you're only paying $117 (+ European VAT unless you have a VAT ID), a savings of more than 95 percent! The total bundle contains over 75 hours of video training, several eBooks and over 1400 Lightroom presets, Photoshop actions and other digital tools. In total several gigabytes worth of training goodness.

Yes, but what's in it for me?

Of course, the real question is: 'What is this bundle worth to you?' Unless you're really into all genres of photography, probably not the full $2.500. But I can guarantee you that even if you're only remotely interested in photography, the 5 Day Deal bundle is certainly worth more than the measly $117 it's selling for. In fact, this bundle will do more for your photography than the umpteenth camera bag or a shiny new UV filter. 

To help you determine if it's worth your dollar, I've broken the bundle down into three typical areas of interest: general postprocessing, landscape photography and portrait photography. You'll see that even if you're only really into one of those three areas, the bundle is a steal. Heck, if you're into two or more, you should already be ordering!

1. You're into Lightroom, Photoshop and Postprocessing

Postprocessing seems to be the main theme of this year's bundle, so if image editing is your thing, you're in for a treat. The bundle is ideal to hone your editing skills over these cold winter months and get you ready for a great start in 2018. There's hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions, overlays like smoke and sun flares and loads of training videos. As you can see, I'm very honoured that my own Black & White Lightroom Preset pack is included in the bundle. But even if you already have that, there's still $2.767 of other stuff :-) The total value of the highlighted items alone is over $1.500. The 5 Day Deal price is less than ten percent of that. If you're a Lightroom or Photoshop user, this bundle really is a no-brainer.

2.  You're mainly interested in nature photography, landscapes, cityscapes and how to postprocess these

The total value of the highlighted items is about $700. From previous 5 Day Deals, I remember the excellent quality of the stuff that people like Jimmy McIntyre and Christopher O'Donnell put out, so I'm looking forward to discovering their new courses. Also, note that I've only counted items that have a direct relationship to landscape photography. There are lots of resources, like the many preset packs, that will without a doubt also be useful when you're editing your landscape images.

3. You're mainly interested in portrait photography and portrait retouching

The total value of the highlighted items is almost $800. Again, there are some hidden gems in this line-up. For example, I really enjoyed Jeff Rojas' no-nonsense approach on how to interact with, light and photograph 'normal people'. After all, we not always get to choose who winds up in front of our lens!

Still in doubt?

Here's 5 final reasons why you should really consider this bundle:

10 percent of each sale goes to charity. Since 2013, people buying the 5DayDeal have raised over $1.000.000 for charity.

1. This way of learning is one of the cheapest to improve your photography skills, at your own pace, when and where you want it. Furthermore, there's always a couple of hidden gems in bundles like this. For example, I really enjoyed Andrew S. Gibson's Black & White Presets and Jeff Rojas' posing and lighting video.
2. A lot of this bundle's resources are new and if they aren't new, at least they've never been in any other 5 Day Deal bundle, so there's no overlap with previous 5 Day Deal purchases.
3. The bundle is gone forever on October 18th, noon PDT.
4. 10 percent of the entire turnover (not the profits, but the turnover, so almost $10 on every sale) goes to charity. Since the start of the 5 Day Deal in 2013, over $1.000.000 was donated to good causes. To that effect, upon checkout, you can opt for the 'Charity Match bundle'. This is an extra, separate bundle, worth over $900 which costs an extra $24,97, half of which goes to charity. Some 50% of people who bought the bundle so far have chosen this option. If you want to maximise your savings and in the mean time maximise your charity donation, look for the 'Charity Match' section, you'll see it on the 5 Day Deal page.
5. But wait, there's more :-) Another extra option is the 'Pro Bundle Addon'. That's almost $500 worth of content for an add-on of only $12,47.

You see, I'm shutting up already. Yes. I'm that easy :-)

For an extra $24,97, you not only double the amount of money that goes to charity, but you also get access to over $900 worth of extra stuff. There are two photography courses in there, including the world-famous one by Fstoppers, one of the largest photo websites. Then, if you still have another $12,47 to burn, you can get the Pro Bundle Add-on as well...

R.I.P. Nik Collection? Sign the Petition!

The short story

Google have announced that it will no longer support the Nik Collection. In true David versus Goliath style, German photographer Sascha Rheker started an online petition on change.org. If you're a Nik Collection user, it's well worth one minute of your time to vote. 

The long story

Even if you're only a halfway regular reader of this blog, you know I was and still am a big fan of the Nik Collection. In fact, a few of you reading this might use the Nik Collection because I recommended it to you.

In September 2012 - I cannot believe that's almost five years ago - Google acquired Nik. Not so much for the Nik Collection, but rather because Google had set their eyes on Snapseed, Nik's mobile app. By the way, if you're looking for an excellent mobile editor on your phone or tablet (iOS and Android), Snapseed is a killer app (iOS link here, Android link here). It's basically the mobile version of the Nik Collection and it's entirely free.

One of the few, if not the only problem with the Nik Collection when it was still owned, developed and maintained by Nik Software GmbH was that it was pricey: around $200 for a single plugin, $300 for the Lightroom-only bundle and a whopping $500 for the Lightroom and Photoshop enabled version of the bundle. So one of the first things Google did was limit the number of versions to only one: the Lightroom and Photoshop bundle and drop its price to $149. They must have sold a virtual truckload. But if you buy software, even if it's discounted, and if you start to build your workflow around it, it's only fair to expect the company you buy the software from to keep updating it.

And this is where things started to go progressively bad: when Google made the software totally free last year, this move was also interpreted by some as the beginning of the end.

And indeed, one year later, Google have discreetly put up a banner on their website saying the Nik Collection will no longer be supported. Now, we kind of had come to expect that there wouldn't be any new features, but now, the message clearly states that there won't be any OS compatibility updates either. You can still download it for free, and use it for as long as your particular OS and hardware will support it, but basically Google is saying not to bother them nor to expect solutions if problems arise.

Silver Efex Pro 2 is now eight years old. In software terms, it's a dinosaur. Yet, its algorithms are still some of the finest that I know and if my regular Lightroom preset based workflow does not do the trick, I know that there's always Silver Efex Pro to turn to for rescue. Not to mention the power of the Control Point Technology.

On both my systems, the Collection is still working (I did have to manually copy over the Nik Collection folder from my Photoshop CC2015 Plugins folder to my CC2017 Plugins folder) but there are already reports of people where the Collection has stopped working.

What can you do?

I'm very much afraid that there is little we can do about this. The chances of Google turning this Open Source are very slim, because they still use an important part of the technology in Snapseed. The chances of them selling the patented tech to say Adobe, are slim, too... Personally, I don't need any new features - in fact I think that 8 year old Silver Efex Pro 2 is still miles ahead of any of the competing plug-ins - but I wouldn't mind paying for the software if at least compatibility updates would be guaranteed. Right now, there's little motivation to start or continue to use a piece of software if you know that any day you're using it might be the last. In fact, over the past years I noticed I have started using the Nik Collection (or any other plug-in for that matter) less and less, and try to do as much as possible in Lightroom. For my Black & White work, for example, I have created a set of Black & White Lightroom presets that I do 95 percent of my B&W work with, but for those cases where these presets fall short, I know that generally Silver Efex would have my back. And I hate to see that alternative go to waste.

Sign the petition!

German Photographer Sascha Rheker started an online petition on change.org. At the time I'm writing this, he has already reached over 10.000 virtual signatures, including mine. Now, personally, I'm rather sceptical about the petition's potential impact: 10.000 people probably don't even cause a blimp on the Google management's radar (unless they're wearing Google Glasses, maybe) but on the other hand, it's about the only thing any of us can do anyway (the only other solution being keeping a dedicated computer around for the Nik Collection and never updating it anymore). And there's still that story about David and Goliath, remember?

Other Nik-Collection related content

Now, for many of you, the Nik Collection isn't dead yet and it's still working as good as it did yesterday, So if you want to learn more about it (and if you happen to speak Dutch), last year, I created a 4 hour video course covering all of the Nik Collection plug-ins for my subscription-based Dutch training website www.photofactsacademy.nl. I also have a (Dutch) training video on Snapseed.

Below are a couple of shorter English tutorials and blog-posts that are Nik-related. I heartily recommend this one, where I show you how you can use Silver Efex Pro to enhance even your colour images. Hmm, might want to sign that petition after all, might you not?

My New eBook Released: LIGHT IT UP!

I am very happy to announce that Craft & Vision have just released my latest eBook: Light It Up! Techniques for Dramatic Off-Camera Lighting.

In this 160-page PDF eBook, I cover everything I have learnt myself over the past 10+ years in working with flash photography. The eBook includes essential theories about light but with a focus on the practical consequences for you as a photographer. It showcases techniques and gives advice on using speedlights and portable studio flashes on location. All the info is presented in case studies, lighting diagrams, and advice on the best gear to buy for different scenarios. Inside you’ll find: 

• Both beginner and advanced lighting setups
• Lighting diagrams and behind-the-scenes setup shots
• Real-life lessons from me on what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve
• A comprehensive discussion on the latest lighting gear and how to save big on gear by buying third-party flashes
• In-depth coverage of advanced techniques such as high-speed sync and hypersync
• Information on both big and small flashes and the importance of a “flash ecosystem”
• How to work with on-camera flash with excellent results 
• Post-production instruction

Light It Up! will help you overcome any fear you might have for flash photography (I know I had, years ago!) and help you turn your flash from a contrarian adversary to a trusted ally. Personally, I would rather leave a lens at home than my flash! I hope you will, too, after reading this eBook!

Pricing

Light It Up! is priced at $30 (+ VAT in Europe) and that's including two really cool bonuses (see below). Until May 29th, there's a special 25 percent off launch discount, making the price only $22,50. No coupon codes are needed. If you know that some of the third-party gear I use myself (and recommend in the eBook) costs between half and a third of the price of the brand flashes of the camera manufacturers themselves, you'll save the purchase price of the eBook many times over!

Bonus 1: Three Lighting Videos

In addition to the 160 page PDF eBook, you'll also get access to three 15 minutes bonus videos. That's 45 minutes total of bonus video content. The first video shows you how I shot this particular image on a recent trip to Varanasi and how I processed it in Lightroom and Photoshop. In the second video, I share my 'Layering Lights' technique with you: a cool technique to create really beautifully lit photos with just one light. In the final video, I walk you through some of the images in the eBook, giving you behind-the-scenes information.

Bonus 2: Five LIghtroom Presets

Because everybody loves bonuses, I have created a second bonus for you: five free Lightroom presets that show you how one click can take a picture from good to great.

Below is the first of the three bonus videos that come with the eBook. Watch it now for free!

And here you can see a couple of sample pages... (don't mind the compresson, the actual PDF pages are crystal clear).

Still in doubt? Here's what other photographers had to say about Light It Up!

“In the first couple of chapters alone, this eBook covers the same information that other photography courses spread across months or even years. Although the book contains some pretty techie stuff, Piet knows how to explain it in a simple way and illustrates it with practical examples. More advanced photographers will also benefit from this book by useful tips and examples from Piet’s daily practice, explanations on typical flash problems and solutions, setup shots, or lighting diagrams.”

— Erik v. R.

“Do you want to start using your flash creatively, both on- and off-camera but are getting lost in all the information that’s out there? No need to worry: this book will guide you through the world of flash techniques and gear. It’s a highly educational book that offers an interesting insight in technique and creativity.”

— Serge V. C.

“As an available light aficionado, reading this book had me go out and flirt with flash light.”

— Tom M.

“Don’t hesitate. Terrific book!”

— Ronald G.

“Impressively complete. Should be on every photographer’s bookshelf.”

— Philippe B.

“A truly marvelous book, both in terms of contents and layout, explaining complex concepts in an understandable way. Highly recommended!”

— Bart P.

Using Silver Efex Pro and a free Photoshop action to enhance colour images

This technique is taken from my eBook Pushing Light. Extending Dynamic Range with HDR and Other Techniques, published by Craft & Vision.

If you're a regular reader of this blog or my books (English link, Dutch link), you know that I'm big fan of the Nik Collection by Google in general and the Black & White plug-in Silver Efex Pro 2 in particular. I already endorsed these plug-ins when they still cost an arm and a leg (well, € 500 to be precise), and now that Google has made them completely free, that hasn't changed. If I can't get the job done with one of my own Lightroom Black & White presets, Silver Efex is where I turn to.

But, did you know that you can also use Silver Efex Pro to bring more life to your colour images? And that you can use Silver Efex Pro's Control Points to easily Dodge & Burn those same images? I'll show you how in the following video. You'll also pick up a thing or two on how to use Lightroom and Photoshop together and on the advantages of Smart Objects and Smart Filters. At the end of the video, you'll see me automate the workflow with an action that I created. Being the generous fellow that I am, this action is available as a free download below. But make sure to watch the video first so you can make the most out of it.

If you liked this tip, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter: there's more where this came from. You'll also receive my free '10 tips for better travel photographs' eBook absolutely free! The subscription form is in the sidebar to the right, under the 'Dutch or English' header because, guess what, I have a Dutch and an English one!

* Some users report that the .atn (Photoshop action) extension gets removed when downloading the file and that the action does not work. In that case, simply add .atn to the filename. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The 2016 edition of the 5 Day Deal: What's in it for you?

From now until Wednesday, October 19th, noon PST, it's 5 Day Deal time again! The 5 Day Deal is a unique bundle of photographic training content. If you were to buy every item separately, you'd be looking at a total bill of over $2.500. Now, you're only paying $97, a savings of more than 95 percent! The bundle contains over 60 hours of video training, 15 eBooks and almost 500 Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions. In total over 25 gigabyte of training goodness.

From Lightroom presets over video courses on how to shoot wine or photograph models to a complete landscape postprocessing photography course: there's something for everyone in this bundle.

Of course, the real question is: 'What is this bundle worth to you?' Unless you're really into all genres of photography, probably not the full $2.500. But I can guarantee you that even if you're only remotely interested in photography, the 5 Day Deal bundle is certainly worth more than the measly $97 it's selling for. In fact, this bundle will do more for your photography than the umpteenth camera bag or a shiny new UV filter. 

To help you determine if it's worth your dollar (well, 97 of them), I've broken the bundle down into three typical areas of interest: general postprocessing, landscape photography and portrait photography. You'll see that even if you're only really into one of those three areas, the bundle is a steal. Heck, if you're into two or more, you should already be ordering!

1. You're into Lightroom and Photoshop

Postprocessing seems to be the main theme of this year's bundle, so if image editing is your thing, you're in for a treat. The bundle is ideal to hone your editing skills over these cold winter months and get you ready for a great start in 2017. There's hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions, textures and loads of training videos. There's also a lot of HDR training, and I mean photographically interesting HDR, not the headache-inducing variety! The total value of the highlighted items alone is over $1.600. The 5 Day Deal price is less than ten percent of that. If you're a Lightroom or Photoshop user, this bundle really is a no-brainer.

2.  You're mainly interested in nature photography, landscapes, cityscapes and how to postprocess these

The total value of the highlighted items is about $700. From previous 5 Day Deals, I remember the excellent quality of the stuff that people like Jimmy McIntyre, Klaus Herrmann and James Brandon put out, so I'm looking forward to discovering their new courses. Also, note that I've only counted items that have a direct relationship to landscape photography. There are lots of resources, like the many preset packs, that will without a doubt also be useful when you're editing your landscape images.

3. You're mainly interested in portrait photography and portrait retouching

The total value of the highlighted items is also some $700. Again, there are some hidden gems in this line-up. For example, I really enjoyed Serge Ramelli's no-nonsense approach to compositing: he photographs a model and then puts her in front of a different background. This course alone by itself normally costs double the entire 5 Day Deal bundle price.

Other areas of interest

But that's not all. There's also more general, introductory courses such as David duChemin's 26 part email course on the one hand but also some highly specialized ones on the other: how 'bout an in-depth course on Photo Mechanic (I know I can use one since I'm using this app more and more as a front-end to Lightroom). Or what about a course on how to photograph wine? It's all there.

If you're still in doubt, here's 5 final reasons why you should really consider this bundle:

The ever-funny-yet-to-the-point Zack Arias has written an eBook of over 100 pages with business advice for photographers. It's an excellent and at times hilarious read.

1. This way of learning is one of the cheapest to improve your photography skills, at your own pace, when and where you want it. Furthermore, there's always a couple of hidden gems in bundles like this. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Zack Arias' 'Get To Work - Business Primer' eBook. It's not something I'd probably buy (in fact, I didn't know it existed), but it was included in the bundle anyway! 
2. A lot of this bundle's resources are new and if they aren't new, at least they've never been in any other 5 Day Deal bundle, so there's no overlap with previous 5 Day Deal purchases.
3. If you're more interested in the business side of photography, there's a couple of interesting items as well, like the afore-mentioned guide by Zack Arias. Zack's studio is doing great now, but he once was nearly bankrupt. So, he knows what he's talking about.
4. The bundle is gone forever on October 19th, noon PST (that's 9 PM Brussels time).
5. 10 percent of the entire turnover (not the profits, but the turnover, so almost $10 on every sale) goes to charity. Since the start of the 5 Day Deal in 2013, over $650.000 was donated to good causes. For this year, the 5 Day Deal team is hoping to achieve $250.000 of charity donations and they even silently hope to reach $350.000, which would bring their total over one million since 2013. To that effect, upon checkout, you can choose to pay an extra 10% ($9.7) which goes entirely to charity. And, as a token of good karma, you get an extra bonus-download worth $250. Some 50% of people who bought the bundle so far have chosen this option. It's called 'Charity Match', you'll see it on the 5 Day Deal page.

You see, I'm shutting up already. Yes. I'm that easy :-)