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The Photoshop Slice Effect That Takes 5 Minutes and Looks Like It Took All Day
Video Tutorials

The Photoshop Slice Effect That Takes 5 Minutes and Looks Like It Took All Day

There’s a category of client request I’ve learned to dread over my fifteen years in commercial work: “Make it look editorial. You know, interesting.” That’s it. No reference image, no art direction, just vibes. I’ve built a small library of go-to effects I can reach for in those moments - effects that look considered and intentional without requiring a three-hour compositing session. The portrait slice effect is one of the best of them.

How to Turn a Real Lipstick Kiss Into a Custom Photoshop Brush (Step-by-Step)
Video Tutorials

How to Turn a Real Lipstick Kiss Into a Custom Photoshop Brush (Step-by-Step)

Custom brushes are one of those Photoshop tools I consistently underestimate. I’ve built actions that call brushes, built presets around brushes, and tracked the hours saved because of brushes, but I rarely stop to think about making them from scratch using real-world source material. That’s what pulled me into this tutorial. In this Aaron Nace (PHLEARN) tutorial, Watch the full tutorial on YouTube, he walks through the process of scanning an actual lipstick kiss from paper, cleaning it up in Photoshop, and converting it into a reusable custom brush.

Photoshop's New AI Actions Panel Is the Biggest Workflow Shift in a Decade - Here's What It Actually Does
Video Tutorials

Photoshop's New AI Actions Panel Is the Biggest Workflow Shift in a Decade - Here's What It Actually Does

I’ve been tracking time saved by Photoshop actions in a spreadsheet since 2014. Over 2,400 hours recovered. That number only stays meaningful if I keep paying attention when something genuinely changes the game - not just tweaks, but structural shifts in how the tool works. The redesigned Actions panel in Photoshop Beta is one of those shifts. In this Aaron Nace (PHLEARN) tutorial, Watch the full tutorial on YouTube, Aaron walks through a brand new Actions interface that combines AI-driven suggestions with a searchable library of thousands of built-in actions.

Back to School, Back to Basics: What Tony & Chelsea Northrup's Sale Teaches Us About Investing in Your Photography Education
Video Tutorials

Back to School, Back to Basics: What Tony & Chelsea Northrup's Sale Teaches Us About Investing in Your Photography Education

Every September I do a version of the same audit. I open my spreadsheet - yes, the one tracking saved hours - and I look at which tools are pulling their weight and which ones are collecting digital dust. After fifteen years running post-production for ad agencies and e-commerce clients, I’ve gotten ruthless about this. Education and tools that don’t compound in value get cut. The ones that pay for themselves ten times over?

How Photoshop Actions Actually Work (And Why Most People Build Them Wrong)
Workflows & Automation

How Photoshop Actions Actually Work (And Why Most People Build Them Wrong)

The Day I Stopped Doing Things Twice I was 26, working in a commercial studio in Chicago, and someone handed me a folder of 200 product images that all needed the same crop, the same canvas size, and the same sharpening pass before they went to the client. No one told me about actions. I just started doing it manually, one file at a time, and by image 47 I wanted to quit photography entirely.

Kill the Clutter: A Working Photographer's Guide to Removing Distractions in Photoshop
Video Tutorials

Kill the Clutter: A Working Photographer's Guide to Removing Distractions in Photoshop

Distracting backgrounds are the silent killers of otherwise great commercial shots. I’ve been doing post-production work for ad agencies and e-commerce brands for long enough to know that a stray power line, a piece of reflective tape, or a stretch of chain-link fence can torpedo an image that the photographer spent an hour lighting perfectly. The fix usually takes less than three minutes in Photoshop, but only if you reach for the right tools in the right order.

How to Actually Remove Tourists and Distractions from Travel Photos (A Photoshop and Field Strategy Guide)
Video Tutorials

How to Actually Remove Tourists and Distractions from Travel Photos (A Photoshop and Field Strategy Guide)

I spent a long time thinking that tourist removal was purely a post-production problem. Set up the tripod, shoot the famous landmark, then spend an hour cloning out strangers in Photoshop. After 15 years of commercial work, I know better now, but I still catch myself skipping the field discipline and paying for it at the computer. That habit got challenged pretty directly when I watched Scott Kelby walk through his approach in this KelbyOne tutorial.

Shooting RAW Street Photography with an Action Cam: 3 Creative Techniques Worth Stealing
Video Tutorials

Shooting RAW Street Photography with an Action Cam: 3 Creative Techniques Worth Stealing

Most of my work lives inside Photoshop. I’ve built actions that compress hours of post-production into a single keystroke, and I’ll happily geek out about batch processing over a cup of coffee. But every now and then something lands in my feed that reminds me the best post-production starts before you ever open Lightroom. In this Pierre T. Lambert tutorial, he takes the DJI Osmo Action — a small, wide-angle action camera not typically associated with serious stills work — out onto city streets and challenges himself to make compelling photographs with it.

Turn Any Lens Flare Stock Image Into a Reusable Photoshop Brush (and Stop Placing the Same Layer 40 Times)
Video Tutorials

Turn Any Lens Flare Stock Image Into a Reusable Photoshop Brush (and Stop Placing the Same Layer 40 Times)

There’s a particular kind of tedium that creeps into composite work when you’re adding the same element over and over. I’ve been there with product shots, I’ve been there with sky replacements, and I’ve definitely been there with light effects. You find a nice lens flare stock image, drag it onto your canvas, set the blending mode to Screen, scale it down, position it, and then realize you need to do that exact sequence fourteen more times for every light source in the frame.

Photoshop's Adjustment Brush Tool (Beta): A Working Pro's First Look
Video Tutorials

Photoshop's Adjustment Brush Tool (Beta): A Working Pro's First Look

New tools in Photoshop are genuinely rare. Adobe spends most of its energy refining what already exists, which is usually the right call. So when something truly new lands in the beta, I pay attention. The Adjustment Brush tool is one of those features that immediately made me think about how many extra steps I take every single time I want to apply a localized adjustment to a subject. Right now, my standard move is: create an adjustment layer, open Select Subject, load the selection as a mask, then tweak.

Camera Settings for Action Photography: What a Horse Racing Shoot Taught Me About Getting Sharp Shots
Video Tutorials

Camera Settings for Action Photography: What a Horse Racing Shoot Taught Me About Getting Sharp Shots

Action photography has a way of exposing every weak link in your workflow, and I say that as someone who spent fifteen years in commercial studios where the subject sat still and waited for me. The first time a client asked me to shoot behind-the-scenes action footage for a campaign, I realized how badly my habits had calcified. I was half a second slow on every critical moment because my camera setup was optimized for product shots, not moving targets.

Adding Window Textures and Light Overlays in Photoshop: A Workflow Worth Stealing
Video Tutorials

Adding Window Textures and Light Overlays in Photoshop: A Workflow Worth Stealing

Client work has a way of exposing the gaps in your toolkit. A few months back I was finishing up a portrait series for an ad agency, and the creative director kept asking for something “moodier, more atmospheric” without being able to articulate exactly what that meant. I knew the bones of the image were solid. What it needed was depth, some suggestion of environment and light without compositing in an entirely new background.