Thank You And Stay Safe
Thanks to everyone that's subscribed to the channel. We crossed 8000 a few weeks ago. I'm amazed and humbled. Thank you! Also, I wish you and yours health and safety during what is a scary time with COVID-19.
If you’re looking for some indoor photo activities, check out The Stop Down Photography Podcast. I did an episode a few weeks back about Dealing With The Downtime. It’s got several ideas to keep moving with your photography when heading out and about isn’t always an option.
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A vignette can help guide the viewer toward your subject, but lowering exposure around the edges of a black and white photo can quickly bury important shadow detail.
In this quick tutorial, I’ll show you a more controlled approach using a radial gradient and the Whites or Highlights slider. You’ll still get that visual nudge toward the subject without making already-dark areas disappear.
What do you do when the weather is dull, the surf is uninteresting, and a dead battery takes away one of the tools you normally rely on?
You can spend the outing wishing conditions were different—or let those constraints narrow your choices and point you toward another photograph. In this video, I share how I adapted during a recent seascape outing and why limitations can sometimes give your photography clearer direction.
Lightroom may correctly find every person in a photograph and still make a mess when it tries to remove them. That’s what happened with this image from Machu Picchu—the AI rebuilt so much of the scene that walkways and structures no longer made sense.
The better approach was to keep the removals that worked, then break the difficult areas into smaller, more targeted pieces. The AI still does the heavy lifting, but you give it a more manageable problem to solve.
What if your mask selects the right subject, but you don’t want the adjustment applied evenly across all of it?
In this tutorial, I combine an AI mask with a gradient using Intersect mode in ON1 Photo RAW. The result keeps the adjustment confined to the mountains while letting its strength fade naturally across the scene.
The ON1 Masking Panel generates more questions than almost any other feature in Photo RAW. Here's the funny thing: most photographers don't actually need to use it.
Most edits are finished long before they're truly complete. In this video, I'll show you a simple masking technique I use to bring out important details in black and white photos—the final 5% that helps guide the viewer's eye and strengthen the image.
Harsh light doesn’t have to ruin a photo—it can shape it. In this quick edit, I show how a simple radial mask turns a Denver alley into a strong, guided composition.
When water isn't the subject, it may be competing for attention. Here's a simple masking technique that softens and darkens water so your real subject becomes the star of the photograph.
Flat light doesn’t have to ruin a good composition. In this new Lightroom tutorial, I show how I use masking to shape directional light, guide the eye, and create more drama from a dull scene.
Scott Davenport
Scott Davenport is a landscape photographer and photo educator and based in San Diego, California. He leads photo workshops, writes photo books, hosts podcasts, makes tutorial videos, and feels weird referring to himself in the 3rd person.
He also can't help getting his feet wet photographing at the beach.
What happens when Lightroom’s AI landscape masking doesn’t recognize the subject you want to edit? Sometimes, the missing selection is exactly what you need.
In this video, I combine Lightroom’s vegetation and mountain masks with inversion, subtraction, and a radial gradient to isolate the architecture at Machu Picchu. The result adds depth to the scene and guides attention without requiring painstaking brushwork.