Steve Roe

When it comes to portrait retouching, the manual approach just isn’t for me. Path drawing, masks, and needing the steady precision of a master watchmaker around the subject’s hair makes the whole process rather unenjoyable for me. So, I for one, am extremely grateful for automated retouching. It comes with a whole host of benefits including time saving, which has helped speed up my workflow and get me back out shoot rather than long editing sessions sat in front of my computer.

Organisation is one of those lesser talked about virtues that can make a good photographer great. Understanding your own file management system will help you locate photos much more quickly when you come to look for them months or even years later. And as photographers, the last thing we want is to remember a great shot we took a long time ago, only to realise we can no longer find it.

So you wake up on a fine morning and realise it is the perfect weather to go shooting, with clear blue skies forecast and beautiful light on the cards. You grab your camera, head out, and trek to your favourite photo spot, only for the weather to suddenly turn on you. Those clear blue skies are now a dull grey expanse, completely undermining what could have been a great shot.

In this new era of image creation, we are able to imagine, fix, or even expand elements of our shots. This is extremely beneficial to photographers in many areas and is becoming an integral part of their workflow. It is also saving a great deal of time, which is always an added bonus, allowing photographers to spend less time editing and more time shooting.

As a beginner in the world of photography, the techniques, terms and technical aspects can feel overwhelming. There is so much to remember when you bring the camera up to your eye that you may end up second guessing yourself or even struggling to enjoy the process. I remember flipping through a photography book when I first started and feeling completely lost. In the end I decided to figure it out as I went along, and while that approach worked for me, having a simple guide would have helped a great deal.

Nowadays, as photographers we are met with unprecedented challenges that make our jobs that much more difficult. None more so than the recent rise of AI imagery, which is challenging our eyes to spot fake photos from genuine shots. This can be especially difficult for beginners who may see a generated photo and try to emulate it, only to become discouraged by the results because the photo may be technically impossible to capture with a camera.