This Months Highlights:
- ANOTHER SEASON COMES TO A CLOSE
- INVITATION: SPS AWARD LUNCHEON
- FOCUS ON: AI PHOTOGRAPHY CRITQUE, NEIL SHAPIRO
- LEARN TO SEE...AND SERENDIPITY WILL FOLLOW, ESSDRAS SUAREZ
- APRIL PRINT NIGHT
- LUBA RICKET CREATIVE COMPETITION NIGHT
- FIELD TRIPS WITH JANICE PRICHETT
- ASSIGNED TOPICS 2026-2026, 2027-2028
- APRIL COMPETITION WINNERS
Check out our archives for past newsletters!
Recent Competition Submissions
Lightroom View More
Experimental iPhone Photography: Artistic Images Beyond the Snapshot with Lisa Carney
Your iPhone is capable of much more than documenting the moment. In this new class, Lisa Carney explores a creative approach to mobile photography, showing how techniques like motion blur, reflections, double exposures, silhouettes, and…
One Week to Go!
We’re only one week away from the Photographing People Conference, and I couldn’t be more excited about this one. One of the biggest reasons is the instructor lineup. We’ve got 19 world-class photographers teaching everything…
Scott Kelby’s Bracket & Bounce Field Test
Here’s why on-camera flash makes your photos look flat (and the simple solution) If you’ve ever looked at a portrait taken with your camera’s built-in flash or a speedlight mounted directly on the hot shoe…
What’s New In Lightroom
Adobe’s been busy. Lightroom has picked up some really useful new features recently, so I invited Adobe’s Terry White to join me for a hands-on look at everything that’s new across Lightroom Classic, Cloud, and…
Lighting Made Simple Using Continuous Lights
If you’ve ever wanted to learn studio lighting but got scared off by flash triggers, test shots, and a bunch of settings that seem designed to confuse people, I made this class for you. In…
Mastering Waterfall Photography with Sapna Reddy
Waterfalls are beautiful in person, but they can be surprisingly challenging to photograph. In her latest class, Sapna Reddy takes you into Yosemite during peak waterfall season and shares the techniques she uses to create…
Join Me Tomorrow for a Live Look at the June Lightroom Updates
Adobe’s June Lightroom updates arrive this week, and tomorrow I’m going live to walk through some of the new features and show you what’s worth checking out. One of the biggest challenges photographers face isn’t…
Ultimate iPhone Camera Tips and Tricks with Terry White
Your iPhone camera is packed with features that most people never use. In his latest class, Terry White walks through the settings and tools that can make an immediate difference in your photography, showing not…
Meet the Instructors for the Photographing People Conference
One of the things I’m most excited about for this year’s Photographing People Conference is the instructor lineup. We’ve brought together an incredible group of photographers, and every one of them has their own way…
Travel Photography: A Photographer’s Guide to Las Vegas with Jefferson Graham
Most visitors photograph the same version of Las Vegas. Jefferson Graham has spent more than three decades finding the other one. In this week’s class, Jefferson shares the approach he’s developed after more than 100…
Photoshop View More
The Watcher: Dystopian Landscape Wall Art
The Watcher: Dystopian Landscape Wall Art is a free AI-generated fantasy artwork featuring a towering ruined fortress beneath a blazing orange moon, with a lone cloaked figure standing among scorched ruins and molten reflections. Inspired…
Painting Digital Art Backgrounds: Techniques and Workflow
A well-crafted background can anchor an entire digital painting, providing atmosphere, depth, and visual context for the subject. This video demonstrates practical approaches to building backgrounds from scratch using digital tools, covering brush selection, color…
How to Use the Light Adjustment Layer in Photoshop
Photoshop's new Light adjustment layer brings Camera Raw controls — exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks — directly into the layers panel as a fully non-destructive, maskable layer. This means you can stack multiple…
How to Use Object Selection, Remove Background, and the Selection Brush in Photoshop
Selections determine the quality and flexibility of almost every edit you make in Photoshop. Three modern tools — the Object Selection tool, Remove Background with Harmonize, and the Selection Brush — handle the most common…
How to Paint a Digital Background and Composite Wildlife Into It
Building a painted digital background from scratch gives you full control over color, mood, and composition before a single wildlife photo is placed. This walkthrough covers the complete process: blocking in shadows on a black…
How to Sharpen Skin Texture Using Frequency Separation in Photoshop
Retouched skin can look great up close but lose all its natural texture the moment you zoom out. Rather than relying on standard sharpening filters, you can recover that texture by duplicating the high-frequency layer…
AI Reflection Removal in Photoshop 2026: Complete Workflow with Masking and Generative Fill
Photoshop 2026 introduces built-in AI reflection removal for the first time, bringing a capability previously limited to Lightroom and Camera Raw directly into a layer-based workflow. The key advantage here is control: results appear on…
Firefly Image Model 5 in Photoshop: Generative Fill, Distraction Removal, and Color Finishing
Firefly Image Model 5 brings noticeably higher output quality and more natural language prompting to Photoshop's generative fill workflow. Combined with an updated Remove tool that automatically detects distractions and a Camera Raw finishing pass…
How to Remove Distractions, Expand Borders, and Polish a Portrait in Photoshop
A cluttered background, tight framing, and flat lighting can undermine an otherwise strong portrait. This workflow covers the full process of cleaning up a photo using Photoshop's AI-powered Remove Tool, extending the canvas with Generative…
How to Use Photoshop's Precision Flow AI Slider and Recover Image Quality
Precision Flow is a new AI tool in Photoshop 2026's Firefly Workspace that lets you control how much an edit affects your image using a simple slider. Rather than committing to a single AI-generated result,…