[Photography] How to Blur the Background in Lightroom: A Complete Guide

The post How to Blur the Background in Lightroom: A Complete Guide appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

If you want to give more emphasis to your subject, you must minimize the background. The best way to achieve this is in-camera; you can focus on the subject but pick a wide aperture and a long focal length for limited depth of field. The result is a sharp subject but a blurred, simplified background:

The best way to blur the background in a photo is with a combination of focal length and aperture.

That is the ideal method. I’m going to teach you how to blur the background in Lightroom, but with the caveat that it is not the best way.

What if your image is sharp from front to back but the background now competes for attention? You didn’t think about it and made your shot with a smaller aperture, wide focal length, or both. Or perhaps you’re dealing with a smartphone image, where a small sensor size and a very short focal length almost always creates images with everything in focus.

Smartphone photos typically have a deep depth of field due to the small sensors and very short focal lengths. The image on the left is straight out of the phone. The version on the right had the background blurred with Lightroom to put more emphasis on the subject.

If you failed to get a blurred background in-camera, your next best option is Photoshop – or another sophisticated editing program that supports layers, selections, and functions like gradients and Gaussian blur.

As for Lightroom: It’s a fair option. It will work, but using it to blur your background probably ought to be thought of as a “rescue mission.” I don’t want to discourage you – Lightroom often can produce a very acceptable blur – but I’d strongly encourage you to shoot multiple images during your photo session and vary the aperture if you think you might want to soften the background.

But all the coulda, woulda, and shoulda regrets over how you might have made a better in-camera capture don’t count when the session is over, the images are already made, and Lightroom is the only editing tool you have.

So let me show you how to blur the background in Lightroom.

“Chuck” the rockchuck blended in a bit too much with the background. Using Lightroom, I blurred the areas around him to simulate a shot with a long lens and a wide aperture.

Two major steps

There are two major things to consider when blurring the background in Lightroom:

• What area(s) you want blurred
• The kind and amount of blurring you want

The what and how of masking

In Photoshop, defining the area you want to work with is typically done with selections. There are a variety of tools to create selections, and once you’ve made them, you’ll typically see the “marching ants” – the animated dotted-line border that defines your selected area.

But in Lightroom, there are no selections, and you’ll never see the ants. Instead, Lightroom uses what it calls “masks” to allow you to select areas where you want effects applied.

There are three local adjustment tools you can use in Lightroom to select areas and apply masks:

• The Adjustment Brush
• The Graduated Filter
• The Radial Filter

Blurring the background with a Graduated Filter and the filter brush

This statue photo has a busy background. Background blurring techniques in Lightroom can help keep more attention on the subject.

Step 1: Drag a Graduated Filter from the right edge across the entire image. The Mask Overlay is turned on (in green).

Step 2: With the Graduated Filter still selected, get the filter brush tool. (Find the word “Brush” at the top of the editing panels and click that, not the picture of the brush). Either hold down the Alt/Option key while you work so the symbol inside the brush is a “-” sign or click the Erase option. Erase portions of the mask you don’t want to be blurred. The Auto Mask option can be helpful to find edges.

Step 3: Finish erasing the portions of the subject you want to be sharp. Then think about other areas that would be sharp if you had shot with a limited depth of field, such as the foreground. Erase those areas, too, making sure to use a very feathered brush with a low flow. After your image is masked, drag down the Sharpness slider to create the blur. (It’s good to toggle off the Mask Overlay here so you can see what you’re doing; just hit “O” on the keyboard to toggle it on and off.)

It’s probably best to think of your filter brush more as an airbrush than a paintbrush. There are four settings you can use to control its application:

• Size: Changes the size of the brush. Roll the mouse wheel, use the left and right bracket keys, or use the slider.
• Feather: Changes how hard the edge of the brush is and how rapidly the effect falls off. Use Shift while rolling the mouse wheel, Shift and the bracket keys together, or the Feather slider.
• Flow: Controls how quickly the effect is applied with each stroke of the brush. Use the slider to adjust the flow, or with the brush tool selected, change the flow with the number keys on the keyboard. Using multiple strokes will build up the effect.
• Density: Controls the maximum opacity of the brush effect. For example, if the Flow was at 100 but the Density was at 50, one stroke of the brush would apply the effect at 50% opacity.

It is possible to simply select the Adjustment Brush, drag the sharpness slider all the way down (“reverse sharpening”), and start painting away on your image, watching the painted sections become more blurred. (You are still creating a mask this way, but you will not see it unless you turn on the Mask Overlay).

The Adjustment Brush method might work fine if you don’t mind being imprecise about how finely the blur is applied, but it is not the best method for finer work.

Radial Filter

The Radial Filter has a shape that is restricted to circles and ovals. The effect radiates out from the center of the spot where it is applied. You can control its size, feathering, and orientation.

Using the Invert checkbox, you can also control whether the filter effect occurs outside the oval (the default), or inside the oval (if the Invert box is checked).

Blurring the background with the Radial Filter is a three-step process:

1) Mask the entire image with the Radial Filter. (Turn on the Mask Overlay to see where the mask is applied.)

2) Use the filter brush to erase portions of the mask you want to remain sharp.

3) Slide the Sharpness slider to the left for reverse sharpening (softening) of the masked areas.

The image on the left is prior to masking; the image in the center shows the masked area after removing the mask on the barn; the image on the right shows a blurred background.

The Overlay option

Being able to see where you’ve applied a mask makes things easier, so turning on the Mask Overlay option is a good idea. This can be done by either checking the box at the bottom of the screen labeled Show Selected Mask Overlay or by tapping the “O” key on your keyboard.

You can cycle through various overlay colors (which can help to make your mask stand out over different photo colors) by using Shift + O.

This background blur was created by simply loading the Adjustment Brush with the Sharpness slider turned down, then painting over the areas I wanted to soften. I added a Radial Mask with a slightly raised exposure to the fern to give added attention there.

Modifying masks

Though the Adjustment Brush, Radial Filter, and Graduated Filter are the only tools for applying masks, there are other tools for modifying them.

• Auto Mask – Checking this box while working with a brush will help the brush find edges in your image and can make masking much easier.
• Erase – You can use the Adjustment Brush to paint on a mask. When doing so, you will see a “+” symbol at the center of the brush. Clicking the Erase option will change the symbol at the center of the brush to a “-” symbol so that you can erase portions of the mask you already painted on. You can also easily switch from painting to erasing by holding down the Alt/Option key.
• You can add or subtract from Graduated Filter or Radial Filter masks with the filter brush tool. If you are working with a Graduated or Radial Filter mask, you will see the word “Brush” appear to the right of the word “Mask.” Important: This is a different brush than the Adjustment Brush tool. It will allow you to add to or subtract from your existing Graduated Filter or Radial Filter mask.

Range masking

Lightroom has recently added what is called the Range Mask.

With Range Masking, you still apply an initial mask using the three tools mentioned above (the Adjustment Brush, the Radial Filter, and the Graduated Filter). But by turning on Range Masking, you can control more specifically where the mask is applied.

The Luminance Range Mask will allow you to selectively apply a mask to a range of luminance (brightness) in the photo, while Color Range Masking allows the mask to be applied to a range of color (hue). Being proficient with the Range Mask will serve you well as you become a more skilled Lightroom editor.

Clockwise from top left: 1) the Before image. 2) The background selected with the Color Range Mask. 3) The background blurred with one blur layer. 4) The background blurred with three duplicate blur layers.

Learning how to create a mask to work with the areas you want is the most important part of how to blur the background in Lightroom. Take time to carefully apply and fine-tune your masks. How convincing your final image will be is highly dependent on the careful application of your mask.

This is the original edited image. It had been foggy earlier in the day, and I wanted to emulate that look.

I first brought in Graduated Filters from both the right and the left with the Sharpen slider down to about -28.

I then brought another Graduated Filter down from the top with the Sharpen slider all the way down to -95.

I then added some additional masking with the Adjustment Brush tool, and I dropped the Sharpening down to about -33.

Here is the final result with some additional negative Dehaze added to my masks.

Creating the blur

Creating your masks will determine where your blurring effect is applied. It’s the more time-consuming and critical step.

But these next steps will determine how the blur looks.

Let’s say you have a person in your foreground as the main subject. You want them to be sharp, but you’d like to blur the background. Using the masking tools and techniques I’ve outlined above, here’s how I’d approach the image:

1. Drag a Graduated Filter across the image so the entire scene is masked.
2. Use the filter brush tool (the one that’s part of the Graduated Filter) to fine-tune the mask, erasing portions over the subject, adding back as needed, and perhaps also using the Auto Mask feature to help you better mask near the edges.
3. Now, with your Graduated Filter selected, drag the Sharpness slider down, perhaps all the way to the left.
4. See if dragging down the Clarity slider a bit helps achieve the blur you want. Use this more sparingly than the Sharpness slider as it can create a strange look if applied too strongly.
5. Play with the other sliders to see what effect they might have. Remember that each slider will only affect the masked area.

Double down on the blur

You might find that even if you drag your Sharpness or Clarity sliders all the way to the left, you still aren’t getting the amount of blur you’d like. Time to double down.

Once you’ve added the sharpening or clarity effect, right-click the pin and hit Duplicate. A copy of the adjustments will be applied on top of the existing adjustments, and the blur will be multiplied.

Still not enough? Repeat and duplicate again. You can make as many duplicates as you like, slowly building up the effect.

Top left: The Before image. Top right: The mask applied. Bottom left: The background blurred with one pass of reverse sharpening. Bottom right: The background blurred with three duplicates of the reverse sharpening adjustment.

When you blur the background in Lightroom, less is more

Let’s come back around to what I said at the beginning of this article:

Using Lightroom to blur your background is not the best way to achieve the look you’re after. Softening details with editing is a bit of fakery and cannot begin to truly reproduce the kind of bokeh blur achieved with a lens.

So instead of creating something that is immediately obvious and calls attention to itself, be subtle. If an untrained observer would say, “This looks like an editing effect,” you’ve failed.

Less can be more. Just a little reverse sharpening to the background and foreground simulates a narrow depth of field.

Spend whatever time it takes to create and refine your masks so that it’s not obvious where the edge is. Consider the different parts of the scene that should – and shouldn’t! – be blurred.

Then be sparing in your application of reverse sharpness and clarity. It’s always a good practice to take a break after an editing session to give your eyes a rest, then look at your image again later. You might even ask someone else to view the image. (They should not be able to tell that anything was doctored.)

Front-to-back sharpness or a simulation of limited depth of field? For this shot, there wouldn’t have been time to shoot it both ways, so the ability to blur the background in editing was useful.

How to blur the background in Lightroom: final words

In teaching you how to blur the background in Lightroom, I want you to be successful with your editing and make beautiful images.

So test out the techniques I’ve shared. And if you get good results, post some of your before and after images in the comments below!

Why should you blur the background of a photo?

You should always decide on the most important subject in your photo and use techniques to put the most attention on that subject. Sometimes backgrounds can be distracting, so blurring them while keeping the main subject sharp can be a good idea.

Is Lightroom a good application for blurring the background?

It works, but you will be using tools not especially created for this purpose. Adobe Photoshop or a different editing application with selections, layers, and Gaussian blur would be better.

Is there a Blur tool in Lightroom?

Not really. To blur backgrounds in Lightroom, you add reverse sharpness and reverse clarity over selected portions of the image.

What is the best way to blur the background in a photo?

The best way is to shoot your photos with a limited depth of field. Wide apertures and longer focal lengths would be the in-camera approach to the blurred background look.

Will the “Portrait mode” of newer smartphone cameras allow you to blur the background?

Yes, this mode actually takes multiple shots and combines them in-camera to create a blurred background effect. It might be better than what you can do in Lightroom, but it provides limited user control and is not nearly as good as what can be done with a traditional camera.

The post How to Blur the Background in Lightroom: A Complete Guide appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

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[Photography] Photography Terminology: A Glossary of 69 Essential Photographic Terms

The post Photography Terminology: A Glossary of 69 Essential Photographic Terms appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darlene Hildebrandt.

Are you overwhelmed or confused by photography terminology? Do you want to speak “photographer” like the pros?

That’s what this article is all about.

I’ll go over some of the most common technical photography terms as well as some less common slang and photographer jargon. By the end, I promise you will have a better grasp of the language. You’ll even be able to have a conversation with a seasoned pro and hold your own!

Let’s get started.

Basic photography terms

These are the photography terms you’ll find in your camera’s manual and in most beginner tutorials:

• Aperture – The variable opening in the lens through which light passes to the film or digital sensor. Aperture is measured in f-stops. I like to compare it to your pupil, which opens and closes to allow more or less light into your eye depending on the brightness level of the room.
• Bracketing – Taking a series of images at different exposures. You may see a setting on your camera that says AEB (auto exposure bracketing). Bracketing is often used when creating HDR images or in difficult lighting situations where you may want to have a range of exposures from light to dark.
• Bulb – the “B” setting on your camera where the shutter remains open for as long as the button or cable release (remote trigger) is pressed.
• DSLR – A digital single-lens reflex camera. Any digital camera with interchangeable lenses where the image is viewed using a mirror and prism and the image is taken directly through the lens. What you see in your viewfinder is what the lens sees.
• EV – Exposure value; this is a number that represents the various different combinations of aperture and shutter speed that can create the same exposure effect.
• Exposure compensation – Modifying the shutter speed or aperture from the camera’s recommended exposure to create a certain effect or correct for exposure problems. Your camera reads light bouncing off your subject and is designed to expose for medium gray. So when photographing a subject that is lighter or darker than 18% gray, you can use this setting to tell the camera the proper exposure (by dialing in – or + exposure compensation).
• Exposure – The total amount of light reaching the digital sensor. It is determined by the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
• F-stop – A measure of the aperture opening in the lens defined by dividing the focal length of the lens by the aperture diameter. The sequence of f-stops features multiples of the square root of 2 (1.4): 1, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, etc. Though these numbers are rather cryptic, make sure to remember that each step is double the amount of light. Know that, and you’ve won half the battle.
• ISO – Represents the sensitivity of your camera’s digital sensor to light. The lower the number (ISO 100), the less sensitive to light; the higher the number (ISO 3200), the more sensitive to light. A higher ISO allows you to shoot in low-light conditions.
• Shutter speed – The amount of time the shutter is open during an exposure. The shutter speed controls the appearance of motion. Use a fast shutter speed (such as 1/2000s) to freeze motion or a slow shutter speed (such as 1/30s or longer) to blur moving objects.
• Zoom lens – Any lens that has a variable focal length, such as a 24-70mm or an 18-55mm lens. You generally zoom in or out by rotating the barrel of the lens.
• Prime or fixed lens – Any lens that does not zoom and features a set focal length, such as a nifty 50mm lens.
• Remote trigger or digital cable release – A device that allows the camera to be fired without pressing the shutter button or touching the camera. Helps eliminate camera movement during long exposures.
• Macro lens – A lens that focuses very close to a subject, so you can capture highly detailed, magnified images.
• “Normal” lens – Generally a 50mm lens (on a full-frame camera). This lens closely parallels what the human eye sees. If you have a crop-sensor camera, a “normal” lens will be closer to 35mm.
• Telephoto lens – Offers a tighter field of view than a normal lens (i.e., it takes more magnified images). Generally from around 70mm to 300mm. A super-telephoto lens is usually 300mm or longer.
• Wide-angle lens – A lens that features a wider field of view than a normal lens. Generally spans from over 10mm to under 50mm. Depending on the focal length, there may also be edge distortion (i.e., in super wide-angle lenses).
• Tilt-shift lens – A special-effect lens. Allows for realignment of the plane of focus (tilt). Allows for adjusting the placement of the subject within the frame without angling the camera, thus keeping parallel lines from converging (shift). A popular lens for architectural and landscape photographers and is becoming more widely used by portrait photographers to create a unique, stylized look.
• Camera resolution – The dimensions your camera’s sensor is capable of capturing, expressed in megapixels. This is not the only factor in image quality, but the greater the resolution, the larger the prints you can produce without significant loss of quality (generally speaking).
• JPEG vs RAW – Two different image file types. Most cameras have the ability to shoot in JPEG and RAW. If you choose JPEG, the camera will shoot a RAW file, process it using the picture style you’ve selected in your menu, save it as a JPEG, and discard the RAW version. If you choose RAW, the resulting file will be larger, carry more information, and require software to process. It gives you – the photographer – more control over the final look of the image.
• Full-frame vs crop/APS-C sensor – A full-frame sensor is roughly the size of 35mm film. Most lenses create a circle of light just large enough to cover the 35mm sensor area. But in a crop-sensor camera, the physical size of the sensor is smaller; it only captures a portion of the entire image the lens is projecting, effectively cropping out part of the shot. Common crop factors are 1.5x and 1.6x, so if you use a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera, it offers a 75mm focal length equivalent.
• Camera modes – There are four standard camera modes. Auto mode selects settings without user input. Manual mode allows the user to control the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. Shutter Priority mode allows the user to select the ISO and shutter speed while the camera selects the aperture. Aperture Priority mode allows the user to select the ISO and aperture while the camera picks the shutter speed. Program mode allows the user to select the ISO while the camera picks the aperture and shutter speed.

Lighting and portrait photography terms

• Ambient light – Also referred to as available light. Ambient light occurs in the scene without adding any flash or light modifiers. It can be daylight, or it can be artificial light such as tungsten or fluorescent bulbs.
• Main light or key light – The main light source for a photograph. It could be the sun, a studio strobe, a flash, a reflector, or something else. It’s the source that produces the pattern of light on the subject with the most intensity.
• Fill light – The light source that is secondary to the key light. Used to “fill” in the shadows. Can be produced with a flash, a reflector, or a studio strobe.
• Lighting pattern – The way the light falls on the subject’s face (e.g., at a 45-degree angle).
• Lighting ratio – A comparison between the intensity (brightness) of the main light and the fill light. In other words: the difference between the lit and shadow sides of the subject’s face.
• Incident light meter – A handheld device that measures the amount of light falling on a subject. An incident meter is not fooled by the brightness range of the subject, whereas in-camera reflective meters can be fooled (resulting in overexposure and underexposure).
• Speedlight – A small, portable flash that can attach to your camera’s hot shoe or stand on its own when activated remotely.
• Reflector – A device used to reflect light (generally back toward the subject). It can be a specialized, factory-made reflector (I recommend getting a 5-in-1), or a piece of white cardboard.
• Light meter – A device that measures the amount of light in a scene. Pretty much all modern cameras offer a built-in light meter, though it uses reflective readings (see the entry on incident light meters, above).
• Remote flash trigger – A device used to fire speedlights off-camera.
• Subtractive lighting – Taking away light to create a darker look. It often involves holding a reflector or an opaque panel over the subject’s head to block light from above and open up deep eye shadows caused by overhead lighting. It can also involve holding a black reflector opposite your main light to create a deeper shadow (i.e., essentially reflecting black onto the subject instead of light.)
• Hard light – Harsh or non-diffused light such as that produced by bright sunlight, a small speedlight, or an on-camera flash. Creates harsh shadows with well-defined edges, contrast, and texture (if used at an angle to the subject). Emphasizes texture, lines, and wrinkles. Often used to create a more dramatic type of portrait.
• Soft light – Diffused light, such as that from an overcast sky, north-facing window with no direct light, or a large studio softbox. This type of light produces soft shadows with soft edges, lower contrast, and less texture. Soft light is generally preferred by most wedding and portrait photographers because it flatters the subject.
• Edge transfer – How quickly shadow edges go from dark to light. With harsh light, the edge transfer is very defined and sudden (almost a clear line). With soft lighting, the edge transfer is much more subtle – almost imperceptible – as it gradually changes from dark to light.
• Flash sync – The synchronization of the firing of an electronic flash and the shutter speed. You need to know what shutter speed your camera syncs at; otherwise, if you use a too-fast shutter speed, you may get a partially illuminated image. For most cameras, the sync speed is around 1/200s.

Slang and photography jargon

Here are a few other photography terms that are a bit more advanced (including some wacky jargon and slang!). Become familiar with this terminology so you can talk to pros with confidence.

• Fast glass – Refers to a lens with a very large maximum aperture (such as f/1.8 or f/1.2). The lens is “fast” because it lets you shoot with a fast shutter speed.
• Chimping – Slang term for looking at the back of your camera after every image. Has a negative connotation; if you chimp, you’re spending too much time reviewing images on the camera and not enough time shooting.
• Bokeh – The out-of-focus blurred bits in an image background. Most often bokeh occurs when small light sources are in the background.
• Depth of field (DOF or DoF) – The distance between the nearest and farthest objects in your scene that appear in focus. Controlled by many factors, including the aperture, lens focal length, and distance to the subject.
• Hyperfocal distance – The focus distance providing the maximum depth of field for a particular aperture and focal length. Older prime lenses often have hyperfocal distance marks to aid in finding this depth-of-field sweet spot. With today’s lenses, it is possible to calculate the hyperfocal distance, but it takes a bit more work and a hyperfocal distance calculator.
• Gobo – Something used to block unwanted or stray light from falling onto the subject. Often the dark side of a reflector is used as a gobo.
• Scrim – A translucent device used to diffuse and soften the light. Can be a reflector with a translucent panel. Scrims can be made extremely large and clamped in place to create shade even in direct sunlight.
• Shutter lag – The slight delay from the time you press the shutter button to the time the shutter actually opens. In DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, shutter lag is minimal and almost unnoticeable. In smaller point-and-shoot cameras, the delay is more pronounced (and can cause you to miss shots of fast-moving subjects).
• Chromatic aberration – Color fringing that can appear in areas of images where dark meets light (e.g., the edge of a building against the sky). CA is correctable to a great degree using Photoshop, Lightroom, and most other editing software.
• Rear-curtain sync – Rear-curtain sync fires the flash at the end of an exposure. By default, most cameras are set to front-curtain sync (i.e., if the flash fires, it does so at the beginning of the exposure). When shooting a moving subject, front-curtain sync will put any motion blur in front of the subject, whereas rear-curtain sync will place the blur behind the subject. Neither is wrong; it depends on the effect you’re after.
• Camera shake – When a camera moves during an exposure and creates blur.
• Lens flare – Stray light that creates haze, circles, or other artifacts in an image. Some photographers actually desire lens flare; they position their cameras to create flare and use it as a compositional element.
• Kelvin – The absolute measurement of color temperature. Lower numbers represent warmer colors like orange (tungsten light), whereas the higher numbers are cooler (blues). Play with the color temperature to create different effects.
• ND filter – Stands for neutral density filter. It’s a filter designed to go in front of the lens to block out some of the light entering the camera. Often used by landscape photographers to get slow shutter speeds when photographing waterfalls and streams in full daylight.
• Panning – The act of using a slow shutter speed and moving the camera in the same direction as a moving subject. Creates an artistic, blurred background.
• Stopping down – Closing down the aperture to a smaller opening (e.g., going from f/5.6 to f/8).
• TTL and ETTL – TTL stands for through the lens; it refers to the metering system in regard to flash exposure. The flash emits light until it is turned off by the camera sensor. ETTL stands for evaluative through-the-lens metering. It fires a “preflash” to evaluate and calculate for lost light, then compensates and fires the main flash. It happens so fast you do not see two flashes.
• Photog – Short for “photographer.” Something pros often call each other.
• Glass – A lens. As in, “What glass do you own?”
• Golden hour – Also called “magic hour.” This is the hour or two right before sunset and right after sunrise. The sun is low on the horizon, and it is an optimal time for photography.
• Spray and pray – Shoot as many images as possible while praying you get something good.
• Blown out – An image with no details in the white areas.
• Clipped – Either blown out areas (above) or dark, detailless shadows.
• Grip-and-grin – A quick photoshoot at an event or a setup with two people shaking hands. Most portrait and event photographers have to shoot these at some point in their careers.
• Selfie – A self-portrait.
• SOOC – Straight out of camera; an image with no post-processing.
• Dust bunnies – Dark spots that appear on an image caused by bits of dust on the digital sensor.
• Pixel peeper – Someone who spends too much time looking at images magnified in Photoshop.
• Nifty fifty – A 50mm prime lens. Great to have!
• ACR – Adobe Camera Raw. The editing software that’s packaged alongside Photoshop.
• Flash and drag – The method of using a slow shutter speed combined with flash to capture more of the ambient light in proportion to the flash.
• Wide open – Using your lens with the aperture at its widest setting (f/1.8, for example).

Photography terminology: final words

Whew! That was a long list. If you made it this far, congratulations; you know how to use photography terms like a pro.

So get out there and start practicing your photography terminology. Be sure to have lots of fun!

Now over to you:

What photography terms do you struggle with? Do you have any more terms I should add to this list? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The post Photography Terminology: A Glossary of 69 Essential Photographic Terms appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darlene Hildebrandt.

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[Photography] 6 Places to Use ND Filters for Long Exposure Photography

The post 6 Places to Use ND Filters for Long Exposure Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Matt Murray.

A neutral density (ND) filter is one of the most versatile accessories you can have in your camera bag. They may be small, but ND filters open up a range of creative options for photographers.

If you need some inspiration on where to use your neutral density filter, keep reading. In this article, I’ll share with you some of my favorite places to use ND filters for long exposure photography.

What is an ND filter, and why would I want to use one?

A neutral density or ND filter is a piece of glass that sits in front of your lens and reduces the amount of light that reaches the sensor.

If you’ve never used an ND filter before, you might be wondering why you’d want to do this; let me explain.

Many long exposure photography beginners shoot at night. Here, a shutter speed of a few seconds or more is necessary for an accurate exposure of the scene, and any movement captured in the image is magically transformed into a thing of beauty. If your camera is steady on a tripod, buildings remain in sharp focus, but the movement of car headlights or rushing water is captured as interesting streaks in the image:

A neutral density filter can be a photographer’s best friend.

Capturing this kind of effect can only be done after dark, right?

Wrong.

With an ND filter, you can take stunning long exposures during the day.

You see, if you don’t use an ND filter, a long exposure in bright daylight conditions would result in an overexposed image. But with an ND filter reducing the amount of light that reaches the sensor, you need to use a much slower shutter speed to photograph the scene. This allows you to capture movement.

There are so many amazing places where you can use an ND filter to take stunning long exposure photos. I’ve listed some of my favorites below, starting with:

1. Waterfalls

Waterfalls are the place many photographers try out their ND filters for the first time.

They’re certainly a fantastic location for you to start; flowing water is transformed into a silky-soft cascade, which gives images a real wow factor.

Just watch out for mist and water spray and make sure it doesn’t cover your filter and lens!

Waterfalls are a popular place to try out an ND filter.
Captured with my Fujifilm 16mm f/1.4 lens at Springbrook National Park in Queensland.

The intensity of a waterfall can depend on recent rainfall. But the good news is that, no matter how large or small the waterfall is, it’ll look amazing when shot with an ND filter.

2. Rivers and harbors

Rivers and harbors are fantastic places to capture movement and lights along with the flow of water.

During daylight hours, it’s possible to capture the movement of boats along the water. And as the sun goes down and the city lights come on, ferries and boats create colorful light trails that can bring an image to life.

I love this image of a ferry on Sydney Harbour:

Rivers and harbors provide an array of long exposure opportunities.

Thanks to my ND filter, I was able to use a shutter speed of around 1s, giving the ferry a nice, colorful blur (while buildings behind it remain in sharp focus).

3. Ocean pools

Saltwater ocean pools dot the Australian coastline, with most of them found in the state of New South Wales. The pools are very popular with locals and tourists alike and can get very busy each morning. But the good thing about these iconic locations is that you have another body of water to photograph alongside the sea.

This image was taken early one morning in Yamba, New South Wales:

I framed the pool in the foreground with the sea and the cliffs in the background. As I was taking a series of long exposures with a 10-stop ND filter, a swimmer jumped out of the pool right in front of me, creating a ghostly figure in the foreground of the frame.

The image below was taken at 6 AM (when it was already very bright). I was attracted to the scene by the reflections in the flooded area next to the pool, which contrasted nicely with the pool’s ethereal-looking water and the waves of the ocean on the far left.

I love the three different bodies of water in this ocean pool shot.

4. Traffic

Traffic trails are typically one of the first things photographers shoot when they start taking long exposure images. Well after the sun has sunk below the horizon, a shutter speed of between 5 and 15 seconds is often needed to create a properly exposed shot, resulting in a colorful blur of traffic trails.

But if you have an ND filter, there’s no need to wait until after dark.

This is a composite of images I took with my ND2 filter at a subway station in Taipei, Taiwan:

A composite image of dusk in Taipei, Taiwan.

I knew I needed an exposure of a few seconds to make the most of the traffic and the subway train in the image. But it was too bright, and my exposure times were barely a second. Adding an ND filter allowed me to capture this scene as I had envisioned, and the final file is a composite of some of those long-exposure images.

5. Funfairs

Funfairs and carnivals are fantastic places for photography. There are so many opportunities: people, rides, food, and animals, to name just a few.

And when the sun goes down, don’t head home – set up your tripod for some long exposure images.

That’s exactly what I did for this image of a sideshow alley at Brisbane’s Royal Queensland show four years ago. The photo has been shared on Instagram every year since – sometimes with my permission, sometimes without. With an ND2 filter, I was able to take exposures that were twice as long as usual.

My images of this funfair in Brisbane have been very popular on Instagram.

6. Unique natural attractions

Okay, so I’m cheating a little with this last image by combining two places I’ve already mentioned: a waterfall and the sea.

This stunning location (below) is the village of Gásadalur in the Faroe Islands. Unfortunately, there are not many places in the world where you can see such an incredible sight, though there are probably many unique natural locations near where you live.

Perhaps the most unique waterfall in the world, Gásadalur, Faroe Islands.

Gásadalur was number one on my list of places to photograph when I visited the Faroe Islands in 2017. Blessed with sunny weather on my first day, I headed to the coast just outside the village to take this shot. I wasn’t disappointed.

6 places to use ND filters: final thoughts

Neutral density filters are quite possibly the handiest accessory photographers can keep in their camera bags. They have many uses, but the most common is to take photos with a slow shutter speed.

This makes ND filters a must-have for long exposure photography during daylight hours; you can use them to blur subjects that would otherwise be frozen.

It’s always fun to get out your tripod and ND filter and experiment!

Now over to you:

What are your favorite places to use ND filters for long exposure photography? Share your thoughts (and long exposure images) in the comments below!

The post 6 Places to Use ND Filters for Long Exposure Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Matt Murray.

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[Photography] Master Lightroom in Under 20 Minutes With This Video

The post Master Lightroom in Under 20 Minutes With This Video appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Do you want to master Lightroom, but you never really have the time?

Then you’re going to love this video from photographer and editing-expert Sawyer Hartman. In just 18 minutes, Sawyer takes you through everything you need to know to start creating gorgeous Lightroom edits, from the absolute basics (such as importing and adjusting exposure) all the way down to Lightroom’s powerful Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush.

He even includes a downloadable photo (the link is in the video description) so that you can follow along on your own computer.

Watch the video here:

And when you’re done, leave a comment letting us know your favorite Lightroom feature!

The post Master Lightroom in Under 20 Minutes With This Video appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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via Jaymes Dempsey