With energy prices soaring, these are helpful to bear in mind to stay warm over the winter months

According to outdoor photographer Len Erickson Luminosity Masks are a super effective tool for bringing out the best in just about any image you shoot outdoors. And by combining the power of Photoshop with the inexpensive Lumnezia Masking panel the task is easy with “ultimate control.”

Erickson is a popular educator, author, and “lover of all things photographic,” who regularly posts tutorials on shooting and editing techniques for photographers of all skill levels. If you’re intimidated by a misconception that Luminosity Masks are complicated to employ, this nine-minute tutorial is for you.

If you’re asking yourself why you should bother learning this new technique, Erickson illustrates the answer by pulling up a striking nighttime image shot in a dark tunnel with bright lights on the ceiling. The challenge is providing a balance between the dark road, the bright lights and white roadway stripes, and the blue glow overhead—a difficult challenge indeed.

Erickson explains how Luminosity Masks enable him to selectively enhance different portions of the shot to get things right. He also expresses his view that the very inexpensive Lumnezia interface “is worth its weight in gold.”

By clicking the Light button atop the interface you’re immediately presented with a b&w mask. Erickson says the monochrome version is helpful for what follows because of the rule that “white reveals and black conceals.” With this notion in mind, he demonstrates how to instantly adjust highlights while illustrating how to expand the effect to suit your preference.

Next Erickson opens the Curves panel to further refine the image—a process that’s achieved with the newly enhanced color version of the shot. If you examine the Histogram you’ll see how new adjustments are very precise because they’re only applies to the preliminary mask he made. As Erickson days, “you can’t get this kind of flexibility by doing things manually with a global approach.”

There’s much more you can do by following Ericksen’s advice, and he demonstrates a few more quick tricks with a nighttime shot of the terminal at San Francisco International Airport. The challenge here is different from the first, in that it’s the shadows are overly dark and need to be opened up without affecting the brighter portions within the frame.

A Luminosity Mask comes to the rescue with quick results that are just as impressive as those he achieved with the first demonstration photo in this lesson. After watching the video and comparing Erickson’s before/after images we’re quite sure you’ll want to add this easy technique to your editing bag of tricks.

Erickson’s popular YouTube channel is full of straightforward shooting and editing lessons like this one. So be sure to pay a visit and see what’s available. We also recommend watching an editing tutorial we posted earlier from another respected expert, explaining how to unleash the hidden drama in dull landscape and wildlife photos.

The use of affordable lens filters was more prevalent in the days of 35mm photography when we didn’t have image-editing tools to enhance our work. But as you’ll see in the quick video below, these simple accessories are just as valid in today’s era of digital imaging.

Instructor Resha Reay is a pro based in Bangladore, India with a new YouTube channel dedicated to explaining basic skills that amateurs can use to dramatically elevate their imagery. In today’s four-minute episode he explains how lens filters will “help you capture the world in a whole new light.”

This lesson discusses how a variety of popular filters work to significantly enhance photos in a realistic, believable way. You’ll learn how these accessories make it easier to handle tricky light, reduce distracting glare and reflections, enhance colors, and reduce the amount of light entering the camera so you can achieve impressive slow shutter speed effects.

Reay says to think of filters as sunglasses for a lens, helping the camera to “see” your subjects in a more pleasing way. First on the list is the ubiquitous UV filter that some photographers use to protect the front element of a lens from dust, scratches and moisture; after all, it’s far better to replace a cracked filter than it is to replace a damaged lens.

But the UV filter is more than a protective layer because it blocks UV rays, thereby reducing haziness in images shot outdoors. Next of the list is the powerful polarizing filter that we covered in a detail tutorial a while back. These are particularly important for landscape photography as they help make colors more vibrant by minimizing distracting glare and reflections on non-metallic surfaces like water and foliage.

Rotating the front ring on a polarizer is also an effective way to enhance contrast and darken pale blue skies. The two main tricks are knowing how to position yourself relative to the sun and how much to rotate the filter for optimum results.

The lesson also includes tips for using Neutral Density (ND) filters for dramatic long-exposure photos under bright conditions. Last on his list the versatile Graduated ND filter that work its magic by balancing the exposure in complicated landscape scenes with a bright sky and a much darker mid-range and foreground.

As Reay explains, the Graduated ND “helps you darken one part of an image while keeping the rest of the photo properly exposed.” As you’ll see, by using of all of these filters properly you’ll spend far less time editing your photos to create beautiful images of the great outdoors

There’s much more to learn about shooting and editing on Reay’s instructional YouTube channel, so pay a visit when you have time.

And don’t miss the tutorial mentioned above, with a deep dive into using a polarizing filter to shoot amazing outdoor photos.

I’ve made it back from my trip to Death Valley, where I recently traveled to see (and of course photograph) a temporary lake that formed in Badwater Basin. I’ll get back my developed 8×10 film in a few days, but in the meantime, I’ve been going through all the digital photos I took during the trip. Lots of them will appear in upcoming lens reviews.