Whether you’re photographing wildflowers and plants in the forest, or shooting these colorful subjects in your backyard, we have some simple tips and techniques for getting the job done. With this straightforward advice you can also capture beautiful photos at a nearby park or nursery.

Instructor Toma Bonciu is a Romanian pro specializing in travel, landscape, and adventure photography. Today he steps out of his comfort zone with seven easy-to-follow suggestions, including camera settings, for depicting flowers and plants as they appear in nature.

Tip #1 is shooting from a low camera position, like experienced photographers do when making images of young children and pets. If you think of blossoms as having and eye, and shooting from that level, the concept immediately makes sense. As Bonciu explains, by taking this approach you’ll create separation between your subject and the background that really grabs attention.

Bonciu also recommends shooting with a wide aperture that will further make a flower stand out by giving a soft, pleasing blur to everything else in the scene by limiting depth of field. Here, a fast prime lens really helps to exaggerate the effect.

Another way to minimize depth of field is to move back a bit from your subject and shoot with a telephoto lens, taking care that your shutter speed is fast enough avoid subject movement especially on windy days. By doing this you’ll also achieve a compressed perspective depending upon the focal length you use.

Tips #4 is to follow the old maxim that if your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough. In other words, fill the frame with the plant or flower that’s the subject of your shot. Bonciu says to think of the photograph as a tight portrait and take care to compose the shot so there’s limited empty space above the flower. This is easy to do if you position the flower in the upper portion of the shot.

Bonciu also suggests using a diffusor to soften harsh light. He says that if you don’t own a purpose-built diffusor a simple household umbrella will work fine. Slightly overcast days can be perfect in this regard if you think of the sky as a huge diffusor that softens light falling on your subject.

Another simple accessory that you likely have at home is a small spray bottle filled with water. If you’re photographing when there’s no dew on the plants, a quick spray from the bottle to create small droplets on a flower will add interest and impact to a photo.

Bonciu’s final tip is to experiment with breaking tip number #1. In other words, try shooting from a high perspective while pointing your lens downward on the top of a bloom. This technique works particularly well with relatively flat and symmetrical flowers like daisies. After watching the tutorial head over to Bonciu’s instructional YouTube channel where you’ll find many more tips and tricks.

And on a related note, be sure to watch the tutorial we posted  from another accomplished pro, explaining how to use contrast and color to add depth and impact to nature photos.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Photoshop’s Smart Filters, here’s the deal: These are simply normal Photoshop filters that have been applied to a Smart Object. They provide additional versatility during post processing, and you’ll learn everything necessary to put these tools to work in the quick tutorial below.

Instructor Julieanne Kost is a photographer, author, expert at all things Adobe, and a self-proclaimed “digital imaging evangelist.” In less than six minutes she demonstrates five reasons to use Smart filters to significantly improve your Photoshop workflow and achieve more effective edits.

Kost covers everything from revealing how these tools work, to facilitate masking, stacking, opacity, blend modes, and more. She does so in rapid fashion, so we recommend jotting down a few notes. She explains that to apply a Filter as a Smart Filter you must first change the background of the image. Or if you’re working with a layer or layers it’s necessary to turn them into Smart Objects.

This simple procedure involves selecting the Filter tab atop the screen and choosing the Convert for Smart Filters option from the dropdown menu. One you’ve done that the Layers panel confirms that the background has been converted to a Smart Object, with the corresponding icon on the thumbnail.

Kost then selects a neural filter from the Filters dropdown menu and enables the Colorize option. Photoshop then uses artificial intelligence to create a hand-colored effect and apply it to the image. One of the benefits of this technique is that it’s  non-destructive, meaning a do-over is always possible if you don’t like what you see.

Kost demonstrates how to refine Smart Filter settings, and easily modify or refine the look you achieve. Along the way she provides helpful keyboard shorts for speeding up the already quick process. Another benefit of this straightforward method is that you can use the Smart Filter’s mask to selectively hide or show the filter in the image.

As the lesson continues Kost provides more easy tips and techniques and demonstrates three more reasons you should start using Photoshop’s Smart Filters today. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of it, at which point we’re sure you’ll add this technique to your Photoshop bag of tricks.

There are numerous editing lessons on Kost’s popular YouTube channel, so be sure to take a look after watching this video.

We also suggest checking out an earlier tutorial we posted from another expert photographer, explaining  what to do if you’re tired of photos with blown highlights and crushed shadows.