Depth of field (DOF) is one of the most powerful creative concepts for all photographers because it helps accentuate the key subject of an image, control the background and foreground, and guide the viewers eyes through the frame. This tutorial from the Hamed Photography YouTube channel explains everything you need to understand in barely six minutes.

Hamed describes the essential term like this: “Depth of field refers to the area within a photo that appears acceptably sharp. Everything in front of or behind that zone becomes increasingly out of focus—creating photos with a soft, dreamy look or sharp, detailed images from front to back.”

According to Hamed, DOF is also a key element in visual storytelling. A shallow DOF, for example, is commonly employed by portrait photographers to isolate a subject from the background, and it can add a professional touch for more artistic images.

A deep DOF, on the other hand, is preferred for landscape photography and other genres where the goal is to maximize sharpness throughout the frame from foreground elements to those in the distance. Hamed also demonstrates how DOF can contribute to the “aesthetic style” of your imagery by enhancing mood and depth to a flat image by creating a sense of three-dimensional space.

Hamed notes that there are three key factors that affect DOF; namely. the focal length of your lens, the aperture you choose, and camera-to-subject-distance. He says that the interplay between this trio of variables will enable you to “shape your shots” with precision.

In basic terms here’s how it works: A wider aperture like f/1.8 or F/2.8 creates shallow DOF, blurring either the background or foreground of a scene (or both), while keeping the main subject detailed and sharp. Conversely, a narrow aperture like f/8 or f/11 keeps more of the image in focus.

Likewise, long focal lengths provide a shallow DOF, especially at wide apertures, while wider lenses inherently provide greater DOF. Then there’s the key consideration of camera-to-subject distance, where the closer you are to the subject, like with macro photography for example, the shallower the DOF.

Be sure to check out Hamed’s YouTube channel where he regularly posts how-to videos for photographers of all skill levels.

We also recommend watching the recent tutorial we posted in which a notable German pro lays out a comprehensive beginners guide to manual focus techniques for capturing sharp photographs in difficult light.

Today we’re taking a quick look at the new Enhance features in Lightroom Classic, specifically how to apply Denoise, Raw Details, and Super Resolution to photographs non-destructively. Here’s how Adobe expert Julienne Kost introduces the topic: “This technology update provides additional flexibility when editing and reduces the use of disk space as well as the number of files that need to be managed.”

There’s a link in the description beneath the video with additional important details on the AI-powered features described in the six-minute video. The ultimate goal of using Enhance is to increase image quality for making large prints or increasing the resolution of cropped images.

Here’s how to take advantage of Lightroom’s new capabilities without making a new DNG file: Select Camera Raw Preferences > Technology Previews > New AI Feature and Settings panel. Denoise easily removes artifacts from images captured at high-ISO setting or in low light, and now you can process several supported file types using AI to reduce noise without sacrificing fine details.

Kost explains that Raw Details (previously called Enhance Details) “produces crisp detail and more accurate renditions of edges, while improving color rendering and reducing artifacts.” It’s particularly handy for large displays and making big prints with maximum detail.

Then there’s Super Resolution which works similarly to Raw Details, but with two times the linear resolution. As Kost says, “this means that the enhanced file will have two times the width, two times the height, and four times the total pixel count of the original image.” This feature supports the same file types as Raw Details, with the addition of Jpeg and TIFF.

With all this nomenclature under your belt, Kost then walks you through the specifics of putting these new features to work with this important note: “You can only enhance an image once, which means that you cannot reapply Raw Details or Super Resolution to an already enhanced image.”

Once you’re done watching head over to Kost’s instructional YouTube channel where you’ll find a variety of how-to videos for processing photos with Lightroom and Photoshop.

We also suggest watching a tutorial we featured recently with another post-processing expert who demonstrates a quick no-nonsense Lightroom solution for rehabilitating underexposed photographs without introducing noise.