Kitsch is back, baby

Every great photo needs a compelling subject to capture the viewer’s attention but achieving this goal this be quite challenging when shooting on flat or gloomy days when everything in a scene seems to blend together.

Thoughtful editing is required under these circumstances if you want to make a subject stand out from surrounding areas and transform a lifeless photo into a winner. The tutorial below from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel demonstrates how easy this is to accomplish in barely 12 minutes.

Instructor Christian Mohrle is a German landscape pro with a portfolio of stunning images, thanks in part to his formidable image-editing skills. His goal for this tutorial is to significantly accentuate a small boat in the middle of a dim lake, while enhancing surrounding areas in the shot.

As always you can download the demonstration Raw file using a link beneath the video and make the adjustments yourself as they’re explained. It’s a long-exposure image that’s really dark. Hence, Mohrle begins with a few basic global adjustments before turning his attention to the boat and applying selective enhancements that really make it “POP.”

The initial step is changing the Profile from Adobe Color to Adobe Standard. This takes barely a second and slightly brightens up the darkest parts of the photo. Now it’s time to take things further with a few easy exposure adjustments to the overall image. Mohrle suggests keeping a close eye on the histogram so you don’t take things too far and introduce overexpose in the brighter portions of the scene and lose details in the sky.

As you’ll see, the histogram is also useful for neutralizing any unwanted color casts. Other basic adjustments include adding Texture and dropping Clarity and Dehaze—with the last two modifications intended for retaining the soft effect that Mohrle desires. He also boosts Vibrance for more Saturation.

Now the image is much improved, but the boat still blends in with the rest of the shot, and it’s time to correct that with localized masking, beginning with a Linear Gradient at the top of the scene. This enables Mohrle to apply several selective adjustments to make the sky more dramatic and bring it into balance with the rest of the photo.

Another Linear Gradient is used to enhance the foreground by “pumping it up all the way” with Clarity and a couple other tools. Now the reflections in the water are readily apparent and add much more interest to the shot. A Radial Gradient over the boat completes the masking.

All that’s left to finish the transformation is some straightforward color grading, sharpening, and a bit of cleanup. A quick look at the before/after images illustrates the effectiveness of this edit. There’s much more to learn on Mohrle’s instructional YouTube channel and we strongly recommend taking a look.

We also suggest watching a tutorial we posted earlier, explaining how Lightroom Mobile lets you edit photos on a phone or tablet—just like you do on the computer. This one will come in very handy when you’re traveling without a laptop.

Posting holiday snaps to your social media page is quick and easy—but it’s hard to control who can view your personal pics. You want to show your family members a great shot of you frolicking in Fiji on December 25, but do you really want to tell the entire world that your home back in Kansas is unoccupied until after New Year’s Day? Create a virtual picture-sharing family room online, a secure place viewable only by those to whom you give permission, with Zonerama, a free and easy-to-use platform provided by a folks at Zoner, makers of Zoner Photo Studio X.

I think Zonerama is the best free online storage/sharing platform for most photographers.  It provides users unlimited space and encourages them to upload photos and videos where they’re securely stored and shared. You do not have to be a user of Zoner Photo Studio X photo/video editing software. There is no charge for Zonerama and it’s simple and easy to use. That said, ZPS X users have additional benefits via Zonerama Premium.

Zonerama Premium
The premium tier of Zonerama, free to holders of any Zoner license (e.g., Zoner Photo Studio X) offers several enhancements and advantages in addition to all of the standard features. Users can upload videos of unlimited length (Free Zonerama users are limited to videos up to five minutes in length). Zonerama Premium also provides a link manager offering editing of existing links plus advanced settings (e.g., link expiration dates) and the highly configurable embedding of HTML galleries in your own website. It also eliminates ads from your albums and on your profile.

Zonerama recently added support for HDR, the latest AVIF & HEIF formats and Raw files. With these exclusive enhancements, all photographers and video creators, from beginner to professional, will find Zonerama Premium the most useful and versatile online gallery available, in my opinion.

Why Zonerama Beats Social Media Sharing
Photo and video files stored on Zonerama are secure and can be shared safely. Uploaders (users) select custom privacy and sharing settings, so they’re in complete control of who has permission to see what. Users can even hide the metadata, so the GPS location info can be concealed. Users can also share albums, so the whole family can contribute to the collection of holiday photos, for instance. It’s not just “one-way sharing.”

You can share selected images to your social media accounts directly from within Zonerama. One click is all it takes.

Zonerama is 100% free. No credit card needed to set up an account, and there are no hidden charges. All users receive unlimited space—upload as many photos as you want—and never worry about storage charges. Furthermore, all images retain their original quality. No compression to squeeze the life out of your images.

Privacy and security are key issues for me and for everyone. With Zonerama Free and Zonerama Premium, users can password protect your albums and share photos with only those you authorize, and you can add a watermark to your photos to protect your copyright. Authorized guests can download viewed albums in high quality. If you want photographs to be view-only, you can disable downloads in the album settings.

Zonerama integrates neatly with Zoner’s Windows-only photo/video editing program, Zoner Photo Studio X, a powerful but easy-to-use app that’s presented as an alternative to Photoshop and Lightroom. Priced at $59 per year (or $5.99/month on a pay-as-you-go basis), ZPS X is very affordable. Zoner Photo Studio X received two prestigious awards for Best Photo Editing Software from the world-renowned TIPA and EISA associations. And it’s been downloaded more that 10,000,000 times.

Conclusion
You’ll enjoy sharing, exchanging and storing your family’s treasured holiday videos and photos, and obviously the pleasure isn’t limited to the year-end stuff. Create enduring albums for family events, anniversaries, school plays, vacation travel, company outings—and so forth. If you operate a small business or perform a gig service, share your wares with clients safely and securely. Surprise grandparents and far-flung relatives with albums containing imagery you know they’ll enjoy.

Zonerama is free. Completely free. You have nothing to lose except hours of fun sharing photos and video with your friends and family. Open a Zonerama account and begin storing, organizing and sharing photos and video online for free.

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Illinois is brimming with festive activities and unique experiences, promising to be the go-to destination for an unforgettable winter experience. Lean into the holiday season in December, partake in outdoor winter activities and meet the Bald Eagles of Illinois in January, and indulge in Chicago’s theatre scene and automotive heritage in February.