Do you want to give boudoir photography a try but don’t know where to start? If so, this three-minute beginners guide from the Patrick’s Boudoir YouTube channel will set you on the path for success. And if you’ve ever made conventional full-body portrait you’re already halfway there.

Patrick is an international award-winning portrait artist specializing in boudoir and nude photography with natural light. His tutorials are valuable for both newbies and more experienced shooters who haven’t experimented with this particular genre. This episode is installment #15 in his weekly Boudoir Masterclass series.

Like other tutorials in Patrick’s series, this one runs barely three minutes and enables you to achieve impressive results with the gear you already own, and it relies upon windowlight to illuminate the scene. As a beginner you’re not expected to have access to professional models, so a spouse, friend or significant other will do just fine.

Patrick concentrates on simple poses for women of all body types, and it’s your job to provide clear direction and instruction so the subject feels comfortable, understands your expectations, and becomes a cooperative partner during the session. Today it’s all about an easy seated pose on the floor.

Effective storytelling skills are also part of the equation, as are the composition tips that Patrick provides. With this type of natural illumination it’s also important you understand the best vantage point from which to shoot, and how to position your subject relative to a window to achieve a flattering effect with nice highlights and dramatic shadows

Patrick concludes the video with a helpful discussion of simple editing and retouching techniques so that your boudoir photographs will make and your model product. As a result, you’ll feel much more confident in your next boudoir session.

If, as we suspect, this video gets your creative juices flowing be sure to visit Patrick’s instructional YouTube channel where you’ll find more great boudoir photography tips, along with past and future installments in his masterclass for beginners.

And speaking about beginners, we also suggest watching the tutorial we featured recently from an image-editing expert who demonstrates a post-processing guide with a b&w workflow for inexperienced Lightroom and Photoshop users.

Some photographers jump through a lot of image-editing hoops to replace boing skies that degrade the impact of landscape photos and other images shot outdoors. But some of us prefer the more natural approach of enhancing a sky rather than replacing it, and that’s what you’ll learn how to do in this easy Lightroom tutorial from the popular PHLOG Photograph YouTube channel.

German landscape pro and image-editing expert Christian Mohrle is a favorite among Shutterbug readers because of his knack for discovering simple solutions to seemingly complicated tasks. In this 14-minute episode you’ll learn how to intensify the colors in muted skies with Lightroom’ powerful Tone Curve tools.

The demonstration image is a very pretty landscape shot with pastel colors, but Mohrle’s goal is a more vibrant appearance that “makes the sky POP.” There’s a link in the description beneath the video for downloading this Raw file so you can follow along as Mohrle describes the process from beginning to end.

Mohrle begins with a variety of global adjustments to create the best possible base image for the transformative local enhancements that follow. The first step is bringing down the overall exposure, which in turn enables him to increase the whites for more contrast. He also modifies blacks and shadows which boosts contrast further.

The next step is adjusting White Balance to eliminate an unnatural blue tint in the snow and warm up the sky in the process. He also adds Texture, drops Clarity, and bumps up Vibrance for a more colorful look.

With the base image set it’s time to create some color magic with selective masking, and Mohrle jumps right in by creating and refining a Tone Curve mask over the sky. Then he walks you through the process of modifying various color channels—specifically, red, green and blue. Mohrle is a perfectionist, so he doesn’t stop after intensifying the sky. Instead, he adds a few other masks to improve areas in the foreground and midrange of his image.

All that’s left to complete the impressive transformation is thoughtful color grading and very subtle sharpening. Take a look at Mohrle’s before/after images and you’ll like what you see. Then head over to his popular YouTube channel where you’ll find many more instructional videos for nature and landscape photographers.

On a related note, don’t miss the recent tutorial we featured with another post-processing expert who demonstrates how he rehabilitates wildlife and landscape photographs with white skies that are devoid of detail.

We’re all at the mercy of Mother Nature when shooting outdoors, and sometimes this means missing a great shot because of a featureless white sky that spoils would have been a very compelling image. Today’s quick Lightroom tutorial will convince you to keep shooting the next time you confront these less-than-ideal conditions.

Instructor Matthew Gehly is a professional wildlife photographer whose straightforward shooting and post-processing tutorials will improve the quality of just about any image you capture outdoors. Today’s nine minute episode involves a quick-and-effective technique to recover hidden details in bright white skies.

Gehly demonstrates the process in the context of bird-in-flight imagery, but you can just as well use his suggestions to significantly improve other once-in-a-lifetime images. In Gehly’s case, the subject was a Short-Eared Owl and he explains his excitement like this: “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to photograph these guys, and I never before had an opportunity to even see one in the wild.”

In other words, a dull and lifeless sky wasn’t going to stop Gehly from making a few shots, and then rehabilitating the cloudy sky in Lightroom. Before demonstrating the step-by-step procedure, he discusses two crucial in-camera techniques that will make these types of photos easier to process.

First, “it’s extremely important when shooting in these conditions that you don’t blow the highlights. So you want to check your histogram and make sure to leave a little space on the right as you’re shooting.” Otherwise it may not be possible to effectively recover hidden details in Lightroom.

Another important consideration when shooting against a white sky with minimal detail is to be sure to use the Raw file format “so you have as much image data to recover as possible.”

The foregoing suggestions will help you capture the best possible base image for the Lightroom transformation that follows, and Gehly demonstrates everything you need to do and the best tools to use. Just remember to keep your expectations realistic so that you’ll be pleased with the subtle but noteworthy improvements you receive.

Gehly’s instructional YouTube channel features many more lessons for levelling up your photo-editing skills, so be sure to take a look when you have time to explore.

And don’t miss the tutorial we featured with another accomplished pro recently who demonstrates a simple in-camera technique for avoiding boring landscape photographs, environmental portraits, travel imagery, and more.