If you’re unfamiliar with Lightroom’s Intersect tool you’re in for a treat because the tutorial below from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel explains how to use it to easily create “insanely complex” masks. And that means photos with accurate exposures, beautiful natural colors, and much more.

Instructor Christian Mohrle is a notable German landscape photographer and an equally adept image-editing expert who knows how to simplify seemingly complicated tasks. In this eye-opening episode he explains why his says the hidden Intersect tool is Lightroom’s “best masking feature” and demonstrates how to use it in less than 15 minutes.

Mohrle includes a link beneath the video so you can download his demonstration Raw file, follow along, and make the adjustments yourself as they’re explained, which is a great way to learn. He always begins with a few global adjustments to prepare a photo for the selective enhancements that follow.

As you can see, Mohrle photographed a pretty seaside scene that is significantly underexposed. His first step is to apply Lightroom’s new Noise Reduction and he walks you through the straightforward process that takes place in the Details panel when you click on Denoise.

Now it’s time to open the Basics panel and get the preliminary global adjustments out of the way. Mohrle’s goal is to warm up the tones while making the image a lot brighter. He raises shadows to bring increase detail, cuts exposure in the highlights to fix blown-out areas in the sky and uses the Temperature slider to begin warming up the tones.

Other preliminary adjustments include bumping up Texture to add sharpness to smaller details while dropping Clarity to create the softer look he’s after. After raising vibrance and saturation the basic modifications are complete, and it’s now time for the powerful hidden tool that really works some masking magic.

The trick begins with adding a simple Sky mask by clicking on Sky the option you’ll find within the masking panel. What follows is easier to understand by watching Mohrle demonstrate the technique, so we’ll refrain from summarizing how it works. Let’s just say that the method really is quite remarkable and easy enough for photographers of all skills levels to accomplish.

The lesson concludes with some straightforward color grading, a bit of judicious sharpening, and a quick cleanup in Photoshop. Compare Mohrle’s before/after images and you’ll be very impressed by the transformation.

You can find more great tips and tricks on Mohrle’s popular YouTube channel, so be sure to pay a visit and see what he has to offer.

And don’t miss the earlier tutorial we posted from another accomplished pro recently, demonstrating five pro tips for elevating your landscape photography game.

Choosing the optimum frame rate (fps) is a no-brainer when shooting in the field, right? You use the fastest setting available for subjects in motion, and back it off with statics subjects. Well, there’s more to it than that as you’ll see in the tutorial below from the Backcountry Gallery YouTube channel.

Instructor Steve Perry is an accomplished pro, specializing in nature, landscape, and wildlife photography. In this episode he reveals his secrets for selecting the optimum fps in various situations. He puts it like this: “Leveraging it the right way can unlock a flood of extra keepers and sharper photos.”

Perry covers a lot of ground in just 12 minutes, so you may want to take a few notes. He discusses the best settings for wildlife photography, the implications for sharper images, and how to handle sorting your images when shooting at a fast rate. He also poses this question, “do you need a high fps for static subjects?”—and you’ll be surprised by his answer.

According to Perry, who has strong opinions on these matters, “with the current generation of cameras I’m a peg-the-needle guy when it comes to wildlife photography.” He says that he typically uses the maximum “no compromises” frame rate.

Perry admits that throttling the frame rate may be of concern to those whose cameras offering 20fps or more, but the advice in the video is equally appropriate for those with slower models. His overall emphasis is how to determine the maximum frame rate you can use “without making some sort of compromise in image quality.”

One important consideration is that some cameras require you to use a lower-quality file format when choosing the highest fps setting, i.e. Jpeg instead of Raw. In other cases you may have to shoot at a lower resolution than if you dialed back the frame rate. There’s also a concern when using mirrorless cameras that are subject to “rolling shutter”—which is why the mechanical shutter in those cameras is a better choice than the electronic shutter when photographing movement.

Perry goes into detail on these and other key issues, including the matter of setting the right fps for static subjects. He also notes a few pitfalls to avoid and how to achieve fast-and-precise focus for whatever task you confront.

Shooting at fast frame rates means you’ll capture a high volume shots, making it a chore to sort through the all the images on the computer. To that end Perry concludes the video with some very helpful tips for facilitating the culling process and getting you back out in the field as soon as possible.

After watching the video take a look at the Backcountry YouTube channel where you’ll find a wealth of great tips for shooting and editing wildlife, nature, and landscape images.

And don’t miss the tutorial we posted earlier demonstrating another pro’s favorite techniques for shooting wildlife photos with maximum impact.

Is Milky Way photography possible with a Micro Four Thirds camera? I can confidently say yes – it is absolutely doable with a Micro Four Thirds camera. Is it ideal, or is it better than other formats? No, I definitely wouldn’t say so. However, it is absolutely worth shooting the Milky Way if you have a Micro Four Thirds camera! In this tutorial, I’ll show you how it’s done, from choosing your lens to making the most of post-processing software.

If you’ve ever tried to locate a photo in your Lightroom catalogue and been unable to find it you know how frustrating this can be. While organizing your images isn’t the most glamorous of tasks, taking time to do it right will save plenty of time and headaches in the future.

British pro Nigel Danson is a very accomplished landscape photographer and one of our favorite instructors, regularly offering great shooting and editing tutorials that anyone can follow. In this very helpful episode he demonstrates what he says is “the easiest way to sort your Lightroom photos.” Once you set things up properly you’ll never have to worry about lost images again.

In barely 15 minutes Danson walks you through the step-by-step process he’s used for over 20 years to keep his catalog of 275,000 images organized. You likely have far fewer images to worry about so the method used by Danson should work wonders for you—keeping everything in your catalog at your fingertips.

Danson sorts his images chronologically, with a folder for every year. He further refines each folder with sub-folders for each quarter. Depending upon the volume of images you shoot these quarterly folders may be unnecessary. In any case, the next step is to add sub-folders for each project and excursion during that specific period of time.

Danson’s trips are often long ones with a multitude of images, and in such cases he actually divides the quarter into daily folders—another refinement that you may find unnecessary. He then demonstrates how he imports images into the appropriate folders placing similar images (like HDR photos) together in stacks that can be expanded or collapsed to keep things nice and tidy.

The next step is using keystrokes to rate the photos according to preference. The letter “P” is how Danson indicates that a particular image is one of the best ones. At this point he has a good start in determining which of his picks are worth editing, and he uses a 3-5 star-rating system for those.

Three-stars mean the image should be edited, but he’s unsure if it will end up in his portfolio. Four stars indicate the image is really good, while five stars means it’s a winner. Danson notes that these are preliminary ratings that he may revisit at a later time.

At this point you’re about halfway through the system used by Danson and you can see the rest by watching the video. It’s all quite simple and well worth the effort. You can find more shooting and editing tips on his popular YouTube channel, so be sure to pay a visit after you’re done sorting out your mess.

We also suggest watching the video we posted earlier from a notable image-editing expert, with a complete beginners guide to Lightroom’s important Basics tab.