The Color Wheel is a simple but oft-ignored tool that that enables photographers to visualize the interplay between various tones and how be they can be combined to increase the impact of an image. If you don’t understand this important concept and how it works, today’s video will get you up to speed.

In less than five minutes Instructor Anthony Crothers explains how this tool enables you create a unique style of your own by employing color combinations that set your work apart. You’ll learn how to create harmonious effects, capture photos with more depth and dimension, and imbue your images with a wide range of emotions from power and energy to calm, peace and serenity.

As you’ll see, the Color Wheel is comprised of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors that can be manipulated to tell a story and create dramatic high-contrast images and other attention-grabbing effects. He illustrates the power of this approach with several different types of photos.

Crothers explains the principle like this: “Most of us use color in our photography without too much thought, but by thinking about what shades you use and how you match colors together you’ll see a massive improvement in your images.” In fact, he insists that the simple Color Wheel is the most useful tool for experimenting with various tonal palettes.

He explains that “the primary colors (red, blue and yellow) are evenly spced around the graphic circle, with the secondary colors (green, orange and violet) falling in between.” Then there are the intermediate tones known as tertiary colors; namely shades between primary and secondary colors.

He notes that secondary colors are made by mixing primary colors together, and tertiary colors by mixing primary and secondary colors. So what are the practical applications of all this theory and how can you put it to work to create compelling images of whatever you shoot.

Crothers provides such a succinct explanation in the last three minutes of the lesson that we won’t bother to summarizing it here. Suffice to say that there are various scenarios in which the Color Wheel is so helpful that it should become your new best friend.

After watching this episode head over to Crothers’ instructional YouTube channel, where you can find other game-changing tips and techniques that you may have missed in the past.

We also recommend watching the tutorial we posted earlier from another top expert who demonstrates how to bring dull landscapes photographs to life with a transformative Lightroom Color Range Mask technique

Over the years, I’ve received some criticism on my photography, and I think that’s a good thing. I’ve appreciated all of it, because on the whole it has made me a better photographer. After all, I have so many blind spots where I just don’t see problems. But there is one interesting piece of criticism that I’ve gotten many times, which was also part of a comment in one of my recent articles: Jason, your birds aren’t doing anything interesting! What do I think about that?

There are countess reasons you may want to modify certain colors in a photo whether it was captured indoors or out. Perhaps a landscape image looks really great, except for a dull or lifeless sky. Or maybe you want to change the background used for a macro photo to make it more complementary to the tones in the subject.

This technique is often used to enhance portrait photos for more pleasing skin tones or to accentuate the color of a model’s eyes. In all cases the goal is to make these adjustments without biasing tones elsewhere within the frame. Hence, you need to understand why selective coloring is the best way to accomplish your goals.

Photographer Julieanne Kost is a highly acclaimed educator, author, and expert at all things Adobe—posting straightforward tutorials that create impressive transformations with a minimum of fuss. In this seven-minute episode she demonstrates several methods for accomplishing “selective coloring” in Lightroom that are appropriate for users of all skill levels.

Kost begins with an interesting photo shot on the street and demonstrates several quick ways to use Lightroom’s masking tools to make localized color adjustments for a significantly more impactful image. Her goal for the first example is to retain the red tones on the front of a wall and enhance brown benches in the foreground while deemphasizing distracting colors on the back side of the wall.

She begins in Lightroom’s Color Mixer Panel with the adjustment set to HSL. She then clicks on the left side of the Saturation slider to desaturate all of the colors within the scene. You’ll also learn how to use the Luminance slider when you want to modify how the colors were converted to grayscale.

Now it’s a simple matter to select the Targeted Adjustment tool, click and drag in the image, and uses a Brush mask to bring back some of the reds and oranges exactly where Kost wants them to appear. She walks you through the simple procedure and explains a variety of settings and options for getting the job done with precision.

Kost repeats the process with three bird photos and a landscape shot, each of which present different challenges with regard to enhancing color using masks for selective enhancements, just so you’ll understand the versatility of this useful Lightroom technique. And in all cases her transformations are quite impressive.

Kost’s popular YouTube channel has almost 60K avid subscribers and we suggest that you join the club and elevate your post-processing skills.

And don’t miss last week’s video tutorial in which another image-editing expert demonstrate why Versions is a vastly underrated Lightroom tool and a “must-have” for your everyday workflow.

There are numerous reasons why experienced landscape photographers avoid shooting wide open and prefer stopping down the aperture to f/8 or f/11— even if that means bumping up the ISO setting. So why does a German landscape pro advocate for faster glass when he rarely shoots at maximum aperture?

Instructor Christian Irmler spends most of his time capturing beautiful outdoor imagery in his home country of Austria and at the most gorgeous locations throughout Europe. Today’s episode offers a few shooting techniques but is more concerned with choosing the right glass for your next adventure in the field.

Irmler’s point is that faster lenses offer several significant advantages beyond the fact that they gather more light than slower glass at the widest f/stop setting. He admits that f/2.8 lenses are heavier and more costly than their slower counterparts, but he describes multiple reasons why the extra heft and expense is well worth it to him.

One key benefit is that “f/2.8 lenses tend to have much better build quality,” an important consideration when subjecting gear to the rigors of outdoor photography.” An overall boost in image-quality can also be expected, “with a much higher range of usable apertures” for shooting under a wide variety of lighting conditions.

Irmler discusses the important concept of “image diffraction” which describes how images tend to sacrifice sharpness when stopped down—especially if you’re shooting with slow, budget lenses. The point at which diffraction starts to kick in varies from one lens to another, but this fact helps explain why users of budget lenses often express disappointment with image quality at f/16 and beyond.

With the foregoing in mind Irmler recommends testing your lenses to learn how far you can safely stop down and still achieve acceptably sharp and detailed results. Irmler provides a link to an earlier lesson in which he explains exactly how to conduct a simple evaluation so that your don’t push things too far. This information is particularly helpful when shooting without a tripod.

At this point you’re halfway through the video and there’s much more to learn, and Irmler uses his stunning imagery to illustrate the power of his tips. The bottom line is that you have two options to pursue: Either invest in better lenses or follow Irmler’s suggestions for squeezing out every ounce of quality from those you already own.

Irmler’s instructional YouTube channel is a great source of gear information and shooting techniques for everyone who wants to improve their results when capturing photos in the great outdoors.

And don’t miss last week’s tutorial from another accomplished outdoor photographer who demonstrates how not to let bright, sunny days with harsh light ruin your landscape photographs.