Tutorials

As photographers, we look for light. Sometimes, we struggle to find it. And sometimes we end up with way too much light in the image. Hey there, I’m Cara! I tend to err on the side of underexposure when taking my images. It is generally more possible to get details...

Color is one of the most important tools in any designer’s toolkit, but working with color in InDesign can be confusing for new users.  While you’re still getting used to how everything works, InDesign’s color options can seem to work almost at random, which quickly...

What happens when you take an image with the ISO cranked up unnecessarily high? Or when you underexpose an image too much and try to raise the shadows too far in Lightroom? That’s right, you get a grainy photo! Hey there! I’m Cara and I understand there are some...

Can you smooth skin in Lightroom? Photoshop is the king of photo manipulation, but when it comes to editing lots of images, Lightroom is faster. So many photographers wonder, is there an easy way to smooth skin in Lightroom? Hey there! I’m Cara and though I use both...

How do you feel about exporting photos one-by-one from Lightroom? It gets to be a drag quickly, doesn’t it? Hello, I’m Cara! As a professional photographer, exporting photos one-by-one simply isn’t an option. I can easily have hundreds of photos to export for a...

You’ve worked hard on your images. From choosing the perfect camera settings to applying the exact edits to create your vision, it’s been a careful process. The last thing you want to do is ruin the overall effect by posting or printing low-quality images after...

Everybody loves a bright white, Hollywood smile but unfortunately, we don’t all have one. Fortunately, Lightroom makes it easy for everyone to have white teeth in pictures! Hello! I’m Cara and in my work as a professional photographer, I like to keep portraits...

InDesign has some useful online collaboration features for sharing your layouts with others, but it’s only for review and feedback, not file editing.  If you want to edit your InDesign files online, you’ll have to use a third-party service and a special InDesign file...

Page layout can be an enjoyable process full of creativity and satisfaction, but when you’re working on a document with hundreds of pages that all share the same layout, things can get dull very quickly.  Instead of putting yourself to sleep by positioning the...

Most of the objects in InDesign start out as basic squares. Squares have a useful role in page layout, but they barely scratch the surface of what InDesign can do.  One of the simplest ways to break up an overly rectilinear layout is by adding rounded corners,...

It’s important to strike the right balance between image and text, and page layouts can depend on the tiniest of adjustments. While you could keep all the images you need for your layout open in an image editor, that becomes a slow and tedious workflow. ...

Many people start their InDesign journeys by expecting it to function like a word processing app. But InDesign’s focus on typography and design means that it works quite a bit differently, even when it comes to basic operations like making part of your text bold.  The...

Well, that’s not the right way! Sometimes your portrait-orientated images show up in Lightroom on their sides. Or maybe the horizon in your landscape image turned out a little crooked.  Hello! I’m Cara and I can attest that getting a perfectly straight image out of...

You can’t see where you’re going until you look at where you’ve been, right? It seems like that is some wise adage I’ve heard somewhere. Hi, I’m Cara! While this is a great life quote, it is also applicable to editing photos. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve...

Bulleted lists are one of the most useful typographic inventions for displaying quick text snippets in a highly readable format.  InDesign has a range of options for working with bulleted lists, but the system can be a bit confusing to use, especially if you’re...

Adobe InDesign is a great page layout program, allowing you to design just about anything that your creativity can dream up. But once you get a complex document filled with placed images, text frames, baseline grids, guides, and more, it can be difficult to see...

When you’re used to working with word processors, InDesign can seem strangely complex when it comes to performing simple tasks like page numbering.  While it is often frustrating to new InDesign users, this complexity is necessary to allow for the wide range of...

Editing images is so much fun! I love watching how an image comes to life with a few adjustments in Adobe Lightroom. Hello! I’m Cara, and creating beautiful images is my passion. Thus, I spend a lot of time in Lightroom coaxing the best look out of my images. ...

One of the most challenging things about learning a new software program is keeping track of all the new terminology, especially in a program as complex as Adobe InDesign. When you combine that with all the new typography terminology as well, there’s quite a lot to...

When you’re crafting your first literary masterpiece, the last thing you want to do is spend your time thinking about fonts and font sizes.  There are so many different fonts to choose from in a modern word processor, and most of them are poorly suited to book...

Learning a new program like InDesign can be a daunting task when you first start out. The terminology can be quite a lot to learn, especially in addition to actually using the program!  But a bit of practice can make designing with facing pages in InDesign as familiar...

Whether you love it or hate it, the proper spelling is an essential part of any good design project, and InDesign documents are no exception. Nobody wants to leave a spelling mistake in a finished piece, but most of us don’t have the time to be copy editors as well as...

While it’s possible to create a great layout using purely typographic design elements, most InDesign projects use images to help create mood, showcase data and provide relief from endless walls of text.  But inserting an image in InDesign is a different process than...

InDesign is an impressive page layout program, allowing designers to create anything from a simple digital brochure all the way to extensive and intricate collaborative print projects.  But when it becomes time to finalize your project, you’ll find yourself with...

Sometimes you need to get up close and personal with your images. Whether you’re trying to mask off a specific area or heal skin blemishes, you need to get close to see what you’re doing. That’s when the zoom feature comes into play.  Hey there, I’m Cara! Adobe...

Are you still working with just one photo at a time in Lightroom? Whether organizing, editing, comparing, or syncing, doing it one photo at a time can be time-consuming.  Hey there! I’m Cara and if you don’t know how to select multiple photos in Lightroom, I’m about...

How many photos do you take? A blessing of digital photography is the ability to take virtually unlimited photos in your pursuit of the perfect image. Not sure which composition is best? Try them all and you can decide on your favorite later on a bigger screen. Of...

Do you nail your compositions 100% of the time in-camera? Are your pictures always perfectly straight and your subject perfectly positioned according to the rule of thirds (or whatever compositional rule you’re using)? Hello! I’m Cara and while there may be some...

Every photographer has their own style. For some, it is honed and consistent whereas others, particularly newer photographers, jump around a little. If you’ve ever wondered how to get your style to be a little more consistent, I’m about to let you in on a secret -...

What do you do when you have 857 photos to edit and only a couple of days to do it? If you said to drink lots of coffee and pull an all-nighter, you really need to read this article! Hello! I’m Cara and as a professional photographer, I kind of have a love/hate...

At some point in your photography journey, blur becomes your friend. That nemesis you combatted while learning to get tack-sharp images becomes a tool you can use to make your photos more impactful. Hello! I’m Cara and as a photographer, I deeply understand this...

What’s the bummer part about sharing your amazing images online? The better they are, the more likely it is that someone else might try to use your image without permission or giving you the credit.  Hey-o! I’m Cara, and knock on wood, to date I’m not aware that...

Want to speed up your work in Lightroom significantly? Using presets is a great way to do it! Plus, it’s easier to maintain a consistent look when you edit.  Hey there! I’m Cara and in my work as a professional photographer, I’ve found presets to be invaluable. With...

People have been claiming for decades that print media is on the way out, but we never seem to actually reach that moment. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to learn the basics of print design and how they can be applied to your InDesign projects.  Bleeds are...

A good font selection is at the heart of any good typographic design, but you’ll quickly get discover the limitations in your operating system’s default fonts. Mac users will have a bit of an advantage here over Windows users thanks to Apple’s attention to design...

Once you’ve crafted a masterful layout in InDesign, the next stage is to share your work with the world. Whether you want to share a digital copy online or send your document to a professional print house, you’ll need to prepare a PDF version of your InDesign file to...

What do you think about the Dehaze option in Lightroom? You’ve probably at least tried it and perhaps been left wondering how this slider is useful because your photo became over-edited so quickly. Hey there! I’m Cara and I’ll admit it took me a while to learn how to...

Lightroom users rejoiced when Adobe rolled out the sophisticated masking feature update in the fall of 2021. Though Photoshop still offers a ton of other features, this update narrowed the gap significantly for photographers who prefer to use Lightroom for editing...

At some point in your photography journey, you probably ran across RAW files and learned the value of using them. Now it’s time for a new file format - DNG.  Hey there, I’m Cara! The choice between RAW and DNG isn’t quite as clear-cut as the choice between JPEG...

Have you ever printed a stunning image, only to be underwhelmed by its ho-hum look on paper? You probably didn’t take advantage of the Soft Proofing feature in Lightroom. Hello! I’m Cara and as a professional photographer, I always want my images to look exactly how I...

Mice are nice but they tend to represent the long way of doing things on a computer. Whenever you want to perform an operation you have to drag across the screen to click on an icon. Sometimes you might have to click through a few windows to get where you’re going....

The world of typography can be a complex place for new graphic designers, and many people are put off by all the new types of jargon and terminology that they have to learn.  As a result, some beginner graphic designers ignore typography and focus exclusively on...

Specialized file types are everywhere these days, and it can be difficult to keep track of every random acronym out there. Each program seems to have its own special file format with a custom extension, and some programs even have multiple types!  To help clear...