In his new class, Erik Kuna shares the camera maintenance routine he’s developed over 15 years of shooting in some seriously tough conditions. He’s performed more than 1,000 sensor cleanings without damaging a single sensor, so he knows a thing or two about doing it safely.

Erik shows you how to spot sensor dust, clean your sensor step by step, properly care for your lenses, and avoid everyday products that can actually damage your equipment.

It only takes a little time, and knowing how to do it correctly can help keep your gear working reliably for years.

Watch Erik tell you more about it below, then check it out here.

Scott Kelby and Erik Kuna were joined by wildlife and landscape photographer Richard Bernabe to critique viewer images ranging from bald eagles and wolves to waterfalls, autumn scenes, and dramatic landscapes.

The editing discussions covered cleaning up distracting elements, controlling bright backgrounds, adjusting white balance, cropping for greater impact, and using selective adjustments to draw attention to the subject. They also explored how post-processing choices can help an image without making the final result feel overworked.

One especially interesting discussion focused on blended exposures and creative edits. Just because Photoshop gives you the ability to combine different moments doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll feel like they belong together. Light, color, and atmosphere still need to make visual sense.

It’s a great episode for anyone interested in using Photoshop and Camera Raw to strengthen an image while keeping the final result believable. Catch the replay below.

Scott shares the order he uses the tools, which ones he reaches for most, and which ones he usually skips. You’ll see how he works with NoNoise AI, Resize AI, Brilliance AI, Sky Swap AI, Tack Sharp AI, and some of his favorite creative effects, including Bleach Bypass, LUTs, sun flares, and vignettes.

The goal is to give you a simple, repeatable workflow you can use whether Photo RAW MAX is your main editor or you use it alongside Lightroom and Photoshop.

And for a limited time, you can watch the entire class for free. Watch Scott tell you more about it below, then check it out here.

Scott and Erik shared ideas for finding better light, avoiding crowds, using telephoto compression, working with bad weather, and moving beyond the expected postcard shot. It’s all about coming home with images that feel like your own rather than another version of a photo you’ve already seen a hundred times.

Dylan then jumped into ON1 Photo RAW MAX 2026 to demonstrate several creative editing techniques, including adding motion effects, building double exposures, and using depth information to create more dimensional lighting.

The episode is a good reminder that shooting and editing don’t have to be separate creative processes. What you capture in the field gives you the raw material, and the choices you make afterward can help push the idea even further.

Watch the replay below.

In his latest class, Scott Kelby breaks down the 10 things he thinks make the biggest difference. Some are technical, but most come down to how you work with the person in front of your camera.

He talks about building a genuine connection, choosing flattering light, getting natural skin tones, making smart lens and composition choices, and knowing when a little retouching helps without going too far.

Whether you’re photographing family, clients, or friends, these are the ideas you’ll come back to every time you pick up the camera.

Watch Scott tell you more about it below, then get all the details and watch it here.

Join Scott Kelby for a FREE live webinar this Wednesday, August 12, at 2:00 PM EDT, where he’ll share practical shortcuts that can help you spend less time guessing and more time creating great images.

Watch him tell you more about it below, then grab your spot here.

Using viewer-submitted photos from a variety of genres, Scott Kelby and Erik Kuna demonstrate practical editing techniques in Photoshop and Lightroom, including the new masking feather controls, subject isolation for selective background blur, subtle portrait refinements with Liquify, and creative methods for improving images that need a little extra help.

Rather than relying on heavy-handed edits, Scott focuses on making targeted adjustments that strengthen the image while keeping it looking natural. It’s a great reminder that editing works best when it complements thoughtful composition, good light, and strong camera technique.

If you’re looking for practical Photoshop techniques you can add to your workflow, this episode is packed with ideas worth trying.

Watch the replay below.

In this guest post, KelbyOne instructor Dennis Dunbar shares a clever Photoshop technique for reusing the natural shadows already captured in your original images. It’s a simple workflow that can make your composites look more realistic with very little extra effort.

Steal That Shadow!

Making a convincing composite comes down to three things: matching perspective, color, and lighting. And nothing sells the lighting like a believable shadow. The problem is that adding shadows convincingly is hard. You’re essentially playing physicist—figuring out the right angle, the correct falloff, how the shadow interacts with the surface beneath it. Get any of that wrong and the whole image reads as fake. But sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the shadow you need is already sitting right there in the original photo.

The Project 

Photographer Anthony Nex shot six colored razors—each one captured separately on a white background. He brought them to me to be composited into one seamless image. Selecting and masking each razor was straightforward. Positioning them to build the composition we were after was straightforward. The part that made or broke the image was the shadows.

As it turned out, the answer was already in the photos.

The Approach

Each razor had been shot with its natural shadow intact. All we needed to do was separate that shadow from the white background and bring it into the composite. The technique that makes this work is a Blending Mode—specifically Darken—combined with a Curves adjustment layer clipped to each shadow layer.

Here’s how the layers were structured: the six razors live in one layer group. Below that sits a Shadows group, where each shadow layer is simply a duplicate of its matching razor layer.

Why Darken Works

The Darken blending mode compares pixels between layers and keeps whichever is darker. Critically, pure white has no effect on the image at all—it just drops out. That’s the key to this whole technique.

Multiply works on a similar principle and is worth trying as well. When you’re experimenting, test both and see which gives you the cleaner result for your particular image.

Forcing the Background to White

Here’s the catch: a “white” background from a studio shot is rarely pure white. There’s almost always some gray in there—subtle, but enough to leave a muddy residue across your composite if you don’t deal with it.

The fix is a Curves adjustment layer clipped directly to each shadow layer. Drag the white Input slider to the left until those near-white values clip to pure white. Now when Darken evaluates those pixels, it sees white, ignores them, and only the actual shadow—and the razor itself—shows up in the composite.

I prefer Curves for this because I can see exactly what’s happening, but Levels will get you to the same place.

Cleaning the Edges

The last step is adding a layer mask to each shadow layer. Even with the Curves adjustment doing its job, shadow edges from a studio shot can have a slight boundary that doesn’t quite blend at the perimeter. A soft mask painted at the edges keeps everything looking natural and eliminates any telltale line where the layer ends.

It Works on Any Background

White on white is the easy case to imagine, but this technique isn’t limited to it. The same setup—Darken or Multiply blending, a clipped Curves layer pushing the background values to white, a soft edge mask—works against any color background.

To demonstrate, here’s the same composite placed against a blue background. The shadows read just as naturally. The Darken mode doesn’t know or care what color is underneath it; it’s only making a tonal comparison, pixel by pixel.

One note for non-white original backgrounds: add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (also clipped to the shadow layer) and desaturate fully before running the Curves step. You need the background to be neutral gray before you push it to white; otherwise you’ll get color contamination in your shadows.

The Takeaway

When a photographer shoots product on a plain background, that shadow is a gift—real light, real falloff, real contact with a real surface. No painted shadow is going to beat it. The next time you’re building a composite and the original shot includes a shadow, don’t throw it away. With the right blending mode and a clipped adjustment layer, you can put it right to work.

If you’d like to take your compositing skills even further, be sure to check out Dennis’ full KelbyOne class, How to Build Believable Composites in Photoshop.

You can purchase this class for just $39, or subscribe to KelbyOne and get access to this course plus our entire library for only $19.99 a month. Try it risk-free with our 100% money-back guarantee.