LUT Profiles Best Practices in ACR and Lightroom [Video]

by Blake Rudis | Jan 11, 2019 | Advanced, Tutorial | 30 comments

Make Your Own LUT Profiles For a few months now I have kept my techniques for making Lookup Table Profiles a secret.  Well, not really a secret, but I have held off on making a tutorial about it because what I am about to share with you is invaluable.  These best...

Advanced Color Toning in Photoshop (Video)

by Blake Rudis | Jan 4, 2019 | Tutorial, Video Tutorial | 64 comments

Advanced Color Toning Made Easy! Over the years I have shown many ways to color grade your photographs from split toning to solid color overlays and even some unique methods using off the wall blend modes.  While each technique has their benefits, they all require a...

The Most Epic Christmas Card Ever Made!

by Blake Rudis | Dec 7, 2018 | Tutorial, Video Tutorial | 80 comments

https://youtu.be/Qah_-IGUfTQ   It is hard to lay claim to the “Most Epic Christmas Card Ever,” but many of my friends and family are sending me text messages with those exact words in them.  I’ll take it ? Every year this Rudis Family creates a...

You can ALWAYS learn something new [Video]

by Blake Rudis | Nov 27, 2018 | Tutorial, Video Tutorial | 2 comments

What I learned from Jim Welninski recently I am the type of person who loves to learn new things.  I read quite a few books every year, I spent a LOT of time on the “Google” researching things I don’t know, and I embrace interaction with everyone...

Why Do My Photos Suck? Blake’s Video Response

by Blake Rudis | Nov 16, 2018 | Tutorial, Video Tutorial | 12 comments

Well, maybe that is a harsh title, but hear me out. We have all been in a place where we ask why our photos aren’t what we want them to be.   Whether that is because of a certain style, or a look we are trying to achieve that we can’t, or we just...

The Hard Mix Blend Mode in Photoshop (Video)

by Blake Rudis | Nov 9, 2018 | Intermediate, Tutorial, Video Tutorial | 43 comments

The Hard Mix Blend Mode is AMAZING! I could tell you all day long that the Hard Mix Blend Mode is the most fantastic Blend Mode in Photoshop, but you’d have to see it to believe it.  That is because the Hard Mix Blend Mode,  when applied “as-is” is...

How to Make your Fall Colors Pop! [Video]

by Blake Rudis | Sep 22, 2018 | Intermediate, Tutorial | 4 comments

Using Palette Effects 2 to Make Autumn Images Glow! I am a big fan of this time of year.  The pumpkins, the weather, the hoodies, and the snuggles under blankets… yes you read that correctly, I am a snuggler, it is one of my love languages,  so what? It is also...

Palette Effects 2.0 Top 5 Features

by Blake Rudis | Sep 20, 2018 | Intermediate, Tutorial | 6 comments

I am Biased, I did build it…  but here are my favorite Palette Effects 2.0 Features  It has been nearly a year and a half since I updated Palette Effects.  There are several reasons for that and while many of them lead to,  “I have been busy”,  I do...

How to find and free up disk space [Video]

by Blake Rudis | Aug 30, 2018 | Beginner, Tutorial, Video Tutorial | 18 comments

Using Treesize Personal to find Heavy Files I, like many photographers, like to hoard my images.  Seriously, we could probably have a reality TV show for photographers like me.  That would be funny a guy shows up at my office, looks through my drives and says,...

The Vivid Light Blend Mode [Video]

by Blake Rudis | Aug 17, 2018 | Intermediate, Tutorial, Video Tutorial | 27 comments

A Color Grading Companion – The Vivid Light Blend Mode There are 27 blend modes in Adobe Photoshop and if you are anything like the “me before I learned them all”, you are only using three, maybe four to their maximum potential.  One of those you may...