Olivia Parker 
A surreal photo edit is not a filter. It is a composite or a heavily graded image that shows something impossible in a way your eye still believes, and the work sits in three places: one impossible idea you commit to, a composite where the scale, perspective and light direction all agree, and a single … Read more
To remove a background in Photoshop, open the image, make sure it sits on a regular pixel layer, then choose Select > Select Subject and Adobe’s AI builds the selection in one click. Open Select and Mask with Alt+Ctrl+R (Windows) or Option+Cmd+R (Mac), clean up the edges, and your selection is applied as a layer … Read more
Blending two photos together in Photoshop means stacking one image above another and using a layer mask, a gradient, or a blending mode so only part of the top photo shows, and the two read as one picture. The fastest route is a gradient on a layer mask, then brush work for the edges. That … Read more
To make a photo composite in Photoshop, open your photos as layers in one document, isolate the subject with a selection, hide the rest with a layer mask, then match the light, color and shadows so the result reads as one photograph. There is no single “composite” button. The whole job is four tools used … Read more
To cut out a person in Photoshop you make a selection of them, refine the edges inside Select and Mask, and turn that selection into a layer mask. The mask holds the cutout without deleting a single pixel, so the person can move onto any background later. On a clean, well-lit photo the whole job … Read more
Learning how to crop photos for Instagram without losing quality comes down to three moves: crop from the largest original you have, never zoom past 100 percent, and export an sRGB JPEG at the exact pixel size for the ratio you are posting. Ten minutes in any editor, and the post arrives nearly as sharp … Read more
To shoot in square format, set your camera or phone to a 1:1 aspect ratio, then compose for a frame that is exactly as wide as it is tall. On most phones that is one tap on the ratio button above the shutter; on a camera it is an image area or aspect ratio setting … Read more
A Black and White adjustment layer sits above your photo and maps every colour in the layers beneath it to a grey tone, with a separate slider for reds, yellows, greens, cyans, blues and magentas. The whole conversion happens on its own layer, so you can dial it in, mask parts of it, and switch … Read more
To start working out how to shoot black and white photos with a digital camera, you have two options: turn on the camera’s built-in monochrome mode, or shoot color RAW files and convert them in editing software. The second option keeps every bit of color data, so you can change your mind later, and that … Read more
To add contrast to black and white photos, you widen the gap between the darkest and lightest tones: pull the tone curve into a gentle S-shape, then fix the few areas that still sit in gray with masked dodge and burn. On a properly converted file that takes about five minutes per image, and the … Read more