Author: Alik Griffin

New Release: Malibu Gold

This Landscape Photo was taken near the Malibu Pier in Malibu California. It was an extremely high tide so I was able to capture the waves interacting with the foreground rock formation. The lighting and time of day made the rock look almost like gold.
Why You Should Avoid Shooting With Small Apertures

Typically as photographers, we are taught, the smaller the aperture the sharper and crisper your image is going to be. You ever go online and look at an awesome photo’s EXIF data? You ever notice almost all the landscape and hdr photos you see will be shot at f16 or higher? If you’re always shooting high…
Fukuoka Airport HDR Photo

This was from my last moments in Japan at the Fukuoka Airport. The photography gods finally appeared at the end there and gave me one last blessing. We ate dinner in a restaurant when the sun lit the sky. Luckily, my Sony A7r wasn’t packed away with the rest of my gear.
A Better Way To Create Luminosity Masks

I see a lot of techniques floating around the interwebs on how to practice the ancient art of Luminosity Masks for landscape photography in Photoshop. I’m pretty sure most of these techniques date back to the 1990s before layer masks existed. Adobe has recently, in the last ten or twenty years, made a lot of…
Instantly Remove Color Cast In Photoshop

Manually adjusting your color balance in Photoshop is never fun. There are several tricks, some dating back to almost centuries ago. Some more modern.Here is a technique that's fun and super easy to do.
How To Upgrade Your Mac Pro Graphics Card

I’ve recently had to make the switch over to Premiere CC on my home Mac Pro, but my old 2009 tower didn’t cut it. You need a Nvidea GPU with at least 1GB of video ram to use its Mercury Playback Engine. So in order to get more life out of my old Mac Pro I upgraded its graphics card.…
How To Sharpen Your Photos With The High Pass Filter

This is a great Photoshop technique I picked up a few years ago. I’m always trying new things, new plugins, and new software, but I always seem to come back to the High Pass filter as my favorite sharpening trick. It works well on Landscape and HDR Photography.
Camera Cleaning Accessories – Here Is What You Need

This is the ultimate guide to camera cleaning, including the best cleaning accessories and some tips and tricks to keep your camera, sensor, and lenses clean.
Batteries You Should Buy For The Sony A7, A7r, A7s

After shooting with the A7r for the last 6 months I’ve decided to do a write-up on batteries and what batteries you should buy for your Sony mirrorless camera.
Behind The Shot – The Fuji Tunnel

The Kawachi Fuji Garden is one of those hot spots/places to see before you die in Japan. This location has two tunnels, a dome, a small trail, and an additional Fuji flower rack. It is pretty cool and very photogenic. Although I was about a week early to get the full Fuji flower blast, the…