"The Lilly of Hope" Featuring MY MOM! Norrie Cornelius — "The Lilly of Hope" Featuring *MY MOM!* Norrie Cornelius

How I Add Sparkles

Robert Cornelius August 7, 2017

First, let's get the tedious part of the process out of the way. For the most part, I hand paint each little particle so they fall exactly where I want them to go. I use Photoshop's default brush with zero percent hardness and click around constantly tapping the bracket buttons (right next to the "P" key - they are quick commands for enlarging and shrinking your brush size). I try to make sure there's a somewhat natural flow to them and not to have all of them too perfectly spaced out. There is definitely an art to particle placement.

"Lady of the Light" Featuring Laryssa Fierle

Using Quick Mask Mode To Enhance Depth of Field

Robert Cornelius March 29, 2017

Quick Mask Mode. Guys it's pretty awesome. Does anyone ever use this? If you're sitting there like "IDK, what's a Quick Mask," the answer is, "No, it's not when you use a layer mask as fast as you can." Quick Mask is a tool in Photoshop that lets you more precisely edit your selections. You can activate it by pressing the "Q" key or clicking the little rectangle-with-a-dotted-line-circle-in-it at the bottom of your tools palette. Some of you may already know what it is but hardly ever think to use it for anything. Well I'm here to let you know that it can be incredibly handy if you use it correctly.

"The Winds of Summer" featuring Madeline Shayne Photography

Create a Safety Net

Robert Cornelius March 7, 2017

If you're in the gym and trying to lift something heavy, odds are you need a spotter. Even if you fancy yourself to be a big strong macho man (or woman). You may think you can just do it yourself (and maybe you can), but wouldn't it be safer to have an extra set of hands to yank that weight off your chest if you try to bite off more than you can chew? Perhaps you and your silly pride can struggle through it, but odds are you're going to have bad form; the sloppy reps just aren't going to deliver the results you were hoping for. Creating a piece of artwork is no different. Sure, you can do it all by yourself and get something done, but it's always a good idea to find an artwork spotter to have your back.

"The Lieutenant" featuring the costume, armor, and ... face, of Brian Fadrosh — "The Lieutenant" featuring the costume, armor, and ... face, of Brian Fadrosh

How I Get the "Illustrative" Look

Robert Cornelius February 22, 2017

I can't tell you how many times I get comments like "Wow this is so cool; it almost looks like a painting!" Not that I'm complaining about that whatsoever; I take it as a compliment. It's one of my goals when creating a work of art - to make something that isn't quite a photo, but isn't quite a painting. "Yes, but how do you make it look like that!?" Well, since you asked I guess I could explain some of the process. Obviously a LOT goes into making my images look the way they do. Fancy studio lighting and a hefty amount of digital painting play large roles, but one technique that really pushes my work towards that sort of hyper-real-digital-illustration-y-type-look is the use of the "Shadows/Highlights" adjustment.

Using Motion Blur to Create Action

Robert Cornelius February 13, 2017

A super easy way to add motion to an edit is to apply a motion blur filter. I know it's so obvious it seems silly, but there is definitely more to it than just slapping a filter on top of your image. First of all you have to decide what is in motion and what direction it's going in. For "The Retreat" I knew that he (the dragon ... well subsequently Niall too, I guess) would be charging towards the left side of the frame, so the angle of my motion blur was easy enough to figure out. I was attempting to emulate the look you get when you pan the camera following along with a moving subject. For example, if you were to try to take a picture of a passing motorcycle, you could track it in the center of your frame, then when you snap the photo the motorcycle would be more or less crisp and the background would have the motion blur.

Working With Color Harmonies

Robert Cornelius February 7, 2017

Being a full-time huge fan/buddy of the guys over at the RAWexchange store, I often get asked to check out their new material. (Just to clear the air, no one is paying me to say any of this. I just love them and everything they put out ... like, for real. I DO get a cut of the sales if you happen to purchase something through one of my links, but that is besides the point. The RAWexchange Store really does just have top notch stuff that I ACTUALLY use in basically every image ... ok moving on.) Well friends, let me tell you that their newest endeavor to start selling in-depth tutorials is one of their best ideas yet. Stefan Kohler created a "Colors & Photoshop" tutorial that is two and a half hours jam-packed with everything you could ever hope to know about colors and how/why they work the way they do in Photoshop.

"Memories on the Wind" Featuring Loren Schmidt

7 Tips and Tricks for Expanding Your Frame

Robert Cornelius January 25, 2017

One of the techniques I frequently use when shooting on location (by frequently I mean pretty much every time) is to expand my frame. I believe that many of you know of this fancy maneuver and are probably already doing it like total pixel gathering pros. (Well done, friends.) However, we are all at different levels on our journey towards creative greatness, so for those of you who haven't tested out this handy trick yet - allow me to elaborate. ALLOW ME!! K thanks. (And for those that do know this technique, kindly stick around for some tips and tricks that will hopefully take your expanding game to the next level.)

"The Dragon Slayer" featuring Amy Wilder

Frankensteining Your Model

Robert Cornelius January 17, 2017

I had the pleasure of shooting with Amy Wilder again! It is always such a joy to shoot with someone who is so on top of their shit. This girl knows how to work it. Normally when I do a shoot I'm trying to get as much "right" in one frame as possible. Aka the face, pose, hair, dress, whatever other magical elements that I'm capturing in camera, all to my liking in one shot. Very often I can get pretty close and only end up adding a bit of extra dress here or a hair flip there. Although apparently there are those other times when your model gives you too many perfect pictures and you just cannot decide what to use ... so you go nuts and just combine many shots ... so. many.

Creating Armor in Photoshop

Robert Cornelius December 28, 2016

Sooooooo I made some armor. Not tangible armor, though (maybe one day). You see, the site ShiftArt.com does a monthly photo contest where they give you a selection of stock images to edit however you choose, as long you use a certain amount of them. This month the prize was a 13-inch Wacom Cintiq. So yeah, um duh, of course I was going to enter. I came in second place, but I still feel like I won because I ended up putting together this badass image that I never would have made otherwise. :)

"Key To The Unseen Kingdom" Featuring Brooke Shaden

10 Steps To Creating An Indoor Jungle

Robert Cornelius November 14, 2016

Being the self-appointed-official-fancy-pants-Photoshop-wizard that I am means one of my favorite pastimes is to take a mostly simple image and add a bunch of elements to make it SPECTACULAR. (Well, hopefully spectacular anyway.) Here, my friends, is basically how that all went down in ten steps ...

"Them" featuring Shelby Robinson and Chris Rivera

Ultimate Guide To Selections: THE MAGIC WAND

Robert Cornelius October 26, 2016

I recently started a series of blog posts in which I gab on about the various selection tools of Photoshop. So far I've only gone over the pen tool, my main squeeze when it comes to most selections. It's definitely my go-to selection tool because it's just so dang precise, but let's be real here ... it is NOT always called for. There are going to be many selections that don't require quite the amount of work and attention that goes into penning a path around something. Oftentimes when I know it's going to work quickly and efficiently, I just look no farther than the Magic Wand Tool ... I mean it's got "magic" in the name so it's got to be good for something, am I right?

Take Advantage of Happy Accidents

Robert Cornelius October 11, 2016

We've all had them before, those moments when something goes "wrong" and yet somehow completely right at the same time. These are the things we can't really control and that you probably would never have thought to do, but the universe seems to align and sprinkle a little bit of extra magic onto your project. Well, I had that cosmic-accidental-magic-attack during one of my recent shoots and I couldn't be more excited about it!

"The SpellBinder" Featuring Kara Markley

You Don't Always Need Fancy Lights

Robert Cornelius October 5, 2016

I'm the first person to say that I totally LOVE studio lighting. I crave a few hours spent in a dark studio tinkering around with big-expensive-flash-photography-toys as much as the next guy. Probably more than half of my portfolio was shot in the studio with multiple huge flash banks and other fancy lighting tools and modifiers. I wonder if (slash secretly hope) some photographers out there see this image and think something like, "This is so cool, but I can't afford all of that snazzy flash lighting stuff." Or that some photographer who's stuck in their old ways, thinking you can only get good images with expensive lights, will see the image and say, "See look what a stunning image you can create with some good lighting equipment ..." Well, this image is a testament that with a little creativity, a good group of friends, a bag of candles, and .... some cell phone flashlights ... you can accomplish something truly magical!

"Finders Keepers" featuring Amy Wilder and Thomas Willeford

Using Different Colored Lights For Composites

Robert Cornelius September 21, 2016

As some of you may recall, one of my very first blog posts (my 4th to be exact), was about compositing. I talk about compositing constantly in many of my posts, because I guess it's sort of my "thing," but I figured it was about time to share another of my handy dandy tricks for pulling off convincing composites. So here goes nothing ... well I mean here goes something ... it's compositing tips and tricks for working with different colored lights! Or just faking the colors later. ;)

Ultimate Guide to Selections: The Pen Tool

Robert Cornelius September 8, 2016

I know there are a lot people out there who want to be better at Photoshop - heck, I've been doing this for almost half of my life and I want to be better! Well, I was really thinking about it and it dawned on me that more often than any other tip, I'm telling people they really should master the pen tool. It is hands down the most advanced and precise selection tool and if you boil Photoshop down to its simplest form, it's a SELECTIVE photo editing software. So I thought to myself, "Hey self, why not really dive deep into selection tools - how to do them, when to use which one, and why they are so dang important?"

Take The Break, Don't Let The Break Take You

Robert Cornelius August 8, 2016

Hey guys it's me! ME ROBERT, remember me? Maybe not ... because this crazy thing happened where I haven't posted a new image in about three months. (I know eww WTF!) Well anyway, I'm here to tell you that I still exist (yay) and I'm still going to be churning out art and blogging about the process! (Extra yay!)

"The Intruder" featuring Gillian Woods (aka GillyFace) — *"The Intruder"* featuring Gillian Woods (aka GillyFace)

One Dress Can Do It All

Robert Cornelius May 10, 2016

Dresses. We photographers love dresses. I know I've said it about a gazillion times before, but I'll say it again: Beautiful dresses make for beautiful pictures ... well at least they help a lot. I know that it's such a "thing" nowadays in the fine art photography world - more often than not, images that get a really great response probably have a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress. Sorry (not sorry), it's just the way it is. Obviously there are an unfathomable amount of other things you can have in your images, not have any dresses whatsoever, and still have an amazing outcome. However, I'm willing to guess that at least every once in a while you're going to want to shoot an image of a pretty girl in a pretty dress. I know I do!

"The Delicate Warrior" Featuring Kim Henry

How I Created Wings From Light

Robert Cornelius April 18, 2016

Okay let's just start right off by saying this image is not just my baby. Anyone who has ever heard of the light painting extraordinaire Eric Paré would see this image and think, "Ummm Robert? You totally ripped off Eric's work." To which I would kindly respond, "Good job for knowing who Eric is and for being able to spot his work ... because this is his work!" Well, it's half his work anyway. You see, this new image is a collaboration Eric and I created together. If you aren't one of those people who knew right away Paré must have been involved (or at least have heard of him/seen his masterpieces), then you need to drop everything and check him out!!! Eric is an extremely talented, passionate, and creative photographer who specializes in light painting. Rather than trying to delve too deep into an explanation of his process, I'll just have you put your eyes on this brilliant video he recently released....

"The Captain's Last Stand" featuring Thomas Willeford

Don't Fall Victim to "What Ifs"

Robert Cornelius March 30, 2016

Recently I was wandering around that Facebook thing because it is the ultimate procrastination tool. I can't say I remember what I was putting off, but I'm so glad I was. Through a series of countless random clicks on god knows what links, I wound up on an event page with an open invitation to a steampunk studio photography weekend at Omni Lens Studios. "Hmm this seems interesting, " (Robert thought to himself). "Oh dang, and it's only half an hour from here..." I clicked the "I'm Interested" option which kept me in the loop without actually committing to anything. Then for the next several weeks I would check back in periodically to quietly stalk the various attendees, photographers, makeup artists, and models - you know, typical internet creepin.

Creating The Mistress of Mystery

Robert Cornelius March 18, 2016

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Marisa! (Unless you already know her, in which case ... here she is again!) She is one of my many amazing photography friends. (Humble brag?) Marisa is so talented and just a wonderful person to know and be around. You can see her being super fun and awesome in a gif in this post. I've shot with her many a time before, but by "with" I mean "near/next to." I realized during the meet up I hosted in Watkins Glen that I'd never actually shot an image of Marisa. That just wouldn't do. It was nearing sunset on the first full day of the meet up and a small group of us wandered over to this location and Marisa just so happened to have this dress on hand, so I had her throw it on and we did some shooting!