It's hard starting out and not having insights into what may make your photography life simpler. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you get started faster.

External Drive Storage - I've been keeping my images off the computer and on external drives, and it's an excellent approach for memory use and storage. Separate your client images and your images. Back up plan - 3 is best, 2 is 1, and 1 is none. There is no such thing as a perfect backup system, but the 3-2-1 plan is a great start in getting your files backed up.

Back Up Plan Folders

No Black and Blue Dogs and Horses - You've likely seen it in your images or other people's images where black dogs and horses look blue. If that's the look you're going for, great! If you want a more natural look, you'll want to locate HSL in Adobe Lightroom. In Lightroom, you'll be able to target the HSL adjustment. Rather than going through and reinventing the wheel, here's a link to Easy Guide to Using HSL Color Sliders in Lightroom to help you. 

Mo the Labrador 11.0 part of the Senior Souls Project Minnesota

Don't clone around - when you look at your control panel, you'll have the option to clone or heal. Don't be afraid to mix and match your tools! Let's start with a brief explanation of the two. 

• Clone = copy and paste
• Heal = copy, paste, and blend

I use Lightroom for a lot of my photography post-processing. I will do some image work in Photoshop, too, especially for the Content-Aware Fill tools. Lightroom has a Spot Removal tool that is pretty good, but Photoshop is still the leader in changing pixels. 

Liquify to Adjust - this is a Photoshop tool and is terrific for adjusting the edges of dog collars, especially the martingale style. Here's a link to a free article on How to Use the Photoshop Liquify Tool

Dogs are in Complete Control of the Session - when you are shooting photos of animals, it's important to remember they are in control, and this is especially true if you are shooting multiple animals and making a composite image at the end. Here are some tips to help you be consistent in your pictures. (Yes, you may break the rules, but it helps to teach yourself this consistency first.)

• Shoot in the same area
• Shoot using the same settings
• Shoot using the same plane of focus (your subject, dog, horse, etc.)
• Shoot using the same position (you, if you started sitting on the ground, stay there)

I hope these tips help you at least a little. If you have something you would like to learn more about, let me know.