PHLEARN – Learn Photoshop & Lightroom

I have been photographing and editing images for more than 15 years. My standard work tool is Adobe Photoshop. I gained expertise in using Photoshop as a self-taught person.

In the beginning, I read books, and later I started following online tutorials. I got information on YouTube. I also tried paid education portals like Lynda.com or KelbyOne.

So far, my most significant benefit has been a paid program on the Phlearn.com portal, owned by Aaron Nace. To this day, I am subscribed and regularly follow the news that appears here.

Phlearn offers many free posts and tutorials. However, the most significant benefit is the Phlearn Pro program. Here you will find very detailed instructions for editing a photo and using Photoshop and Lightroom.

The great advantage of Phlearn membership is automatic access to many assets and accessories for Photoshop and Lightroom, such as Photoshop actions, Lightroom presets, brushes, and Photo & Video LUTs. Also, these are regularly updated, and new ones are added.

Phlearn offers several groups of video tutorials:

Photo Editing

In this section, I was interested in making a watercolor painting out of a photo or how to achieve a Pop Art Effect. Aaron also describes in great detail how to accomplish the Sketch Effect in Photoshop. But you will also find solutions to general problems such as How to correct Exposure in Photoshop, How to create a manual HDR image in Photoshop.

For Adobe Lightroom fans, there is The Ultimate Guide to Lightroom for Desktop & Mobile or The Beginner’s Guide to Lightroom Classic. Sharpening in Photoshop is interesting.

For complicated selections, Aaron describes how to use Luminosity Masks.
Often, importing and organizing photos in Lightroom Classic and Phlearn offers an excellent tutorial for this area.

Retouching

In the Retouching section, you will find very detailed and professional workflows on retouching portrait photography, as well as exciting things like retouching fabrics or clothes.

This can be very beneficial for fashion photographers. Photographers who stylize and retouch food photography will also get their money’s worth. A unique area is eye or hair retouching, where Phlearn offers detailed tutorials and workflows. Professional photographers will appreciate beauty retouching in Photoshop.

For perfect mastery of skin retouching, the frequency separation method is popular, to which Phlearn also offers Photoshop actions for process automation.

Aaron also explains the old Dodging & Burning school, which will give you perfect results.

Compositing

Compositing offers excellent video tutorials on how to do advanced composites. Most interesting is how to do the widespread Double Exposure or retouch and do composites in product photography.

There are still popular and the necessary instructions on how to remove the background from the photo or how to make a selection of a person with a hair detail.

Photography

In this section, you will find instructions on how to photograph specific subjects and how to proceed with product photography, portraits, or food photography.

Summary

Phlearn offers a breakdown of contributions according to difficulty: Easy, Medium, and Advanced. I also appreciate the full-text search. If you are looking for a solution to a specific problem, a full-text search will find all relevant posts or tutorials that contain the answer.
Phlearn brings new posts every week.

Difference between Free tutorials and PRO

While free tutorials usually cover one skill or technique, PRO tutorials are longer, more focused, and more detailed. They integrate several approaches to complete a larger lesson. The PRO tutorials also include all the project files that you can download and work with Aaron.

When you subscribe to PHLEARN PRO, you can watch as many tutorials as you want on any of your devices without any restrictions and for a flat rate of $ 9.95 per month.