How is that possible? Painters work additively, building their compositions from scratch on a white canvas with various pigments. They understand the importance of choosing the right colors to convey a specific mood and using light to guide the viewer’s gaze.

Think about it: Photography has been around for about 200 years, while the oldest paintings date back 40,000 years! Take a look at “Mount Corcoran” by Albert Bierstadt as an example.

It seems obvious, right?  Then why aren’t you using light like that in your photos?

As photographers, we tend to keep the light where it was when we photographed our subject, but we aren’t stuck with poor light!  Everyone says, “want better photos, shoot in better light!”  There is definitely some truth to that, so I say, “Want better photos? MAKE better light!”  Learn to make light like a painter and you’ll learn the art of captivating your viewer.  It’s really that simple and I can show you how.

Take a look at the before and after images below, pay specific attention to where the light is and how it affects the viewers gaze.  

I used to be a painter. In fact, I have more years of experience with paint than I do with a camera. When I transitioned to photo editing, I initially overlooked some of the crucial elements from my painting background because I was working with a different medium.

Take color mixing, for example. In painting, if I wanted to intensify the color red, I wouldn’t simply use more red. Instead, I’d add a hint of yellow or even a touch of black to increase its intensity. But in photography, we often just reach for the saturation slider. Increasing the saturation of red only makes it more red; it doesn’t effectively enhance the color’s intensity.

For years, I experimented with various Photoshop adjustments, trying to manipulate photo colors as I would with paint. However, no tool provided satisfying results. That’s where the Visionary Panel comes in.

One of the key benefits of the Visionary Panel is in its color tab. You’ll find sliders for each color, but these don’t merely adjust saturation. They mix the colors like a painter, achieving a natural-looking intensity without oversaturation.

NOT Your Standard Editing Approach

The Visionary Panel is NOT your standard Photoshop Panel.  When most people hear the word “Panel” in context to Photoshop, they immediately think of Luminosity Masks.  While Luminosity Masks are a great way to target specific areas of tone in your image, they DO NOT target how your viewer reads an image.

The brain sees everything in terms of clusters.  It does this to organize information for us rather quickly so we don’t need to spend a time looking at every little detail.  Most panels target the details, not how the viewer actually sees an image.

The Visionary Panel takes a different approach.  The Tone Tab in the Visionary Panel was designed to target what the viewer sees so you can make a more engaging experience for them with the first button you see.  This is a revolutionary approach to photo editing as it requires fewer steps with equal or better impact than your standard editing approach.