Free Pet Photography Resources
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Topics include working with light, obtaining expression, camera setting tips, composition, using the location, dog handling tricks – and so much more. Delivered direct to your inbox so you can read and absorb straight away (no homework required).
Recent Blog Posts
Keep up to date with all the latest free resources from Unleashed Education on the blog. This is where you'll find weekly editing videos, how-to guides, pet photography tips and all the latest news.
Visit the BlogBehind the Scenes Videos
Fun videos showing what goes on behind the scenes at real pet photography sessions!

Behind the Scenes with Ben and Juniper
With Charlotte Reeves
Just a fun little "behind the scenes" peek into what goes on at a dog photography session at the beach with two gorgeous pups - Ben the Border Collie and Juniper the Australian Shepherd.

Taking Amazing Pet Portraits in Bad Weather
With Craig Turner-Bullock
The weather can play havoc with our schedules sometimes, especially when clients expect sun-drenched, backlit, bright and vibrant images. But sometimes, it's good to break the mould and push your creativity in less than ideal circumstances.

Photographing a Camera Shy Dog
With Charlotte Reeves
This behind the scenes video covers the process Charlotte uses for working with a dog that has an aversion to cameras, to help them overcome their fear and see it as a positive instead!
Does shooting on Manual Exposure scare you?
Learning to shoot in Manual can be daunting, so watch this excellent learning resource for pet photographers!
Join Charlotte Reeves as she makes an intimidating concept simple and easy to follow. If you struggle to understand or shoot with manual exposure, this video is for you!
"Complicated concepts broken down into easy to understand steps, with beautiful examples. Excellent as always!" - Jacqui Jensen-Roy
Get the free Live Call Replay: Simplifying Manual Exposure
Free Pet Photography Guides
In-depth, value-packed pet photography guides direct from the blog.

7 Steps to Capturing Amazing "Run to Me" Dog Action Photos
By Charlotte Reeves
Going beyond just camera settings, these steps are all essential pieces of the puzzle when shooting these awesome "run to me" style action shots, helping you create that one perfect photo to wow your audience!

13 Elements of Composition for Pet Photographers
By Charlotte Reeves
Taking your photography up a notch means understanding and using some common, but often overlooked, elements of composition. These tips range from the classic rule of thirds to the more obscure.

The Ultimate Guide to Back Button Focus for Pet Photographers
By Charlotte Reeves
Though not a magical way of getting all your images in perfect focus, using the back button to focus is a technique with many advantages specifically for pet photographers.

How to Train Your Dog Model in 5 Easy Steps
By Charlotte Reeves
These 5 essential training tips will get you off on the correct foot when starting fresh with a new muse, or back on track with photographing your own dogs!

8 Tips for Capturing Creative Cat Photos
By Charlotte Reeves
Discover my best tips for successfully capturing amazing shots of cats, working with their individual traits to capture beautiful images focusing on their inherent beauty and unique personalities.

10 Essential Tips for Beautiful Black Dogs
By Charlotte Reeves
You'll be capturing gorgeous shots of black dogs in no time with these ten handy tips, focusing on lighting, choosing backgrounds and dealing with colour casts.

12 Tips for Working with Pets and their People
By Charlotte Reeves
There will come a time when you need to photograph your furry subject's humans - knowing what to say, how to pose and what settings to use is vital info that you won't find anywhere else.

7 Tips for Photographing Puppies
By Charlotte Reeves
As tricky as it can be to obtain great images of dogs, capturing awesome shots of puppies is often even more challenging. Here are my top 7 tips to help you when photographing puppies!

9 Ways to Rock Your Urban Dog Photography Sessions
By Charlotte Reeves
I take you through super helpful tips for working in busy locations, finding good places to shoot, working with reduced and complex lighting and minimising clutter and distractions.

Top 8 Tips for Getting Perfect Insta Worthy Pet Pics Everytime
By Craig Turner-Bullock
With most households being home to at least one pet, it’s unsurprising to see the rising popularity of Instagram accounts made specifically for our little friends. Craig has some great tips for taking insta-worthy shots of your pet!

The Best Lens for Outdoor Natural Light Dog Photography
By Charlotte Reeves
Instead of asking "What's the best lens for dog photography?" - instead consider the question - "What's the MOST USEFUL lens for dog photography?"

5 Essential Items for Pet Photographers
By Charlotte Reeves
Pet photography is a super specialised field and with that comes specialised equipment and tools of the trade. Find out the five things I just couldn't live without as a professional pet photographer.
Free Editing Guides
Free guides focusing on developing your pet photography editing skills.

10 Most Common Pet Photography Editing Mistakes
By Charlotte Reeves
After many years of reviewing my student's images during portfolio reviews and critiques, I decided to share the top 10 mistakes I see and also how to fix them.

10 Tips for Setting Perfect White Balance
By Charlotte Reeves
If you’re like most pet photographers, at some point you’ve struggled with setting the correct white balance of your images in the editing stage.
Free Editing Toolbox Videos
Every week, Charlotte and Craig create a bite-sized (5-10 minute) editing tutorial on a specific task in Adobe Lightroom Classic or Adobe Photoshop. These videos are designed to give you an extra skill or technique you can add to your editing toolbox!

How to Use Lightroom's Flags, Ratings and Colour Labels
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this week's Editing Toolbox video, I'll take you through how to use and apply Flags, Stars, and Colour Labels, as well as share my own system for using these tools.

Workflow Hack: Creating a Custom Filename Template in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll show you how you can set up a custom filename template for Lightroom to use as part of the import process.

Why Taking Photos Without Dogs Can Save your Dog Photos
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, Craig is going to talk about how empty frames without the dog can save your images, some good habits to get into when you're out on a shoot and he'll show you exactly how easy removing people is if you've shot a blank frame.

Removing a Red Colour Cast from the Shadows in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, Charlotte will show you a super quick and easy way to get rid of red in the shadows in Lightroom (making use of the RAW data), using the Tone Curve.

Locating Lost Files & Folders in Lightroom
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this week's Editing Toolbox, Craig is going to go through the most common reasons Lightroom can't access files and folders.

Setting White Balance with One Click in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, Charlotte shares one of her favourite tools in Lightroom that you can use if your subject has some white fur receiving clean light - the White Balance Selector.

Rescuing Blurry Images with Topaz
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox, Craig will show you how he likes to use Topaz and Photoshop combined to get the best results.

The Ins and Outs of Zooming
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this week's Editing Toolbox, Craig will be delving in to the zoom tools and shortcuts in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

Improving the Look of Blown-out Bokeh in Backlit Shots
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, Charlotte will show you a quick technique for minimising areas of blown-out bokeh in the background of backlit shots.

Setting a Default Camera Profile on Import in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll help you find out how to apply a default Camera Profile on Import. Plus, if you shoot with different camera bodies and prefer a different profile for each, you can override the default import preset for that model only.

Managing and Merging Lightroom Catalogues
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this week's Editing Toolbox, I'll show you how I use Lightroom catalogues, I believe one master catalogue is the best and most efficient way to save, edit and find images.

Enlarging Your Images in Photoshop to Print BIG
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, I will show you how you can find out exactly how big you can print with NO loss of quality.

What Are XMP Files & Why MIght They Be Useful?
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this week's Editing Toolbox, I'll be explaining what XMP files do as well going through a few scenarios where having them in addition to a Lightroom catalogue might be useful.

Using Reference Mode in Lightroom to Perfectly Match Edits
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, I will show you the awesome mode in Lightroom you need to know about to help speed up your editing workflow and get your images looking consistent.

How To Batch Process Your Christmas Mini Sessions
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'm sharing a really quick tip on how to make your Christmas mini sessions or Santa Photos editing as speedy as possible.

Awesome Subject Selection with One Setting in Photoshop
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll show you a very useful subject selection tip in a recent update in Photoshop!

The Best Way to Use Topaz for Photoshop
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this week's Editing Toolbox, Craig's going to show you how to use Topaz most effectively to give you the most amazing results you won't believe!

Super Quick Object Selection and Removal in Photoshop
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll show you how to use the Object Selection tool to help you cut down your editing time, big time!

How to Make Multiple Dogs Eyes Sparkle
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this week's Editing Toolbox, I'll take you through my method of making multiple dogs eyes sparkle on an image of 7 chihuahuas!

Unleashing Lightroom 12.0 for Pet Photographers
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox, I will guide you through some new changes and features in Adobe Lightroom 12.0.

How to Balance Shadows with Highlights
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox, I'm working on an image I took on the island of Guernsey with Cody the Cocker Spaniel.

How to Rescue a Flared-out Photo
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox, I will show you how to fix that flared-out image instead of giving up and tossing it out!

What's This Weird Fringing and How Can I Fix It?
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox, I will show you how to fix the weird fringing that appears on the edges between the foreground and the sky.

Photoshop Selection Tool Secrets
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox, I'll share a crucial subject selection tip and show how to get a more Lightroom-like selection experience, right in Photoshop.

The Worst Way to Fix Colour Casts and How to Do it Properly
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox, I will show you a couple of techniques in Photoshop, so you can leave those saturation sliders alone in the future and have realistic coloured pets in your images.

How to Cull Your Pet Photos Super Fast in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox, I take you through the process I use to choose my final images (and reject unwanted images) using Lightroom's flagging system.

How to Change the Colour of Bright Dog Collars
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox, I'm sharing a quick trick to help you deal with collars that really distract you in all their colourful brightness to help you bring more harmony to the image.

Using Gradients in Lightroom to Paint with Light
With Charlotte Reeves
In this week's slightly-longer-than-normal Editing Toolbox video, Charlotte takes you through how she uses masks in Lightroom, applying gradients, brushes and subject selections, to improve the look and feel of the image.

A Quick Hack for Fixing White Balance
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, I have a quick and easy white balance hack for you in Adobe Lightroom.

Using Camera Profiles in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
Find out how to browse, apply and organise profiles in Lightroom so you can quickly and easily choose the perfect profile to suit your style of pet photography.

3 Fab Ways to Use Liquify for Dog Photography
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll show you exactly how to use Liquify in Photoshop.

Workflow Hack: Best Practices for Cropping
With Charlotte Reeves
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll be covering the best practices for cropping in Lightroom and Photoshop (with a fairly extensive side-rant about aspect ratios).

How to Fix Banding in the Sky
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'm sharing a few tips for the best shooting and editing practices to help prevent banding.

Workflow Hack: How to Swap Between Lightroom and Photoshop
With Charlotte Reeves
In this video, I'm going to give you a brief rundown of my own personal workflow, showing you how to get from the RAW file, to Photoshop, back to Lightroom (and then maybe back into Photoshop to fix up that thing you forgot to fix the first time 🙈).

De-mystifying the Colour Grading Tool
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox, I'll give you a tour of the controls and show you how to use the colour grading adjustments.

Creating Export Presets in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
In this video, I'll show you how I export images for editing in Photoshop (a much better way than just Command + E) - the settings I use for Facebook - and most importantly, how to set up, save, update and organise your own Export Presets.

Correcting Colour Casts on Grey/Blue Dogs
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this weeks Editing Toolbox video, I'm going to show you how to correct these colour casts in Photoshop that'll get the fur looking exactly as it should.

Working with Layers for Pet Photographers (5 Parts)
Part 5: Organising Layers
With Charlotte Reeves
In this fifth and final episode, we tie up a few loose ends.

How to Use and Apply Cropping Tool Overlays
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, Craig takes you through how to access the overlays in both programmes, what the overlays are for, what compositional rules they relate to and how to apply them to your images.

Working with Layers for Pet Photographers (5 Parts)
Part 4: Layer Masks
With Charlotte Reeves
In this fourth episode, we tackle a much-requested topic - how to work with masks in Photoshop.

Stitching Images to Make a Panorama
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll show you how to get started with stitching images in Photoshop to create a panorama.

Working with Layers for Pet Photographers (5 Parts)
Part 3: Opacity and Blending Modes
With Charlotte Reeves
In this third episode, we'll be discovering how to get layers interacting with each other using opacity and blending modes.

Using Photoshop's Auto Align to Remove Objects
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox, I'm showing you a very simple trick that will be an absolute lifesaver, if you plan for it a little in advance.

Working with Layers for Pet Photographers (5 Parts)
Part 2: Managing Layers
With Charlotte Reeves
This second episode is all about managing layers - changing visibility, moving them around, naming them and using groups to organise them.

How to Identify and Remove Chromatic Aberration
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'll explain everything and show you some super simple ways of tackling Chromatic Aberration in Adobe Lightroom.

Working with Layers for Pet Photographers (5 Parts)
Part 1: Introduction to Layers
With Charlotte Reeves
In this first episode, I cover what layers actually are, how they work (including a super helpful analogy) and the different types of layers that it's possible to create.

How To Create Time-Saving Photoshop Actions
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this Editing Toolbox video, I'm going to show you how to create an action.

Rescuing Slightly Out-Of-Focus Eyes with Topaz
With Charlotte Reeves
My technique for fixing slightly out-of-focus eyes using Topaz Labs Sharpen AI in Photoshop is one you definitely need to add to your editing toolbox.

Creating Mist & Fog to Add Atmosphere
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this editing toolbox video, I’ll show you how to create mist to add atmosphere to an image using Photoshop.

Creating a Matte-look Image Using Gradient Maps
With Charlotte Reeves
Here's a quick video showing you my preferred method for creating this looks-like-film, low contrast feel in Photoshop using a Gradient Map

Creating an Animated GIF of Your Dog Running
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this video, we’re taking several shots from an action sequence and turning them into an animated GIF.

Creating a Golden Glow in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
A great little technique to add to your editing toolbox when your backlit images need just a bit more warmth and sparkle.

Changing Seasons
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this video I’m going to show you how you can quickly change the season in Lightroom.

Leash Removal Tips for Photoshop
With Charlotte Reeves
Leash removal is probably the most common editing task that pet photographers do on a daily basis, but is the technique you're currently using the most efficient one?

How to Fix Cataracts in Photoshop
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this video Craig shows you a couple of quick tricks for correcting doggy cataracts.

Quickly Removing Grass Distractions in Photoshop
With Charlotte Reeves
In this video Charlotte shows you exactly how to remove all the bits of grass in with only two steps.

Changing the Colour of a Distraction
With Charlotte Reeves
In this video I'll show you a super easy technique for changing the colour of the distraction, without actually having to remove the object completely.

Correcting Perspective Distortion in Lightroom
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this video I’m going to show you a quick trick to correct perspective distortion in Lightroom so you can say goodbye to those converging buildings!

Non-Destructive Dodging & Burning
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this video I’m going to show you a quick non-destructive technique for dodging and burning in Photoshop.

Quick Head Swap
With Charlotte Reeves
In this video, I share my technique for quickly and easily performing a simple head swap using a very handy feature of Photoshop.

Extending the Image Canvas to Improve Composition
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this quick Photoshop tutorial, Craig shares a couple of techniques for extending the image to add more space in to the composition and improve image flow.

Removing Blue from Black Fur in Lightroom
With Charlotte Reeves
I'm sharing a new technique I've discovered for quickly and easily removing a stubborn blue colour cast from black fur, using Lightroom's new masking tools.

Straightening Wonky Horizons in Lightroom and Photoshop
With Craig Turner-Bullock
In this video, I’ll show you a couple of ways you can straighten your horizons in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Removing a Photo Bomber
With Charlotte Reeves
Steal Charlotte's technique for quickly and easily removing a photo-bomber using a little bit of foresight and a super handy feature of Photoshop.

Cleaning Eva's Teeth In Photoshop
With Craig Turner-Bullock
I recently had a special request from a client; to whiten her dog Eva's teeth.

Fixing a Yellow Colour Cast in White Fur
With Charlotte Reeves
Learn how to fix a yellow colour cast in a dog's white fur using masking in Adobe Lightroom.
Join the Edit My Photo Challenges
Each month we run a free editing challenge, where we provide one of our pet photography RAW files for you to edit!
You submit your edit, we choose a winner, then the winner gets one of their images edited by us, which is made into a free editing tutorial.
Opting in below will sign you up for the challenge emails and give you access to the free online hub, so you can:
- View the current challenge and download the RAW file to edit
- Submit your challenge image
- View past challenges and see winners
- Watch the editing tutorials we've created of past Edit My Photo winners
Please enter your details below to opt in.
Edit My Photo Winners' Edits
As part of the Edit My Photo challenge, we edit a RAW file submitted by the monthly challenge winner. We record our edit and turn it into a free tutorial for you!

Edit My Photo - June 2022
With Craig Turner-Bullock
Jannie Lou was the winner of the May 2022 Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community.

Edit My Photo - May 2022
With Charlotte Reeves
Fernanda was the winner of the April 2022 Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community.

Edit My Photo - April 2022
With Craig Turner-Bullock
Fernanda was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community with her fantastic composite of Lenny & Marley.

Edit My Photo - March 2022
With Charlotte Reeves
Fiona was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community, with her lovely clean but also moody edit of Opal at the seaside.

Edit My Photo - February 2022
With Craig Turner-Bullock
Rebecca was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community, with her interpretation of my image of Maggie in the Broom flowers.

Edit My Photo - January 2022
With Charlotte Reeves
Elijah was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge with his classic interpretation of a backlit image of Zephyr.

Edit My Photo - December 2021
With Craig Turner-Bullock
Annabel was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community, with her fantastic edit of Roley the Maine Coon.

Edit My Photo - December 2021
With Charlotte Reeves
Kim was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community, with her gorgeous pastel edit of June’s action shot at the beach.

Edit My Photo - November 2021
With Craig Turner-Bullock
Ina was the winner of the Edit My Photo challenge for November 2021, Cesar's Hilltop Howl.

Edit My Photo - October 2021
With Charlotte Reeves
Tiffany was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community, with her very cleverly done leash removal and collar fix-up of Cleo the Dalmatian.

Edit My Photo - September 2021
With Craig Turner-Bullock
Lydia was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge in the Unleashed Education community, with her wonderful edit of Charlie jumping for his ball at the beach.

Edit My Photo - August 2021
With Charlotte Reeves
Jacqueline was the winner of the Edit My Photo challenge for June 2021, with her moody and emotional edit of Bijou in the pine forest.

Edit My Photo July 2021
With Craig Turner-Bullock
Amanda was the winner of the Edit My Photo Challenge for May 2021, with her fabulous edit and excellent sky replacement of Tabasco the Border Collie in the hills above Christchurch, New Zealand.

Edit My Photo - June 2021
With Charlotte Reeves
Sherry was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge, with her technically perfect and sunny edit of Luna and Mae.

Edit My Photo May 2021
With Charlotte Reeves
Astrid was the winner of this month’s Edit My Photo challenge with her amazingly atmospheric edit of Jasper the Beagle.