I will never go back to analog film, no matter how retro hip it becomes. Digital photography is just better in all respects — except for one special case. When I shoot in exotic localities I carry a Fuji Instax Mini which produces small — quite small — instant prints, similar to Polaroids. Portraits done with these and instantly handed out are wonderful icebreakers. Popular at parties as a mini photo-booth, too. — KK

I recently discovered Photopea a free web-based image editor that closely mimics the look and feel of Photoshop. It even imports and exports .PSD files. Here’s a good introductory video. — MF

Every year for the past decade I’ve made 2 or 3 commemorative photo books to mark an anniversary, or document a vacation. I’ve tried just about all the different brands and modes of making photobooks and keep coming back to Blurb. It’s not the cheapest, or most expensive; but it’s the highest quality and very versatile. You can make a Blurb photo book three ways: 1) Use a layout program like InDesign to custom design your book, exported as a PDF; 2) use the Blurb function built into Lightroom to handily use photos in your LR library, or 3) use Blurb’s own fancy app, Bookwright, which will let you grab off-the-shelf templates, or completely customize your own templates. This year so far, I’ve make a small 20-page book, and a huge 400-page book, and am working on another one. — KK

Unsplash is an online collection of high quality photos that are free to use for any reason, even commercial purposes. You aren’t required to credit the author, but you can if you wish. A good resource for bloggers and designers. — MF

AllTheFreeStock gives you easy access to a bunch of different sites offering free photos, illustrations, stock videos, sound effects, fonts, and icons. A lot of the stuff is of surprisingly high-quality. — MF

These amazingly great tips for using Lightroom are each presented in 1 minute or less. I’ve been using Lightroom to edit my photos (better than Photoshop) for years and didn’t know any of these. — KK

Framebridge has the best looking selection of affordable frames that I have seen online. I ordered a digital print framed in gold bamboo, because I wanted to break up all the wooden frames we have hanging, and it looks fantastic! The print quality was great and it was delivered within 7 days. — CD

This tip comes from Andy Baio (@waxpancake). He tweeted: “Did you know that you can paste screenshots straight from your clipboard into Twitter or Slack? On macOS, capture any part of your screen to the clipboard with Shift-Ctrl-Cmd-4, then Cmd-V to paste it into your tweet or Slack message. I use this constantly.” — MF

I have a massive “swipe file” of illustrations from online portfolios. I use them for inspiration when I design or draw something. Owidig is a website that can suck every image file from a website and save it to your computer. It’s easy to use once you get the hang of it, but here’s a good video to get your familiar with it. — MF

I use Google’s AI to find particular photos out of the 200,000 photos I have taken. First I uploaded all my 200K photos to Google Photos using their app so the upload runs in the background; new photos will automatically be uploaded in the future as well. Then I search through the photos using keywords. I have not labeled, categorized, or captioned any of the images. I type in basic terms, like “barn”, or “procession” or “sailboat,” and Google will find and display all the pertinent images. It can do simple compound queries like “barn + snow” or “procession + umbrella” that are more selective. It is free. — KK

I use my local Costco to get good photo quality prints from my photo files. They are usually ready to be picked up overnight once uploaded to their website. An 8 x 10 costs $1.79. A huge 20 x 30 inch poster is just $10. The quality is surprisingly decent. — KK

Insta_Repeat is an Instagram account that beautifully highlights common cliches on Instagram. Like view through tent hole, or standing on white van. Hey, travel and outdoor Instagramers, don’t do these! Try something different. Yet I follow it because arrays of the cliches are mesmerizing in their nearly identical images. — KK

I’m trying out Splash, a cool free experimental photo search engine from 500Pixels. You sketch the rough contours of a photo you seek in color, and it will display two dozen images that “match” your sketch. The match is mostly in color, mood, and rough shapes, but it does present you with some interesting images, all licensable. — KK

Piskel is a web-based utility for drawing “pixel art” in the vein of retro video games. You can create static or animated images, and download them as animated GIFs. The interface is intuitive. It’s surprisingly powerful and fun to use. — MF“

I use Google Images Search anytime I need pictures for a talk, website, presentation, or idea scrapbook. It’s not obvious, but you can filter the search results for those images that let you legally reuse them. Click the Tools button (to the right of Settings) beneath the Google search box, select “Usage Rights” and then choose your filter. (You can also filter by color, size, type, etc., in addition to license directly from Advance Image Search page.) The results will be a pile of select images that have Creative Commons or other fair use status. — KK

My favorite use for the Fujifilm Instax printer is for printing out small photo gifts. It’s portable, so you can take it to parties, and it only takes a few minutes to wirelessly connect and print out photos straight from your phone. — CD

I’m old school. I take photos with a camera that I process on my Mac. That makes it difficult to post to Instagram — the new home for photographers — because Instagram insists you upload photos only from a phone. Flume Pro is a $10 app for Macs that lets you drag and drop photos from your desktop directly into your Instagram stream. (The free version is a handy Instagram stream manager.) Works for me. — KK

I’ve used Canvas on Demand twice now and I am very satisfied with the quality of their premium thick wrap canvases. Sign up for the newsletter and wait for their 50-70% off promos, which happen about once a month. — CD

Upload any image to Web Resizer and shrink it to a manageable size. You can also round the corners, tint or sharpen the image, or apply other filters. It’s faster than Photoshop, and free. — MF

The best photographer blog and/or photo magazine for both pros and newbies, and for all photographers in between, is on the web as PetaPixel. Sure, they have the latest nerdy camera gossip, but they also have plenty of features about the million different ways people actually capture and use images. Every day I am amazed and informed. Add it to your RSS feed. — KK