PHLEARN Magazine

The biggest name in stock photography filed for bankruptcy in October. The company isn’t closing, but the public shareholders are wiped out, the Getty family and Koch’s investment arm take it private, and the whole stock photo business just got a warning shot from AI. What it means if you sell or buy stock.

How to tell if a photo is AI: the visual tells that still work in 2026, why detector apps disagree, how to read Content Credentials, and how to prove your own photos came out of a camera.

Canva bought Affinity, made the whole app free and charges only for the AI. A year and three big updates later, here is what the free app does for photographers, what Photoshop still does that it doesn’t, and what each one costs.

What is a LUT, how is it different from a Lightroom preset, and which one should you reach for? A plain explanation with before-and-afters from PHLEARN’s free LUTs.

Aaron Nace tested eight ways to upscale a Midjourney image, from Midjourney’s own upscalers to Photoshop’s Topaz Bloom and Gigapixel, and compared them at 100%.

Portrait lighting patterns explained: flat, butterfly, loop, Rembrandt, split and rim, with a diagram for each and one light.

What negative space in photography is, how to place a subject in it, how designers use it for text, and how to add more of it with Generative Expand.

Color theory in photography explained with examples: the color wheel, hue, saturation and luminance, five harmonies, warm versus cool, and how to use them on a shoot and in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Leading lines in photography add depth to a flat photo and carry the eye to your subject. The 6 types, 15 examples with the lines drawn on, and the mistakes to avoid.

Full frame vs APS-C with one scene shot through the same lens: what crop factor changes (field of view, depth of field, noise, lens size) and what it doesn’t.