Mastering post-processing

m_stan

I've come to realise that one of the biggest elements in digital photography I need to get a handle on is post processing. I feel I have a good enough eye for taking shots, and am learning the capabilities of my camera over time. This results in some decent shots, but they don't have the 'wow' factor that post-processing can deliver. Some of the shots you guys produce (Al and Julie come to mind right away) have that edge that I just don't have the Photoshop skills to produce.

So. How can I learn without quitting my job and going to art college ? Is there one book you think I could learn a huge amount from, one night course that I simply must get myself on, or do I just need to get reading tonnes of online tutorials ? Any pointers ?

Many thanks for the feedback in advance, and even moreso for the inspiration to realise I need to ask !

Calina

Experimentation is the name of the game. Also, the occasional blogger will take a photograph (now and again) and lay out what they did to achieve such and such an effect. I do it myself.

I started off with the premise that

"I want to be able to convert to black and white" and "I want to be able to crop".

after that...it sort of grew. I did the digital photography course in Temple Bar last summer which is useful as an introduction but a lot of it still boils down to try stuff and getting stuff wrong.

I'm nowhere near expert (ha) but I can see how things have progressed over the year and a lot of what I do, I learned by trial and error and nothing else.

elven

I'll take that as a compliment

I learned from magazines, trial and error, being shown a couple of tricks by the odd person here and there, and more recently video tutorials (www.radiantvista.com) and the martin evening CS2 book.

Unfortunately it's just so big that to learn everything will inevitably take a good bit of time. I don't know if anyone knows everything about it actually... but what to do is just start learning techniques to get this effect to get that effect, then when you understand the steps involved in each technique youunderstand the basic tools behind them and can start to work out how to adapt it for yourself. Kind of like a recipe, I suppose.

If there's any pictures you can think of that you'd like to know what I did to get the effect, post a link and I'll go through it step by step to show. I'm sure Al would be happy to do the same - and there's a good few other photoshoppers round here that would be up for it. Maybe we could have a 'how did you do that' thread in the digital darkroom...?

It's also handy if you come along to a meet and we go somewhere with laptops afterwards, you can pick up bits and pieces there from watching people do different stuff.

Paulw

Digital Photography magazine is very good for this. It comes with a CD of video tutorials that help you learn how to use Photoshop. Well worth checking out.

magicbastarder

m_stan wrote:

I feel I have a good enough eye for taking shots, and am learning the capabilities of my camera over time. This results in some decent shots, but they don't have the 'wow' factor that post-processing can deliver. Some of the shots you guys produce (Al and Julie come to mind right away) have that edge that I just don't have the Photoshop skills to produce.

i know i probably sound like a broken record, but you don't *need* PS skills to produce shots with wow factor.

thebaz

i bought a book at Christmas, and like a manual , read page 1 , and i'm afraid its remained closed since .... i am crap at photoshop myself, much prefer the speed of picassa , but realise i must learn it , so like others have said , i think its so big thats its daunting .. but i'm gradually experimenting and doing bits and pieces -- would love to get a good structured understanding of the fundamentals , how best to use layers , understand histograms properly and channells -- would like to do a course also that explained these fundamentals.

Fajitas!

Being in Art college hasn't done much for my photoshop skillz...I'm mostly self learned, past the point of my tutors.

It's all down to experimentation... I have a fair idea of what every photograph I take should look like... so I do everything I can until I learn how to do it, and repeat it.

I don't think books are the right way to learn, I have Martin Evenings book aswell, and while I think it's a great book for technique, I don't really find it a nessicary read when I'm working on photos - I do what I feel is right, and have found some great results from that!

sineadw

I swore blind I'd only learn properly from books and playing about myself. I've had Elven's Martin Evening's book taking up valuable wardrobe real estate for over a month now and all its done is look pretty. I've downloaded actions from Fenster and various sites around the web which have given me very valuable step-by-step guides. I've also had about 6 one on one's from Julie (I'll get it over with for everyone shall I? Ooo-Err... Fnar etc etc) and I *STILL* don't know what the hell I'm doing. When I learn something I seem to completely forget something else (like last batch, where I went through a whole rigmarole trying to boost colours in the channel mixer and utterly forgot the blend modes...).

Basically what I'm trying to say is unfortunately there is no short cut. Work work and learn and then more work. And make friends with Fajitas and Julie