Now that we are back from Disney it's time to download and sort through the 800+ pictures I took. The good news is that I won't bore you by posting all of those pictures. The bad news is that not one of those pictures is of a tacky outfit. I know, it's a sad day when a girl can't go to Disney World and be assaulted by skanky outfits. I did see a few outfits that were picture worthy but they were all at Downtown Disney and it would have been way obvious that I was documenting the outfit. And then jparks would have had to fight the slut's boyfriend and I really like jparks' face the way it is. So, no pictures for you.
So I'm sitting here facing 800+ non-slut pictures from the trip and am feeling highly overwhelmed. The problem is that I had vowed that these would be the first pictures that I give the photoshop treatment to. That decision was made because I've had photoshop for awhile now, and have been so scared of it, that I haven't even opened the application. Yeah, I suck. But photoshop is so big and scary. It's got so many buttons to click. And I'm a pansy.
To help me get over this irrational fear I bought a photoshop how to book that a friend recommended. And that book was nice, but not quite the kick in the ass that I needed.
What is the kick in the ass that I'm looking for? I don't think it's a class because those are too expensive. I don't think it's another book, because the one I have doesn't suck. I think what I need might be more of a tutor, either human or website based. Someone or something that can take a picture and show me what they would do to it. I'm fairly certain that having a hand to guide me through the scary "where the hell do I start?" phase would help a lot.
In my ideal world wide web there would be a site that allows you to submit a picture and then uses it to create a step by step tutorial working towards a final product. Does this site currently exist and I just haven't found it yet? Please, TELL ME! Do you want to take the time to show me a step by step tutorial? Again, TELL ME! I would be your best friend and probably would make you cookies. Is there a good photoshop tutorial site that you love and you just know I would love as well? FREAKING TELL ME! I mean, please FREAKING TELL ME!
I am COMPLETELY disappointed that there are no slutty pictures!!! My Valentine's Day will no longer be complete. As for the photoshop thing...Pick one picture from your trip and if I were you I would just start playing around with it and see where it gets you. It's all in how you want your picture to look anyway, right? I'm not one to talk though really. The last two weddings I shot I paid my brother to do my editing. It's so much easier that way, plus he went to school for it, I on the other hand, studied rocks...what was I thinking? I did start shooting on manual on my camera which has really helped because I don't have to edit as much once it's on my computer because I have full control over what the camera is doing when I am taking the picture. Good luck on learning photoshop!!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe lynda.com? They have online tutorials for all kinds of software, but I think you have to pay a monthly fee to use it.
ReplyDeletethe guys who write photoshop user magazine actually have a video podcast they put out called photoshop user tv. It's really help me understand photoshop a lot better, especially when it comes to working with photos. You should check it out.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.photoshopusertv.com/
So, two disclaimers first:
ReplyDelete1. I work in Photoshop on a daily basis
2. I was on the design team for this little app ;)
So the first thing to realize is that you aren't expected to "treat" every photo. Even professionals pick and choose which images to develop (even back in the film days, before digital photography removed the cost/picture issue). So realize first that 1. some photos aren't worth it...they're memories, not art and 2. Some photos are fine as they are...you got the lighting right, the composition's great, and you just need to print it out (there's a separate discussion about print preparation alone...).
Then there's the intersection of photos that are good, but not perfect. Maybe there was a spot on your lens, or maybe the composition and content are amazing but your f-stop was off. This is where post-processing can save you.
Photoshop is very capable of this, and there are many people and websites that publish "rule of thumb" Photoshop workflows. The problem is that people begin to rely in these plug-and-play solutions without really learning why they're doing what they're doing, and they end up ruining good pictures with bad Photoshop. With great power...
The workflow that we considered when designing Aperture was shoot->edit->tweak->archive. That is, you shoot hundreds (sometimes thousands) of shots. Then you go through them and delete the truly shitty ones, and rank the others ("editing"). That leaves you with a handful of great shots, some of which need adjustments ("tweaking"). After all that, you need a place to keep the pictures that is searchable and safe ("archive"). Now, at the risk of sounding like our product manager, the advantage of Aperture over Photoshop is that Aperture is actually designed as a digital photography workflow tool, whereas Photoshop has evolved into a general-purpose image editor. All those other buttons? Yeah, you'll only need a few of them. Personally, as a user of both products, I would recommend Aperture for what you want to do.
But you don't HAVE Aperture. You have Photoshop. That's fine, go get the trial version and play with it. In the meantime, you can use Photoshop for what you need to do.
What is it you want to do, specifically? Tweak exposure? Make color pictures B&W? Splice jparks' head on Minnie Mouse's body? I can give you some pointers...will work for Red Robin.
i can't wait to see pics. on another note, you should join the photo board i belong to; it's mostly amateur photogs who want to get better at shooting and post-processing. you will fit right in and learn a lot!!!
ReplyDelete