jabe750

Is it neccessary to take a photoshop class or can I learn it on my own using a "Dummies" book?

WayneT Loc: Paris, TN

There is lots of free and very inexpensive tutorial training on the net including from Adobe. Here are a couple that I use:

https://www.adobeknowhow.com

http://www.jkost.com/

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/tutorials.html

And there are lots more.

canon Lee

Hi and welcome. You need both programs. LightRoom is a program for SELECTING images as well as a RAW CONVERTER ( exposure,highlights,ETC). Photoshop CS and others are a program for EDITING and image. It is in this program that you will do RETOUCHING, because unlike LR you can move pixels. Good luck.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Well... you make several incorrect assumptions. First, I did NOT state my case from lack of experience. I used LR daily for two years with Paintshop Pro as my layer-based editing program until the PS-CC package became available.

Secondly, a couple professional photographer organizations don't represent an overwhelming majority. My use of the word "some" is relative and not specific anyway. Some like it and some don't, that's a valid statement. I still stand with that statement. I dare say that if you went into a magazine publishing company editing office you would see PS on every single Mac and PC and rarely find LR at all, unless it was a staff photographer who wanted to rough in his or her photos before turning them over to editors. So whether a majority, or a minority, of "some people" is valid would depend on the field of endeavor.

Third, what you described in your feeble attempt to usurp and discredit my comments about layers achieving editing of individual components, you still didn't prove anything different because LR's adjustments can affect a "region" of the photo but there is no possible way in LR to, for example, affect a single item with crisp edges specifically and in detail while leaving the rest of the composition alone. No layers with a lasso selection tool - no can do.

Next, you don't need LR to be able to rough adjust a lot of photos at once to create consistency. I do it all the time in PS. Highlight as many photos as you want in Bridge, left click and open in ACR, choose them all again in ACR, and make edits to one and the same edits happen to all. I do that to three to five groups of 10 to 15 every day and occasionally but rarely to 50 or so. I have presets of what adjustments that I want ACR to make and then go through and fine tune what the preset did a little before moving on sending them to PS.

Contrary to your statement, LR's editor and ACR's editor are not 100% the same. I don't remember what the functions were but another member pointed out about a year ago that LR has one or two things it can do that PS ACR can't. They weren't anything I use, so I didn't really care. But I agree that the two are very, very similar.

Counter tip - You are wrong on your criticism of my camera and what's required for HDR. Yes, an outdoor shot of a home can easily be done in HDR with 2 to 3 frames. There aren't any really dark or washed out areas in a noon time exterior shot so that works. Auto-bracketed sets don't work well outdoors with breezes moving tree limbs, leaves, flowers, and grass though. But when doing interiors, any self-respecting real estate photography article or website by anybody who actually does this work will tell you that you should always use a minimum of a 5-exposure 2-stop bracketed set for interiors. The dynamic light range is very large and requires much more than a measly 2 or 3 frames. Using 2 or 3 frames you might as well not even do HDR at all. Yes, 7 frames is excess when 5 can do the job, but I've got it available and Photomatix bulk processing is fast, so what's the difference? I lose nothing, no more time is used, and I might actually gain in some circumstances by using 7 frames, so I see no reason to change anything. I could probably use JPG instead of RAW and processing would be much faster too but I prefer RAW.

By the way, I'm not going to sit around creating HDR photo blends manually in LR or PS. I'm sure they do a nice job but when I'm merging 350 to 400 frames per day, I have a nice preset in Photomatix and let it do it's thing for half an hour - not burn myself out doing it manually for hours.

The only point you got correct is that I used the word HDR throughout my previous post because the OP, who doesn't have an understanding of LR nor PS, wouldn't know what Fusion is but I'm sure he's heard HDR many times and his class likely discussed it a little to explain what it is. I DO use Fusion all the time and never HDR, partially because Fusion reduces noise in a photo while HDR increases it, and partially because Fusion is renowned as THE method for real estate photography interiors that you want to look absolutely realistic and not like artwork. This is where I will assume YOU have lack of hands-on experience in my field of endeavor, not me.

So then we come to simplicity for the newbie who asked the original question. He can use PS's Bridge which will act like Windows Explorer that he already has some knowledge of - or he can explode his brain doing as you say, "I will admit that initially, I was totally confused by it. But I locked myself in a room for a day, learned its language and logic, and trust me, it is far better and easier to work with than any alternative..." Most people, especially newbies, aren't going to learn it in a day, more likely a week of anguish and not understanding the language of it, then still have problems. I don't like to recommend something that will totally confuse a newbie. I don't want to recommend something that requires a newbie to learn the language and logic of software and become submissive to it instead of enjoying his photography and seeing editing results he's happy with. I don't want to be a librarian or I would have gotten a degree library sciences. I just want to import my photos and plant them in folders I create, and be able to go to those folders easily to get them for various purposes. I don't think "an overwhelming majority" of pro photographers want to fight their software to make it do what they want done. I also don't think an "overwhelming majority" of pro photographers edit their photos to completion without PS's layering. Personally I'd prefer to use PS Elements rather than LR if I didn't use PS-CC.

Drag and drop of files to folders you want them in and know they actually went there immediately is what's far easier and that's what Bridge does - thus LR's librarian is NOT easier. Do a search on UHH and count the number of posts on here over the last 3 years from fearful, grief ridden, posters who have fought LR and lost or fought LR and it put their files where they couldn't find them. It's not just a dozen but hundreds. Is LR's librarian better? Probably because it's more complex and does more. But Bridge is much easier although maybe not as flexible and serves the need of most just dandy.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

That's not true at all. PS has Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) which has identical functions as LR, including RAW conversion, with the only difference being LR's Librarian and PS's Bridge methods of moving files around. If one has PS-CC that has ACR in it they have virtually no reason to use LR nor to even own it.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

I learned it using a Dummies book but I had already been using Corel Paintshop Pro for several years and they are like foreign cousins from two different companies because Paintshop Pro is a clone of Photoshop that sells for a lot less. Some of my PaintShop Pro knowledge ported over to Photoshop but not everything.

Photoshop can be as easy or hard as you personally make it. It is a monster with abilities to do a lot of things that you and I may never use. That doesn't mean you need to learn them and confuse yourself. You can make a Photoshop experience easy. Or you can create complex artistic accomplishments that take advantage of a lot of tools and abilities. I do the same things to my real estate photos every single day. I have "plug-ins" that further enhance my photos without my doing it manually and that saves me time. From time to time something comes up and I go to a tutorial and read about it and try it. Then I have incorporated one more feature into my knowledge. Like I had to create a 4-page booklet, back cover, and disc artwork for a band's CD. I used Photoshop for the whole thing but I had to learn how to use text, create paragraphs, use templates from the CD printing company, and use external software to create text art pieces to insert in various places of the booklet. It was a learning challenge, and I also did all the photo editing for the cover, but after the mind-blowing learning it came out quite well and I get compliments on it as though I'm a graphic artist. I'm not but I was forced into that endeavor and made Photoshop work with me to get it accomplished. Without the layers ability of Photoshop that I sometimes stacked 15 to 20 deep, I couldn't have done it.

Whether you can use a Dummies book is strictly based on your personal learning curve and your persistence. If you want to read a few pages, dive in, and expect miracles to happen - they won't. There's no Easy Button in PS or LR. If you're willing to read a section and be sitting near your keyboard so you can try whatever they just described several times until you have it engrained in your mind, then you will eventually have the "Lightbulb" go off over your head and you'll get better with it more rapidly. I spent a month with a Dummies book and PS to start to know where stuff was and what it did so I could edit pretty well with it. I used Paintshop Pro for my work during my PS learning time then switched over.

People will tell you that Photoshop is too hard but that's because it is hugely flexible and has many features - many you'll never use or may not use for a couple years after starting out.

You may also want to start with the latest Photoshop Elements instead which is cheap and is not a rental. It simulates the family star "real" Photoshop somewhat and is less than $100 to buy anytime.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I am not going to waste my time arguing with you. What I wrote is for the benefit of others, who would otherwise get the wrong impression of what place LR has in a workflow, and why you would not want to use LR with it's powerful parametric controls for fine detail, finish editing, and why certain things are far easier and faster to accomplish in LR or ACR than in PS or any other pixel-based editor.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You obviously get it.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

(Download)

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Good for you. I guess you're fully satisfied with editing halfway to the best you could do. Why you would edit with LR or ACR only and not continue to finish the job in PS is beyond me. To each his own.

WayneT Loc: Paris, TN

Simple, sometimes my shots are good enough that I can finish all the PP I need in LR.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I ALWAYS finish my images in PS. Do you actually read what is written, or you do just read what you think I am saying just so you can argue. My workflow is simple - import either using On1 or LR - ON1 is fast and respects LR's rating color coding and keywording. I simply copy my images (drag and drop) into a folder that I have created. If I use On1, I open the folder and rate, cull, etc etc, and then I open LR, add the folder to the catalog, and begin my parametric adjustments. When I am done, there will always be either a client short list that needs additional editing, or my personal favorites that I will be exhibiting and hopefully selling. Both those images get lots of TLC in Photohop, until I am completely satisfied.

It's a little different when I review student work - I have set up a watched folder in LR which is located in my Dropbox folder. Students deposit images in there, either raw, raw+xmp, or tiff/psd - and I review and comment. Opening LR and navigating to the watched folder and syncing is all I have to do. Very very simple.

Some of the images I work on are high-end fashion retouch - and I usually get either 16 bit raw, tiff or psd - and these are edited almost exclusively in PS. Others are restoration - I scan prints using vuescan to produce a high quality 48 bit scan. Then I open in PS, and go to town. Restorations and fashion retouch are the only images I will usually not run through LR - no need to. But all of my own work, and when I do an event with a second shooter - goes through LR.

Plugins are usually launched from LR - I like LR's HDR and Pano merge primarily because unlike most other software, it results in a raw file (dng) after merging. I suspect one of the reasons you use 5 - 7 hdr shots is because you use Photomatix which converts raw files to tiff or jpeg before internally processing them. Even a 16 bit tiff is a subset of a full blown raw file. I would rather have the raw to edit with. But I can see the batch mode in Photomatix useful if you are cranking out 100s of images a day. You are a better man than I am. The only "RE" photography I do these days is high-end - where I can spend an entire day shooting a property, complete with proper lighting and blacked out windows. I remove the black velvet to make a single proper exposure of the window, and combine (fuse) the two exposures in LR, LR/Enfuse (or if I feel like it, Photomatix). My per diem of $1400 plus expenses, so I generally get properties in the $5M-$10M range, and I make them look amazing. I have no stomach for the high-volume Multiple Listing crowd. They don't need nor can they afford to hire me.

You continue to make incorrect assumptions about what I do, what I suggest, and what I write - slow down, relax read carefully what I state - it is full of tons of valuable information, and even some opinions that you may/may not agree with, but they are certainly worth looking into, or not.

For the record, I have yet to see a single LR-only image that could not be improved on by using a proper photo-finishing program. And I've been doing photography since 1967, when I started with 4x5 view cameras, hot lights and all sorts of equipment to photograph architectural interiors for a group of architects and interior designers. Suffice it to say, there is a good chance I've been at this game at least as long as you have, and more than likely longer.

Try not to be so sensitive, defensive and reactive - it clouds your judgement and makes you sound a little silly.