brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

toughmandave Loc: The Villages, Florida

Another idea is look in to Kelbyone.com for a lot of online training by Scott and other fine instructors. You can subscribe by the month or year. I have found the training to be very professional and tons of titles to learn from.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Well put.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Digital cameras generally can save two types of files: raw data files and processed JPEGs. Saved-in-camera JPEGs are processed from the raw files.

Raw files contain at least three components:

The raw image data
A small, highly compressed JPEG (used to display the image on the camera's LCD and in some computer operating systems)
The EXIF file data about the JPEG

When you open a raw file on your computer, using your camera manufacturer's supplied software (Digital Photo Professional for Canon, Nikon's (I forget), or SilkyPix Developer Studio for Panasonic, etc), the software defaults to processing the raw file using the EXIF data parameters that were used to save the JPEG preview, or a full size JPEG, in the camera. The image will follow your camera menu settings.

When you open a raw file in Lightroom and some other software packages, that package applies its own processing defaults, which look considerably different from, and often not as good as camera JPEGs, if you haven't changed the defaults!

Raw processing on a computer simply develops an image using controls YOU apply, to taste.

To process raw files correctly, YOU MUST CALIBRATE AND PROFILE YOUR MONITOR USING A HARDWARE DEVICE AND SOFTWARE. The device can be a colorimeter or spectrophotometer. If you buy a DataColor Spyder5Pro or X-RITE i1DisplayPro, it will come with the device and software. Read and follow all directions *very* carefully.

Once your monitor is calibrated and profiled, you must configure your post-processing software's color management settings to include a "working space" profile such as ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB, the monitor profile you just created, and the output profile (sRGB for the Internet and photo labs, possibly Adobe RGB for process color printing on a press, or possibly a paper profile from your lab, or for use on your inkjet printer.

If your test prints don't match your monitor very closely, stop and figure out why, before adjusting images and wasting money! The issue is usually with the calibration setup, room brightness, double profiling, profile mis-match, or failure to configure something.

Once you trust that your prints will match your monitor, you can tweak the sliders in your software until you like what you see on screen... then order or make prints, or make JPEGs in sRGB color space for the Internet sharing sites you love so much (Facetwit, Twitbook, InstantCram, flikit, etc.).

Lightroom, Photoshop, Affinity Photo, DPP, SilkyPix, Capture One Pro, etc. all process raw files into image files. They can do a straight conversion, but the point of using raw capture is to work as if you had a digital negative, not a slide or transparency. There is much more range for adjustment in raw files than there is in JPEG files.

If you save JPEGs straight-out-of-the-camera, you must do PRE-processing. That means setting all processing parameters in the camera menus, and getting the exposure and white balance PERFECT. It can be done for some jobs, but... in a run and gun circumstance, recording raw files will allow a wide margin for exposure and white balance error, and will allow you to extract details that the camera would trash on its way to making a JPEG.

So raw image post-processing is a LOT like printing color or black-and-white negatives in a darkroom. It gives you finer control.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Five Posts and No Topics in Five Years, what? You shooting film? Funny how Ansel dodged and burned his negatives so much. Nothing is perfect.

GrandmaG Loc: Flat Rock, MI

Like the OP, I am learning Photoshop. I bought Photoshop for Dummies which I would NOT recommend.

If you learn best by watching videos, join Lynda.com for a free trial and watch Julieanne Kost's "Photoshop CC Essentials". I also found the class on Creative Live by Ben Wilmore's "Adobe Photoshop CC: The Complete Guide" very good.

I haven't gotten through all of Ben's lessons yet (I own it); but did complete Julieanne's (due to the short timeframe).

The book & CD combo you recommend sounds like a winner and may be just the ticket for me as I learn best by reading and following up with doing. In addition, videos I have viewed can clear up exactly how to do things.

I have read on UHH that learning Photoshop may take YEARS!!!?!! To learn it well, anyway.

Good luck and never stop learning!!

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

Learning PS is definitely not quick. But if you don't try to do too much at once, you can get proficient with the pieces of the program you study and practice. When I first got the Adobe CC subscription, it was not just to update my LR program, it was also to learn PS. My initial motivation was to learn to use layers. So I worked with that first. Still have much more to learn!

CreativeLive is a great source, and can be free if you can tune in when programs are "On Air". Ben Willmore is one of my favorite instructors!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

It keeps changing, so we have to keep learning. I have used it since 1990. 80% of what I need is in Lightroom, though.

lwerthe1mer Loc: Birmingham, Alabama

All of your comments are so instructive. Our hobby (or profession) has a lot to learn, which keeps us interested.

I agree that there is so much to learn in PS, and Lightroom, that the process is ongoing. And it's a lot of fun to keep learning.

What I still don't understand is who Kelby's book, entitled Photoshop, is all about Camera Raw and has nothing about what I consider to be Photoshop. How does Camera Raw fit into the picture (no pun intended)?

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

Scott Kelby's book about Photoshop is not ALL about ACR, just an excessive amount of it is included in the book. Also, he made no mention [that I recall] of the LR-PS interface.

ACR is always included with PS. Although from what I understand it is a separate program, it behaves like it is part of PS. This is the program that is considered to be equivalent to LR, although I like LR and never completely understood how to use ACR! So if you had a stand-alone PS you would use ACR for the basic initial edits the same way I use LR. That is how it fits into the picture!

Then there is Bridge, for organizing if you do not have LR. I use LR instead.

If you use LR, you do not need ACR or Bridge. They don't show up unless you call on them! Makes them easy to ignore.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Camera Raw and Lightroom develop are two interfaces to the same thing, when burkePhoto says Lightroom accounts for around 80% of his post processing needs he might as well be saying it about camera raw too all the parameters in lightroom develop are available in camera raw.

As you know each camera takes a raw file and turns it into a jpeg file. How that jpeg file looks is determined by the jpeg settings in your camera and there are a lot of them. Camera raw essentially gives you those settings to set as you want, after the fact, plus a little bit more (e.g red eye removal) plus local adjustments too, you can selectively sharpen for example which you can't do in camera, it can only do a generic sharpen routine.
In fact that's one of the limitations of an in camera jpeg is it can only apply generic routines to an image. Camera raw allows you to decide what's best for this image, and it likely will not be exactly the same for the previous image or the next. It certainly will not be the same for each photographic session you have unless you have a studio set.

When you move beyond Camera raw, you are now able to go beyond the limitations of reality based processing to making a photo a picture, there is not a clear line where a photograph ends and a picture begins, you can cross that boundary in camera raw to be honest. You can even substitute a sky in Photoshop and go back into camera raw and edit it like it was just a photo, camera raw doesn't know where the bits came from.

Full blown manipulation of an image is hard to do, your eyes get suspicious that something is not quite right... I'll leave it at that , this is not meant to be an essay.

But pretty much you can think of camera raw as tools you can use to tune up a digital negative to be its full potential, although that's easy to fail at too. A subtle touch is needed to keep it real and it's way too easy to overcook an image. I guess most of us hope people say that's a lovely photograph, rather than you photoshopped that. Getting a solid grasp of camera raw will let you keep your photographs as photographs.

Learning to keep things real in raw development is a solid foundation which you can build on when you decide reality isn't enough.