Same old Question for your advices to get feet wet in RAW & P P: I am an old guy who is not savvy in computer and tech but finally decided to jump into RAW & PP. I love to hear your...

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

I am an old guy who is not savvy in computer and tech but finally decided to jump into RAW & PP. I love to hear your advices how & where to start . I would especially like to hear from some of you who are sympathetic /started in similar situations as I . Shang

Radioactive Loc: Bellingham

Lynda.com has a free one week trial period. They have many 1-3 hour videos on beginning Photoshop. It is a good place to start if you are going to go the photoshop route.
Bill

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Radioactive wrote:

Lynda.com has a free one week trial period. They have many 1-3 hour videos on beginning Photoshop. It is a good place to start if you are going to go the photoshop route.
Bill

Thank you Bill I will look into tonight. Shang

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

My personal experience: Photoshop Elements was recommended to me because it does a lot while being "lighter" than the full Photoshop. The raw editor is relatively simple, and in the main editing section there are tabs for quick, guided and expert, which helps keep the work space from being overwhelming (hiding what you don't need/want).

Lynda.com (as mentioned above) is free to me through my local library. Check with yours!

If you look at processing (and whatever related computer experience you will need) as a stimulating challenge and are looking forward to it for your own satisfaction, then there are virtually unlimited resources:

books, online videos and articles, and of course photo forums. Using the UHH search function, I entered "pp" and filtered by main discussion forum. Many of these topics are asking for software suggestions. Spend a relaxing evening reading more than you ever wanted to know via the link below

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/search-topic-list?q=pp&sectnum=1&username=

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shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Linda From Maine wrote:

My personal experience: Photoshop Elements was rec... (show quote)

Thank you Linda for your prompt response. I will start at our own resources as you recommended. Shang

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

shangyrhee wrote:

I am an old guy who is not savvy in computer and tech but finally decided to jump into RAW & PP. I love to hear your advices how & where to start . I would especially like to hear from some of you who are sympathetic /started in similar situations as I . Shang

I started out with a medium grade computer and Adobe Photoshop Elements (version 9). I suggest you get the latest version of PSE which is 2018 and as fast a computer as you can afford with the largest flat screen you can afford.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

shangyrhee wrote:

I am an old guy who is not savvy in computer and tech but finally decided to jump into RAW & PP. I love to hear your advices how & where to start . I would especially like to hear from some of you who are sympathetic /started in similar situations as I . Shang

As far as PP is concerned I would start out with one of the free programs such as faststone. It's fairly easy to learn in a few days. Once you get used to that for a while and want to get something "better" you can go to another free program Gimp. which is as close as you can get to a photoshop program withought spending any money. For about $50 you can get Affinity which is a very good PP program.

Katydid Loc: Davis, CA

If you get Elements, there are many youtube videos available. But first get a book or take a class.

NikonCharlie Loc: Kansas USA

Firmly agree with Adobe Photo Shop Elements. As you will likely move to yet another Adobe, but will be familiar with the screen layout.
You did not mention what camera, but most have a usable free software to open their RAW files and includes slight edit tools. Example is I use Nikon NXi to browse my images and cull the junk, then open them from NXi directly into Photoshop. But NXi will allow color balance, exposure adjustment and a bit more too.

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Thank you for kind advices, jeep daddy,boberic,Katydid & NikonCharlie. As usual I forgot to tell you info you need. (thank to my age). I have Pentax K3 ,K70 and Panasonic fz1000. My computer is Apple 13" Mc Pro with 16GB memory. Thanks again. Shang

TheStarvingArtist

Scott Kelby has several easy to understand books with plenty of tutorials. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/scott+kelby?Nrpp=20&page=2

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

TheStarvingArtist wrote:

Scott Kelby has several easy to understand books with plenty of tutorials. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/scott+kelby?Nrpp=20&page=2

Thank you for the info ,StarvingArtist. I will read at least one book of Scott Kelby but can't guaranty that I will remember Haha. Shang

Charles P Loc: Southern Central NY State

boberic wrote:

As far as PP is concerned I would start out with one of the free programs such as faststone. It's fairly easy to learn in a few days. Once you get used to that for a while and want to get something "better" you can go to another free program Gimp. which is as close as you can get to a photoshop program withought spending any money. For about $50 you can get Affinity which is a very good PP program.

I agree with boberic about trying faststone, just to get your feet wet with raw processing. http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm
You'll be able to see a bit of how much more that you can do with a raw file that you would have deleted if it were a jpeg. Shooting raw has saved many of my bad shots and has rendered them at least usable. Faststone is free and easy to use, and you can always move on to something more complex later if you want or need to.

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Charles P wrote:

I agree with boberic about trying faststone, just to get your feet wet with raw processing. http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm
You'll be able to see a bit of how much more that you can do with a raw file that you would have deleted if it were a jpeg. Shooting raw has saved many of my bad shots and has rendered them at least usable. Faststone is free and easy to use, and you can always move on to something more complex later if you want or need to.

Thank you so much for your info & advice. Can faststone program be downloaded into Apple ? Shang

Charles P Loc: Southern Central NY State

shangyrhee wrote:

Thank you so much for your info & advice. Can faststone program be downloaded into Apple ? Shang

No, I think that it's for Windows only. I'm sorry, I should have noticed that you said you had an Apple computer.