willaim Loc: Sunny Southern California

If you are interested in doing post production and don't want to spend a lot of money I'd start with Photo Shop Elements 13 or 14. Lots of nice features to make your photos look better and not complicated. I call Elements "the poor man's photo shop." Good luck in whatever you decide.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

The great images begin in your mind's eye. The camera captures them so you can see them more than a fraction of a second in certain place. When the composition is there, the rest can be optimized by the tools we now know as post processing. Some more than others. But the great images are in the mind's eye. Ansel post processed and virtually every famous photographer did. Learn to see that great image first.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

PS: the world has not ended yet, so all the great photographers of today are also post processing.

Marilyng Loc: Lorain,Oh.

Look into Topaz Filters,they are amazing!

akretiree Loc: Anchorage

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

canon Lee

In a practical sense, If you are just taking pictures of the family, vacations, or outdoor landscapes or wildlife, & you feel your photos are good enough for you and those you might share with, then there doesn't seem to be any reason to invest your time to study and practice creative post editing techniques. However if you intend to sell or have clients it is a must that you hone your post editing skills. Shots directly out of your camera are never perfect, close sometimes but never good enough. Even a simple sharpness adjustment makes a difference. You will have to take the leap into shooting RAW at some point, & that is when your efforts to correct the original shot comes in.

akretiree Loc: Anchorage

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

I would never sell a pic, and I haven't had a pic printed in several years, but any pic I share with anyone will be tweaked in Photoshop, especially snapshots of family and friends. I want the subject, whether it is a family member, or scenery or a house or a bird or my dog or a bowl of chili to be as colorful and well cropped as I can make it. That just doesn't happen straight out of the camera for me.
Bob

tshift Loc: Overland Park, KS.

Got it>

Harvey Loc: Pioneer, CA

So many good reply s as well as not so good/well thought out or just plane not helpful at all.
It has been my experience over the bast 20 years of working towards capturing and producing decent images that there are folks/photographers who are quite capable of grabbing and image in their eye, capturing it in a quality camera and lens with the correct settings, lighting and composition that little or no PP is needed or will improve it one bit. I have known a few of these people - some are here on UHH.Take Blacks 2 for instance - ask him if every photo he took looks as fine originally as they are when he posts them.

I am not one of that group. I do the best I can with my knowledge, memory to set /adjust my settings as well as take more than one photo when in doubt.
When I download my images I use Picaso 3 and delete my obvious "junk" - save the rest to a specific file.
As I open a chosen photo to work on/edit in PS CS4 I save it as a copy to work on so I "NEVER" work/alter the original - After I am satisfied with the image whether it has been adjusted with pp or not I save it again with a "F" for final or an "E" for email - ending up with 3 files of the same photo for the obvious reasons.
The PP can be very minor or depending on the need because of my settings not being correct or the lighting just not good at the time - some "one time" photos are not conducive to turning out as the eye sees it or the mind wants to see it.
My work flow has been refined to:
I check the levels - the graph pretty much tells me if levels can help -most always a slight tweek one way or another helps the photo

Brightness/Contrast is used the same way as levels some times.

"IF" there are not wanted or too dark shadows the shadow/highlight tool does wonders.

I do "boarder patrol" to determine just how much I want in the final image or if there are spots/items/"trash" in the image that I want to clone out/over.

Sharpen is the last tool I use before Resize/Crop and with luck,skill and PP I turn out a decent photo to share.

My learning to use PP to my satisfaction has been and always will be an ongoing process.

Harvey

Harvey

LarryN Loc: Portland OR & Carbondale, CO

If you are serious about the endeavor then the answer is yes. And besides it is very enjoyable, in my opinion.

pyroManiac Loc: HIXSON,TN

Depending on lighting, subject, framing, etc some photos cannot be improved by post processing. Sometimes what you see is what you get and cannot be improved.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

Yes, they may be good, but never great without post-processing. It's like using an old Polaroid camera so you don't have to go in the darkroom. Once you discover the darkroom, you can be far more creative.

Either go with Gimp or Corel Paintshop Pro. Either will give you almost everything you could get from Photoshop. Some people do use PS Elements, but I find it frustrating because of the many missing capabilities.

OTOH Photoshop is definitely the professional way to go. There is a steep learning curve with any of these. Even though I have all three, I keep going back to PS because I know it. I do occasional work with gimp and PSP because I WANT to use them. (I have a deep hatred of Adobe for reasons that are irrelevant here.) One of these days I'm going to cancel my Photoshop and force myself to use PSP or Gimp.

As an interim measure, try LightZone or another of the free and easy to use alternatives, just to learn what you can do with a raw image.

Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

Amen

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

backroader Loc: Wherever we park our motorhome

I just went through the Lightroom introduction the wrong way - without tutorials, UHH, etc. When I finally got on the right track, I found it wasn't nearly as difficult as I was making it with outside help. I think once you get past the basics, you can learn a lot on your own without long tutorials, etc. I'm loving LR now!