I'm new here. Today was day 1 for me in regards to posting, and one of the reasons I'm participating in 365project is to improve my photo editing skills. Well, honestly, gain photo editing skills. So, I ask you folks, what do you recommend starting with? Where should I begin?
I have access to Photoshop and I have Capture One, but when I open up a raw file in either of them, I'm a bit clueless as to where to begin.
Obviously there are near infinite resources online, but any pointers or suggestions on which ones helped you get started or any other means you might suggest would be appreciated.
One of the best ways to learn is to just open up a picture and start fiddling around with the sliders. As you say there are so many tutorials and lots of information available on the internet. Take a look at other peoples pictures and if someone has produced something that you like and would like to try to achieve, ask them how they did it. Most will tell you or post a link for you to follow. 365ers are friendly and helpful!
@matt365 Welcome to 365 Matt. Sally's advice is right on target. Tonight I did an exercise that is useful which involves working with one photo wiht a variety of programs. If you are interested in general post-processing, I recommend finding on-line videos and try one thing at a time. You have options to learn to do post processing to improve a RAW image, or post processing for 'fun' to create different looks from an image you are already happy with (that's the exercise I did tonight). Give yourself time -- 365 is a great place to learn -- look at images you like that others post and read how they did them (or ask them how they did it).
Welcome aboard...I completely agree with both @taffy and @salza. I started out with Google Picasa, which is free and was a good grounding in the basics, and then moved on to Lightroom. I found that Picasa had the "bare basics" in comparison to Lightroom but was nonetheless a good "training ground" for the more complex/capable Lightroom. My biggest tip would be to start out by playing with the sliders to get the look you want, and as already stated, if you see a shot you like just ask - in my experience here over the past two years you'll get more than enough help and sound advice from a collection of truly awesome people.
@matt365 Hi Matt. I have Capture One also and am still trying to work with it too. I started with Picasa and found it pretty good grounding. There's lots I can do with C1 but the folders/files etc is still a bit of a mystery to me. If you're in Melb, there is training over 5 Tuesday nights in Feb/Mar this year. Good luck with it.
@matt365 Hi Matt, welcome to 365! When I started a year ago, I really knew nothing about editing, and then throughout the year, I just explored more and more of the Photos (which comes with any Mac computer). They give you controls over the main editing functions and some filters, and that was enough for me for a little while. The more time I spent here, the more you "sponge up" when people talk about editing, and so step by step I felt I "overgrew" Photos. Just got Lightroom now, and before I used Affinity Photo, which is quite powerful. Have fun and again -welcome to 365!
@graemestevens it is always worth a try - you may catch me in one of those rare moments - I think it has happened thrice in 50 odd years - and don't even think of commenting about the odd ;)
Hi Matt. Welcome to 365. You've had lots of good advice here already. I echo Vera's comments @vera365 about Photos for OS X if you have a Mac. I still sometimes do a basic Photos edit, but am increasingly faffing about in PS Elements. As others have said, there's loads of help to be found on the internet. I have also finally discovered a book that I can use - by Scott Kelby & Matt Kloskowski. They've written plenty so you should find something to suit the programme you want to use. Have fun and don't hesitate to ask for help when you need it!
I started with free Photoscape (which even has curves and cloning feature), and finally progressed to Photoshop and Camera RAW for astrophotography. Now I mostly use Bridge, then open photos in Camera RAW and move various sliders to see what happens - it is very easy way to edit and I get lots of interesting results.
However, I can definitely say I would not understand so much in Camera RAW without the Photoscape - it gave me understanding in basic editings.
Like Clare @pistache I'd recommend you read something by Scott Kelby. His writing style is very distinctive, but his approach to teaching is to take things in bite-sized chunks, not burden you down with "theory" and just show you what to do. For Photoshop, something like
might seem expensive, but you'll move along quickly and easily.
While just jumping in and start playing with stuff might work for some folks, as you found that is really not all that productive and can be extremely frustrating. Speaking from experience. If you have Photoshop, then you have the Cadillac. A slimmed down Photoshop Elements (14 now I think) is less expensive, and to my mind does practically everything a photographer needs. Kelby has a new book on that too.
Thank you all! When I saw I had a notification that there were some replies to my post, I didn't expect this many. I think there's a lot of great advice here, and we'll see what the next 364 days bring (Except it's leap year, so I guess this is 366Project for me)
Hi Matt, welcome. I agree about google Picassa its a great starting point and just playing around with the images on there can throw up some surprisingly unexpected results.... good luck
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However, I can definitely say I would not understand so much in Camera RAW without the Photoscape - it gave me understanding in basic editings.
http://www.amazon.com/Photoshop-Digital-Photographers-release-Voices/dp/0133900851/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451738253&sr=1-14&keywords=scott+kelby+digital+photography
might seem expensive, but you'll move along quickly and easily.
While just jumping in and start playing with stuff might work for some folks, as you found that is really not all that productive and can be extremely frustrating. Speaking from experience. If you have Photoshop, then you have the Cadillac. A slimmed down Photoshop Elements (14 now I think) is less expensive, and to my mind does practically everything a photographer needs. Kelby has a new book on that too.
http://www.amazon.com/Photoshop-Elements-Digital-Photographers-Voices/dp/0134290895/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451738633&sr=1-1&keywords=Scott+kelby+elements+14
Good luck! And welcome to 365.