There are several years questions there. As a very general rule, remember less is more with any PP. Although every digital photograph will benefit from a sympathetic touch in an editor, all can also be ruined by going to far
Thanks, it's tricky isn't it, I hope you can see I'm not just being lazy with my questions, I do realise I need to learn this stuff, it's the 'how to learn' bit I'm struggling with. If it was a case of take a course I'd sign up, read a book I'd buy it, watch videos I'd get going. I know I need to just practice until it comes naturally, I guess I'm just struggling to understand how I'll know when I've got it right and - more importantly - wrong. Of course if a photo was very wrong I'd know, but sometimes editing for impact means you can do more with it, a bit like art I guess - it doesn't have to be a life-like representation to be good, although if it's too abstract it will obviously not be to everyone's tastes.
I'm dabbling with some street photography - although I'm not even sure of the rules there, what is and isn't street photography, I'm assuming I just take pics of things I say and can make something interesting out of. I mostly take pictures of people, thats my interest, and when editing I like to move the 'clarity' slider up, sometimes quite high, I don't know if this is 'wrong' though. I realise it isn't good if you are zooming in on those pixels, but it makes the pictures more interesting, it shows the facial expressions with so much more clarity, I also work on shadows blacks and whites, the highlights, the temperature, and other elements too, it's not as if I'm going in and whacking up thenclarity and I'm done. I just don't know if technically I'm way off with this stuff and I'm approaching it all wrong
I guess I started in the same way as everyone else, that is, mucking around with tools and filters and turning everything up to 11. (B&W with coloured bits, over-done HDR, plastic skin, Alien Skin filters, dodgy composites etc, we all do it, we have to get it out of our systems!!) Once you get past that (If you get past that, some people get stuck there) you have an understanding of the tools, but not necessarily an idea of how to use them. It's a bit like having a full toolkit, but not having an architect to tell you what to build with them. You need to be able to look at professional work (Anything you aspire to) and rationally identify what is different between your image and theirs. If you can do that, you can aim towards it. Then you'll start to find things you do and don't like, steer away from some things and towards others and before you know it, you're at your own destination instead.
I hope I got the funky editing out of my system a while back too! I understand most of the tools as I can usually see what they are doing, it's not always clear but I have a reasonable idea. What I'm not sure of is combinations of tools, I just move things I know work and together they make a picture I like, I'm not sure I could look at a picture and work out what I needed to do to get it to match. I'd love to get there, but I don't know how else to learn other than keep trying. Any tips always appreciated!
Being able to identify the differences between your work and your target is *THE* most important photoshop skill. That's a point so important I felt it prudent to re-iterate it.
I understand, I guess that's what I don't know how to learn. Some things are obvious, others less so or not at all.
This is a combination of two sides of the coin - artistic and technical. I studied engineering instead of art, so for me the technical side of it was the obvious approach (I'm only recently starting to get more into the "artistic diagnosis" and as a technical person I find it a lot harder than numerical analysis!) but it's just as important. You can use numbers to identify a colour cast, or a particular lighting arrangement, but there's no hard and fast rule to qualify things like pose and composition which play a huge part in the final image.
I'm not an engineer but I'm analytical - maths and physics we're my favourite subjects, and I loved technical drawing and design, but I was rubbish at the creative art elements (first stitches, final artistic renders) and the physical building stuff - I'm not very practical and can't make or build unfortunately. I tend to know how things should be done but lack the ability (or enthusiasm) to get my hands dirty. So similar to you the artistic stuff isn't natural for me and I find it a challenge. I approach it by thinking what I personally like, but I guess I worry others may not, and I worry that I'm technically way off with my work - from making the photo in camera through to the editing part. Partly this is because I'm a total perfectionist, 'ok' or 'nice' don't really work for me.
I need to get my in camera work to a higher standard as well, I took a load of pictures yesterday and looking back I found I missed the focus on so many but I don't know why. I know how to do it (at least I thought I knew) but it didn't work out as I hoped.
If you're just starting out, it can help to compare to work closer to your own, too. If you were just starting out sprinting, you wouldn't compare your times to Usain Bolt right? Sometimes it can be more beneficial to look at your peers work, with one eye on the top-end, as one might be able to identify and bridge those differences which is a little less demoralising. I have a nasty habit of looking at the covers of Time and NG and beating myself up :/
Yea that makes sense. I could outrun Usain of course but I let him have his glory, he's a nice chap! I do enjoy looking at photos of people on here, but I don't consider myself anywhere near their levels of course, so it still feels massively out of reach. It is demoralising, but I won't give in. I'm hoping that perseverance will pay off, it would be easy to give up because I can't do it, which is of course what most people do - otherwise there would be even more really good photographers out there than there already are!
I stream at
http://www.beam.pro/denyer but it's very ad-hoc at the moment. There are a couple of VoD's on there from past retouches but they won't be online much longer (They're only held for 14 days). If you have an account and follow a channel, I think it sends you an email when that channel starts to broadcast to make it easy to catch.
I've downloaded the app and side up, I'm following you now, I'll watch those videos today, they are way above my level I'm sure but I'll benefit from seeing things done. If you ever get the desire to do some fairly basic editing on some images, especially some street or candid pictures, I'd be really grateful!
Not at all, it's all good stufff. Thanks for your lengthy replies. It's easy to ignore beginners and just let us get on with it or tell us to just learn and stop being lazy, I really want to learn, this IS me learning in some ways.
