Tackling a Monster

I’ve been slacking a bit in my blogging. I wanted to do it at least once a week, but I’ve been busy doing other things… Oh well, at least I’m here now.

So last week I began really learning Photoshop CS5. Previously, I read most of a book on CS4, but realized I needed to master Lightroom first. Lightroom is definitely the most important program in my post processing. It allows me to stay very organized and gives me the smoothest workflow options.

I learned how to use it by reading Scott Kelby’s The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers while using a beta version of Lightroom 3. There were some slight differences, but the core functionality was there and it helped quite a bit. If you are planning on learning Lightroom and want a good “show me how” type of book, I highly recommend you get his book for whichever version of Lightroom you use.

When Lightroom 3 was officially released, I picked up Martin Evening’s The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers. His book is much more detailed than Kelby’s and is the perfect supplement to Kelby’s introductory type style. Evening’s style is more for intermediate learners and was perfect for where I was in my knowledge. I haven’t completely finished it, but I’ve read through the majority of the material on processing color photos and feel really confident in my abilities now.

And now my next challenge: Photoshop CS5. CS5 is a huge monster. It’s not just for Photographers. There is so much you can do in it, it’s hard to figure out what I need to use. Luckily, Kelby and Evening both have written books on it.

I just started Scott Kelby’s The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers, and I have Martin Evening’s Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers waiting for me when I finish. Kelby’s CS5 book does not need to be read straight through like his Lightroom books, but I’m reading straight through anyway. I don’t want to miss a thing.

One of the first few photos I worked on is a photo I took in April, 2009. The photo was taken while hiking South Mountain in Phoenix, AZ. It’s the perfect shot of a brown-crested flycatcher sitting on a cactus where the main barrel had been cut away by some means. It’s one of my favorite shots, but I’ve struggled to get the entire photo exposed and color corrected properly. I think I’ve finally fixed it.

Today I began the chapter on HDR, which is something I’ve been really excited to get into. The HDR photos I’ve made in the past have been ok, but I really want to master this very creative form of photography. The first one I made after reading the first lesson is a from my vacation to RI this past October. In anticipation of making HDR photos, I’ve been shooting a lot of photos using the Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) on my camera. I took three exposures of one of my favorite shots in Narragansett and it can out really well.

Ok, time to get back to work learning this crazy beast called Photoshop.