Photoshop CS5 question

[DoleWhipDVC]

After admiring all the cool post production shots on the boards, I'm thinking about buying a program that allows HDR, removal of unwanted people, and all those other nifty things that seem to be possible. My PP software is very basic and can't do much beyond focus, brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation adjustments.

It seems when I check the EXIF data on flicker that Photoshop CS5 keeps cropping up (no pun intended). I can get the program for about $200 from the manufacturer due to occupational discounts. Is this a good program for advanced PP including HDR? Would anyone suggest something other than Photoshop CS5 for do-it-all PP?

I know, I should work on taking the pictures and learning all I can instead of worrying about PP. But the program possibilities just look so cool I can't help myself!

 

[disneyboy2003]

Photoshop CS5 is the gold standard for image editing. You're lucky to get deep discount pricing for CS5. The normal retail price is like $699!!!

For a brand new amateur, Photoshop can be extremely overwhelming. The learning curve is super steep. Photoshop is super powerful. As someone once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Perhaps an alternative for amateur digital photographers would be Photoshop Elements 10. It has all the Photoshop tools photographers need without all the extra, confusing fluff. It normally retails for $79-99, but I've seen it as low as $49 during this holiday season. There's still a learning curve to post-processing, but hopefully it's not as steep with Photoshop Elements.

I don't wanna discourage you from CS5, but I've gotta warn you of the super-steep learning curve.

 

[wbeem]

Photoshop is powerful and it seems unintuitive when you first look at it. However, some good training will show you that you can do quite a bit with a lot of very simple techniques. It's not like you have to grapple some beast and tame it. Instead, it's more like herding cats. Just pick one thing, do it right, and move on to the next one.

No matter what camera you get, the photo isn't finished until you process it. Photoshop doesn't have to be about changing or removing things in your photo. Instead, many people use it simply to tweak or enhance their photos.

I recommend visiting KelbyTraining.com. It has very good training on Photoshop, photography and other related subjects. The first videos of each course are available for free. If you like what you see, you can subscribe by the month or the year and have access to all training videos in their library for the duration of your subscription.

A related site is PhotoshopUser.com for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). Same folks, more training, but also other things like discounts, etc. Take a look and decide for yourself.

 

[DoleWhipDVC]

Photoshop CS5 is the gold standard for image editing. You're lucky to get deep discount pricing for CS5. The normal retail price is like $699!!!

For a brand new amateur, Photoshop can be extremely overwhelming. The learning curve is super steep. Photoshop is super powerful. As someone once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Perhaps an alternative for amateur digital photographers would be Photoshop Elements 10. It has all the Photoshop tools photographers need without all the extra, confusing fluff. It normally retails for $79-99, but I've seen it as low as $49 during this holiday season. There's still a learning curve to post-processing, but hopefully it's not as steep with Photoshop Elements.

I don't wanna discourage you from CS5, but I've gotta warn you of the super-steep learning curve.

WOW! 700 bucks? So basically CS5 might be overkill for an amature that just wants to take pictures of family, vacations, and hobby activites. Spending around 50 to 100 may be the correct alternative with photoshop elements 10. I'll get online and check its features. Actually, saving some cash would allow me to look at new lenses......

Photoshop is powerful and it seems unintuitive when you first look at it. However, some good training will show you that you can do quite a bit with a lot of very simple techniques. It's not like you have to grapple some beast and tame it. Instead, it's more like herding cats. Just pick one thing, do it right, and move on to the next one.

No matter what camera you get, the photo isn't finished until you process it. Photoshop doesn't have to be about changing or removing things in your photo. Instead, many people use it simply to tweak or enhance their photos.

I recommend visiting KelbyTraining.com. It has very good training on Photoshop, photography and other related subjects. The first videos of each course are available for free. If you like what you see, you can subscribe by the month or the year and have access to all training videos in their library for the duration of your subscription.

A related site is PhotoshopUser.com for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). Same folks, more training, but also other things like discounts, etc. Take a look and decide for yourself.

Great info. Thanks for your insight.

 

[GrumpyGoat]

Photoshop CS5 is the gold standard for image editing. You're lucky to get deep discount pricing for CS5. The normal retail price is like $699!!!

For a brand new amateur, Photoshop can be extremely overwhelming. The learning curve is super steep. Photoshop is super powerful. As someone once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Perhaps an alternative for amateur digital photographers would be Photoshop Elements 10. It has all the Photoshop tools photographers need without all the extra, confusing fluff. It normally retails for $79-99, but I've seen it as low as $49 during this holiday season. There's still a learning curve to post-processing, but hopefully it's not as steep with Photoshop Elements.

I don't wanna discourage you from CS5, but I've gotta warn you of the super-steep learning curve.

I agree. I had formal training in Photoshop 12 years ago and I've been using Photoshop since Version 5 (CS5 is Version 12). I still don't know all there is to know about it.

An alternative to Photoshop is Adobe's Lightroom. (Full name: Photoshop Lightroom...) Lightroom is primarily an image organizing application but has some fairly sophisticated processing tools built in. Lightroom is intended to be used along with Photoshop but can be used as a stand-alone processing app.

I find Lightroom meets 95% of my processing needs and I only go into CS5 when I have need of something Lightroom can't do, such as HDR, panoramas, or focus stacking.

 

[Bstanley]

I find Lightroom meets 95% of my processing needs

Thanks in part to the very nice educators discount Adobe offers (thanks Dear - my wife is a High School counselor) I purchased Lightroom and Photoshop this past summer. Speaking as a total Photoshop beginner (I used Photoshop Elements 6/7/8 over the years) I couldn't agree more with this statement.

I am really finding Lightroom to be a wonderfully complete photo tool. In fact it seems like once I actually started thinking of it as an editing tool and not just as a sorting/storage tool I found that it handles everything I thought I had to have Photoshop for. My own 'prejudice' made me think I needed Photoshop

 

[GrumpyGoat]

I probably could do without Photoshop for my photographic needs but I also do graphics and publishing. I bought it as part of a suite that included Indesign, Illustrator and Acrobat along with Photoshop.

 

[DoleWhipDVC]

Thanks in part to the very nice educators discount Adobe offers (thanks Dear - my wife is a High School counselor) I purchased Lightroom and Photoshop this past summer. Speaking as a total Photoshop beginner (I used Photoshop Elements 6/7/8 over the years) I couldn't agree more with this statement.

I am really finding Lightroom to be a wonderfully complete photo tool. In fact it seems like once I actually started thinking of it as an editing tool and not just as a sorting/storage tool I found that it handles everything I thought I had to have Photoshop for. My own 'prejudice' made me think I needed Photoshop

So wait. You need BOTH Photoshop elements AND Lightroom to post process? Is that because one program doesn't do everything itself? Do either of these programs create HDR effects? My current program will do basic editing, but I want something that creates HDR, can remove ghosting (movement) images, and create panoramas, as well as do all the basics of hue, saturation, brightness, red eye removal, etc. Will these programs support that type of post processing work?

 

[disneyboy2003]

So wait. You need BOTH Photoshop elements AND Lightroom to post process? Is that because one program doesn't do everything itself? Do either of these programs create HDR effects? My current program will do basic editing, but I want something that creates HDR, can remove ghosting (movement) images, and create panoramas, as well as do all the basics of hue, saturation, brightness, red eye removal, etc. Will these programs support that type of post processing work?

Lightroom will do about 90-95% of all your post-processing needs, such as adjusting white balance, color correction, cropping, sharpening, brightening / darkening certain parts of the photo, remove red eye, etc.

For the other 5-10% of your post-processing needs, you'll need Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) to accomplish the more advanced stuff, like HDR, panoramas, removing grandma from a photo, give yourself a 20-pound weight loss, etc.

I'm not sure about "removing ghosting (movement) images." Lightroom doesn't do this. Even with Photoshop, something like this is pretty tough to correct, but it's somewhat possible, if you're talking about correcting images that aren't sharp because of slight camera shake. Otherwise, motion blur (usually due to too slow a shutter speed) is super-hard, if not impossible, to correct.


Hey! This is my 777th post!

 

[Bstanley]

So wait. You need BOTH Photoshop elements AND Lightroom to post process?

OK, based on my 6 months of eaperience

HDR:

Yes - Photoshop is required for that, although you can manipulate a single image in Lightroom to look like an HDR image.

Panorama stitching:

Yes - Photoshop is required for that.

Remove Ghosting:

Ya got me, no idea.

Hue, saturation, brightness, etc:

Lightroom can handle it.


Also - Lightroom can be expanded with plug-ins. There might be 'an app for that'.