Other than extremely basic PP techniques like cropping, resizing, and brightness/contrast adjustments, I've never done any moderate or advanced PP on my photos. What are some good resources out there for learning up on PP with Photoshop and Lightroom (those 2 programs seem to be the bread and butter of photogs)? Are there acknowledged go-to books in this area for the novice? Looking for user-friendly material to learn PP using Photoshop and Lightroom. I've heard Lightroom is usually used to process RAW and do basic image editing and Photoshop for more advanced editing if need be - is that a broadly true statement? Thanks.

 

I don't have any books to recommend, but I can tell you that once I started processing the RAW image instead of working with JPEG, everything changed. In fact, I rarely process much outside of RAW anymore.

Lightroom is going to be the best program for doing such, but I use Adobe Camera Raw, which uses Photoshop as a slave. I process the RAW to my liking, and it automatically opens on Photoshop so I can clean up the image a bit more if needbe.

RAW processing is such a powerful tool, I can get a shot completely wrong and still save it most of the time. White-balance and exposure correction happen in seconds, and I'm able to pump the blacks without moving the contrast. This allows me to add contrast to the image without losing any detail.

Have a look at this screen-cap. Notice how blown-out the original image on the left is, and how perfectly RAW processing fixed this issue. Total work time? 3 seconds.

 

The raw bible is here

http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Camera-Ad...p/dp/0321518675 or

http://www.adorama.com/Als/ProductPage/BKAPCS4P.html

I have spent many hours mastering this book, i suggest you do also

RIP Bruce Fraser

 

Very nice! Yea apparently, that's the beauty of using RAW as there is enough extra data in the file to make adjustments. Thanks for the feedback.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Do you recommend those books over the Scott Kelby and Martin Evening ones? If I were to use Lightroom to batch process my photos to save time, would I need the RAW functionality that's in the CSx software?

 

Also, I noticed that Lightroom is $299 and CS5 is $699. Any legit method of saving money on these purchases? Like are there available discounts I can use or something? Did you guys pay full retail price on these software products?

 

My work purchased my copies. College students get a pretty big discount, if you know one, I'd go that route.

 

Im a pro, I have to

 

Scott Kelby and Martin Evening both what you purchase depends upon the approach you want to take

 

If you want to learn photoshop, I recommend anything by Scott Kelby. His writing is very easy to understand, as are his techniques. I like his 7 system book.