Kent Newsome on technology, music and life

10/24/2006


Calling All Photographers

I have reluctantly concluded that in order to take my new passion for photography to the desired level, I am going to have to learn Photoshop.  I can't adequately describe the dread inherent in that phrase.

About 8 or so years ago, I took a deep breath and bought Photoshop.  At the time, I found it to be about 65,000 times more complicated than I thought it needed to be.  I gave up and decided to learn Pascal, Latin and Chinese instead.  At the same time.  While jumping rope.  It was much easier.

But having seen so much of Thomas Hawk's great photography and having read a few tutorials on the various photography sites, I have to jump back into that great ball of confusion.

What are the best books to read to learn Photoshop?  Are there better ways to learn it?

I need something that is easy to follow, but comprehensive enough to allow me to know what can be done with photos, as well as how to do it.

Suggestions will be appreciated!

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3 Comment(s):

Kent,

While there are many good books on Photoshop (many of which I've skimmed, none of which I've ever bought), my number one recommendation for you is a website created by a guy named John Arnold. He's a listener and ultra-smart forum member over at Tips from The Top Floor. Anyway, he started his own site a while back with screencast videos illustrating post-processing using Photoshop.

Now I haven't watched them all, I can safely tell you that watching tutorial #1 did more for my photoshop skills than any article or book had done up to that point. He illustrates layer techniques and all sorts of other practicavideotutorials.htmll tips that you pick up so much more easily when you see them in action. You also get creative ideas about post-processing, but there is a ton of practical Photoshop related stuff to be absorbed.

That was his very first one and I found it so valuable. I have only watched a couple of them but I'm sure he's done nothing but improve.

The great thing is that he's heavy into the photoshop thing, AND heavy into photography. Many times you will find a lot of documentation and help related to graphic design and not as much dealing strictly photography.

You can directly download the screencasts from his site or subscribe to his feed.

You can find his stuff here.

By Blogger RichardQuerin, at 10/25/2006 5:18 AM  
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You could try the online training library at www.lynda.com. This recent addition might be what you are looking for: Photoshop CS2 Mastering Camera Raw

By Blogger Steve Newson, at 10/25/2006 4:06 PM  
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Hey Kent,

Stay tuned for a new Scoble Show that we did with Jan Kabili. Jan is a Photoshop expert and one of the best. She's written several books on Photoshop and runs a Photoshop blog which is a good resource.

http://photoshoponline.tv/index.php?post_id=132317&comments=on

In the episode Jan walks me through my RAW workflow and you can pretty much watch an image from start to finish.

Shooting in RAW is huge. It is a pain to work with the files but you have so much more control over your images.

Glad to see you getting more into digital photography. Would love to see some of your shots up on Zooomr if you get a chance.

Best,

Tom

By Blogger Thomas Hawk, at 11/02/2006 5:19 PM  
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