Learning to Use Digital Software

[richfx]

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I have an M9 on order but have not yet used Photoshop or Lightroom (please, spare the omniscient pointed barbs here). I've signed up for an Intro to Photoshop Lightroom seminar with Adorama in NYC, taught by Scott Citron.

My question is this - reading some of the posts on digital SW products is a bit mind-numbing to me and a little intimidating. Can I expect to obtain a basic understanding of this product at a 3 hour seminar together with my own interest and pretty solid technical capabilities? Helpful answers would be much appreciated; excoriating ones to vent personal steam / frustrations not so.

Thanks,

Rich

[earleygallery]

I guess that depends on the tutor and what specifically they cover in the workshop. They might assume a certain level of understanding/knowledge already so maybe you should clarify directly with them, but if it is an introduction then I would expect it to cover the most basic photo editing/Post Processing functions like file types, cropping, re-sizing, levels etc.

 

If you haven't already bought one get a good book on the subject which you can refer to as you go (on line instructions/tutorials are available freely but its difficult to refer to them at the same time as using the program).

 

I have a book by Daniel Giordan, How to use photoshop - visually in colour. Mine if for PS7 which I still use. The book is very explanatory and easy-ish to follow, but whoever designed PS was clearly a computer programmer rather than a photographer! I've still only scratched the surface of its capabilities.

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[sanyasi]

You should get a nice introduction in 3 hours, but it will just be an introduction. I have two suggestions for you. First, buy a book. I would recommend either the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book by Scott Kelby (New Riders) or the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers by Martin Evening. Kelby is less text and more screen shots, which I find helpful, but each has its strengths.

 

Second suggestion. Your inclination will be to jump right into the "Development" module to start editing your photos. DON'T. You should spend a lot of time in the "Library" module, which is where you organize your files. Make sure you understand Catalogues, Folders, and Collections. If you don't, you will waste tons of time re-organizing your files. Also, really think about how you want to organize your photos and your workflow. Finally, think about how you are going to find your photos--are you going to use the flagging system, metadata searches, or the other screens available. You want to learn how to put keyword metadata into the photo files

 

In my case, I started putting each shoot in its own collection without metadata. After a couple of years, that became cumbersome. I am converting my workflow by adding keywords. I am then setting up a catalogue for each type of shoot. I am now using the custom file naming function to add custom file names (which is sort of how I was using collections). I now search by photos using the metadata. This is all a pain in the butt when it comes to the reorganization, but when my reorganization is complete, I will have a much better workflow and way to access photos.

 

A couple of other hints: Learn how to use the X key to mark photos for permanent deletion. I started out saying: "I am never going to delete a photo." The problem with digital, as I am sure you know, is that you quickly fill hard drives. Deleting stuff that you will never print (which is 90% of the stuff) is liberating. It also makes finding other stuff much easier.

 

Take backing up the catalogues seriously. The catalogue is where your edits are saved as metadata. Lose the catalogue, and you lose all your Lightroom work.

 

If you have not used Lightroom before, you are in for a treat. The editing, which is largely in the "Development" module, is pretty intuitive. I have Photoshop and hate it. Lightroom truly is for photographers, not graphic designers.

 

My one beef is the "Printing" module, which is a little quirky. Always check the Managed by Printer setting if you are using ICC profiles. You can load an ICC profile, and for some reason it occasionally jumps back to Managed by Printer between prints.

 

I like the Web module, which allows you to build mini web sites. You may not be interested in that or you may need to get the basics down first. If it is of interest, I would recommend checking out the Turning Gate Website at The Turning Gate - Adobe Lightroom Web Engines, Tutorials and Resources. This guy makes plug-in templates that are great and cheap. These are templates for different display formats. Some are Flash. His stuff isn't well documented, but you can figure it out fairly quickly and he does respond to questions. His preference is for video tutorials. I prefer an online manual. It also is cheap. I built an entire photo website for about $35 or $40

 

Abobe has a beta copy of Lightroom 3 available. I haven't looked at it, but it sounds like they are going to vastly improve the "Library" module. I also heard they will improvements to noise reduction. I don't know of a release data yet, but I assuming March or April.

 

Also, sign up for the Adobe Support Forum. You will get your questions answered in about three minutes--very active, helpful, and free. Adobe also has lots of support stuff on their Web site.

 

Good luck and post other Lightroom questions as they arise.

 

Jack Siegel

[wlaidlaw]

My own personal view and what I recommend to my students is to purchase tutorial DVD's. For Photoshop and UK students, I recommend Barry Beckham: for US students, Scott Kelby's ones. The big advantage of these, especially if you can arrange to have two computers, is that you can watch the video on one machine and do the exercises/practicals on the other. You can then work at your own speed but more importantly, you can rewind to go over something that did not quite make sense the first time round. Rich, I think you are doing absolutely the right thing in admitting that you don't know and trying to learn properly. That way you should not pick up bad habits or use the wrong tools to do a job, just because you have found by rote, that it sort of works. Not a single one of the students we had on our courses last year, knew how to set up a nice tidy personal workspace in Photoshop, with minimised palettes.They were all using the messy default workspace, some of them had been doing this for years. When they were shown, the universal reaction was "doesn't that make life easier".

 

Wilson

[TEBnewyork]

If you are in NYC you can take a weekend class at ICP. Their classes are generally very good and you will be working at a computer the whole time. Not sure what hands on you will get at Adorama. ICP classes are not cheap.

 

But here are two other ways to learn it that are very effective.....

 

Free tutorials

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom tutorials by Julieanne Kost

 

Kelby Training - you need to pay but probably the best bang for the buck. You can pay a monthly $25 charge and then take as much or a little instruction as you want. They cover everything.

 

Online Training for Photographers, Graphic Designers, Illustrators, Multimedia Artists, and Hobbyists | Kelby Training

 

Matt Kloskowski teaches most of the Lightroom classes

[microview]

I have an M9 on order but have not yet used Photoshop or Lightroom.

 

Well, given the cost of CS4 why not wait and try the free-with-M9 Lightroom program? It allows you to print very nicely, which Capture One does not, and may satisfy all the tweaks you might wish to employ, eg crop, resize for A4 printing, retouch and exposure/colour adjustment. Of course, Photoshop has far more to offer by way of facilities, but its basic DNG–Tiff conversion is not that satisfying IMHO vis-à-vis the others.

[Luuk]

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A usefull alternative might be Lynda.com. Loads of training video's for $25,-- a month. Good quality and something for every level skill. Have fun.

 

Luuk

[JMacD]

I strongly recommend learning just one of these at a time. Unless some one is sitting next to you correcting you, it is slow going and can be frustrating. Limit your frustration by learning one at a time. Which first? Lightroom would be my clear choice. It was designed to be learned by photographers. It's also less expensive by far, and it is free while you learn form the beta 3.

 

I learned Photoshop in 1996 by sitting next to someone who taught me. I was then able to read and keep teaching myself through the upgrades. I think I'm pretty proficient with it now, but there are aspects that I don't need and will never learn. Another photographer who sells fine art photos in NYC galleries strongly recommended I learn lightroom. He said using Lightroom was the equivalent to going to the clinic for a medical issue, Photoshop is like surgery. It's a very good analogy.

 

I got Lightroom but avoided using it, since no one was around to teach it to me, and is is enough different from Photoshop, that it was easier to do something in Photoshop than figure out Lightroom. I delayed a year. Turned out to be OK because by that time Lightroom 2 had come out that worked better. This time I a bought a download of a 7 hour video to learn the program. Here is a link to the program I used:

Adobe Lightroom 2 Tutorial

 

It's $40 but worth it. Yes I bought books too, but for me video works so much better as a teacher. What was said before is true, it's handy if you play the video on one screen, and the Lightroom program on another.

 

Once you are proficient in Lightroom, if there is something you feel you can't do in Lightroom, but could do in Photoshop, then you will be motivated to learn Photoshop, but be aware that there are many standalone programs for a photomerge or HDR that work as well or better than photoshop, and are easier to learn. I have had friends get very frustrated taking Photoshop courses as they sit in a class for two days and never learn the one action they wanted to learn. Most courses are too detailed. they teach you how to build the airplane and fly it, when all you wanted to do was taxi the plane on the ground.

 

For starters today, download the intro to Lightroom for free now.

Lightroom 2 Preview Clip

If that motivates you to try more, buy the 7 hours. I wouldn't even download the free beta 3 until you have watched a bit of the tutorial to see how you like it.

 

Best of luck with your learning.

Jack

[chrism]

Michael Reichmann's video course on using Lightroom is well worth the cost. I think we all do well to regard these challenges with relish; they are not obstacles, but a way of keeping our brains occupied/entertained/educated. Rather important in my view.

 

Chris

[tobey bilek]

I believe in books because I can refer back as often as I wish.

 

An intro course can`t hurt and a little time and a few dollars will get you started.

 

All Adobe products have a help section. I find reading a book easier than a screen though, even if the content is exactly the same. Most people are not like me however.

 

Read up on color management . Read up on a critical component of pp, sharpening. You will NEED to do it for every photo. What you see on the screen is NOT what you get unless it is for web display. Then there are techniques.

 

Ron Bigelow has a nice website that explains most all. Better for technique is is the book Real World Sharpening by Bruce Fraser & Jeff Schewe. 340 pages on just how to sharpen. You will not get this in 3 hours.

 

I am not a Lightroom guy as it does not meet my needs. I use Photoshop/Bridge. It is way more expensive, but does things I can not do any other way. I like to start my scanned negs or Nikon raw files in Nikons raw converter NX2, save as a TIFF, and open the TIFF in Photoshop raw converter, then move to photoshop.

 

Raw give great flexability compared to JPEG files so you should learn to do it. It is seriously not a great degree harder and if you you are working with Leica for the quality. why tie you hands from the start.

 

Ron Bigelow Photography Home

 

Free Lightroom Tutorials - Adobe Lightroom Tips & Tricks | PhotoshopSupport.com

 

 

The Light's Right Studio Web Site

 

Above is about 40 hours or more, free, you look at your schedule, and yuo can go back any time you want.

 

Your library has books too. Find a few you like, then buy them if you want.

 

Amazon .com has everything and it shows up in 3/5 days. A local book store can always order what you need, title, author, ISBN number.

 

Go down past all the pay stuff and get to the free part on the Adobe link.

Edited December 13, 2009 by tobey bilek

[richfx]

Thanks, everyone for sharing your knowledge and wisdom. Very impressive talent in this forum. You've provided a great road map for me, and I'm looking forward to getting up the curve with the help of your suggestions.

Rich

[Jeff S]

Rich, you didn't say if you have a good grounding in digital concepts (although perhaps this is what you mean by "solid technical capabilities"). If not, a basic understanding will help you use whatever software you choose...because you'll know why certain actions have certain effects, and which best to use, or not. Color management, for instance, was mentioned in another post and is an area that warrants attention.

 

Here is a site that covers a lot of useful topics, including color management...Digital Photography Tutorials.

 

Jeff

Edited December 14, 2009 by Jeff S

[marcg]

Here's my take on Scott Kelby's book. If he uses the same style in hos other books then the same probably applies there.

 

As a straightforward instruction book, it goes through all of the steps in logical order - 1, 2, 3, ... etc. However, comparatively little explanation of of "Why?" so that the book is presented in a rather over-mechanical way, to my mind.

That said, it is very useful but what makes it difficult to take is Scott Kelby's bluff, hale and hearty manner. Frankly he gets in the way of this book. I have a sense that Scott feels that you the reader wants to get to know him. I certainly don't. I paid money to get to know Lightroom. If it was at a party, I would pretend to notice someone I knew elsewhere and politely walk away. The only solution here is to look for a different book.

I was also very surprised and disappointed to find that the book is publish on very poor quality paper - very much the same stuff that is used for weekly women's magazines. This is fine for a magazine but not for a book which one would expect to use regularly as a reference guide. I really don't expect that this book is capable of taking the wear and tear.

In conclusion, I would suggest finding a book by a different author and from a publisher who is interested in a better quality product.

 

The Lightroom tutorial from Luminous Landscape is a sensationally watchable and gentle lead into Lightroom and goes into great depth. This tutorial is what you need and is not very much money, very well-spent.

I downloaded the whole thing and then converted it to work on an Ipod.

 

You really won't be at all disappointed.

I don't know what your morning in NYC has cost you - but unless you are someone who needs reassurance from a physical person, you will very likely find that LL tutorials are a very much better deal.

[h00ligan]

My own personal view and what I recommend to my students is to purchase tutorial DVD's. For Photoshop and UK students, I recommend Barry Beckham: for US students, Scott Kelby's ones.

 

Wilson

Or just join Kelby's site for a monthly fee until you learn whatever you need, you can save the dl videos afaik.

 

Training for Photographers, Graphic Designers, Illustrators, Multimedia Artists, and Hobbyists | Kelby Training

 

It's not super cheap but from what i've seen it's quite good. I am planning on joining for at least a month to try and learn lightroom.