"Paul Furman" wrote in message
Neil Jones wrote:
Leo Lichtman wrote:
I started with Photoshop Elements 4, and I was fortunate that just at the right time, a retired UC professor in my area offered weekly lessons on it in his home. I want to emphacize this: using a program that is popular has its advantages. You can find people to talk to, ask questions and compare experiences with, like I did. We still meet in this professor’s home and discuss our work, even though the instructional part is over. Being with others who share the same background and experience is very rewarding; you never stop learning.
You hit the main point that had me post this question! I do have GIMP on my system and have used it minimally over the years (only for cropping). Now I want to do a little bit more than cropping the pictures. I know GIMP can do what Adobe PS or Elements is doing. BUT, the support groups/books/classes offered for GIMP are minimal compared to Adobe Photoshop. Yes, the tutorials for GIMP at one or two main websites do not motivate me to do anything creative/enchanements to my pictures. The users on GIMP mailing list/newsgroup either have never been tried what I am trying to accomplish with my photo editing or have the attitude "Go figure it out yourself". Last but least, I am willing to take a class which will teach me how to process pictures. So far that I know, I have not seen anything for GIMP. Photoshop does have quite a few classes. With Photoshop, my main confusion was about the products at their website (Which one do I need?).
Yep, Elements is a good choice and it is eligible for upgrading should you decide to.
One more possibility that hasn’t been discussed is Adobe Lightroom, or Picassa is similar if $300 sounds like too much. You really can do almost anything for photography in Lightroom including minor cloning & locally applied adjustments almost as good as layer masks in photoshop but a lot easier to apply to a batch of files. This is a professional program though and definitely requires studying to use. Try just playing with it & you’ll make a mess! 🙂 I’m evaluating a trial copy now and I’ve used photoshop for probably 15 years, only the last 5 years or so did I really study it’s use for photography.
I used full photoshop in an office for architectural work (somewhat peripheral tool) for years before trying Elements and the first time I tried Elements I could not see anything missing.
SNIP
Elements I could not see anything missing.
ELEMENTS has no CMYK functions?
which unless you will output for professional printing you won’t need (digital color separations in ink colors)
The best learning is to open the program
and try all the tools to see what they do
just get familiar with the interface
or if you have a specific goal in mind Google a tutorial and learn one idea or correction style at a time
when you say enhance photos some people just want a bit of control on contrast color balance change to BW sepia etc
and others want to cut out objects blend layers add text make collages paint over filter and distort things
so many things you may not need in the beginning and can add as you go along
I began with 4.0 PS so many years ago and being self taught I just invented crazy ways to achieve my goals
along the way I began to learn new and better ways to do the same things developed better work habits etc
as people here mentioned PS is not a toy but a powerful set of tools so begin to learn to hammer nails and then screw in screws later you can re-wire the whole house or maybe even build one from scratch
it was so much simpler then too I cannot imagine having to open CS3 and just learn it
we are fortunate to have only had to learn changes in the updates as they came out
the program has grown in complexity and range
like any artwork you don’t become a master because you took a course in school and learned to hold the brush and mix colors
it’s a lifelong learning and no end to one’s creative artistic goals and perfecting technique
so much is out there now in tutorials on line
even youtube has some good vids on how to retouch etc
if you prefer step by step school with a teacher maybe most comfortable to you
but my neighbor is a teacher of PS and Elements and sorry to say basically he reads a textbook and teaches that lesson
on stuff he may not know himself coming from web design background
I advise laying off plug-ins at first, learn how to do all these manually most important- file and formats for files
layers how to work them why to use them
selections selections selections
layer adjustments- curves and or levels
