> I've been involved in photography for many years.
> I've been shooting digital, but it's time to learn
> Photoshop. Can you recommend a good training or tutoring
> program, CD, book or DVD?

That question leaves the door wide-open to plugging my own wares, but I
think it would be more useful to step back and think about what you are
really looking for as a serious beginner trying to learn Photoshop
<http://www.aps8.com/pscs4.html>  or even Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements7.html> .

As a beginner, you want to get to understanding what you are doing with
Photoshop and get up to speed by the quickest path possible. The desire
to get things done quickly and make leaps in progress is an attractive
goal, and because it is what users think they want, it drives the market
for learning materials that are created. That has led to an abundance of
learning resources that promise to make it easy, yet a dearth of good
information. Materials that want to win the reader as a friend and up
painting a rosy picture, fill out the content with fluff and humor that
are easy to read, trumpeting how easy it is to improve your images.
Ultimately, these soft texts and programs offer very little but a
handful of quick tips, a few sloppy tricks, deflated wow and the failed
promise of learning it all fast.

Regretfully, you'll find that just about all of this advertising is a
gimmick. Titles like "Learn Photoshop in a Day" lure in readers with a
promise, reveal the 'gimmick' ("...using 24 one-hour lessons!"), and
then fail to provide anything of real substance. On the other hand,
titles like "Suffering for Photoshop" or "Difficult Methods for Pretty
Pictures" won't tend to attract readers, and optimally the hope is that
Photoshop should be easy to learn. But the whole premise of learning
something as complex as Photoshop in such a small amount of time is
absurd. If you are learning a lighter mood may make you comfortable in
the new terrain, but what you don't need are materials that are
entertaining (presentation without substance), materials that just
repeat the Help menu, materials you can get for free if you poked around
the internet, and materials that ultimately leave you with no sense of
what to do with your images -- and fail to give you a good idea how to
work with images intelligently and safely. "Just trust me" is a favored
line, for example, of one well-know Photoshop author when it comes to
color management suggestions, and the somewhat sour advice offered
routinely causes more problems than it cures. It is quick and easy, but
ultimately harmful and wrong.

From my perspective, the best place to start as a beginner is with solid
fundamentals:

* An introduction to navigating the interface and setup (including some
basics of color management)
* A plan for handling images once they come off the camera (proper ideas
of file types, sizing, and storage)
* A background on the tools you need to work with day-to-day
* A plan for working with every image you encounter
* An idea of what you want to accomplish

This may not be the most exciting list if you need to experience
learning like it is a carnival ride, but it is terribly practical and
gives you a solid foundation to build on and expand from. Know where to
find tools and navigate and you will have a sense of comfort. Handle
images correctly and you can experiment and learn without causing your
source images harm and store them safely and efficiently. Find out what
tools to use every day will help you avoid those that can cause damage
to your images while using those that are most efficient. Define an
outline to follow and you take decided steps forward rather than ambling
randomly from one technique to the next experimenting and wasting time
hoping something fabulous happens during click-and-pray. Practical,
refined methodology yields the best and most consistent results.

Resources for learning are numerous. Some people will learn best from
books or DVDs or even online courses and tutorials. I would suggest that
you take a wide approach and use a variety of resources. First, don't
neglect Adobe's Help. It is a great free resource for learning about
individual functions and features and how to apply them that comes with
the program. Tutorials online are hit-or-miss depending on the source,
and many of them contain information that is harmful to your images --
take them all with a grain of salt. You'll have to weed through them.
But truth be told many of those same harmful techniques were duplicated
from the all-too-common Books and DVDs that contain unfortunatate
misunderstandings and misinformation, and were compiled by marketers or
other opportunists who saw the huge market for Photoshop and image
editing training. That is, many materials are compiled by professional
trainers and professional writers rather than people with real
day-to-day experience in image editing.

Online courses come in many types...from those that have lessons sent
out without any ability to interact with the instructors to those that
offer full access to industry experts (see betterphoto.com
<http://betterphoto.com> ). Of course those range in price accordingly.
The advantage of the latter is being able to actually interact with the
expert teaching the course (rather than just having their picture on it)
and get explanations and answers to your questions. In this day, even
books and DVDs have the opportunity to offer online areas for Q&A, and
very few do. I think readers should have access to authors (as I have
offered for all my books since the first one), and those who don't offer
that are essentially refusing to support their materials. (see my open
forum for my new layers book: http://photoshopcs.com/forum
<http://photoshopcs.com/forum> )

Some disagree that you should ever need training, and that the best
method for learning Photoshop is to simply get in and play. That is
valiant, and if you have infinite time, this may be a viable option. If
you can't afford books, DVDs or other training, then it certainly makes
sense. But as the only resource of learning, unguided exploration of
such a vast program is penny wise and pound foolish. Why learn about
tools you won't ever need for image editing? Why waste time learning to
apply features that harm your images? And how do you grow to understand
the theory behind the tools by just the click-and-pray method of
discovery? It will be hugely time consuming and very costly in its own
right. Having been one who learned Photoshop when there were no books,
and no experts, it took many times longer than it could have to get up
to speed. These days there is the opportunity to ride on the experience
of those who have spent time figuring out what is really important.
There is something to be said of apprenticeship in learning any trade.
Making an investment in formal materials should at least supplement any
'learn as the wind blows' mentality if images and image editing are
important to you. I do think you will retain a lot more by jumping in
and experiencing the pain of learning...but I also think base
fundamentals can stop you from getting burned.

Focus on fundamentals from the outset rather than tips, tricks and 'wow'
can form a net of safety for your experimentation. For example, I had a
self-taught student that thought they knew a lot about Photoshop, and
found out in my course that her routine for the past 3 years of image
editing had been systematically ruining her images. She resized all
images smaller and saved as JPEG to save space as soon as the images
came off the camera, and resaved over the originals when she edited.
That original source for her vacations, memories and other photography
had been compromised, and potential detail permanently lost. It is not
simply wasting time at that point, but obliteration of years of
photographic work -- as sad as losing photos on a crashed drive, and
with no options to even do it all over again. The student's predicament
was a tragedy, but there was no way to reverse it...and she is not the
only one. It could have been different had she learned her fundamentals
first.

Puttering has its place and is very important to learning, exploring,
and confidence...but it is a single avenue that can also lead to
misconception and disaster. Certain practical, fundamental things are
just not intuitive and learning to deal with them can save hundreds of
hours of frustration, or even catastrophic loss. Whatever the source you
use to get off on the right foot, exploring and experimentation is best
done in concert with learning fundamentals.

I hope that helps!

Richard Lynch

The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book for CS4 was just released in mid-March
('09)! Get it on Amazon: http://aps8.com/taplbcs4.html
<http://aps8.com/taplbcs4.html> . The book has 60 new pages of material,
including a section on making manual HDR conversion the layers way. All
of the exercises and materials have been reviewed and updated. That
said, techniques aim at being timeless and accessible for many versions
of Photoshop and Elements as well. This is a book for the
serious-minded.

For those looking to learn Photoshop fundamentals, I teach a Photoshop
101 course at betterphoto.com recently updated for CS4 and Elements 7
(Photoshop 101: the Photoshop Essentials Primer
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=136> ). The course
covers my outline of fundamentals from the bulleted list above and helps
get you started enjoying and experiencing the program without the
frustration and potential disasters. Betterphoto courses allow
interaction with the instructor as well as other classmates.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

If you are at all interested in upgrading to the newest version of
Photoshop (Photoshop for PC <http://aps8.com/pscs4.html> , Photoshop for
Mac <http://aps8.com/pscs4_mac.html> ), you've probably read any
number of articles on "What's New in Photoshop CS4." What
you've gotten is a list and theoretical notions of what these
features could, potentially, do for you, probably driven a bit by the
seeding of the excellent Adobe marketing team. What you probably
haven't heard is a listing of what you will really use every day in
CS4 if you are someone interested in correcting and adjusting
photographic images. The reason you don't is no one has time to
digest the features before they rush out their articles to be first to
press. Honestly, it takes about a year for me to fluidly incorporate new
features in my workflow. Including a period of exposure to the CS4 beta,
I'm just about getting to the saturation point as to what I really
use and feel is a benefit in CS4. In some versions of Photoshop
releases, my workflow honestly hardly changed at all. For Photoshop CS4,
two features have become part of what I do every day and changed the way
I work with images. These new features are the Adjustments Palette, and
the Masks palette. Neither are, thus far, available in Elements.

I talk about each of these in context in my new book (The Adobe
Photoshop Layers Book for CS4 <http://aps8.com/taplbcs4.html>  due out
in March of 2009). This blog is all about why I think these features are
bound to change your process of image editing if you choose to use CS4.
The Adjustments Palette

   [Photoshop Adjustments palette]
<http://www.hiddenelements.com/blog/uploaded_images/blog-adjustments-719\
850.png>


A bitter-sweet addition to CS4 is the Adjustments palette. The sweet
part about the addition is that this palette takes the place of the many
dialogs that appear for adjustment layers. The benefit is that the
dialogs no longer have to be closed. You can create an adjustment layer
or click on any existing adjustment layer in the layers palette, and the
adjustment settings appear in the Adjustments palette – immediately.
As you make any change, the changes are applied to the image and
committed. Previously you had to accept the changes on the dialog by
clicking [ok]. If you wanted to make additional changes, you would then
have to double-click on the Adjustment layer thumbnail to open the
palette back up to adjust the changes. Not any more. Every time the
adjustment layer is active, the palette shows the settings you have
stored and that are currently applied to the image. The Adjustments
palette is ultimately convenient for accessing and making changes to
adjustments, and it is a feature that can save many clicks in opening
and addressing what used to be dialogs. The adjustments it offers are no
different than in the dialogs. It is something that works very well, but
for one small factor, the bitter part of the addition.

The bitter part of the Adjustment palette is that you need to have it in
view all the time if you use adjustment layers to make any adjustments
to your images. You don't really have the opportunity to store the
palette away and call it back, and if you did that would defeat the
purpose of the palette's advantage. The palette needs to be visible
— not just in the palette bin, but in a prominent spot on screen, or
you'll have to go hunting for it when you need to make a change. And
every time you make a new Adjustment layer, you need to use it, as what
is an adjustment layer without adjustment?

Regretfully when an adjustment layer is not active, the palette only
displays yet another, redundant means of creating adjustment layers. In
fact none of the palette itself can boast `new' features and
utility. So it is ultimately useful for defining adjustment layer
changes, and not so useful otherwise. If you are a user like myself that
already needs Layers and History and Actions and Channels and Info, and
maybe Paths and Brushes and Character and Paragraph…the
`need' to have the new Adjustments palette in view compounds the
issues you may already be having with on screen landscape. Depending on
your monitor size and the way you practice editing, this landscape may
be more or less precious. While I find it is a bit inconvenient to make
more space on my 17" laptop <http://aps8.com/macbook.html> , when I
work on my desktop and 30" Apple Cinema Display
<http://aps8.com/cinemadisplay.html>  I do not miss the landscape and
appreciate the simplicity. If Adobe offered an option to use the classic
dialogs, it would probably have been best for the majority of users.

As it stands, there are advantages and convenience to the presence of
the Adjustments palette, though it may be in contention with other
features. But as you can't get away from it, it will necessarily, to
some extent, alter the way you work. It will certainly take some getting
used to.
Masks Palette

   [0]
<http://www.hiddenelements.com/blog/uploaded_images/blog-masks-759748.pn\
g>


The Masks palette in Photoshop CS4 is not the obligation that the
Adjustments palette is. Masks is, instead, a distinct difference in
function from the way users could previously work with layer masks.
Although you can still work with masks the way you did prior to CS4, the
Masks palette extends layer mask functionality by offering options such
as virtual adjustment. That is, you can make slider-based adjustment to
masks for such things as Density, Feathering/Blur, Refine (which opens a
separate dialog) and Inversion. The palette itself will indeed take up
more landscape on the screen, like the Adjustments palette, but it is
not quite as intrusive as Adjustments as it is a palette that can be
brought into view when needed, and stored in a grouping with other
palettes.

The benefit to the Masks palette is that it actually adds to the
functionality offered in Photoshop. Where changes to masks directly in
previous versions of the program were permanent, changes using the
slider in the Masks palette are more like adjustments themselves: the
positions of the sliders can be changed at any time and the result on
the mask itself changed or even removed. In this way the changes are
virtual, and ultimately flexible, as you are not committed to a change
as you make it. The ability to adjust masks as you go can come in handy
for compositing, and I have found it very useful in working with manual
HDR and Depth-of-Field compositing.

If you find yourself blurring and feathering masks, and otherwise
refining mask edges, you'll find a place for the Masks palette on
your screen. Once the palette is there on screen and you adopt going to
the Masks palette for mask adjustment (instead of seeking out permanent
alterations like Gaussian Blur), you will find the feature is a new one
that you need, and don't want to be without.
To Sum Up

The two features do bring something new to the table for Photoshop CS4,
and they will certainly alter the way you work somewhat by enforcement
and somewhat by choice — of that you can be assured. For me the
Masks palette is a giant step forward in handling mask content, and it
is a much welcome addition. However, whether it is one so important as
to `require' an upgrade will depend on the way you work in the
program, and your need for masks or the space you have for more
palettes.

Richard's newest book, The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book for CS4, will
be available in stores this month! The book adds some 80 pages of new
material including a section on manually producing HDR images. Get your
copy as soon as it hits the shelves by pre-ordering on Amazon: Preorder
your copy now <http://aps8.com/taplbcs4.html>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The cliche experience that many have had is watching a family member
trying to master the color on the family TV set. The people-centric
medium of TV makes us to look at images where the color being off
becomes unbearable and unnatural because skin tones just look wrong. We
all know what skin tones should look like so we are compelled to change
the screen to make the skin tones look as we expect. It's natural to
trust that the color being broadcast to your TV is correct, only
changing the settings on the TV can make it right. Hopeful TV color
experts twiddle the controls trying to achieve a vague balance that only
they can, while everyone else sits idly looking on hoping thing would be
alright soon, impatient with the technology, wondering why it can't just
be right in the first place -- or if adjusting it is the thing that is
screwing it up.

People are more apt to assume that what they see on their computer
monitor is accurate when they pull it out of the box. Monitors are not
constantly replete with skin tones that remind us that something may be
off, as you spend considerable time using it for other activities like
checking email or word-processing, which has nothing to do with skin
tones at all. When a digital photographer sees a face, it might more
often be in Photoshop, where they just change the color with tools in
the program offered for that type of control. Regretfully, changing the
color and trusting what you see in Photoshop and on your monitor can
lead to martian prints and web postings of people in your images, and a
quandary: why should color that looks correct in one place be off or
plain wrong in another.

The answer is Color Management.

As they say, a little knowledge can be dangerous. Knowing enough to
adjust the color in Photoshop doesn't turn out to be enough to make the
color right. While some will come to the conclusion that the poor
results have something to do with color management, just what they need
to do to work with color management is less clear. They may revert to
familiar territory and seek out the computer's brightness, contrast and
color controls figuring this is how they have to make adjustments
fiddling like you might do with a TV. They might get close and even get
lucky with this method, but generally nothing could be worse.
Adjustments made with the monitor controls as a means of color
management end up being a best guess at what everything should look like
on screen, and a compromise much like the TV expert's attempts at
balancing RGB with the primitive TV controls. Guessing is not a good
approach to color.

Some may go a little further and read a few web postings that have to do
with adjusting color on their monitor, and these will range from the
incorrect to the absurdly simple to the horribly technical ones that you
are not quite sure are written in English. Naturally, the
TV-color-minded inclination that "it is just color, how complicated
could it be..." pushes people more toward accepting the absurdly simple
and incorrect approaches. Some may take it a step further to seek out
help from an expert (who may be anyone from a well-respected authority
in Photoshop or color management to a neighbor who knows "a bunch about
computers"). Regretfully the better answers (like the book Real World
Color Management <http://aps8.com/color_management.html>  by Fraser,
Murphy and Bunting, a 500+ page book) may be long and involved and
daunting from the outset. On the other hand, getting the color right
doesn't require getting a college degree in the subject, and such
extensive study may be unnecessary for common folk, who, after all, just
want the right color.

Those who want the right color without the doctorate end up taking
suggestions from friends or people on forums, or look for the 'right'
way to set up their color management. Truth be told, there is not one
right way: more than one method will work. In fact, any method of color
management that makes sense will work...but the other side of the coin
is: the same color management scheme just doesn't work for everyone, and
some will work better than others. The best way to get the color right
and pick an applicable color management scheme, is, in my opinion,
understanding the shorthand version of what you want to achieve and
applying the simplest steps possible to get there.

The basics of color management requires:

     *   Calibrating your monitor
     * Creating an ICC profile (usually part of step 1)
     * Setting up color management in Photoshop or Elements (and perhaps
other programs) correctly
     * Setting up previews/screen proofing that make sense (Photoshop, not
Elements)
     * Applying appropriate color tagging to your images

If you neglect any one of these, you are gambling with your color
results, plain and simple. If you do a few and not the others, you are
not necessarily any better off than doing none at all. More frustrating,
if you don't do them all, things may work sometimes, and not others, and
you'll never be able to tell why. But attack each of these components
with the intent to know why they are important, how they apply, and how
to apply them, and you'll have the skeleton of color management, which
is enough to hang your color on. You get skin on your skeleton when you
define the purpose of what you are trying to achieve. Do you print to
the same printer all the time? Do you print to many? Do you post images
to the web exclusively? Do you print and post? Do images all come from
the same camera? Do you have many sources of images (multiple cameras,
images from friends, clients, etc.)? All these questions filter into
your color management choice.

This is not the first time I've mentioned color management in my blog,
and it won't be the last. Here are some other Color Management entries:

     * What Color Space Do I Use? (Part 1)
<http://www.hiddenelements.com/blog/2007_05_01_hiddenelements_archive.ht\
ml>
     * What Color Space Do I Use (Part 2)
<http://www.hiddenelements.com/blog/2007_06_01_hiddenelements_archive.ht\
ml>
     * Calibrating My Home Printer
<http://www.hiddenelements.com/blog/2007_01_01_hiddenelements_archive.ht\
ml>

These additional resources should give you some background on making
better color management choices.

For more info on approaching color management seriously, I have a 4 week
primer course at betterphoto.com called From Monitor to Print
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=175>  that will
work you through these 5 essentials, and test your results, making you
color competent in a short amount of time with the least amount of work.
You'll want to look into good calibration tools like the ColorVision
Spyder <http://aps8.com/spyder.html>  (by the way, I posted an article
on 9.11.08 about  using the ColorVision Spyder Express to calibrate a
dual monitor system
<http://photoshopcs.com/cheap_dual_monitor_calibration_spyder.html>  --
which the manufacturer says is impossible). You can also simplify your
color life by finding a system and sticking to it (don't change
printers, papers, profiles, inks, or services without a plan).

Competent color handling is more than just calibration, but don't get
psyched out. Make the effort to know what to do, and you can put it
safely behind you.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Amongst the plethora of screens and functions and the thousands and
thousands of options that you have in Photoshop and Elements for
correcting, changing and composing your images, there are some options,
features and functions you should never use. It might seem inconceivable
that Adobe would put options you shouldn’t use in the program,
but they are there, and some of them are named to sound downright
savory. These features lurk in the user interface, and users make the
same mistakes over and over by using them. The features and functions
that you shouldn’t use span every nook and cranny of the program,
from opening your images, to correcting, through saving/printing. Users
apply them again and again until they learn what these features and
functions are and to avoid them because of the damage they do to their
images.

The list of features is tremendously long spanning all versions of
Photoshop and Elements. Instead of listing all the features, let me
simplify the list by making a few generalizations:

     * Don’t ever apply features just because they appear on a
dialog and you feel obligated to move a slider or click a button.
     * Don’t ever apply features that don’t improve your
image or your vision for it.
     * Don’t ever apply the features you have not experimented with
enough to know how to apply with predictable results.

The crust of this biscuit is simply: don’t feel obligated to use
features just because they appear on screen and in the program or
‘sound good’. What you should use are the features and
functions (and buttons) that make sense, fit your workflow, and improve
your images. Features that ‘make sense’ means that you
know what the features do before you apply them to finish images, and
not that you ‘click-and-pray’.

For example say you open the Levels dialog â€" which is an
imperative tool for image correction. Once the dialog opens, you could
click the Auto button. You could also click the White Point, Black Point
and Gray balance eyedroppers and apply those â€" some tutorials may
even suggest it. But, even if your image seems to improve on your
screen, you may not be doing the image integrity any favors. The fact is
that even brilliant features used incorrectly can run counter to what
you really want to do for an image or even ruin it. It may be easy to go
the fast way and click an Auto button, and it may produce pleasing
results at a glance, but it can also compromise your images. And what is
the biggest objection to applying things the right way? People want it
quicker, and they will ultimately accept speed while sacrificing
quality
For my images, it is unacceptable to sacrifice quality to
save a few moments. It doesn’t make sense to spend lots of time
to learn how to take the best pictures, lots of money to get good
equipment, and toss away the quality of the images you captured because
you can’t be bothered to spend time getting the corrections
right.

Tools you shouldn’t use include those that might damage your
images, as well as those you simply don’t know well enough to
apply. That is, the list of tools you shouldn’t use is virtually
different for every Photoshop user based on their level of experience
and what they know. The list will change as you learn and gain
experience with the program.

Regretfully learning the tools takes time. However, you can use your
time learning more efficiently and cut time from experimentation and
exploration. The first thing to do: make a short list of tools you know
you should explore. Just start listing those you think you should know
better. Don’t list more than 30. Make them tools that you think
are important (you may find out otherwise). Next set aside a time
â€" 15 or 20 minutes a day â€" to explore those
features/functions. Plan to explore just one tool a day for as many days
as there are tools on the list. To begin your exploration, learn the
basics of any feature using the Help materials provided by Adobe. The
information there will tell you the way the function was designed to
perform and how to apply it. This is a useful starting point:
you’ll find out how a feature is applied. Help will tell you
little or nothing about the best way to use a feature. Reading up
shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes.

Next try applying the feature/function on an image according to the
instructions to see how it behaves in practice. Try to give it a workout
using all the possibilities you can think of. Apply it to several
different images. Spend between 10 and 15 minutes
‘playing’ with the tool. That should serve as your
introduction, and you will probably learn a few things you didn’t
know before.  However, you’ve probably learned just enough to be
dangerous
you may be able to apply the tool, but that may not tell
you what it really does and why it works, and that can affect how you
use it productively.

To learn proven techniques for the best way to apply features, may take
a lot more effort, and sometimes weeks, months or even years of study,
depending on the complexity of what you are trying to accomplish. It is
the kind of time that not everyone can dedicate to learning. Sampling
tutorials found on the web may be helpful, but choosing the right
tutorials can be tricky and may not be cohesive with a holistic approach
to image editing. Some tutorials may actually contradict one another,
and it will be hard to sort the good tutorials from the bad, and the
harmful. Beware of tricks and tips that you can’t get to work on
images other than those used in the tutorial. Even some books that
promise quick results or that are a series of effects may never do much
to improve your process with image editing. A scattered approach that
does not rely on solid process may prove more confusing than helpful.
Many tutorials may be well-meaning, written by people who are excited
about sharing their new-found successes. However, good intent
doesn’t make for a good tutorial â€" and it may be that what
you apply can harm your images
and it may be difficult to tell the
difference.

Consulting books and courses by experts in the field, designed to get
you up to speed, can save you time and effort. An expert’s years
of experience can go to work for you by helping you steer toward the
best features and how to use them â€" saving time in exploring the
program. Just as you would invest in your camera or additional equipment
like lenses, invest in yourself to gain the skills you need to make the
best images
don’t expect the equipment or the program to
do-it-for-you (you may want to read my blog about “magic
tools”
<http://www.hiddenelements.com/blog/2007/11/magic-tools-in-photoshop-and\
-elements.html> ).

So, do yourself a favor and start a list of tools you shouldn’t
use today, before you damage another image. Stop oogling at tools that
sound like the solution to all your problems, and learn about yourself
and what you really need to know. Focus on those that you know and that
you can use productively to make your images better. I’d be glad
to hear which tools are on your lists, and happy to help you answer your
questions about them!
PS â€" There have been some changes and updates on the
hiddenelements.com and photoshopcs.com layers websites that you may want
to check out
with more to come. I added some elements 6 materials
to hiddenelements.com <http://www.hiddenelements.com>  and a switch to
php page building so the site will be easier for me to maintain. I also
added some materials to fill out the ‘under construction’
pages on the photoshopcs.com <http://www.photoshopcs.com>  site. I look
forward to hearing from visitors about the changes.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

A topic that comes up again and again in my
classes and presentations in one form or another is "What makes a good
photo?" There is no simple answer.

However, there are pure, simple facts of what comprises good
photography. Good photography takes into account many things:
lighting/shadow, composition, exposure, subject, story, color,
contrasts, sharpness, depth of field, and more -- often intangible --
things. A good photo is one with great orchestration of the facets of
photography, that ends in a pleasing image. Likely there is a little bit
of luck tossed into our salad of preparation, positioning and equipment.

There are no bonus points for dangling from helicopters except in that
it may offer the right perspective. A great moment, whether captured of
a penned animal or one in the wild, is still a great shot. Whether they
look while standing knee deep in mud or sitting in a plush armchair, the
final image is what the viewer sees...no less or more because of the
subject or how it was captured. Passion for a subject should be evident
in the photography of it.

There is no one philosophy that will capture a great image, but any
great image will encompass all these things. I think the ideals are
reinforced by the perceptions of Ansel Adams, and I have collected a few
of his attributed comments here:

Mr. Adams on a good photograph:

     * A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

     * A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in
the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.

     * A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in
words.


On the rules for making a good photograph:

     * There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good
photographs.


On luck in making photos:

     * Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody
click the shutter.


On perspective of observing photos:

     * A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.

     * There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and
the viewer.


On how to take an image:

     * To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the
surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or
are latent in all things.


On photography and the creative spirit:

     * No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive,
create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves,
their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative
spirit.



To me, wherever there are opportunities, I am glad to share the joy of
photography, at whatever level...photographs need not be marred by
griping discussion for what an image could have been, if only...Shots
can be satisfactory as an amateur or professional, and only your own
expectations of what is good will change. Images can be explored in
greater depth and improved in image processing to bring out more -- as
Adams often did himself as an artisan in the wet darkroom, which today
we can all explore without chemicals using Adobe Photoshop
<http://www.aps8.com/pscs3.html>  or Photoshop Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements5.html> .

As you explore your photography on whatever level, and as your skills
develop, enjoy it for what it is. Enjoy a sense of accomplishment in how
you improve or improve your images, and your skills. Resist the urge to
be overly critical and poison the water that keeps your interest in
images and photography growing.

A good photo is always the one you are about to take, and it can be
better for what you learned from the experience you gain as you shoot.

Improve your photography with post-processing using Adobe Photoshop
<http://www.aps8.com/pscs3.html>  and Photoshop Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements5.html> . Richard's Photoshop Courses
<http://photoshopcs.com/photoshop_courses.htm>  can help you get more
out of your images and your investment in Photoshop and Photoshop
Elements.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Brief Anatomy of a Mistake
It seems to be human nature to be dismayed at having made mistakes.
Botching a capture in a fleeting moment is a missed opportunity, and
certainly we are right to be a little mad at ourselves for not being
properly prepared. Ruining a print because you set up a file incorrectly
is costly, but curable.

While it may be disappointing not to make the perfect image, no one ever
learned a thing by being perfect. The reality is: every mistake is an
opportunity...an opportunity to learn and to enhance your skills. In
fact, it could almost be argued that if you don't make mistakes,
you'll never learn, expand your horizons, and improve.

All mistakes aren't good (for example, dropping your digital camera in
the ocean while out at sea), but all come with a lesson. There are
mistakes you will be able to learn more and less from. There are times
when the risk of mistakes will `cost' more. The best mistakes
are those that come with the least dreadful impact.

Looked at in the right way, the opportunity created by making a mistake
is potential for learning and the true joy of pure accomplishment.

What to Do When You Make a Mistake When you make a mistake -- whatever
it is -- it isn't time to sit back and lament; it is time to sit up and
take notice. It may also be a moment to congratulate yourself for trying
new things and not being afraid of confronting what you don't already
know.

When a mistake happens:
     1. Acknowledge that something went wrong, and don't assume it is
a reflection on you (or anyone around you).
     2. Study the consequences and understand why things went wrong.
     3. Plan a counter action or means of avoiding the same mistake in the
future.
The first is both the easiest and hardest of these steps. People like to
blame themselves or someone else and distract from the sense that
something merely happened. Forgo the blame as there's nothing
positive there. The next two steps are where it counts. Look at the
event and what went wrong, research or ask questions about the things
you don't understand, and make a plan for avoiding the same thing
happening again. You can write down your answers, and keep a notebook to
keep track if it helps. All you want to do is plan to avoid making that
same mistake again. The plans can be trivial or complex.

Often you'll be tempted to lean on the advice of others that they
gained from experience, and that can be a good thing by helping you
avoid making terrible blunders. As long as you digest the suggestions
and lessons it helps; it helps less so if you take anyone's word for
granted. Practice what you read in tutorials, lessons and books before
you assume you really understand it. And when you practice allow
yourself to explore at the fringes where things might just go wrong and
that's where you'll learn.

Summarizing Mistakes?
Mistakes can come in shooting, in choosing a lens, in working with or
against the light, in shooting too few frames, choosing the wrong
exposure. You'll see them in bad choices for tools you use in Adobe
Photoshop <http://www.aps8.com/pscs3.html>  or Photoshop Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements5.html> ). Don't be afraid of making
the mistakes, of posting them to your gallery, of showing them to people
who might help let you know what went wrong or offer opinions. That is
research. Opinions will vary as will solutions, and your preferences and
techniques for avoiding the mistakes will expand as your experience
grows. As your list of mistakes grows it is something you can wear like
a scarf or badge of courage and show off in the experience you've
gained. Mistakes accumulate with hard work, and experience. You make
more of them as you challenge yourself with new styles, ideas and
techniques. The more of them you make, the better they will make your
images.

If your goal is to be a better photographer, don't make mistakes,
revel in them.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

With the holidays approaching it is still not too late to take on a
project and do your own holiday card. All you really need is an image
for the cover, some paper to print on (or a service to send to),
Photoshop <http://www.aps8.com/pscs3.html>  (or Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements6.html> ), and a plan for the layout. The
plan mostly has to do with printing to the edge, and getting the image
on the front of the card.
   [cards-finished.png]


Printing to the Edge
A layout problem that may confound those making their first cards is
printing to the edge of the paper. Though some home printers have a
print-to-the-edge feature, there is an edge area of the sheets you are
printing that the printer will not print on -- commonly called a grip
edge. It is often a quarter to a half an inch broad, and may vary from
edge to edge depending on how paper was designed to go through the
printer. The solutions to the problem of printing to the edge (and this
holds for when you send a job to a shop to have it printed), is to
design a little larger and then and crop the paper to the size you want
the finished piece. So, for your holiday card, you wouldn't start
with paper that was exactly the right size and then use your printer to
print the image exactly to the edge; you'd start with a larger
sheet, print the layout, and then trim the paper down. To make your
layout work, you'd lay out the graphic part of the card to print a bit
beyond the crop edge—say, by an eighth of an inch (which is a
printing standard). This is known as a bleed. The bleed provides a
margin of error for the cropping. If the cut doesn't fall precisely
on the crop mark, the image will still come all the way to the edge of
the cropped area.
   [cards-layout.png]
The Basic Layout

Image on the Front
In laying out the card, be sure to think of how you want it to present!
When you use a folded card, you have to put the front of the card on the
right side of the layout so that when it folds the front of the card is
in the right place. It may not be natural to think of the right side of
the layout as the front, but that is where it is! The back of the card
is on the left.
   [cards-outside.png]
Outside

On the inside, the left and right facing sides are more intuitive. You
usually want to have the saying on the right.
   [cards-inside.png]
Inside

As far as the back of the card, you can put several things there for
information purposes. Sometimes it is fun to put in your real or even an
imaginary business name, copyright and date, website (if appropriate),
and maybe some information about the photo (subject, title, separate
copyright -- if applicable). Usually this is all in small type so as not
to detract from the card. Homemade cards seem to always be the ones that
stand out from the others.

For More Information...
For better ways to process your images and get the most out of them for
your cards and other uses, be sure to check out Richard Lynch's
Photoshop courses <http://photoshopcs.com/photoshop_courses.htm>  and
his latest book: The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book
<http://aps8.com/taplb.html>

Holiday Gift Ideas
If you are looking for a good gift for that budding photographer or
photoshop professional, try giving a betterphoto.com gift card
<http://www.betterphoto.com/gifts.asp> . Good for courses, books and
apparel!



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Entertainer and the Entertained
Magicians in their magic acts are entertainers. They perform mystical
feats designed specifically to cleverly trick us -- those being
entertained -- into believing something miraculous is happening when
they waive their wand or perform an incantation. Deep down, we know it
is somehow explainable, but we want to be entertained, suspend our
disbelief, and enjoy the show. We may half-heartedly try to figure out
what really happened behind the scenes, but in a way, perhaps, we almost
don't want to know: it might ruin the illusion and we'd no longer be
entertained. The entertainer practices his craft building the clever and
believable deception, and the entertained soak it in without thinking
all too hard. That is the difference between the entertainer and the
entertained.

   [Juggler.jpg]
The Juggler

Photoshop and Magic People beginning to edit images with Photoshop and
Elements often scour the menus looking for the tool that will do
something spectacular to their images believing great images are just a
few clicks away. It is almost as if they want the program to entertain
them with an element of magic or a fantasic feat of mind reading.
Photoshop and Elements have lots of tools whose behavior may seem
mysterious and unexplainable at first, at least one named specifically
'Magic Wand', but regretfully there are no 'magic' tools that read your
mind. No matter how clever the implementation of a function or how well
it seems to work there is never anything 'magic' about a tool itself.
There is a calculation -- however complex -- that drives any tool
application. The behavior can be described and predicted, no matter how
we might resist knowing.

To Be the Magician A true magician doesn't waive a wand and hope magic
will happen -- imagine what would happen to a magician doing that on
stage. The magician knows the secrets of the tricks and what goes on
behind the scenes, utilizing props and tools with purpose to craft the
perfect deception. Likewise, the imaging magician, must be a master of
the tools and craft of post-processing. Just clicking a filter or auto
function and being elated or disappointed by the result isn't mastering
Photoshop and Elements, it is being entertained. Being entertained can
be pleasing at times, but generally it is not how you make a magical
image. The tools themselves have no way to see and evaluate the images
they work on except as a calculation. They are lifeless props and props
never make magic either.

Magicians practice their craft and develop their art, and you will want
to do the same to achieve desired results with your post-processing in
Photoshop. Changes do not have to be mystical, spectacular or flamboyant
to get the most from your images, and post-processing is only a portion
of the photographic craft. There is a place for being both the
entertainer and the entertained, the magician and the audience. Learn
and be awed by other people's craft, but strive to understand the magic
of their images like a magician in the audience watching the craft of
the magician on stage.

To Learn More My courses teach the timeless fundamentals for Photoshop
and Elements that you'll use as the core of your craft. I talk about
magic tools in my Photoshop 101
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=136>
class...namely the "read my mind" and "do it for me" tools: mythical
tools designed in the minds of users hoping there is an easier way. But
it is the only mention of magic tools in my courses. You get practical
methodology for Correcting and Enhancing Your Images
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=178> , solid
techniques for matching your images on your Monitor and In Print
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=175> , and advanced
exploration of  Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=103> . Each is a
facet of the tools you have to master to perfect your image editing
craft. My latest book, The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book
<http://aps8.com/taplb.html> , is the perfect companion to these
courses.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Coming from a writing background (I have an MFA in Fiction Writing), I
find it is interesting to note the overlap and comparison of thinking
about composition of images and composition of prose. The common quote
"a picture is worth a thousand words" comes to mind. Interestingly it is
said one of the 'rules' of photography is that images should tell a
story. If it is true, who should be more likely to have an interest in
photography than someone who has studied fiction writing...I find my
experiences with writing help me see my progress through photography
more clearly.

Writing At College
Taking writing courses was a confounding joy. I might be handed an
assignment to write a story, and might be inspired immediately to write
a poem. With the suggestion that I write a poem, I might be at no short
hand to write prose. Other students I know would claim to get the
much-romanced 'writer's block', often meaning they couldn't come up with
anything interesting to fulfill an assignment. While my reaction to
assignments may just have been some perverse part of my nature, the
imposed task would fill with obligation, rigidity and expectation...and
I could find respite in doing almost anything but the task at hand. I
enjoyed discovery and creativity; it was simply more fun to explore
writing to whatever end than to perform a task. The upshot of structured
courses was that while I was compelled to complete the necessary work to
conform to the expectations, I wrote probably twice as much unstructured
work in addition to the formal assignments. To stave off verbal
constipation, I made a habit of keeping a scratch book (and still do)
where I was free to experiment and explore words. In the abstract paths,
scraps, and unfinished pieces may not be my best work and material, and
much I've never shared or published, but some inevitably filtered back
into other finished work, and it is still where I do my most intense
learning.

And After College...
 Later, continuing down a lawless path, I taught college English for
several years, and tested ideas from my own learning, using my students
like guinea pigs. I tried to abandon rules entirely as part of the
curriculum -- rules, I reasoned, were something no one really cared for,
and college students should have had their fill by the time they met me
-- so I had my students exploring writing itself rather than tethering
them to the rule book. They wrote a lot, improved tremendously by
following their interests, and seemed to allow themselves to enjoy the
experience of writing which, in turn, helped them learn from it, often
coming in a back-handed way to the rules -- whether they recognized them
or not. 

Choosing Your Rules
The best of rules, when you know them, become simple, helpful guidelines
built on common sense: suggestions as to what will achieve success with
relative consistency. While anyone can resist rules, the essence of
rules can't totally be ignored. Rules of writing attach meaning to words
and without that reference writing would never convey an intended
meaning; likewise, you can't take a picture without light in the
absolute dark. Rules may not fit your perspective as you hear them, but
they may have other meanings, and more fitting, creative, and personally
meaningful interpretations. For example, the rule of thirds really says
to me: "don't be boring", which can lead to a lot more than 4 suggested
options. There are all sorts of writings, just like there are all sorts
of photos. Some photos might tell a story, and might seem more like a
poem, a story, or even a novel -- and some may only be meant to be
snippets, scraps, experiments, and vehicles for learning. If you
following the rule that each shot needs to be a story as an imperative,
you may hold yourself back from capturing some less structured frames,
experimenting and exploring possibilities, and learning from and
enjoying your time taking pictures. In other words, you will do well to
follow the rule of trying to tell stories with your images -- so long as
it doesn't oblige you to try and squeeze impossible imagery from an
inappropriate scene when you might, instead, happily snap the shutter to
learn some nuance about light, shadow, shutter speed, or color that may
later help you 'tell a story' in better conditions.

Practicing Lawless Photography
At times, when you are frozen, looking for the ultimate shot in a
dramatic scene that is being elusive, it may help to put the rules out
of your head a moment and just look through the viewfinder. Snap off
some frames without expectations, move in and away, tilt the camera,
shoot portrait and landscape, change your lens...Think of as many rules
as you can while doing it, and break every one -- for a reason if you
can think of one, or just because. After you shoot a series, view the
results to see if anything you shot suggests a direction, and then use
that suggestion and refine the result. You can always use rules first if
you feel naked -- or you may find you follow them more naturally as you
shoot view and refine.

For more information about Adobe Photoshop
<http://www.aps8.com/pscs3.html>  and Photoshop Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements5.html> , visit http://hiddenelements.com
<http://hiddenelements.com>  and http://photoshopcs.com
<http://photoshopcs.com>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Are You A Photoshop Junkie?
Photoshop <http://www.aps8.com/pscs3.html>  junkies are people who
religiously upgrade from one version to the next without thinking as if
a new release were some type of signal that the current version of the
program would soon expire and stop working. Others upgrading without a
second thought may believe that owning the newest version of Photoshop
automatically makes their images better. Regretfully, "cool" new
features may sound enticing, but in the long run these enhancements may
be something you rarely use -- or use once in a lifetime -- that isn't a
reason to upgrade. The boring reality is that sometimes what you have is
really what you need. While it does not carry the social status of
owning Photoshop, it is easily possible that Photoshop Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements5.html>  may serve every need you have even
if you are a demanding digital technician (and at a savings of 90% (!)
of the cost of Photoshop). Upgrading out of habit, obligation or
anything other than a clearly defined need makes you a junkie.

The Truth About Upgrades
It is Adobe's job to make their product compelling enough so that you
want to upgrade. In the early years of Photoshop, every version had a
significant new feature. Digital imaging had a lot of maturing to do
from the first release in 1988, so the room for improvement seemed
endless. Now, as Photoshop has matured, the list of enhancements for any
version may be as long as your arm, but it may be less clear if you
really need to upgrade because features are not always something every
user will benefit from.

Richard's Philosophy of Upgrades

     1. Don't automatically upgrade to a new release of Photoshop. You
don't owe it to Adobe, and your version of the program will still work
months and years from now.
     2. It is not a social embarassment to skip an upgrade version of
Photoshop. For example, if you are on CS2 already, you can probably wait
for CS4. People may point and wisper under their breath, but how long
can they do that for? Just ask them for a compelling reason to upgrade.
     3. Know the Photoshop upgrade cycles. You can count on a new version
every 18 months or so. Don't get the last version after it's been out 17
months when it suddenly goes 'on sale' or you'll be looking and yearing
to get the next version in a month all over again.
     4. Don't be swept away by the hype of the 'cool' factor of new
Photoshop tools. Advertising can make features look more promising than
they are. Find out what tools and functions actually do by reading
reviews before you upgrade, and weigh how much you think you'll actually
use them.
     5. Find at least two actual must-have features in any new Photoshop
upgrade that will save you time, effort or improve image quality on a
daily basis before considering an upgrade.
     6. Don't upgrade if there are a significant number of tools and
features that you already don't know how to use. Learn the tools you
have. New features will take weeks, months and perhaps years to
incorporate into your workflow. Give them time to sink in before looking
for more features you won't use.
     7. Find out about system requirements and compatabilities BEFORE you
purchase a Photoshop upgrade. If you purchase a version that requires a
new operating system, it may trigger a reaction where you'll have to buy
a whole new system at many times the cost of the upgrade just to run it.
     8. Just because it costs more doesn't mean it does more for you. Know
what you are buying. For example, don't get the extended version of
Photoshop CS3 instead of the vanilla version if you have no interest in
medical imaging, 3D modeling and video editing.

Adobe has consistently put out an enticing product that gives users a
real reason to upgrade. Adobe does work hard at it, they have a
fabulous, well-tested product, and have generally productive reasons for
upgrading. However, there is no reason to feel pressured, rushed or
obligated. The new version will be there when you are ready for it, and
your old, tried and tested techniques for image editing will not soon be
worn out and displaced by the latest tool if you learn the right
techniques. The real task is to learn the right techniques and theory
<http://www.photoshopcs.com/photoshop_courses.htm>  to make your image
editing efforts less tool-centric.


A Short List of Photoshop Enhancements by Version

This is an extremely abbreviated list of enhancements for Photoshop
versions. Versions 2 through 7 list the major enhancements only. CS
versions are listed in greater detail so it will be evident what was
added in the newer versions and what you may gain by upgrading from
prior versions.

     * Photoshop 2 (no, not CS2, Photoshop 2.0 released in 1991) added
Paths
     * Photoshop 2.5 added a Windows version
     * Photoshop 3 added Layers (which makes my Leveraging Layers
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=103>  course
possible)
     * Photoshop 4 added recordable Actions
     * Photoshop 5 added editable type, the History palette, and the
dreaded Color Management
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=175>
     * Photoshop 5.5 added Image Ready for web development
     * Phtooshop 6 enhanced the user interface, added layer styles and
Blending Options dialog, and 16-bit editing
     * Photoshop 7 introduced the Healing brush, paint engine
enhancements, and introduced RAW image handling

Note: At this point Photoshop broke into the CS versions, the first of
which was released on October of 2003. As more users still own these
versions I'll use more comprehensive (but still partial) lists...

     * Photoshop CS (8) added: — Camera RAW 2.x
— Highly modified "Slice Tool"
— Shadow/Highlight command
— Match Color command
— Lens Blur filter
— Smart Guides
— Real-Time Histogram
— Detection and refusal to print scanned images of various
banknotes[2]
— Macrovision copy protection based on Safecast DRM technology

     * Photoshop CS2 (9) added: — Camera RAW 3.x
— Smart Objects
— Image Warp
— Spot healing brush
— Red-Eye tool
— Lens Correction filter
— Smart Sharpen
— Smart Guides
— Vanishing Point
— Better memory management on 64-bit PowerPC G5 Macintosh machines
running Mac OS X  10.4
— High dynamic range imaging (HDRI) support (32 bit per channel
floating point)
— Scripting support for JavaScript and other languages
— More smudging options, such as "Scattering"
— Modified layer selection, such as ability to select more than one
layer.

     * Photoshop CS3 (10) added: — Smart Filters
— Quick Selection and Refine Edge tools
— Advanced compositing
— Streamlined interface
— Better raw image processing
— Improved Adobe Bridge
— Enhanced Vanishing Point
— Enhanced 32-bit HDR support
— Peak performance
— Black-and-white conversion

Note: The waters get further muddied here by a release of more than one
version of CS3; CS3 and CS3 Extended.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

As a Photoshop professional and author of Photoshop
<http://aps8.com/taplb.html>  and Elements <http://aps8.com/hppe4.html>
books, people looking to buy a computer to use for image editing often
ask my opinion about what I recommend. I use Mac
<http://www.aps8.com/mac20.html>  as my main work station, and have a PC
laptop. Though Mac is a preference for me, I think the platform isn't as
critical a decision for image editing as it once was. However the
peripherals and accessories I put into my 'ultimate system' whether on
mac or PC can be fairly extensive. To me, the additional expense is not
only unavoidable, but essential to handling images safely and getting
the best results. All the items I choose are not necessary for every
system and all level of user, and some of your personal preferences may
differ. But some core elements should be considered beyond just the
platform to enhance your image editing experience.

The following are all part of my main work station:

*Dual, matching monitors <http://aps8.com/monitor.html>

*Spyder monitor calibrator <http://aps8.com/spyder.html>

*2+ GB of RAM
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008XOKP/newwriting/>

*4 matching hard drives
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000IHXDR2/newwriting/>

*dual core processor

*Kensington Turbomouse <http://aps8.com/kensington.html>

*DVD Writer
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000F4U592/newwriting/>

*External backup drive
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000HQ071O/newwriting/>

*Card reader <http://www.aps8.com/wolvarine.html>

*Power backup system
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00064NVBK/newwriting/>

Keep in mind that for my work with professional photographers I need a
lot of processing oomph. If you are a more casual user you may not
really need all this stuff, and some of that is personal preference. But
here is a breakdown of what advantages each of these provides:

Dual, Matching Monitors <http://aps8.com/monitor.html>
Dual monitors provide a lot of visible landscape, generally at a
fraction of the cost of a larger monitor. Another option may be a very
large screen, like the 30" Mac Cinema Display
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002ILKWM/newwriting/> , but
that is not in the price range of many users. Two monitors may require
an additional video card <http://aps8.com/videocard.html>  depending on
your setup, but really a large monitor may demand a video card upgrade
as well. The goal of increased viewing area is to allow for room to open
multiple palettes while viewing your images large on screen.

Spyder Monitor Calibrator <http://aps8.com/spyder.html>
Monitor calibration is essential for getting good results with your
images consistently, in print and on the web. If you don't calibrate,
your monitor color may be off, and you can't possibly trust what you see
on screen. Dark monitors will find you overcorrecting images and the
results will be light in print; monitors with a color shift will find
you compensating toward the shift's complement color -- a monitor with
too much red may find your prints consistently leaning toward a cyan
hue. Hardware calibration can measure the color on your screen with
great accuracy and will be the cornerstone of good color practice and
workflow.

2+ GB of RAM
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008XOKP/newwriting/>
One of many complaints I hear from users as they upgrade to new versions
of Photoshop and Elements has to do with the program running slower.
Often running slower can be attributed to keeping an old system and
trying to run a more demanding program with the same equipment. Current
system requirements for Photoshop suggest a minimum of 512 MB of RAM,
this is in addition to what you need for your operating system (Windows
Vista requires 1GB of RAM), and really the size of your images. There is
almost never too much RAM and you may want 4GB to stay ahead of the
curve.

4 Matching Hard Drives
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000IHXDR2/newwriting/>
It might seem like overkill, but I use 4 hard drives on my system: 1 for
system/programs, 2 for images/work in a RAID array, 1 more for a
dedicated scratch disk. Drives should all be fast, and it is handy to
have them in matching size and manufacture so you can swap them out in
emergencies (e.g., for example if one drive in your RAID goes out, you
can sub in the scratch disk while waiting for a replacement). Keeping
work separate from your programs allows you to run a RAID array to make
instantaneous backup of your work to protect you from losing anything. A
dedicated scratch disk allows photoshop plenty of room to scale its
memory needs without conflicting with image saves and program activity.
A RAID can easily be set up on a Mac; PCs will require additional
software.

Dual Core Processor
Photoshop is a processing and memory hog, and having a fast processor at
the core is essential for peak performance. Photoshop has been built for
a long time to handle dual core processing, and that capability leads to
less wait and more productivity.

Kensington Turbomouse <http://aps8.com/kensington.html>
There are various input devices to choose from, and my input of choice
is a Kensington Turbomouse, and has been for many years. Mice require a
lot of wrist movement and potential strain, and Wacom tablets while
interesting and unique, do not provide the kind of accuracy and control
I can get with a trackball (try stopping in the middle of a stroke with
a graphics pen, for example). The trackball is really a huge inverted
mouse with the advantage that it never needs to be moved, takes up
little desk space and offers the ultimate in control of your cursor.
Don't get a flimsy trackball with a small controller...it just isn't the
same.

DVD Writer
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000F4U592/newwriting/>
As images mount on your drives you will eventually need to back them up
to make room for new ones. One of your best long-term options for high
capacity storage/archive are DVDs, which offer about 6 times the space
of a CD. They are also quite durable, and likely your best option
currently for image archive and storage.

External Backup Drive
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000HQ071O/newwriting/>
For daily or weekly backup, to keep your current work safe should you
experience some type of computer meltdown, you can make use of an
external drive with at least the same storage capacity as your work
drives. Doubling the capacity will allow you to retain the original
backups while making the new, and considering the low cost of hard drive
space these days, a single large backup drive will save you infinite
worry and offer the capability to restore work easily.

Card Reader <http://www.aps8.com/wolvarine.html>
A device that I have found to have ultimate utility on the road as well
as for daily download of images is my portable Wolvarine drive. It
sports additional slots for a variety of card types, and an 80GB
capacity which allows me to take approximately 12,000 photos before
having to touch base with my main desktop. It has an internal power pack
so it can operate anywhere, and attachments for car lighter plugs. Great
for backing up cards on the road, and reading them into the computer. If
you keep two cards on hand, you never need to waste time downloading
before you geet to the next shot; download one while you keep shooting.

Power Backup System
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00064NVBK/newwriting/>
Power backup allows you to stave off the ultimate, unpredictable
catastrophe: power loss. Power can go out at any time, and some types of
power/surge protectors offer surge protection and full switched power
that automatically stores and kicks in during a power outage -- and can
save your work. A must if you live in an area where unpredictable power
outages occur.

Of course, my image editing program of choice is Photoshop
<http://www.aps8.com/pscs3.html> , but Photoshop Elements
<http://www.aps8.com/elements5.html>  is often just as good for most
users who will never need the additional non-photo-editing features
(CMYK generation, Actions/Scripting, Web development tools). Some of
this list is equipment you can accumulate and reuse between systems as
you upgrade.

You may notice the glaring omission of a home printer. I am not big on
printing at home, and send everything to a service. To get the equipment
I'd want for that I figure I am saving  about $80,000 in a printer
cost which I assume is worth it ;-). You can also save yourself the
headaches associated with maintaining supplies and printer
maintenance/calibration/profiling. I discuss this in a lot more detail
in my From Monitor to Print: Photoshop Color Workflow
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=175>  course.

If you are looking for the ultimate system for editing images, or even
to begin upgrading as you begin to take image editing more seriously,
this list of key components should prove helpful in your consideration
of building the ultimate system. I'd be glad to answer additional
questions on the subject (Contact Richard: richard@...
<mailto:richard@...> )

Don't miss my online courses starting September 3rd!

     *  Photoshop 101: The Photoshop Essentials Primer
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=136>
     *  Correct and Enhance Your Images
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=178>
     *  From Monitor to Print: Photoshop Color Workflow
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=175>
     *  Leveraging Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=103>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I am pleased to announce that my new Photoshop book The Adobe Photoshop
Layers Book  <http://aps8.com/taplb.html>  was officially released
today. You can find it online by clicking the book title, or go to
http://aps8.com/taplb.html <http://aps8.com/taplb.html>  .  I will be
updating my http://ps6.com <http://ps6.com/>  website very soon and will
be adding tools for Photoshop users on that and http://photoshopcs.com
<http://photoshopcs.com/>  . Elements users will not be left out as many
of the new Photoshop tools I will be releasing will work with Elements
as well...

I hope you will support my new effort by taking a look at the new book,
and perhaps consider taking a course with me online at betterphoto.com
<http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/bio.asp?memberID=121428> , including
Photoshop 101 <http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=136>
, Photoshop Color Workflow
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=175> , Correct and
Enhance Your Images
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=178> , and
Leveraging Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=103>

If you have any questions, please let me know. I've got lots of new
stuff ready for my blogs on hiddenelements.com
<http://hiddenelements.com/blog>  and my betterblog at betterphoto.com
<http://insights.betterphoto.com/archives/weblogs_by_richard_lynch/index\
.html>  !



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Question:

Where can I find in-depth, unbiased reviews of software for
photographers? I have looked on the net but what I mostly find are
pretty abbreviated descriptions. No real in depth analysis and
suggestion of what works well together.

Short Answer:

All reviews are biased; you are your own best reviewer.

Long Answer:

Any review of software is necessarily biased. Asking this question of me
you will likely find my preference for Photoshop and Elements, but I'll
do what I can to make sense first. Reviewers need to be familiar with
software to do a good, in-depth review. This usually means reviewers
have to be users of what they review, which forms a bias. There are many
packages on the market, some more and less obscure. Popular packages
like Photoshop <http://aps8.com/pscs3.html> , Photoshop Elements
<http://aps8.com/elements5.html> , Lightroom
<http://aps8.com/lightroom.html> , Aperture
<http://aps8.com/aperture.html> , Paint Shop Pro
<http://aps8.com/psp11.html> , Corel Draw
<http://aps8.com/coreldraw.html> , and GIMP <http://www.gimp.org/>  all
have their supporters. But even somewhat more obscure packages like
Microsoft's Digital Image Editing Suite
<http://aps8.com/microsoft_photo_suite.html> , PhotoImpact
<http://aps8.com/photoimpact.html>  and Photoline32
<http://www.photoline32.com> , can be substantially powerful options for
image editing and show pockets of advocates. It has been my experience
that many of these programs can function reliably at a high level. There
are likely other programs as well.

What really makes an image editing software package "the best" is what
makes it the best for you and your needs. If you are looking for
full-featured image editing, many of the packages will provide what you
need with a variety of different abilities and tools--some of these
options may have been packaged with your camera (Photoshop Elements is
popular as software bundled with digital cameras and scanners). If you
are looking for a robust package that will handle web graphics,
animation, video editing, vector graphics/type and multiple file
formats, you may have no other choice than Photoshop. If you are looking
for ease-of-use and quality results, then you may want to consider
looking at newer programs specifically designed to provide easier
image-editing solutions, like Lightroom or Aperture.

Ultimately, if you are looking for an opinion that will absolutely tell
you which is best, it won't happen. Your choice should be based on your
needs and interests, with a nod to the popularity of the package.
Package popularity becomes important when it comes to finding help,
tutorials, courses and additional support. Where there are lots of
users, there are lots of tutorials and help.

I prefer Photoshop and Elements because I use them, and have for a very
long time. I have an aging comparison page that looks at Photoshop vs.
Elements vs. Paintshop Pro:

http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/vs_elements.html
<http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/vs_elements.html>

These are three programs that I have used and have written about. A lot
of the information still holds true.

As far as 'what works well together', I like to keep it simple, and
stick to one program that covers it all. To me that is Photoshop
<http://aps8.com/pscs3.html>  OR Photoshop Elements
<http://aps8.com/elements5.html> . Using either of those, I can steer
away from plugins and add-ons by using a full featured program that
doesn't require integration. I do have exceptions for add-ons that I
have made myself <http://hiddenelements.com>  that extend the
functionality/ease-of-use of Elements and Photoshop. Other hardware
would include an additional monitor <http://aps8.com/monitor.html>  and
video card <http://aps8.com/videocard.html> , trackball
<http://aps8.com/trackball.html> , and calibration device
<http://aps8.com/spyder.html> . You really shouldn't need several
software packages to get your image editing done, unless you like the
added complexity. For every software package and plugin you add, you
increase the learning curve. If you are having trouble doing a
particular task, it may not be the image editing program that has to be
changed, and you may not really do any better adding a plug-in that
promises to 'do it for you' : it may be that you will need to change
your approach to tasks, and changing your approach to tasks may be
facilitated by learning more about the program (through the Help
feature, tutorials, and possibly books and courses). Learning from
others can save tremendous amounts of time.

Postscripts:

* Richard now teaches 4 courses on betterphoto.com
     1. A beginner-level introduction to Photoshop: Photoshop 101
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=136>

     2. An intermediate-level course for mastering color management Color
Management for Digital Photographers
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=175>

     3. A second intermediate-level course dedicated to core imaging
techniques Correct and Enhance Your Images
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=178>

     4. And an advanced-level, specialized focus on using layers
Leveraging Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool
<http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=103>


* Richard's new book The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book
<http://www.aps8.com/taplb.html>  will be out at the end of July!

* Listen to Richard talk about image editing in a recent two-part
interview with Jim Miotke on BetterPhoto Radio: Part 1
<http://www.wsradio.com/wsradio-player.asp?player=windows&segdate=071307\
&segment=1&show=betterphotoradio> , Part 2
<http://www.wsradio.com/wsradio-player.asp?player=windows&segdate=071307\
&segment=2&show=betterphotoradio>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Continued from Part 1]
In the previous entry in this blog, I discussed some of the theory involved in
choosing a
color space. Let's look at my current workflow as an example.

My Choices
I choose to use an AdobeRGB (camera)>sRGB (convert to sRGB in Photoshop)>sRGB
(add
an sRGB profile to send to print) workflow for what I believe are sensible
reasons based on
my long experience in digital imaging.

I capture in AdobeRGB for a few reasons:

*I have a high-bit digital image sensor that captures at least 12-bits -- or 16
times the
number of colors captured in 8-bit images. With 16 times the number of colors as
8-bit,
most or all of the 8-bit sRGB colors will be captured If a few are not, I'll
never know.
*The added range may come in handy at some point when technology becomes
enhanced
and if not, conversion to 8-bit RGB for output should not create much unusable
color.

On the other hand, I work in sRGB as a working space for several reasons:

*I like the concept of working with color in ranges that can be properly
displayed on my
monitor.
*I seldom output to CMYK, but instead use light-process (LED/color laser)
printing.
*The process and service I use all the time requests sRGB files, and tests with
AdobeRGB
have proven the service's request to be right--for this closed system.
*sRGB is a broadly-used 'default' color standard, that even in systems where
profiling fails
to make a good translation, the results are within a predictable range. AdobeRGB
images
where the profile is dropped will usually desaturate drastically. I don't want
that problem
for the small potential benefit.
*I am not sure that I can define it as a benefit when "better images" would mean
NOT
matching what I see on screen...I'd have to define it as luck.

I print to light process as it is more efficient than using ink, and the results
are closer to
what I see on my monitor, as well as more durable.

My closed process (closed, meaning I just about always do the same thing) ending
with a
need for RGB dictates most of the rest of the workflow, and my decided
preference for
seeing all the color I work on, solidifies the outline. One of the keys to any
successful
workflow is testing, which means taking an image and trying to process it both
ways, and
seeing if the result is better either way. "Better" to me can only be defined by
the ability to
match the screen...and that really eliminates AdobeRGB as a benefit, as if I
can't see the
colors that Adobe RGB can produce, any benefit of additional color – beyond what
I see on
screen -- would naturally not match.

All that said, if you are more adventurous than me and don't mind working on
color that
you will not see on your monitor, an AdobeRGB workflow may be adopted and used
with
success mostly in a closed workflow where results go to a CMYK printer. However,
should
the AdobeRGB workflow be adopted, you will need to be diligent about following
the
process and being sure the profiles are not dropped, or the result will be a
sometimes
serious desaturation and compression of dynamic range. This happens because when
a
profile is dropped (or if it is not included on save), devices will likely
assume an sRGB
profile, or something very close, and remap the colors in the image: the
'broader' range of
colors is mashed down into the 'smaller' space and the result is less impressive
than just
starting with sRGB and sticking with it. Also, images with AdobeRGB profiles
posted to the
web either using browsers that do not recognize profiles, or which drop profiles
as part of
processing will result in the same desaturation and loss of dynamic range.

Why Do I choose This?
My conclusion to this point is that I can certainly get an AdobeRGB workflow to
produce
results, but I am not convinced that these are 'better' – and I am not convinced
that the
added risk of color trouble is worth the potential gain. AdobeRGB images may be
brighter
in print, and in some cases may show a difference, but that surprise may not be
accurate
in the sense that what you see on your monitor is NOT what you get in print.
Things may
change in the future, but now, with the broad popularity of the RGB workflow
(having
shifted with the advent of digital cameras and inkjet printing conversions),
sRGB seems a
more stable and reliable flow. That may change at some time in the future.

Your Choices
If you have read all the way through this entry and the last, hopefully the
sense of this
comes through. You can get results with either color space –- or other color
spaces not
mentioned. But what you choose to use needs to make sense to you, to where your
images
originate, the processes you choose, and those choices need to blend with your
workflow
rather than being considered as independent. My considered opinion is that my
workflow
is best –- for ME. Yours may be different, but hopefully you have made your
choices for
good reason. If you have not calibrated your monitor, have no real concept of
how to make
the best corrections to your images, and don't make other sensible choices in
your digital
imaging, don't be quick to blame your color space. There is more to making good
images
than choosing a color space.

Those are all considerations for a latter blog entry.

Postscript
If you have enjoyed this entry or found it useful, you might like my new book:
The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book [http://aps8.com/taplb.html]. It will be out
in July of 2007!

What Color Space Do I Use? (Part 1)
[PART1 of a 2 part answer about using Color Space]
Question:
I've been trying to come to terms with color management
and working color space. What color space do you use,
and which is best?

Answer:
Short Answer: I use sRGB. There is not really a 'best'
color space, though I find sRGB best and most consistent
for what I do.

Color spaces are confusing to most people, and become a
heady topic for debate. It is good to know at least the
basics before making a choice between which to use. I
have my preferences after 15 years of working with digital
color, and they have changed with the technology...but
let's look at some concepts. In part two of this entry,
I'll add in a discussion of why I choose the color
management settings that I do.

The "Best" Way...
Working color spaces have trade-offs and advantages, or
there wouldn't be choices. If there were a 'best way' to
handle color it would likely be handled automatically
(e.g., Adobe would put best practices in place
programmatically). I consider sRGB as a "realist" color
space. It is based on standard monitor display--you deal
with colors that can be safely seen on screen (16 million
of them in 8-bit). AdobeRGB portends to make color that
is better apt for printing--it extends beyond the model
of colors you can safely see on your monitor to map colors
available in print that are not 'seen' on a monitor (also
16-million in 8-bit). The fallback of sRGB is that it
doesn't have a representation of a broader color set.
AdobeRGB is said to have a 'broader' color model, but most
people don't know what that means: to me it means the set
number of colors is mapped differently--not that there are
more or even necessarily 'better' colors. People do a LOT
of arguing about the potential advantages of using either
sRGB or AdobeRGB as a working color space.

In a perfectly theoretical arena, you'd want to work with
images in optimal conditions: colors that you would be able
to see on screen would readily translate into print.
There-in lies the rub. RGB and CMYK reproduce different
color sets. RGB is color theory based on light where red,
green and blue make up all the potential colors on your
monitor; CMYK is color theory based on ABSORPTION of light,
as inks of cyan, magenta, yellow and black that represent
all colors in print. While slightly over-simplifying here,
RGB favors reds, greens and blues to the slight failing in
representation of cyan, magenta and yellow. CMYK favors cyan,
magenta and yellow with a failure in being able to represent
the brightest reds, greens and blues. Though CMYK has an
additional 'color' (black), it does not add representation
to the theoretical space: black is added to compensate for
the inability of ink to be perfectly efficient in
absorption...black helps compensate the CMY model so that
it will have a full dynamic range. Such things as the
physical properties of the ink, paper, and available light
will contribute to the lack of perfect performance in ink absorption. All this
really means is: the colors represented
by CMYK and RGB are different, and what you see on your
monitor is not the same as what printing in CMYK can represent.

Making Compensation
There are all sorts of ways that technology tries to
compensate for the difference, such as providing
printers with additional colors, or allowing translation
using color mappings and embedded profiles. Adobe claims
that AdobeRGB is a better model in representing the
potential of CMYK, because it maps to more CMYK colors
than sRGB. It is generally argued that AdobeRGB is more
geared to printing images because of its mapping to print
colors and that sRGB is better on screen based on its
mapping for colors associated with monitor display. The
idea is intreguing, in that the color sets promise to
allow you to do more direct correction of assoviated
colors optimized for a particular use. Yet the reality
is, just like RGB and CMYK have different colors, you
can't see AdobeRGB color with reliability on an RGB screen
...it becomes a conundrum. One solution used to lie in
converting to CMYK and that works for those doing certain
types of printing, but is really not as helpful for most
people who just send images to a service, or run them out
on a home inkjet.

There are practice of using color profiles (and embedding
them in your images) helps describe the color in an image
to different devices, acting like a type of translator.
If you work in a color space and place a profile in your
image, the THEORY is that you will be able to send that
file to other devices (printers, monitors) that will
recognize the color mapping and interpret it correctly.
Once the device can interpret the color, in theory it
shouldn't matter what color space it is in: If the colors
can be translated and interpreted, the results should
have a reasonable chance of matching.

The problem becomes defining what is supposed to be matched.
If you are in sRGB, and you match what it looks like on
screen, that may make sense, but using Adobe RGB if you
match what is on screen you aren't taking advantage of the
broader color space; if you match what is not on screen,
you can't ever see what you are adjusting. But the problems
just start there whether you use sRGB or AdobeRGB. Add to
the problem the fact that not everything prints as CMYK. If
AdobeRGB gives you better CMYK and you print to a light
process or display images on the web, it may not really
offer an advantage. Another issue is the reality that color
management theory doesn't always work in the real world:
profiles can get dropped (intentionally or not) or remain
unused by devices. When you consider the world might not be
perfect, you have a better picture of the real mess and why
color management becomes such an issue for debate. One
person swears by how they achieved success in their workflow
and another opposes as they achieved success a completely
different way. The fact is that they may both be right,
either for the right or wrong reasons.

And the Answer Is?
So the answer to the question of whether you should use one
working space or another is: either sRGB or AdobeRGB can
work...but you need to accept the advantages and disadvantages
of either workflow. Which will work better for you may be
answered by taking a look at your workflow as an entire
process. That is, based on how you work with images, your
choices for what is best in adopting a workflow should be
based on what you do with images, rather than what someone
else does--whether or not they do it with success. In Part
2 of this entry (later in May) we'll look at the workflow I
use and why I've made the choices I have to give you a peek
into a considered workflow.

POSTSCRIPT
I've just finished writing my new book The Adobe Photoshop
Layers Book http://aps8.com/taplb.html . It will be out in
July of 2007. My summer courses at betterphoto.com will be
starting in June: From Monitor to Print 
http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC01.asp ,
Leveraging Layers http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC02.asp ,
and Photoshop 101 http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC03.asp

Question:
I am fairly new to Photoshop, but rarely use it because I don't know
what to do with an image. In your last blog entry you mentioned having a
'workflow'. I guess you mean by that a process to follow when editing
images. Can you tell me what I'm supposed to do?

Answer:
Short Answer: Yes. Have a workflow and use it with every image.

Working with images isn't random. You shouldn't just fiddle with some
filters and auto-corrections and hope to suddenly stumble on something
to make your images look good. What you really want to do is outline a
process to follow so you are sure your images will look their best every
time.

A good workflow takes setup into account as well as image correction.

     1. Calibrate your monitor, create an ICC profile, and make color
management decisions
     2. Store your original images safely
     3. Evaluate the image (composition color and tone) to develop a list
of things to correct (in steps 4-8)
     4. Make general color and tone corrections
     5. Make small damage corrections (dust, etc.)
     6. Make composition changes (cropping, replacing, removing
objects...other 'heroic' measures)
     7. Make targeted color and tone corrections.
     8. Add enhancements (soft-focus, sharpening, etc.)
     9. Save the working/layered version of the working image
    10. Save a purposed/final image for output/use


Even long-term users of Photoshop may not have a sensible workflow in
place, but the fact is that it can save tons of time and account for
consistent results.If asked which is the most important of the 10 items
above...I'd have to say you need every one of them to get the most out
of your images. If you are missing any of them, you'll want to consider
adding them to your workflow.

     * Calibration and color mangement decisions can greatly affect your
outcome
     * Storing your images is essential to ward off data loss
     * Evaluating an image tells you what to do and keeps you on track
with corrections
     * Having an order to your corrections helps you correct logically so
you aren't taking on the wrong issue at the wrong time (color correcting
a hat that is the wrong color before color correcting the whole image
makes no sense)
     * Storing your layered work can save tons of time in making later
changes or enhancements
     * Saving your final image separately allows you to make the best
image for any purpose (e.g., a downsized JPEG for the Web, a full-sized
EPS or TIFF for print)

With a workflow established, you'll never be puzzled about what to do
with your images and you'll be ready to explore them the same way every
time, checking over your list so nothing gets missed.

I teach a course on betterphoto.com that will help with workflow issues.
It is called From Monitor To Print, and helps you establish a full
workflow, covering all 10 items in the list. You can find the course
here:
http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC01.asp
<http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC01.asp>

If you are simply uncomfortable with Photoshop, you may need even more
basic help, which I can provide in my Photoshop 101 course, found here:
http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC03.asp
<http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC03.asp>

But whether you take a course or not, take notes on what you want to do
and establish a workflow. It will save you time, and probably money as
well!



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Question:
What is the best way to learn Photoshop?

Answer:
Short answer: There is not one 'best way'.

Many people are daunted by trying to learn Photoshop. There are hundreds of
tools and
infinite possibilities. Infinite. You can pick an image and do anything with
it...even create
an entirely different scene. But the point of working with images would seem to
be to
improve what you have taken, and not to turn a picture of a cat into an elephant
(by
applying the "turn this into an Elephant" filter, of course!). Most people will
not expect to
accomplish such transmogrification, and what would be the point when you could
make
the result simpler with a visit to the local zoo?

One of the reasons users find Photoshop daunting is that they try to learn too
much—or
even all of it—at once. A better approach for most people will be to learn
a-tool-at-a-
time. Pick a tool, read about the tool in Photoshop or Elements Help (press
Command+/ or
Ctrl+/ [mac/pc]), then open an image and explore the tool by applying it. Don't
look so
much for expert results as the opportunity to learn how the tool behaves. That
experience
will go a long way toward incorporating it into your workflow. 15 or 20 minutes
a day puts
a new tool into your belt.

Further, and following this line of logic, you can limit the tools you look at
to only those
that are more practical for what you want to do. If you will be working with
digital
photographs for the sake of editing and improving them, you can virtually ignore
whole
sets of tools, and in the case of Photoshop, an entire application (Image
Ready). in my
courses and books I have a list of 30 or so core functions and tools that you
can pretty
much expect to incorporate into your work with any image. Some of these are
terribly
obvious, like Open and Save, but you quickly get into the heart of a tool set
that helps you
stay focused on correction and the task at hand. People hem and haw about Curves
and
how important they are to correction, and honestly I think they are a bit of a
hack the way
it is often described to use them, and at this point in my editing I rarely use
them at all.
Levels are a far more accurate and useful tool, except in specific
circumstances. But the
point is that with a significantly limited set of tools, you can accomplish what
you need to
in editing almost any image...as long as you know which to use.

That said, some people will find books most helpful, some DVDs, some online
courses,
some live seminars, a rare few personalized instruction, and others just poking
about in
the program. Having learned Photoshop at a time where there were no books or
tutorials, I
would suggest that poking around can be effective, but it is likely to be the
slowest
method of learning unless you already have a lot of digital imaging experience
with
another program. Any one of the products that help you learn Photoshop will
likely cut
months and years off learning. Here are a few things that will help:

1. Get acquainted with the interface. Learn about palettes and menus and where
the tools
are stored. ( See my Photoshop 101 course on betterphoto.com for an outline).

2. Have a goal in mind when opening Photoshop rather than just hoping it will do
something for you or that you will suddenly feel inspired. Do you want to
improve images
from a recent shoot? Learn color correction? create a new logo? The answer to
the question
"what do I want to do?" will give you direction and save time.

3. Take a note from your own learning history and follow the path that has been
most
successful for you in other endeavors. If you have been successful learning in a
classroom,
take a course; if you learn from books, take a look at the books in a local
store and see
what looks most interesting to you.

4. Don't expect to be an expert overnight. Personally I have been using
Photoshop daily for
about 15 years. I learn something new every day. It could be about the program,
about my
images, about seeing, composition, settings, whatever...but there is always
something new
in thee program as long as I allow myself to see it. Becoming an expert will
likely take
months or years.

5. Establish a base workflow, including a solid color management setup, good
step-by-
step correction practices, and test your output. You will be following a similar
set of steps
for most images unless you will be doing a lot of work to them. Outline your
process or
borrow someone elses (see my Workflow course on betterphoto.com).

6. Experiment with limitations. Don't give your self open-ended amounts of time
to try
and achieve an effect by applying filters willy-nilly. Again, have an idea of
what you want
to achieve, and allow yourself 10-15 minutes to experiment with a result rather
than
running all over with it. At the end of the time, post the image to a Photoshop
forum
somewhere and ask for help in what you want to achieve. Try my forums found
through
http://hiddenelements.com

I hope that helps people get on track toward learning Photoshop in their own
way. If you
have questions feel free to send them for future editions of the blog. Send to
Richard
Lynch thebookdoc@...

This group has been pretty dormant due to the fact that I have been writing
books for
Photoshop Elements. I am going to start writing for Photoshop again -- in fact I
already have.
Can you please let me know if you would like to change how this list is used and
moderated?

Would you like:
[  ] Open Discussion
[  ] Moderated Discussion
[  ] Author notices only

If you have any other suggestions I'd be glad to hear. meanwhile, I'd like to
point you all back to ps6.com, which I have taken minimal measures to update. I
will be doing more soon.

FOR ALL: I have a blog here: http://hiddenelements.com/blog

You'll find tips there for everyone, no matter who you are.

Richard Lynch
back in the fold.

> I've tried to get help in several places and haven't been able to get a
> response. Maybe you can help. Every time I stroke text of any kind, it rounds
the
> edges after a few pixel widths. Is there any way to get those squared off
> without doing it by hand?

The easy answer is: No. when you stroke the text, Photoshop uses the
equivalent of a rounded brush of some sort, and in following the contour the
corner
will round. So by using the function, you won't get sharp corners.

To stroke type with square edges, you will need to do something other than a
layer style. Either stroke the item one pixel at a time (with the Stroke
command, outside the content of the layer), or apply the stoke with a larger
square
brush (using Stroke Path, after converting the type to vectors). The results
will depend on the DPI of the image. The larger (greater than 1 pixel) brush
will need to be set to 1% spacing.

The best results will likely still be achieved manually, but this comes pretty
close.

Hope that helps.

Richard Lynch
http://ps6.com
http://hiddenelements.com

> Question: I have a jpeg that is jagged around the edges and doesnt have a
> transparent background. I do not have the original psd file. Is there a way to
> resave this jpeg maybe to a gif so i can have a transparent background while
> not loosing quality. I need this image for a website.

Obviously this would be better to do from the original. However, since that
isn't an option, you can convert from the JPEG. You may want to do what you
can to separate the transparent area of the image. This may require selection
and/or masking. You may need to adjust for artifacts that have built up due to
JPEG compression -- it is impossible to tell without seeing the image.

Try this:

1. Open the image
2. [I assume the image is flattened] double-click the Background in the
layers palette.
3. Make a selection of the part of the image that you want to make
transparent.
4. Press Delete. This will remove the selected area.
5. Save using Save for Web, and use GIF and Transparency options.

The problem you will likely run into here is that the selection will not be
tight to the object. You may want to fiddle with the selection using various
means of selection adjustment (anything from starting over to using
expand/contract). If there are drop shadows, you might want to consider
re-making them...drop shadows in transparency situations can be tricky.

I cover a lot more in the PS6.com tutorial on transparency in print and on the
web. Find it here: http://ps6.com/Tutorials/Web_Transparency/intro.html

OK?

Richard


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

" I just bought hidden Pwers Of CS.there are certain points that I
want to clear
1)The multipass printing--well taking the example of
wagontrain.would it mean that I print the black seperated channel
converted to a new file .Then I print the Pantone472 channel on the
same sheet?"

You need to separate the colors into separate files as described and then print
each on the same sheet running the page through the printer multiple times --
once per color.

"2)i am working on the web, so for making duotone images.I like the
layer methord (gives full control).Should i flatten images once
satisfied  and do save for web? What should I do to get the correct
duotone look ?Or do you propose manual spot channels a better
way.Aim here  is web."

As the image is for the web, it doesn't matter what method you use to get the
result. As you will not be printing the separations, you can use any method
described -- you are looking only for the effect.

Thanks for the questions, I certainly have not been getting enough of them.
Pitty, as I thought the book was pretty good.

For those on the list who didn't hear about the book or know about the release,
see: http://aps8.com/hppscs.html . I think it is better than my Special Edition
Using book, and it is less than half as long.

Richard Lynch

>>What is the best monitor for use with PhotoShop?
>>I would still like to stay with the 21" size.

I happen to be a fan of NEC monitors from way back. The image color has always
seemed to me to be broad and accurate.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006IS9L/newwriting

The first NEC I got came with a calibration device, and it was a great
innovation that simply didn’t stick. At the same time, I think that most quality
monitors (generally name-brand) will be more than adequate with proper
calibration. Several things that I consider important to note about monitors are
the dot pitch (anything around .22-.25 for the larger monitors is very good),
and the darkness of the screen (as well as glare reduction). The latter is
important as if the screen isn’t dark when it is off, it most certainly won’t
get darker when you turn it on! A dark monitor is necessary for displaying
accurate shadows.

Another important thing is your graphics card when you have a monitor of this
size. You will need some extra processing power to be able to have a high
refresh rate. I prefer ATI cards because I have had good luck with them, but,
again, other companies make excellent cards.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00009ETL1/newwriting

Another option to consider is dual monitors. I have some additional information
on the ps6 yahoo group here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ps6/message/602

Richard Lynch
http://aps8.com/hppscs.html

<<I wanted to automate placing a copyright in my images so I can run a batch and
place the copyright 5% in from the bottom and right of any image. How do I go
about that?>>

Here's a quick solution...You want to change the image size to place the type.
You want to use this on a flat image and create a single type layer. You will
duplicate the background, change the canvas size to 95%, align the type and then
use Reveal All to restore the image.

1. Open a sample image that you will use to add the copyright.
2. Create a new action set and call it Copyright.
3. Begin recording by creating a new action called Copyright 95%.
4. Choose the Text tool and Enter enter the copyright text: Copyright©[year]
[name].

NOTE: To enter the copyright symbol on a PC, hold down the ALT key and type
0169. On a Mac, hold down the Option key and press G.

5. Activate the Background.
6. Duplicate the background layer and name it Source. This layer will be used to
restore image size.
7. Activate the Background layer.
8. Choose Canvas Size and change the height and width to 95%, anchoring the
upper left.
9. Link the Background layer to the Copyright layer.
10. Choose the Move tool and Align the linked layers to the right edges by
choosing Align Right from the Layers menu.
11. Align the linked layers on the bottom edges by choosing align bottoms on the
layers menu.
12. Choose Image > Reveal All.
13. Delete the Background layer.
14. Change the current layer to the Background by choosing Layer>Background From
Layer.
15. Stop recording.

You should get exactly 95%. You will need to adjust the action for entering type
if you have a set line. Obviously you can batch it too.

Hope that helps.

Check out:
The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS (December 2003)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782142559/newwriting/

Photoshop CS is a recommended upgrade, find what you need for yourself (or as a
gift!) here:
Photoshop CS (Full license)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOAX/newwriting/
Photoshop CS (Upgrade)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOBZ/newwriting/

Adobe CS Premium Suite:
PC Full version:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBN6M/newwriting/
PC Upgrade:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBNDJ/newwriting/
Mac Full:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBN4H/newwriting/
Mac Upgrade:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBNCT/newwriting/

Why is it so good? See what the experts say;
http://bermangraphics.com/press/photoshopcs.htm

Richard Lynch
author, The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782142559/newwriting/
The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782141781/newwriting/
http://hiddenelements.com
http://ps6.com

"I was thinking about the upgrade to Photoshop CS. What do you think
of the new version?"

I am more impressed with the Photoshop CS upgrade (PS7 to PSCS) than
the PS7 upgrade (PS6 to PS7). I didn't necessarily recommend PS7, but
recommend PSCS. If you are on any version prior, there is enough in
the upgrade to justify making the change -- if you are a serious
user. You can get it on Amazon:

Full License:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOAX/newwriting/
Upgrade:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOBZ/newwriting/

There are many more features that make a difference for the
professional. The ability to use 16 bit in much broader
circumstances, log tracking for what steps you take with an image,
large file support (up to 300,000 x 300,000 pixels), inclusion of the
camera RAW plug-in, nested layers sets (up to 5 levels), and
conditional actions and SWF saves for Image Ready. Some of these may
be too specific for general users, but they may be indispensable for
professionals with access to equipment powerful enough to make use of
these features.

Several items are more useful for the general user, like healing to a
layer, text on or in a path, the Filter Gallery and customized
shortcuts.

*Healing to a layer gives the user more opportunity and flexibility
to use the healing results less casually and potentially
destructively, and so the user can manipulate the result after the
fact.

*Text on a path has always been a sore point for users who creatively
use text in their images and had to turn to Illustrator to do the
job.

*The Filter Gallery is finally a way to implement filters creatively
as they should be used: in sets. You can rarely get an interesting
and desirable creative effect applying Filters one at a time, and
this enhancement makes grouping possible.

*With customized shortcuts, gone are the days when you have to
research out a shortcut that you knew you used once...and you get a
new productivity boost by keying in your own without having to create
separate actions and use F keys. Not only do you have access to the
shortcut listing from within Photoshop, and a very well presented
interface for changing shortcuts, but you can print them all out. You
can copy that shortcut file and take it with you to propagate on
other machines, and customize personal sets for multiple users on any
machine.

For newer users, the possibility of adding content to the Help menu
will probably be a huge boon. Many experts will be interested in
providing quality information— probably for free — to include on the
menu.

I don't see a lot of negatives except what might have been sadly over-
looked in broadening the implementation of enhancements. However,
Adobe needs something to keep you wishing for...

For a broader perspective there is a review of what the experts think
on: http://bermangraphics.com/press/photoshopcs.htm

For many more casual users, Elements will be the ticket -- despite
the attractive upgrade packages for Photoshop. Elements can do quite
a lot and is often the best value for home users and more casual
hobbyists. Elements users can get some free tools here:
http://hiddenelements.com

Hope that helps!

Richard Lynch

> Can you tell me, please, if Photoshop 5.5 is compatible with Windows XP? 
> I'm considering buying it, but no one seems to know this. 

You may be able to get PS5.5 running on XP, but I would suggest getting nothing
earlier than PS 7 if you are going to be buying a copy of Potoshop . The reason
for this is XP did not exist when 5.5 was built and that can potentially lead to
processing problems -- it certainly will not be optimal.

If the choice is between buying PS7 new or PS5.5, you may still want to buy 5.5
and upgrade it (be sure the version you get is elligible for upgrade, some that
you get on ebay may not be).

A new version of Photoshop is out, and it has some of the best professional
enhancements in several versions:

Photoshop CS (Full license):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOAX/newwriting/

Photoshop CS (Upgrade):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOBZ/newwriting/

CS is a more significant upgrade in my opinion than either PS6 or PS7 was. If
you haven't upgraded or plan on using 5.5, you will miss some significant
features.  I'll review PS CS next week.

Richard Lynch

>I'm surprised that Photoshop doesn't provide a more facile way to compare
>color between images...it would be convenient if the RGB
>or CMYK numbers from the first image would stay up there on the screen
>somewhere, so you didn't have to scribble them down, when you went to the
>other image. I need to make some measures and comparison with great
>exactitude.

There are several ways to make such comparisons, it all depends on what you are
trying to accomplish. Here are some possibilities:

1
-
Make a selection of the area to be compared. Hold Cmd/CTRL+Shift
and click inside the selection, and drag into the other image -- the
image area will copy to the other image. Move the sample over the
area to be compared. Place a color sampler in the spot
and toggle the view for the layer to get the comparison between original
and other-image values while viewing the Info palette.

2
-
The foreground/background color swatches will hold a color for you.
Click on a color with the eye-dropper in the first image and then
compare it by rolling over the second image and the swatch in the
to see the sampled numbers in the Info palette.

3
-
If you have 2 versions of one image to compare, try this:
1.flatten both (not completely necessary, but humor me...).
2.hold shift and use the Move tool to drag one image into the other.
3.change the upper layer you just dragged in to Difference.
This doesn't give you numbers to compare, but it does show you what parts
are different -- using a pixel-by-pixel comparison. The brighter the
result, the greater the difference.

4
-
Take a screen shot of the Info palette and open it so the color
measures freeze on screen. You can actually measure 5 areas
at one time and freeze-frame the samples this way -- one for
each sampler, and one for the eye-dropper.

There are more.

I think the better question might be about what you are trying to
accomplish in the comparison. What is that goal? if you are looking at
individual pixels, and trying to get one color to match another, you
may be looking too hard. The goal of corrections
(if that is what you are doing) is to make the image look better. A
comparison between images assumes one is correct and the other isn't --
but even the idea of 'correct' may be gray...is a correct image one that looks
the best of one that matches original color?

The type of comparison above may be handy in some cases where
you really have to match color. Photoshop CS provides some means of color
matching which I have yet to really explore (there are far more interesting
things
in the package for me). if you are making scientific measures that's one
thing...
if you are making curve corrections to a graycard measure OK. Many times I
see people making lotsa fuss over matching a color between images, and there's
no real
reasoning behind the effort, and no guarantee that the color you are matching
to is the right one (if there is a 'right' one). Trying to amtch prints and
screen is a valiant
crusade, matching them between images just because you feel they should
may not take into account changes in the scene or other variable which
actually makes the difference desireable!

I think you are right about the measures, though. Would be handy to have
a quick way of freezing them for those times you need a measure (though
I look at these usually as samplings to determine approximations and
ball-park numbers). I've requested that before as well as a screen-shot
utility. I've obviously not got hold of the right adobe ear cause neither are
in CS. Some things I've suggested made it in, but who knows if it was my
suggestion or someone else's. Again, another fact I could research, but I
gain nothing from knowing. I like to be practical and put that kind of
incidental fact aside. it might be great exactitude, but it also might be
unnecessary.

Hope that helps!

Richard Lynch
http://ps6.com
http://hiddenelements.com

I have heard several complaints about "activation hooey", having to do with
Adobe's choice to require program activation for Photoshop CS (BTW for those who
didn't know, Adobe has released what amounts to PS8 in a package called
Photoshop CS -- just 'released' but not shipping). The process of activating is
pretty simple, similar to registering your product with the company. For those
not familiar, products requiring activation will not work until you get in
contact with the manufacturer. The purpose is hopefully to slow the spread of
piracy, which in the case of Photoshop is seemingly fairly rampant.

Frankly I could care one way or another how Adobe chooses to protect their
software. I am curious if anyone really has a valid position against activation.
I have used all sorts of things in purchased software...dongles, activation,
passwords, subscriptions, thin client, and nothing. I DON'T SEE WHY it is such a
big deal if:

1) you are using the program legally.
2) your computer works and doesn't need to be overhauled every month.

I can't for the life of me see why either of these things should be unusual.

If this allows Adobe to concentrate more on creating stuff for the program
(e.g., they don't have to worry about suing pirates, and can spend that money
better), GREAT. If I have to make a call to them every 1.5 years to activate,
perhaps I'll get a freindly person on the other end and I'll have a fine chat
for 15 seconds and never talk with them again. If it even takes 5 minutes of
your lifetime, is it that big a deal? How much time do you spend in traffic? at
stop lights? brushing your teeth? Sometimes there are necessary evils in the
path to getting to where you want to go, and my guess is you'll want to have
fresh breath when you get there.

You won't complain about the price, but you complain about a phone call? let me
ask you...when you get out of your car with your fresh breath, do you lock the
door? do you lock your house when you leave? Do you have keys to a post-box? If
you were selling things at a flea market, would you just leave then things there
and go to lunch and come back hoping to find money on the table for the items
that were gone? for every one person that left money, 5 would think about
picking it up...and maybe none would on a really really good day.

Is it really more complicated than registering the product? I think not, so I'd
do it. Does Adobe deserve the fruit of their labor? I think so, so I'd do it. Do
I want to use the program? Yes; so I do it. It is the manufacturer's choice, not
the client's, what goes into a program...as it is the manufacturer's sweat. You
can choose not to use a product because they want to be sure you are using it
legally. Having some background in software, and entreprenuership, I can't fault
them. It isn't even locking the car, it is more like being careful to whom you
give the keys. Most of us would do that. Those of you who don't, might I borrow
your car for a little trip I'm taking?

I didn't think the PS7 upgrade was all that much to scream about...I think there
are far more beneficial features in CS though, and if some "activation hooey" is
enough to stop you from upgrading, it is spiting no one but yourself -- and
perhaps making their case for them.

I welcome comments.

Richard Lynch
http://ps6.com
http://hiddenelements.com

> How do I get results like this:
> http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/blonde/index.html
> Is that just airbrushing?

Don't go assuming you get those kind of results (good or bad) with 10 minutes
using the airbrush (not really the right tool). You will probably need an
impressive array of tools and techniques to come close to those results. Not to
mention a few hours.

At the same time, not all of the result may be what you want/need to accomplish.
There are certainly some impressive enhancements (e.g., pore reduction, which
can be accomplished over broad areas at times using the right techniques), but,
ahem, as a rendering of reality...I would not pose these as a study of the human
animal. The blurring of original detail in some cases seems to improve the image
and in others obliterates fine detail that make the image seem real (rather than
impressionistic). What is more impressive is, perhaps, the creative
visualization needed to achieve the result. To get such results not only do you
need a good handle on the tools, but the creative ability to see the result (so
you can use your expertise with the tools to pursue the result).

Clearly this image serves a particular purpose. Not all images need to look this
way nor need to be so heavily manipulated, and some might do more to retain the
'reality' of the subject. Tis a matter of taste (so long as you have the vision
and technique).

Definitely NOT just the airbrush. There are no singular magic tools in Photoshop
-- or else there wouldn't be so many of them.

Richard Lynch
http://hiddenelements.com
http://ps6.com

> can you tell me whats the difference between rgb and cmyk mode?

RGB mode is display color, or color created by light process (like a
monitor, TV, LED prints) and CMYK is generally printed color based on
light absorption (inkjet, laser and offset printing). RGB can display
more color; CMYK is a smaller color space. Light is more efficient
than aborbtion...the latter has to account for media, ink/toner,
paper and the loss in efficiency is really insurmountable. The
difference between the two is something like shining a flashlight
directly into your eyes and reflecting it off a wall: No matter what,
the reflected light will not be as bright.


This is really a frequently asked question. You might try looking at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ps6/message/603 and the link there as
well.

Hope that helps!

Richard Lynch

Howdy...

Last week I posted a link to a layer masking tutorial I wrote for
graphics.com. Some had problems with the link, but they have it corrected now.
Just go to the main page:

http://www.graphics.com

The new tutorial is under 'The Cool Factor'.

One more thing...summer is about done, and I'm back into a heavy writing
schedule. I'm going to take down the discount on my website in 2 days, so if you
want to get the Photoshop downloads at a reduced price please do so today if
possible:  http://actionfx.com

The new book (Photoshop Most Wanted II) that I wrote with Colin Smith from the
Photoshop Cafe will be out in a couple weeks also...I'll keep you posted when
the link is updated on Amazon.

Take care,
Al , the NAPP Action Guy
Action Fx Photoshop Resources
http://actionfx.com