When I look back at switching from film to digital, I remember the agony I went through learning how to download images, file formats, file structure, finding images, AND the complexity of photoshop. It wasn't easy and many times I longed for the days of sending off film, getting back images, viewing on a lightbox, sending off selections for printing, and getting back prints. No websites to manage, no printing to mess with and camera bodies that lasted longer than 3 years and held their value. That era is over, I made it through, although a bit rough at times, I did it. So what have I learned, especially about software and the image.
First, digital photography has made me a much better photographer. No doubt about it. The instant feedback, ability to shoot thousands of images without thinking about cost has dramatically improved my photographic quality. Likewise, it has done that for millions of photographers around the world and the bar for of quality has been raised. In the process, like millions of other photographers, I have learned to use photoshop. I restrain from using the word "master" because I have not mastered photoshop with its endless options but I have learned to use it as a photographer. So, the question of the blog, how important is it to my photography, or as the title reads to your photography.
In the beginning, it was essential. I didn't know how to crop, manage color, use layers, masks, etc. I watched videos from Kelby Training(and still do), Tim Grey, went to workshops and immersed myself in training. I expanded my learning to other software like Nik, OnOne, and others who simplified the manipulation of images and gave me the freedom to do creative things. So where do I stand today?
In many ways I have come full circle. I now shoot with an image in mind from what I see, and simply use a few tools to create what I had in mind. Or, I look at an image I have taken and immediately crop or whatever to focus what I want. In other words, I use very few photoshop tools. Digital photography has enabled me to be a much better photographer because I can correct what I shoot on the spot. I shoot, see an image, shoot again to perfect, and this process leads me to a final vision of what I want. I can correct lighting, so if I see something with poor lighting, I know what I can do to improve it post image, I will shoot with that in mind. So photoshop is my shooting tool more than a creative post processing tool. For me when I shoot, it is f/stop, aperture, focal point, and photoshop all mixed into one thinking process. As a consequence, I use very few of the tools in photoshop to finalize an image. Far less than a few years ago when I was experimenting with everything. Photoshop is more important in my shooting skill set than in my post processing. Sounds strange, but its true. And the tool set that I use is very limited, far less than I learned.
When I see an image in my viewfinder, I intuitively know what I'm going to do in photoshop. I shoot with that in mind. In a prior life, I was having a corporate picture taken by a famous portrait photographer and naturally I was asking a thousand questions. He was shooting medium format which I shot at the time, on a ladder, with an assistant moving these lights around. I asked him what the image was going to look like, thinking he could show me the polaroid he was using for lighting. He said OK, put the polaroid back on, and shot an image. He walked over to me, showed me this image where I was relatively small, pulled out a pair of scissors, and cut(cropped) all but me. He said this is going to be the print, showed me this small image. He was using a wide angle to get the perspective he wanted, knowing that everything around me would be discarded. He had not been in my office, seen it beforehand, so he came in fresh. But when he walked in, he looked around, and sat up in one particular place, moved his camera around, reset his ladder, asked me to stand in a particular spot, and started talking to me, all the while snapping the shutter. He wasn't looking through the lens but talking with me. He was looking for the photograph in my expression. He had decided on the background, just needed me with a certain expression. In essence, he had seen the environment knew from that what he wanted, and saw a certain expression in me that he wanted but did not want to try and force.
While not exactly the same, learning to use photoshop in the shooting process is similar. Knowing what you can do, your limits, your options, gives you a better set of tools to work with than simply the limitations of your camera and lens. Doesn't require an exhaustive knowledge of photoshop but the mastery of a few tools. What it takes is shooting a lot of pictures. There is no substitute for improving your photography than shooting. Photography is improved by looking through the lens and pressing the shutter, not behind a computer screen learning software. It is all necessary, but you can get others to help you out with the software, but you have to press the shutter button. And the only way to improve that process is get out there and shoot.
Back to the title, photoshop is important, helps with options but used most effectively, it allows you to see the potential of an image as you shoot. It doesn't take many tools to effectively master this level of photoshop, but it does take a lot of shooting to use it collectively. I'm still on my journey, I'm by no means at the end of the leaning curve, but my next steps are plain to me. If I want to continue to improve, I have to shoot and by that I mean under all sorts of conditions not just good ones. Finding images, creating a stylistic eye is a much steeper challenge and requires lots of laps. I'm only in the shallow end now.
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