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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Essential guide to photo (RAW and JPG) editing? | |
I completely agree with you that processing (and printing) are essential elements in photography. I think there are a couple of ways to answer your question, one practical and one more philosophical:
- LSM is a great book but in many ways it's a bit technical. If you're looking for the technical answers to the "what this does" and "why does this happen" kind of questions, Adobe's own literature (http://helpx.adobe.com) actually can take you through every single component of both Lightroom and Photoshop and explain (I think pretty well) the difference between sharpening and clarity, or how to create a camera profile. I think her name is Julianna Kost and she is the brand ambassador for Adobe's photography programs. She has recorded video tutorials that cover 90% of what you need to know for Lightroom. It's all free.
- The philosophical answer is more relevant if you're trying to arrive at an end result where you are happy with the image, but aren't really sure where to start. I believe that you really do need to figure out in large part what things do in LR/PS first, and then establish a vision of what you want your image to look like. Then all you need to do is use what knowledge you have to experiment in a focused way to work your image until you're satisfied. It's a little like baking. You want to bake a cake, and you may have all the ingredients, but only a piece of the recipe. If you know the basics of baking and what each ingredient tastes like and what is supposed to do at each stage, you can probably figure out how to get a decent cake. Maybe it'll even taste great the first time you try it. But if you don't know what importance eggs or butter have in the overall scheme of baking... you may be baking a lot of cakes until you're happy.
I think the inherent problem in websites like the one you linked to is that you'll learn techniques instead of the fundamentals. Techniques (and plugins and presets you buy) are nice, particularly if they happen to be exactly what you need to accomplish your vision, but they won't help you nearly as much as knowing all the background info when you want to deviate from them and make something unique. If I were learning this today (and digitally, not with film in the darkroom), I'd take an image alongside the Adobe manuals/tutorials and just use every tool until I knew what it did. Once you're comfortable in LR and exhaust what it can do for you, start doing that in PS.
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