Photoshop - a Necessity?

After lurking on these fora for a while and viewing the outstanding photos presented here, I have come to the conclusion that if one is going to be REALLY serious about photography in today's environment, he/she simply MUST become intimately acquainted with Photoshop or some equally versatile editing program.

In your view, is this a valid conclusion?
Thanks

Yes.......

Yes.

Well, understand that digital photos have to be processed in one way or another. You can get a "good" picture and trust the camera to process it into a nice jpeg, and you can be happily on your way.

But, as people become "serious", they tend to concentrate on two things: First, to "up" their skill level in image capture, so that they can "nail" the basics of exposure, subject matter, and composition, and then, as they go, they tend to look at the "digital darkroom" so that they can bring the best out of their good images.

So, the digital darkroom -- that's what you are asking about. Going beyond "One Hour Photography", knowing that your digital image has more "under the hood" than meets the eye!

I would say yes, not because it's the only program that will do what you need but because it is such an overwhelming standard that if you have PS you have almost unlimited resources to learn it and use it.

Yes. Half of a great image is output, the other half is capture. Alot of purists would say all you need is the latter, but unless you're just planning on showing people the LCD screen on your camera right after you shoot, you need to at least be familiar with a post-production editing software. You will advance your skills relative to the quality of image you are satisfied with, which is why i watch tutorials almost on the day lol

JackFlash19 wrote in post #13174296
Yes. Half of a great image is output, the other half is capture. Alot of purists would say all you need is the latter, but unless you're just planning on showing people the LCD screen on your camera right after you shoot, you need to at least be familiar with a post-production editing software. You will advance your skills relative to the quality of image you are satisfied with, which is why i watch tutorials almost on the day lol

It is a must, just the camera raw section is worth the money.

Unfortunately, yes. You can try other PS clones, but you'll end up coming back to PS. If the price is a barrier you should check out Adobe Photoshop Elements.

smclaren wrote in post #13174317
It is a must, just the camera raw section is worth the money.

Heh! I guess we would be remiss if we didn't point to our RAW Conversion Thread so the OP could see some examples of the Digital Darkroom at work, without even venturing into the "fancy" Photoshop stuff!

I'll add another resounding yes to the equation based on the premise that you said if one was to get overly serious about their photography. There are a couple of other options inside of that. You can get Lightroom which will give you decent RAW conversions and a method of exporting to whatever format you want. You can open a JPG or TIF in this as well.

If you are doing basic adjustments to your images then one can get by with Photoshop Elements which is a scaled down version of the full blown Photoshop. I started in Elements 2 many years ago and went to the full version as I wanted to to have more control over the output and Elements provided alot of auto transactions which I didn't like. Some people will never need anything more than this but I now keep myself current on the latest Design Premium suite package.

This is a decision that each photographer needs to make for themselves but I would suggest that you try downloading the trials and giving them a go to see if they meet your needs.

Again, the answer is yes, but it doesn't just apply to someone who is really serious, it essentially applies to anyone who owns a dslr.
Photoshop (or some other post processing) is the digital version of your darkroom.
In the past, when people shot film and had them processed by a 1 hour lab, there was a certain amount of work done by the lab operator to make the final print.
With digital, that is taken out of the lab operator's hands and is now done by you on the computer.