photoshop tutorials for beginners in Photography?

Doesn't taking a photo with a digital camera make it "marred by technology" right from the start? If creation of art is your goal, what would be wrong with using technically advanced tools to achieve that goal? Before photoshop, photographers would spend time in a darkroom working to edit their photos to get it exactly as they envisioned.....now it's just done digitally.

The basic thing that digital photographers need to understand is that all digital photos are processed. For most people, this is done in the camera according to digital processing parameters that you have set for things like Picture Style, White Balance, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpening, Noise Reduction and such. The camera takes "raw" data off the sensor. At this point you would consider this data to be like undeveloped film, rather than a "photographed image". Then the camera uses its software to process the data into a recognizable image and apply the special "touches" that you have specified above.

So, those in-camera settings you have set are like bringing a shot into Photoshop or some basic editing software and applying various settings.

Like I said, most people are fine with letting the camera do all the work. But many people want to bring more out of their images than the basic in-camera settings provide. It may be to "enhance" the "natural" look of the photo, or it may be to apply some "effect" (like film shooters have done using filters and darkroom techniques), whatever.

But one thing many people don't take into account is that the process of developing film and prepraring it for print, and then the actual processing of printing, has always been part of the art and craft of photography. Our habit of leaving film in the hands of a "One Hour Photo" means that you don't have the creative choices that fine art photographers have made use of over all of the history of photography.

In the digital era, the closest analogy to shooting and developing your own film is to "shoot in Raw", meaning that instead of just letting the camera apply all those processing "tweaks", we can set the camera up to just save that "raw data" onto our cards, and then we bring that data into "raw processing software" where we apply "digital darkroom" processing. From there, again, you can move into "effects" and such, and again, such things have always been associated with photography in one way or another. It's just that Photoshop has made them more "accessible" to so many shooters!

both replies are great... couldn't do any better myself...

goyboyy123 wrote in post #13440358
but the thing is...if you edit your shot?! isn't it marred by the touch of technology in it?!

There is not a print ever made that wasn't touched by some form of technology.

Film - shoot in camera, bring into the darkroom, process with the photographer's vision using various methods to enhance. The final print may look little like the original scene.

Digital - shoot in camera, bring into the darkroom (Photoshop), process with the photographer's vision using various methods to enhance. The final print may look little like the original scene.

Has anything changed?

since i have gotten into photography.. i have learned that nothing is real... even our existence!!!!!!!!!


on that note.. i was looking at tutorials.. and found a champagne glass.. where they dropped a strawberry..... to get that perfect glass shot..


took them 8 shots on getting the strawberry in the right place
5 shots for the splash
2 shots for the champagne bubbles...

layered together and matched up...

it ruined my vision of photos now...

understanding say cereal.. they use glue for that great hold together... fake milk.. but hey it is real...

With the OP's argument, I think that painting a picture is not a true form of picture art! When painting a picture, you're altering nature with the technology of a paintbrush.

Oh, and don't get me started on those "impressionist" painters. I think those pictures are worse than using Photoshop!

This...

jra wrote in post #13440476
Doesn't taking a photo with a digital camera make it "marred by technology" right from the start? If creation of art is your goal, what would be wrong with using technically advanced tools to achieve that goal? Before photoshop, photographers would spend time in a darkroom working to edit their photos to get it exactly as they envisioned.....now it's just done digitally.

this...

tonylong wrote in post #13440510
The basic thing that digital photographers need to understand is that all digital photos are processed. For most people, this is done in the camera according to digital processing parameters that you have set for things like Picture Style, White Balance, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpening, Noise Reduction and such. The camera takes "raw" data off the sensor. At this point you would consider this data to be like undeveloped film, rather than a "photographed image". Then the camera uses its software to process the data into a recognizable image and apply the special "touches" that you have specified above.

So, those in-camera settings you have set are like bringing a shot into Photoshop or some basic editing software and applying various settings.

Like I said, most people are fine with letting the camera do all the work. But many people want to bring more out of their images than the basic in-camera settings provide. It may be to "enhance" the "natural" look of the photo, or it may be to apply some "effect" (like film shooters have done using filters and darkroom techniques), whatever.

But one thing many people don't take into account is that the process of developing film and prepraring it for print, and then the actual processing of printing, has always been part of the art and craft of photography. Our habit of leaving film in the hands of a "One Hour Photo" means that you don't have the creative choices that fine art photographers have made use of over all of the history of photography.

In the digital era, the closest analogy to shooting and developing your own film is to "shoot in Raw", meaning that instead of just letting the camera apply all those processing "tweaks", we can set the camera up to just save that "raw data" onto our cards, and then we bring that data into "raw processing software" where we apply "digital darkroom" processing. From there, again, you can move into "effects" and such, and again, such things have always been associated with photography in one way or another. It's just that Photoshop has made them more "accessible" to so many shooters!

and this...

D Thompson wrote in post #13440606
There is not a print ever made that wasn't touched by some form of technology.

Film - shoot in camera, bring into the darkroom, process with the photographer's vision using various methods to enhance. The final print may look little like the original scene.

Digital - shoot in camera, bring into the darkroom (Photoshop), process with the photographer's vision using various methods to enhance. The final print may look little like the original scene.

Has anything changed?

Case closed.
Thank you linesmen, thank you ballboys...

goyboyy123 wrote in post #13440358
do you agree with your whole heart that doing Photoshop in a shot taken by your cam is a true form of picture art?!
i do not belittle those Photoshop people who has done a great deal on giving us quality pictures and stuff like that, but the thing is...if you edit your shot?! isn't it marred by the touch of technology in it?! what do you think about this?!

Hey wait! What does this have to do with the title of your thread "photoshop tutorials for beginners in Photography?"?!?!?!




???

ahh these fundamentalists.. wanna be old school, artistic visionaries.. who really have no idea what photography is all about.. Im sorry but I am so tired of hearing people say... photoshop sucks - its the destruction of art in photography.. all hail straight from the camera shots... (there have never been a straight from the camera shot.. ) -

do your thing and let people do theirs.. who succeeds or in the last is hapopy with what they-re doing are normally the ones whot dot think about what others are doing...

goyboyy123 wrote in post #13440358
do you agree with your whole heart that doing Photoshop in a shot taken by your cam is a true form of picture art?!
i do not belittle those Photoshop people who has done a great deal on giving us quality pictures and stuff like that, but the thing is...if you edit your shot?! isn't it marred by the touch of technology in it?! what do you think about this?!

This is what you choose for your first post? You say you don't belittle PS people then say it is "marred by the touch of technology"

I think the word "marred" is incorrect. It should have been "corrected" or "improved". Seriously as others have pointed out the photo is already manipulated by technology. Converting the RAW to JPG is manipulating the image.

I've had people tell me that PS is cheating and I respond, what game are you playing? There are no rules. My goal is to make the best looking image I can that fits my vision. It doesn't matter to me how I get there.

Moose408 wrote in post #13446009
This is what you choose for your first post?...

I think we may have been trolled...