I recently visited a shopping mall where a photographer had set up a display of amazingly beautiful prints in the mall corridor. He was offering a two-hour photography class that would be taught nearby at a sitting area. The cost was $150.00. Although I teach photography myself, I was tempted to take the last remaining of the five seats, just to see what secrets he would reveal.
I resisted. The reason for not parting with the $150.00 was that I really didn't believe that his two-hour flipchart lecture was going to enable the audience to go away and create images like his. So, the question is: "How can a create a great photographic image?"
The answer is not by buying an expensive camera. The answer is not in capturing the technically perfect shot. Equipment and skills certainly can play a role, but there is something that happens to almost every published shot that gives it snap and punch, and you can do it, too!
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National Geographic is known for some of the most amazing photography on the planet. And they do have the best equipment, the most talented photographers, and lots of time and patience to capture that perfect image. But the speaker we heard at the Straz Center admitted that he Photoshops all of his images. Not to manipulate or falsify the original, but to make the image sharper, enhance color, and otherwise bring it back to more realism, not less.
Yes, Photoshop can be used to produce images that are very different from the original, adding (or removing) people, producing artistic effects, and making fantasy images, but, to most of us, editing is basically about reproducing that image that originally caught our eye. Photoshopping can produce photos that are more true to the original. And - it's not that difficult. Many dramatic changes only require just a click or two
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You can spend $600 to thousands of dollars on professional Photoshop suite software, but Adobe also offers a very affordable version: Photoshop Elements. This version lists at just $99, but you can find it for less with a quick search. You can also download a 30-day trial version. And although there are many other good photo editors available, but you should check out Photoshop Elements.
I will be teaching a Photoshop Elements workshop Wednesday evenings beginning March 6. There are four sessions but you can attend just the first for the basic "Guided" and "Quick Edit" tools. Attend all four sessions to learn to perform real magic with your images. Find more information on the class at www.tinyurl.com/lolphotoshopclass. You can also find more examples of Photoshopped images there. (For information on my advanced digital photography workshop, check out www.tinyurl.com/lolphotoclass.)
As always, feel free to contact me with questions on photography or Photoshop Elements. Also for the first five of you to send me an image (good, bad or ugly), I will perform some Photoshop magic on it and send it back so you can see what can be done!