May 1, 2010

Things on My Mind: Photoshop


I have recently gotten into learning Photoshop after a long time. Remember from the beginning of this year I had one of my ten goals set to learn Photoshop. Well my brother finally got me Photoshop CS4 to learn with and I must say that I am very impressed with how much you can do with it. But the more and more I learn to use it...I have started to get the feeling that I have become a mistress in the relationship of photography. Its probably because I am one of those people who learnt photography the old school way by starting with a manual camera- my Minolta.

I am not going to say it does not help at all. Recently I used it on my self portrait picture to remove hair that had fallen on my face with the heal brush and clone stamp tool. I also use Photoshop now and then to remove dust from my pictures. But learning Photoshop just scares me because I do not want to become a person who says "..oh ill fix it later in Photoshop.." or have someone say "...that picture looks so good it must have been Photoshopped.." So I have decided I want to learn it and more than that learn how to fix my mistakes on camera itself.


(click to view larger)


Left - raw file -> Right -clear face file

Its sad to think though that Photoshop has become synonymous with Photography. Can there really be no good photography without Photoshop? I probably have these thoughts running through my head because I am more into the "talent" side of photography to capture an image...more than how well you can manipulate it. I do not want to sound mean but would you really call an auto tuned song -a talented singer? And then again its a given fact that I should learn this tool called Photoshop if I want to survive in this industry. What are your thoughts on this?

2 comments:

Wikeds said...

My personal view point is that it really doesn't matter how or by whom it is created, as long as it gives a sensation.
For example; I would enjoy it as much even if Lady Gaga sings 'Por ti volare' with digitally enhanced music, as long as it can give the same sensation as when originally sung by Anrea Bocelli.

Ruchi said...

I know what you mean. I've taken to photography quite recently and realized only recently that many a good photographers use photoshop extensively to "correct" the pictures. Imagine the shock! What Sachira says is fair but I feel it still depends from person to person.
I, for one, would NOT like to use photoshop on my pictures and learn how to take a correct shot with the cam itself. But, at the same time, I would not mind using photoshop on few pictures that might really bring out what I'm trying to say.