Anyone Can Learn Photoshop With Tutorials At Photoshop Essentials

I am not in the habit of recommending places where you should spend money but in this instance I make an exception. I found Photoshop Essentials in the usual way, looking for something else, followed some links and ended up at a place I hadn’t expected but found something interesting. Isn’t that what everyone does…..?

So Photoshop Essentials is a site with lots and lots of photoshop tutorials, so what you say. Well this is really well organised and every tutorial I have looked at is on the button. They are organised as pdfs which you can download and then follow the very easy steps to achieve the result you were looking for. There are tutorials dealing with absolute first basics through to quite complicated procedures. There is some free stuff there but the thing that costs and which I think is worth the money is the opportunity to download all the current pdfs available for less than $20, that is about £13.50 in real money.

You can sign up for the one month membership which is $20 or longer if you want more regular use. In the first month you can download all the current pdfs if you want to use at your leisure, if using photoshop is how you spend your leisure time.

OK that is enough of a plug, just to say I am not connected to this site I just think it is pretty good, check it out for yourself here.

There is no such thing as absolute truth in photography

“There is no such thing as absolute truth in photography. Understanding how and why photos are edited will make you a better shooter and a smarter viewer.”

I have had so many discussions with photography purists, people who believe that only what is caught in camera is valid,  that decisions or processes undertaken post camera invalidate an image and it’s worth. I have always, in the 40+ years I have been taking pictures, made decisions post camera. How I developed the film, how it was printed, whether it was toned.

This is an excellent article Written by Ben Long on the Creativepro.com site  I think I agree with everything he has to say

“Has that been Photoshopped a lot?”

“I sometimes hear that question when showing one of my photos to someone, and I have to confess that it bugs me. Not because it’s prying into my photographic process, or because it’s a technical remark rather than a response to the actual image, but because it reveals how little the viewer understands about the medium of photography.

In that question, “Photoshop” is being used to mean “edited” or “manipulated” or “altered,” and the subtext of the question is, “Has this image been edited or manipulated? I need to know because I want to know if the image is true.”

The answer to the question is always “yes” because all photos are edited and manipulated. They always have been. Even photos that are very realistic are no more an objective, “real” representation of reality than is a watercolor painting. Photography is an abstract medium, and the more you understand that, the better your shooting will be.”.….more

These 2 pictures by Ben perfectly explain his article

 

45 Exceptional Advertising Photographs by Frank Uyttenhove

Frank Uyttenhove is an exceptionally talented photographer and film director. He has an extensive career, which has seen many interesting projects and many awards.

The main theme in Frank’s varied work is the continuous presence of subtle emotion, and he has truly mastered this technique. His ability to give people direction, his amazing photo manipulation skills and his attention to detail, are the reason he can tell a whole story in one picture...more

Out of bounds

This Photoshop tutorial is easy to follow and has lots of applications, the effect you will learn (called out of bounds) is shown here although if banger racing is not your thing you could easily use this method with people, buildings, pets etc. This tutorial comes from gavtrain.com, you might like to have a further look at his blog for further tips and ideas, his recent post about 5 motivation tips might also interest you