Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

willoughby · Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posts: 11

I have a kodak point and shoot with a ten times zoom and have been using the kodak software that came with it as well as "microsoft picture it #9". After reading many posts that made it clear that most of you use photoshop I downloaded the free 30 day trial yesterday.

Wow, not very user friendly is it, I have not gone thru all the tutorials but I would love to hear any advise you all can spare here are some of the typical things I would like to do and things I was doing with the other programs.

straighten pictures
automatically enhance (colour and contrast ect.)
forest , sunset and potrait enhancments
batch processing
dealing with hot spots.

Also I was trying the clone feature and found the way it works dificult, I thought I should be able to clone a specific area wherever I wanted but It seems to copy an area horizontal to the area you are placing the stamp. (I think I am being clear) I can see where this is better but also where it is undesirable (ie diagonal layed out images).

After playing with it for a few hours I was ready to deleat it and go back to the other programs.

thanks to all in advance.

Forgiss · Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:41 pm

Woah there....!

Photoshop is not a easy program, and like good photography, the auto anything doesn't go down well.

If you spend some time with photoshop, you will never want to go without!

You didn't say which version you downloaded, but if it is CS2, then you have 3 major cloning tools:

1. the clone tool. you can copy an exact patch by selecting (while holding the alt key) the point where you want to start. in brush mode, you can enlarge and reduce the size that is being cloned with the [ and the ] keys
2. or you can use the healing brush. Copies like the clone tool, but trys to "fix" irregularities by recreating a pattern according to the pixels surronding the area you are cloning
3. the spot healing brush. same as above except you cannot choose the area to copy from. (no alt option)

The rest, I leave up to the next guy to help with!

joeygil · Joined: 09 Aug 2005 Posts: 450

You might want to look into Photoshop Elements. It has the most used features of Photoshop in it - healing brush, straightening the horizon...etc.

And it's a lot more user friendly and cheaper.

As an alternative, a really good Photoshop tutorial I read was "Real World Photoshop"

I highly recommend it.

supertramp · Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 10:24 pm

Oh yea. PS is rather intimidating at first.

Color correcting can also be a pain (took me years to get the hang of it, then bought a book). Under menus>image>adjustment>levels or ctrl+L. Left eyedropper clicked onto a very dark spot on your image sets the blacks. The right eyedropper sets the whites, and the center one set the color balance when clicked onto something gray. You can adjust each one manually by sliding the small triangles under the histogram.

To straighten an image go to the tools and choose the crop tool (3rd one down on the left side). Click onto your image and drag the square out. Grabbing a corner can change the size of your crop. Grabbing just outside the corner allows you to swivel you image around the center to straighten it.

Hope this helps a bit. good luck.

freeken · Joined: 14 Feb 2005 Posts: 25 Location: San Diego

Two years ago the only computer I knew how to use was the ATM machine. I go to books for help with everything. I was so intimidated by photoshop that I swore I would never get the hang of it and stayed with paintshop. After spending many hours cursing and flinging furniture, I found a most excellent book to introduce me to photoshop (tho not cheap): "Adobe Photoshop 7.0 - Classroom in a Book". It comes with step-by-step instructions in all the basics including a CD lesson plan that you use with each lesson and allows you to practice the steps as it is explained. As I said, it's not cheap ($50.00) but cheaper than replacing the living room furniture! Good luck.

javva · Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Posts: 21 Location: California, USA

I highly recommend Photoshop Elements 3 for your level (and mine) Its about $500 less (at under $100 retail, 70 bucks on sale)and it does everything I have ever wanted to do with it. I'm not a professional photographer nor designer and Elements does the job for me. Feel free to look up my work on www.griedel.photosite.com

I don't sell anything there so I believe it's ethical to give that site address on this forum. Everything on my site was run through Elements.

davidcrehner · Joined: 20 Jul 2005 Posts: 4169

Since I discovered "Image:Adjustments:Selective Color..." I've never looked back. You can adjust all 4 CMYK colors independently... within each of the color channels, including whites, neutrals and blacks. This is sooo easy to remove color tints in the whites, get the blacks nice and punchy, and beef up the saturation in any of the colors. I used to agonize getting the whites on my isolations pure, and now it's a snap.

Photoshop sure is intimidating, but in a sick way it's also fun wasting time fooling with it. I find that the greatest way to learn. Then if you're not making the progress you'd like, check out some of the resources online, or buy a book. For the digital photographer, I'd say investing in photoshop is third only to lenses and camera body.

flashace · Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 8 Location: Florida

straighten pictures

Edit - Free transform
Grab the squares with the mouse and turn it.

automatically enhance (colour and contrast ect.)

Image - Adjust
Brightness/Contrast
OR Color/Balance
or Hue/Saturation

forest , sunset and potrait enhancments

Same as Image - Adjust

batch processing

File - Automate - Batch

dealing with hot spots.
Alot of the time I use the eraser tool or the burn tool, dodge tool.

Photoshop is not hard to learn. It works in stacked layers so once you grasp that it makes it easier to learn.

Window - Show Layers

cwwmbm · Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 1219

BTW, what are memory requirements for CS2 PS? I have 256 and it seems to be VERY slow in processing (much slower than even CS). I have 2 GHz so I don't think this is processor issue, but the memory one.

jackrussell · Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 9:45 am

willoughby, you can find some photoshop help on here.
http://hertz-ladiges.com/

GeneralE · Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:31 pm

One of the most accurate ways to straighten the horizon (or adjust a building to vertical) is to use the Measure tool (looks like a little ruler).

@ Click and drag the measure tool along the near-horizontal or vertical line you want to adjust.

@ Now go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary ... and the dialog box you get should have the exact angle needed already filled-in.

@ Crop rotated image to eliminate excess Background color in the corners where the image was filled-in after rotation.