Is it just me or is it that every photo magazine one buys today the tutorials they have or any tech regarding ways of shotting they assume that everybody uses, yes you guessed it PHOTOSHOP! Why can they not focus on the basics of pure photography. But hey it must be me and I am the only photography that does not use this program!

Steve, I do use editing programmes such as Neat Image,Faststone Image Viewer and Roxio Creator 2009 but not Photoshop. I actually own PS Elements 6 but find it annoyingly complex and over-complicated.

Steve

Steve, aka Bursa, just took a look into your gallery and....methinks you use some kind of program too where you can frame your pictures and where you made the manipulations in.

I am just saying.....don't we ALL use that kind of programs!!!!

:oD

PS is the digital equivalent of having your own film processing lab/dark room. Professionals used to use those to enhance their images by cropping, coloring etc., the only real difference is that software is much more accessible. Naturally most people would want access to such tools...

I think Steve was making an observation of one particular program, PhotoShop, and not an indictment of the use of post work programs in general. Unless I'm wrong, and that does happen more regularly than I like, I felt he was pointing out that everywhere he turned, he was seeing references to PhotoShop. Even in magazines where he was hoping to find information on how to improve as a photographer.

I know Gimp is free, although I have yet to try it. Photofiltre is free too, and that's one I do use and would highly recommend. There's quite a few programs that are Inexpensive as well.

Ok...methinks there is a miss understanding here over what you meant with using PS..sorry for that, but I think all those programs are doing the same thing, only PS is a well known program by most of the photographers, so that's the reason that most people are using PS.

If you can overcome the resolution issues with raster-based imaging (ALWAYS make 'em bigger), Adobe Photoshop is a great illustration tool...Much more F/X flexibility than vector-based Illustrator...

When my son graduated from college, 7 years ago, he was well versed in the Photoshop version of that time. Not an expert, mind you, just well-versed. To be a certified expert in Photoshop (certified by Adobe) you are required to know, by rote, all the processes by which particular things can be done to an image, like say, adjusting the white balance properly, or creating a cutting mask. These processes can have any number of steps in them, from just a couple to thirty or forty, maybe even more. When my son graduated, the number of learned processes, necessary to deem you to be a certified expert, was in the neighborhood of 480. And that was 7 years ago. Imagine what it's like now? True, the program is vast and, for people my age (56) dang near impossible to encompass. But it's such a great program that I couldn't let it's complexity get the better of me. So I cheated. I have a copy of "The Adobe Photoshop CS4 book for Digital Photographers," by Scott Kelby. Kelby is one of the premier digital photographers in the U.S., winner of tons of awards, and is a real draw for symposiums and TV shows about our craft. Even so, he writes in such a way that even decrepit old doofs like me can not only understand, but enjoy, because following his steps to do processes, like masking out an animal to place in another photograph, are flat-out easy. Also, his style of prose is very comfortable and often funny. I find myself laughing every now and then while reading his books, and he has a lot of them. (Google Scott Kelby on Amazon and you'll get a laundry list of titles.) They range from learning the basics of understanding what constitutes good photography and tips on how to achieve it, to tomes like the one I just gave you the title to. I give these Kelby books 5 stars out of 5, hands-down, because they allow me to get the results I want from this program without having to invest the rest of my life trying to figure out how the entire program works. Kelby's books make it understandable. You also can't discount the other important variable here; If you learn easily with books like this, the more you run the processes, the easier they get. Practice, practice, practice, is the only way to get to Carnegie Hall (or am I the only one in the room old enough to remember what that means?).

-Nikoneer

Hey...Photoshop is the stuff! What other program can you use to effectively put Lindsey Lohan's head on a monkey? (LOL)

Steve, there are plenty of photo-manipulation and processing programs available, but every time I discuss this sort of thing with another Caedesian, invariably they tell me they can't do this effect or that adjustment... simply because they aren't using Photoshop. I know it's expensive and massive but there's nothing that beats it. Magazine publishers highlight it in their rags because digital is the way of the photographic world now (this coming from an old film and darkroom/enlarger guy) and that's what a lot of people want to know about. This is just one of a myriad of fields and examples where making money (selling magazines, electronics, cars, etc., etc.) will almost always win out over fundamentals. Disappointing, yes, but true. If you want some great ideas and advice on photography, I mentioned Scott Kelby in my previous comment, just before Ron's (Jhihmoac). Follow this link to check it out.

http://www.amazon.com/Scott-Kelbys-Digital-Photography-Volumes/dp/0321678737/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296152577&sr=1-1