Skills and tips

I've been thinking about updating my knowledge and skills for sometime now.........but as always time is of the essence and spending time learning new skills, techniques or a new piece of software is time intensive and consuming so like a lot of people I'm probably not on the top of my game.

However, today I'm going to spend the whole day, yes the whole day updating my Photoshop skills. It is fine being out and about on location taking great pictures but, the whole purpose is to produce great prints!!, and you can only get a great print if you have the "darkroom" skills to understand the neuances associated with "developing" great pictures.

Today, in the digital age our "darkroom" skills come from image processors such as photoshop, or lightroom or Coral paint etc, but unless you really understand what this image prosessor is all about and the tools it can lend to you, your only going to produce a mediocre picture when what you really want is a vibrant, vivid, lively one.

I added a quote from one of the greatest photographers of all time yesterday, Ansel Adams and although Adams had the eye of a photographer in that he saw the picture in his camera and spent time composing the great shot, his picture didnt come to life till he printed it. Adams would spend many hours "developing" the picture with numerious trial prints and "honing" the final master piece untill he got the picture he saw in his mind and in his camera on the photographic paper in his darkroom. He could not produce this master piece unless he had mastered the skills and techniques that gave him the understanding of how to produce such a great picture.

So like Adams (I wish I had Adams eye for the shot though) I am going to spend the day (if only I could learn a lifetimes skills in one day)"honing" my skills to better understand the process to produce the killer picture................. I live in hope anyway

Trevor