My Love hate affair w/CS2 and advice?

JayMurphy

I am pretty new to the digital world and I have a questions.

1) How long would someone say it takes to get to familar with CS2?

I have books that I read but it just some much stuff! And it seems like there are 100 ways to accomplish the same or very similar results.
I wish I had more time to dedicate to learning the software but with work, family and two kids I can only do but so much. On top of that I am still learning the wonderful world photography just trying to take a decent photograph, exposure. composure, ect... you know what I mean.

I my own humble opinion my photo are not that bad but of course they can be better. And with pratcie hopefully they will.:huh

To get more practice I recently began taking my camera with me to work and I go out taking photos at lunch time with a fellow co-worker. From all that I have read and with some of my results I know that noon time of 1pm is not the best time of day to be out and here in AZ at 108F or hotter doesn't help either! Early morning is not a real option for me have to be at work at 6am (I am up a 4:20am and out the door by 5:20am)

What CS2 has done (for now) is to get me to really concentrate on getting the photo "correct" in camera the first time. To get the photo to "pop" with very little to no post processing.

2) I do shoot RAW and I don't mind the conversions to .jpeg are there any suggestions for a stream line work flow?:dunno

Currently, I download my photos rate them. Crop, some exposure adjustments, contrast, saturation... whatever I think maybe needed. Then convert and upload to my web pages (phanfare and/or smug mug: see links below comment are welcomed).
Within my hour lunch (actually a little longer than an hour, please don't tell) I may take about 40 picture or sometimes more and from my own inconsistances each photo made need something a little different. Which means sometimes it will take me awhile to get to all of those that I don't delete.

3) Or do I need to be more patient and more practice with CS2?
4) Need to have vision? When I got to take a photo I see in my mind what I want but needless to say it doesn't alway come out that way : )
5) Should I do "global" or "batch" adjustments then go back and "fine tune"?
6) Or just take better photos ; )
7) develop a "style"

I know there is no "magic bullet" but any advice would be appreciated. Not looking to be a pro I just love taking pictures.

Thanks.

www.photosbyjonathan.phanfare.com
www.photosbyjonathan.smugmug.com
Yes, it is hot but it's a dry heat. We don't sweat we swelter. Phoenix, AZ Got Water?

Rhuarc

I'll give you my own personal workflow and why I like it, then when others post up ideas you can find out what would work for you.

1) Copy CR2 files ont computer
2) Import into Lightroom, applying a preset develope to start (adds things like clarity, etc... things I would do to all the shots)
3) Rate and label with colors (this way I know what to delete, and what to spend more time on)
4) Delete the red tagged photos, spend the most time fixing the 2 and 3 stars, do minor or no edits to the 1 stars.
5) Export the metadata to xmp files.
6) Use the DNG converter and convert the fiels into DNG (in my opinion this eases things because you no longer have to worry about seperate sidecar xmp files, or seperate JPEG files for each RAW. Since the DNG files contains in it a Large JPEG preview of the rendered RAW files many programs can use that JPEG as a "pretty good" version of what the RAW file looks like.)
7) Import the DNG files into IDImager (or any other catalog manager to keep track of and tag photos.)
8) Archive a copy of the CR2 files on DVD, then delete them out of the Lightroom catalog. (I only use Lightroom as a RAW developer. It has the same features as ACR, but in my opinion is much faster to use.)

So as you can see, unless I have a photo that needs things like healing brush, masks, HDR, blending, etc... I never even go to Photoshop. If I do, then I save the files as a PSD and save it as a version of the original in IDImager. The program lets you attach them together so you know what is the original file, and what is the derivative file.

Any way, if you have any questions ask away!

SloYerRoll

Hey Jonathan,

You should give Lightroom a try. It is designed from the ground up for photographers.

While PS CS3 is an incredibly powerful tool. Most of the things in it aren't designed for the photog. It is a design tool that has been adapted to meet the needs of digital photographers.

The first time I tried LR. I HATED it. I thought ppl were nuts for switching to it. Once I got the hang of the file management system and established a workflow though.. I'll never go back to PS and ACR for my shots. It took me about two weeks to get comfy enough w/ the program to say this is cool. After a month, it totaly rocked!

There are definately some cases that PS can't be repalced by LR (yet). But if you just like shooting pictures and just tweaking them a bit to make sure it's pleasing to the eye and going back out for more shots. You should definately consider LR.

Here's a link to the free 30 day trial d/l.

Martin Evening wrote a good book about LR workflow and how to tweak shots. The metadata section is REALLY dry. But it's jsut a fact of life now, if youwant to shoot allot and be able to easily find your photos. You need to use metadata.

-Jon