What would you most want to learn about photography?

[KenElevenShadows]

If it is genre-specific, please mention that. Just wondering.

 

For me? I suppose everything, but I always want to no more about doing post-processing a little quicker and better, and composition. I just wanna stay hungry and keep learning.

[KuruPrionz]

Lighting, both available and supplemental. Timeless and essential. 

 

When to use Photoshop (or your choice of software) and when to bake the imaging into the shutter click. 

 

View camera technique. 

 

I have some experience in all of those things and am completely distracted from photography at the moment, recording music is my current focus (pun intended).

But those are good disciplines to grow into. 

[Philip OKeefe]

Post processing is something I know very little about, but I'd like to learn more. However, I really don't like software subscriptions, so I'm hesitant to get Photoshop since apparently that's the only way you can get it now - via subscription.  I'm definitely going to be looking into alternatives. 

 

I still use an old Canon 1000d as my DSLR. It's old and doesn't really do video, but with that one (significant) limitation, it does fine for my general photography needs. I have the basic EFS 18-55mm kit lens, and an EFS 75-300mm zoom lens. I'd like to get a wide angle lens for it eventually, too. I'll probably update the body eventually as well, and get a Canon with higher resolution and that does offer video recording too. I'll probably stick with Canon since I would be able to continue to use my existing lenses. 

 

For astronomy, I have a couple of cameras - an IMX224 color camera that I usually use with a spotter/guide scope and a IMX294 color camera (ZWO ASI 294mc that I built a DIY programmable Peltier cooler for). The ZWO works great for my astronomy needs. 

 

The other photography-related field of interest/learning for me is video production. I've messed around a bit with iMovie, and eventually I may spring for a copy of Final Cut Pro. I'd like to learn more about modern video production, multi-camera shoots, editing, etc. etc. 

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

54 minutes ago, Philip OKeefe said:

Post processing is something I know very little about, but I'd like to learn more. However, I really don't like software subscriptions, so I'm hesitant to get Photoshop since apparently that's the only way you can get it now - via subscription.  I'm definitely going to be looking into alternatives. 

 

I still use an old Canon 1000d as my DSLR. It's old and doesn't really do video, but with that one (significant) limitation, it does fine for my general photography needs. I have the basic EFS 18-55mm kit lens, and an EFS 75-300mm zoom lens. I'd like to get a wide angle lens for it eventually, too. I'll probably update the body eventually as well, and get a Canon with higher resolution and that does offer video recording too. I'll probably stick with Canon since I would be able to continue to use my existing lenses. 

 

For astronomy, I have a couple of cameras - an IMX224 color camera that I usually use with a spotter/guide scope and a IMX294 color camera (ZWO ASI 294mc that I built a DIY programmable Peltier cooler for). The ZWO works great for my astronomy needs. 

 

The other photography-related field of interest/learning for me is video production. I've messed around a bit with iMovie, and eventually I may spring for a copy of Final Cut Pro. I'd like to learn more about modern video production, multi-camera shoots, editing, etc. etc. 

 

 

You can buy Photoshop Elements 2022 with Premiere Elements on DVD for about $80. No subscription needed. 

 

It's not quite the deep dive that the current cloud version of Photoshop offers but it's more than capable of delivering a huge variety of post processing options and you could easily use it for many years without needing anything else. 

I've got the 2020 version, abandoned the full version when my copy of Photoshop CS2 no longer loaded around 2014 or so. I can get the things done that I need done. For me, batch processing is the most used feature but mainly I photograph items I want to sell at this point. 

 

I've been thinking about doing some portraiture/modeling photography recently but not quite committed yet. 

[Philip OKeefe]

That's good to know - thanks. I'll look into PS Elements and see if it offers the kind of features I will need/want - which again, are mainly astrophotography-related, with a bit of general/hobbyist photography thrown in. 

[KenElevenShadows]

I will answer more in-depth about these things later.

 

Like Kuru says, Photoshop Elements is stand-alone (no subscription). It's very capable. Luminar has decent stuff that's easy to use, although they can sometimes be buggy. I use Luminar Neo and Luminar 4. These can be used for deep sky photography as well as other forms of photography quite readily.

 

Before you spend any money for video editors, check out Davinci Resolve. It's amazing, and it's hard to believe it's free. So much better than iMovie (which isn't saying much), far more professional, easier to back up projects, far better looking output, more control, better titles/graphics, far more control over audio, and on and on. And did I mention that it's free?

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

36 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

I will answer more in-depth about these things later.

 

Like Kuru says, Photoshop Elements is stand-alone (no subscription). It's very capable. Luminar has decent stuff that's easy to use, although they can sometimes be buggy. I use Luminar Neo and Luminar 4. These can be used for deep sky photography as well as other forms of photography quite readily.

 

Before you spend any money for video editors, check out Davinci Resolve. It's amazing, and it's hard to believe it's free. So much better than iMovie (which isn't saying much), far more professional, easier to back up projects, far better looking output, more control, better titles/graphics, far more control over audio, and on and on. And did I mention that it's free?

 

 

The above references are excellent, especially DaVinci Resolve (which I haven't used but gets consistently good reviews).

There are lots of free options that can do more or less what Photoshop will do. GIMP is popular but I don't know anybody who considers the interface to be efficient or easy to learn. Poke around a bit and you'll find a few Photoshop competitors. I've used Photoshop since version 1.07 so the learning curve for Elements has been insignificant. Adobe is now implementing AI in Elements which might be handy for quick and dirty tweaking. They also feature levels of difficulty, I've always just selected Expert but with AI options some of the simpler levels could be useful. Again, mostly I benefit from the batch processing, I can toss an entire folder in there and alll the images are reduced to the size I want for internet posting, color corrected if needed, and ready to use. Big time saver for me. 

 

I have used Elements to touch up portraits, etc. and it's much more powerful than older versions of Photoshop. 

[Philip OKeefe]

4 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

Before you spend any money for video editors, check out Davinci Resolve. It's amazing, and it's hard to believe it's free. So much better than iMovie (which isn't saying much), far more professional, easier to back up projects, far better looking output, more control, better titles/graphics, far more control over audio, and on and on. And did I mention that it's free?

 

Free is one of my favorite four-letter words!  

 

Thanks for the tip, Ken. I will definitely look into Davinci Resolve. 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

On 4/17/2022 at 3:38 PM, Philip OKeefe said:

 

Free is one of my favorite four-letter words!  

 

Thanks for the tip, Ken. I will definitely look into Davinci Resolve. 

 

 

It produces professional results. It can be a bit "tweaky" for some if you don't know what you want to output, and it uses more professional video editing terminology (iMovie does not since that's not its target audience). However, I still find Davinci Resolve easy to use. A little bit of a learning curve since I'm not a video guy, but that's it. I love working with it. I also like the way it handles audio. The EQs are useful and intuitive.

[Philip OKeefe]

I tried downloading it from Apple using the Mac Studio, and the installer failed. I downloaded it directly from Blackmagic Design's website, and it installed without issue and so far, seems to work fine. Thanks again for the tip! Now I just have to learn how to use it.    

[KenElevenShadows]

I believe I downloaded it from Blackmagic Design directly as well, although I never tried downloading it from Apple. 

 

This is the first video editor I've used that seems more professional. Prior to this, I only used iMovie and Windows Movie Maker. Thankfully, there's a lot of YouTube videos. I usually need those to figure out how to do basic things, often, needing to know where to access them.