Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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communick@viewfinder.pro

Editing photos, and feeling like the more I do it, the less I know what I'm doing. (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by PurpleEverything908@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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Background: I've been ~~a photographer~~ taking photos for over 10 years now. I like editing my photos to bring them more in line with the feeling of the shot, rather than keeping it closer to the journalistic style.

I have purchased presets that I never like the look of, learned what all the settings in Lightroom do (or so I thought), but somehow can't make them do what I want them to do.

For example, I was trying to emulate the editing style of Amy Shore (car photographer), as I really like her almost ephemeral/pastel-y shadows, and bring it closer to my preferences. Went into Lightroom, edited the settings I thought most responsible for the look and ended up with... garbage.

In a typical Dunning–Kruger turn of events, I am starting to think I may need to brush up on my editing skills/knowledge. Where do I start? Who is a good youtuber?

Thanks c:

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[–] elviajedelviento@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I took evening classes to learn how to work with Lightroom & did a very extensive online course (3 years in total) to learn how to work with Photoshop. It takes time, effort & it's relatively expensive in comparison to free YouTube tutorials, but it was definitely worth it.

It's true that you can find good, free tutorials on YouTube, but you have to sift through a lot of garbage. And they won't teach you everything. With an evening class or online course, they "serve" you everything you need to know in one package. Plus you get feedback & inspiration both from tutors & other students.

I have tried apps like Skillshare too, but basically anyone can be a "teacher" on those (they even asked me a couple of times, that said enough for me :p) & a lot of "classes" are just bad quality.

I would definitely recommend a good online course. The one I did was with a well known centre of adult education in my city that also did language courses etc. Very good quality. Everything was clearly explained & shown through videos & you had to hand in a task each week, which the tutor would give feedback on. On one hand you can just do it at home at your own pace, but on the other you get a little push to do the work each week, which I definitely needed. :p It also pushes you out of your comfort zone a bit, because you learn things that maybe you wouldn't have thought of on your own.

Anyway, I hope this helped a bit, good luck!

[–] PurpleEverything908@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Agreed, and this may be a route I go down on, almost as a reset. Thank you for your kind words! And yes, agreed, I got really excited about SkillShare, until coming across some very weak “courses”. It’s a nice concept to do for fun, but I don’t think you can ever replace a real accreditation from there.