Making Photoshop Work For You

In a past blog I spoke of my distaste for over-photoshopped photos. I explained that changing a human being's skin to fake plastic-looking almost video game quality is just wrong. Of course I meant in a purely photographic way not in a "if you use Photoshop you suck" kind of way. Photoshop is a very useful tool that can transform an ordinary photo into a very striking image.

After I became an ordained minister I wanted one of those striking images for what I was doing at the time. I got dressed in my Sunday best (sorry, I couldn't resist), grabbed a few props, snapped a pick and then set about doctoring it up with Photoshop to create that perfect image! This is what I came up with and it was relatively easy.

The more you do to set your shot up with your gear means that much less photoshopping you have to do. Also, whatever you can't produce with your gear can be taken care of with some simple photoshopping. Using photographic techniques and Photoshop can help you create images that are both cool and easy to produce.


And sometimes you can just explore Photoshop for fun and find that there are some really neat things you can do with just a few mouse clicks!


The point here is that Photoshop isn't evil and I didn't mean to make it sound that way in my previous blog post. On the contrary, Photoshop is a wonderful tool that can help save you countless hours of set up for shots and can help you create wonderful images. I guess my warning is just don't make the model's skin look fake!

Until we meet again!