[Closed] Learning to use Photoshop

It surely depends on how you learn best. If you're a manual guy, get a book. Tutorials are probably the way forward for most as you can follow along, pausing as you need to. Adobe have very good instructional videos on their AdobeTV site, though YouTube is of course excellent for many specific issues.

You need to get your head around layers as it's what the whole editing system works on, unlike LR, which is non-destructive adjustment. It's probably worth trying to separate PS and LR as they're really very different tools.

What exactly are you wanting to do with PS? Learning is generally easier and more enjoyable if you're doing something you like/need.

The foremost thing that springs to mind, would be correcting an overexposed/blown out sky in relation to a correctly exposed landscape

exposure, shadow/hightlight, levels, saturation, unsharp mask. In that order.

Surely all of those things are better off corrected in LR rather than PS?

dunno, never used light room. don't imagine it's much different.

Surely it's not possible to separate different areas and adjust/leave the exposure in LR? Simply toning down highlights and exposure for the sky, may affect the correctly exposed landscape?

Similar in places but also quite different. My comment about being better fixed in LR though, is aimed at the OP -particularly if the image is coming from LR in the first place

My suggestion would be to note what you wanto achieve i.e. How to blend layers so different parts of your image can have their X Y or Z adjusted. Follow the tutorial for that process and instead of some arbitrarily chosen subject for your tutorial, you solve a problem that you need to.

Of course, this method of learning works best for me and it may not for you.

Graduated filters and brush tools in LR. Drag a big filter down from the top of the sky to the horizon and reduce exposure/highlights to taste. Because in LR you're working non destructively, you've got much more information to play with so you'll get much better results

That only works with a horizontal horizon though surely justinbieber?

Surely it's not possible to separate different areas and adjust/leave the exposure in LR? Simply toning down highlights and exposure for the sky, may affect the correctly exposed landscape?

You don't need PS yet IMHO

"Graduated filters and brush tools in LR. Drag a big filter down from the top of the sky to the horizon and reduce exposure/highlights to taste. Because in LR you're working non destructively, you've got much more information to play with so you'll get much better results "

When you are doing this but still can't get what you want then go for full PS. The only real limitations for LR for this sort of thing are

Light room can't adjust Curves by area
Lightroom can't do anything like say "view in hard light" for different layers
Lightroom can't average multiple exposures

A summary of this would be Lightroom does eveything I need for 99% of shots

If you want help with the Virtual Neutral Grad and Adjustment Brush ask again

Graduated filter can be dragged in from any direction at any angle. Also if the horizon is not a straight line then after dragging in the grad filter switch to brush mode click "erase" and click "show selected mask overlay" then you can erase the grad filer from the parts of the image you don't want it to affect.

Lightroom these days is very powerful. I only use Photoshop for stuff like luminosity masks, compositing and image blending for things like focus stacking. I suggest the OP goes a bit more in depth into Lightroom. There are loads of tutorials on YouTube.

That only works with a horizontal horizon though surely justinbieber?

No you can set the neutral grad at any angle and adjust transition size. You can also use loads of them. But if the Straight line won't work use the brush. But for land sky it the Virtual Neutral Grad is usually fine. My tip is hide the transition in the top of the land not the bottom of the sky

Here is an extreme example. But done in Lightroom

As shot

[url= https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7396/11313267243_0fb902487f_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7396/11313267243_0fb902487f_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/ieHscM ]dynamic range RAW (1 of 1)[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/john_clinch/ ]John Clinch[/url], on Flickr

Processed in Lightroom. I'm guesing 2 or 3 VND grads

[url= https://c8.staticflickr.com/3/2839/11277350895_dc59f32333_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://c8.staticflickr.com/3/2839/11277350895_dc59f32333_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/ibxnwp ]Barton Hills 2[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/john_clinch/ ]John Clinch[/url], on Flickr

Cool - will delve a bit deeper into LR then. Thanks for replies

dunno, never used light room. don't imagine it's much different.

It's very different. That's why it's a different application. It's for developing digital images (like a darkroom is for film), not editing (high heels on badgers, that sort of thing)

The foremost thing that springs to mind, would be correcting an overexposed/blown out sky in relation to a correctly exposed landscape

Definitely a LR job. Obviously a burn can't be un-burned, but otherwise should be pretty simple, especially with a raw file. You do shoot raw; don't you?

As the others have said, I would just use lightroom

probably my fave tool for PS

https://gregbenzphotography.com/lumenzia/

Yeah, always RAW

Quick question - just having a play with the graduated filters and with all the sliders initially set to zero, everything I seem to do from there just puts a pink hue over everything until I click off the filter and then I can see what I've adjusted

Press "o" - that turns on and off the overlay so you can see where the filter is

Ta

I use LR and then final tweaks in PS. I'm by no means fully versed in PS though. I just fiddle until I get the result I want!

I shoot in RAW and generally use Adobe Camera RAW for putting an initial gradient on the skies, etc.

Learning about stuff like Levels and Curves and the Histogram can be a useful education. Outside of that though, I tend to favour YouTube tutorials on subjects I'm interested in as opposed to reading.

Photoshop is a big, powerful application, but it also requires a lot of knowledge to get anywhere near it's potential. I love it personally, and would recommend the Nik Collection plugins to go with it (they may well be available for LR too), and they also offer a lot of powerful stuff, including grad filters and all the rest of it. In fact most of my stuff is probably 85% Nik collection, and 15% Photoshop now.

Checkout the totally bonkers Serge Ramelli on YouTube for tutorials.

Nik Collection works with both and is available free now.

Checkout the totally bonkers Serge Ramelli on YouTube for tutorials

Yea although his method of shooting for the highlights and then bringing up the shadows by 2-3 stops only works for a camera with very low noise like the Sony A7RII he uses.

Also see PHLEARN and Jimmy McIntyre for Photoshop

Yea although his method of shooting for the highlights and then bringing up the shadows by 2-3 stops only works for a camera with very low noise like the Sony A7RII he uses.

Really? That is what I did above and that was on a lowly D90. It's a bit rough at 100% but it printed just fine

FYI

ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) is the same functionality as Lightroom

I'd forgotten that Lightroom could run NIK collection. I'll have to get that installed

Just skimmed the thread but my advice to the OP re: learning photoshop is to set yourself a project/task and go about trying to accomplish them.

Start basic, then work up. So for example make a photo high contrast black and white. then tone or tint it (without using the tint function).

Next try removing clouds or power lines using either the clone stamp or copying with a feathered marquee.

Then maybe try to stitch two or three photos together to make a panorama. Now try comping in a person/car/thing from one picture to another. Yes, I know there are apps that do these things on their own, and there are a variety of different ways to do them within photoshop but by trying simple excercises and projects you'll learn the basic navigation.

Really? That is what I did above and that was on a lowly D90. It's a bit rough at 100% but it printed just fine

I think what is being said, is that you can do it, but it does mess with the quality of your images a bit. It's quite commonly taught to expose to the right (i.e. overexpose), in order to reduce noise levels.

But then a lot of people like to underexpose to avoid blowing highlights and retain picture information. Each to their own I guess.

When shooting digital it's better to expose for the highlights, whereas with film it was better to catch the shadows - something to do with the way the two different mediums actually work with the light. Digital is better at retaining shadow detail, while film is better at retaining highlight detail.

It's been years since I used Ps, and it was less complicated then, but there was still quite a steep learning curve with it. It helped that I was using it as a tool at work, learning on the job, starting simple and gradually building up experience and skills.
It's worth learning the basic key commands for things like brushes and clone tools, increasing and decreasing size and hardness and softness of the edge, I got so I could do most of my retouching without any toolbar on screen.
Illustrator, on the other hand, I never really got comfortable with, it's just horribly unintuitive.

I think what is being said, is that you can do it, but it does mess with the quality of your images a bit. It's quite commonly taught to expose to the right (i.e. overexpose), in order to reduce noise levels.

That what I have been taught, but its hard to know when a RAW is exposed to the right. Apperently the new Nikons like the D750 can do it too order

Digital is better at retaining shadow detail, while film is better at retaining highlight detail.

You get more dynamic range with film than (most) digital but more importantly, greys that should be black on film look dreadful and you'll get greys that should be black if you under expose film. It's always better to slightly over expose film than under expose it.

Ironically, the same is also true for digital; it's called 'exposing to the right' and is about capturing the maximum amount of information possible from a scene. You still don't want to blow the highlights though so you only do this to the point where you're still not clipping.

Anyway, on the OP's question and as has already been said, I think everything you will want is probably in LR but here is a useful article that will help you decide:

[url= https://photographylife.com/photoshop-vs-lightroom ]Lightroom vs Photoshop[/url]