I have been using Adobe Photoshop 5.5 for years. I think I acquired it originally in late 1999 or early 2000. But obviously it's 2010 now. I wasn't really interested in committing tons of time to learning more about 5.5, because most of the books for 5.5 editing were written before digital photography had really caught on, and since that's all I really use photoshop for these days, the tutorials seemed wildly outdated.
I wanted an updated version. Adobe products are really amazing and useful once you've learned how to use them, but they are soooo expensive to acquire. I could never justify the cost of purchasing it for myself just to edit a few photos every now and then.
Occasionally I would go through a phase where I wanted it so badly that I would browse for it on E-bay, or on Half.com or anywhere else I thought I might find a deal. But it's even too expensive to ask for as a Christmas gift (and not really practical) and so it was basically just a pipe dream...
Until we got it! For free! (Sorry, I can't disclose the details..., but it's legal, I promise.)
And this past weekend, Dave's mom came to Pittsburgh for our birthday's. She asked for ideas of something I wanted, and I decided to ask for the Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book For Digital Photographers book. (Note: I do not try to kid myself into believing that I am a "digital photographer" in the professional sense. I just like to play around with photos and editing software.)
So I decided to start by playing around with some of the adjustment layers, which was something I knew how to do in verson 5.5. The CS4 adjustments layers operate exactly the same way that they did in 5.5, but they're so much easier to use! You don't have to dig as deep into the menus to find features that you want to use, and when you select an adjustment, all of the options are presented right in front of you. I would really love to purchase some of the professional editing "actions" for CS4, but right now the budget can't accommodate such a request. Oh well...
Anyway, my first attempted project was to try to create a "vintage" looking photo. Below are my before and after shots. I'm not really sure that this is a vintage look (and in fact am not really sure what a vintage look should look like), but I like the results nonetheless and think that with additional practice, I may come away with some neat looking photos!
Before:
You've seen this original before in a post from a few months back
And after:
What do you think?
As I learn more techniques, I will be sure to post the results here! We received all of our wedding photos unedited, and I had prints made for frames a long time ago, but would love to jazz them up with some editing! I'm very excited!
Do any of you use CS4 for photo editing? Do you have any tricks that you'd like to share with me?
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2 comments:
So jealous of your Photoshop prowess!! I wish I knew how to use it. Its totally great for wedding stuff (so I learned from the interwebs). I know the Mr. uses it alot for his work.
I'm jealous you acquired this at no cost... I, like you, have always been attracted to Photoshop in particular, but I can't make myself believe it's worth the money it costs.
I have a version of Photoshop I acquired in 2001 that I've been using since then. Even still today I use it.
There are some fabulous books out there that teach one how to use Photoshop. I used to check them out for weeks from the library when I worked at Pitt.
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