UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL EXPOSURE:

Part 1: Exposure Reduction for Highlight Retention
Part 2: Digital Exposure & Noise
Part 3: When Blocked-up Shadows Aren’t Really
Part 4: Take a Balanced Approach to White Balance
Part 5: Dynamic Range
Part 6: Extending the Tonal Range
Part 7: What’s the Real Difference Between RAW and JPEG?

GENERAL:

1) COST-EFFECTIVE PHOTOGRAPHY
2) CONTROL THE RANGE OF FOCUS
3) IMAGE INTERPOLATION
4) LOSE THE DEAD SHOTS
5) SCANNING 35MM FILM
6) THE RAW vs. JPEG DEBATE…
7) IS PHOTOGRAPHY EASY?
8) MUST EVERYTHING HAVE AN ADOBE SLANT?
9) A CAMERA TO PAINT WITH
10) WHAT'S THIS COMPOSITION THING ABOUT?

Must Everything have an Adobe Slant?

Well, almost everything!

Over a period of several years Adobe successfully bewitched the entire imaging market with its fantastic software and business-brain hype. That's the way it's done. It has now created an endless self-propagating loop. It's a lucrative dream come true!* Adobe offers the very best product. As a result most tutorials you'll come across are rooted in Photoshop/Elements characteristics, and that in turn helps to maintain Adobe's tight grip on the photo-imaging market. Round and round it goes, money flowing everywhere.

But when you think it over, it's indirectly a manipulative and undesirable cycle for the ordinary photographer. And I'm not sure I want to single out a fat cat and help him carry his money to the bank. Aligning ourselves with one manufacturer in particular isn't healthy.

Nuts and bolts software techniques change everything by shifting the emphasis from manufacturer specifics to the essential tools necessary for quality image-editing. They are mirrored from package to package. I believe impartial tutorials should make a concerted effort to step back from Adobe specifics where possible, though I'd never fall out with anyone who disagrees.

To prove the point, just consider that Curves are Curves. How simple is that?

Yes, some Curves Tools have more frills found in advanced options. But fully functioning curves offered in each program can be used to manually and precisely target any of the available tones in an image where adjustment is needed most.

Curves are Curves. And Levels are Levels. Masking is Masking. Adjustment Layers are Adjustment Layers. Cloning and sharpening and erasing and feathering and conventional channel mixing and opacity and blending modes and cropping and resizing all work much the same way, program to program. They are all found via easy-to-navigate menus, regardless of manufacturer.

If life allows, some day I'd like to do a page on my site dealing with the cornerstone of image-editing – Curves (with layers). I could do that without emphasising any specific software package. The same goes for many other tools.

Change the shape of the line in any of 3 major programs – learn Curves!

Usually we don't need to say, “Open Elements 6 / Photoshop CS3 / Paint Shop Pro X2 / PHOTO-PAINT X4, click this menu and then scroll down to there and you'll get to this tool for that effect.” Software is quite easy to navigate and comes with excellent PDF manuals and built-in help aids that explain processes very clearly.

I've seen way too many tutorials that didn't really need to be software-specific, but they were. It's always possible for authors to mention in passing any significant variations between packages. But no, it often revolves around Adobe specifically. Not always, but too often.

It takes time and application to find your way around software, and there are specific software help sites, books and magazines out there. But I've noticed on forums that too many want to be spoon-fed. Many a time I've been told, “Yes, I see what you mean. I'll have to get to grips with this software thing sometime…”

Even these frills I've referred to are much the same these days, with different identifying tags and terminology perhaps. But the powerful essentials shouldn't be personalised with manufacturer's labels. These tools are what they are. What's more, the essentials are the very backbone of editing – they really can get the job done with a hands-on approach that more often than not bypasses the quick fix-it tools.

But anyway, here's to better pictures, whatever you use.

* Money is power. Remember RawShooter Premium? Got in the way of Lightroom.

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