Posted: 8/1/2009 10:06:39 AM EDT
|
I bought a Nikon D90 about 5 months ago and have been slowly learning my way with it. (I think starting out with a D40 would have been smarter though) Anyway I have a Macbook Pro and I use Iphoto to store and organize my photos. I can do editing on it but nothing like photoshop can.
If I were to buy photoshop, is this something I could learn to do myself over time or do I need to buy a bunch of manuals or go do some classes? How much is photoshop for a Mac anyways, I heard it isn't cheap... are there different levels of software? |
|
I'd say it depends on the person as to whether it's easy to pick up or not.
I've never taken a single course on photoshop... I picked it up and started using it. When I needed to figure something out, I googled it. Then again... I taught myself lightwave 3d, after effects, 3ds, html & php the same way. Some of those make photoshop seem like notepad by comparison. As to how much it costs... if you are a student, it is a lot cheaper. You could also probably get by with Photoshop Elements, which is the consumer version of photoshop, and should be able to handle most of what the average user does. |
|
Ditto the above. I'm mostly self-taught and regret that. I recently picked up a copy of Elements 7 and find it to be VERY powerful and appears to meet all my needs except for the so-so noise reduction. For that function I picked up Noise Ninja. I bought a manual for Elements 7 and it's helped get me over a few bumps. The problem with purely self-taught approach is that you can waste a lot of time chasing your tail. The programs have so much capbility that you can get to the same end result a wide variety of ways, one of which may be much more efficient than the others.
As far as getting a D90 instead of a D40 to start with? Don't second guess yourself and just work on exploring all the capabilities of the equipment. I bought my first DSLR a few months ago and it's a D300, after a steep learning curve I've learned to use all the features I have a need for. I'm not a newbie to photography though, I've been taking pictures for probably 25 years on and off. The upper end DLSRs have unbelievable capabilities and you just have to dive in there and work with them. |