Traveling and improving photography

[youngbuck]

Hey, I'm Tobi from Germany and traveling a lot recently, currently through North-America. I always take 100s of photos without paying much attention to quality. I'd like to start the journey of improving all skills related to photography and part of it surely should be postproduction in form of Photoshop.

Hope you excuse my dumb questions in the beginning.

Cheers

 

[dv8_fx]

Willkommen to the forum.....

Post your photo queries at our Photography section.

Don't be shy - you lose from never asking for help even on small trivial matters......

 

[Tom Mann]

Absolutely !!! We would love to try to help you with this.

As a matter of curiosity, do you feel that most of your questions are technical in nature, or, say, about composition of individual images, or perhaps, more in the realm of how to make a whole set of photos have sustained interest by having them adhere to a central theme, e.g., "The doughnut shops of the USA", "USA Landscapes", "Racial Tensions in the USA", "Our Honeymoon in the USA", "Art Deco Architecture in Chicago", etc. etc.

Tom M

 

[youngbuck]

Probably mostly technical questions in the beginning. At least until I get confident using all basic functionality of ps.

 

[Tom Mann]

Sounds good, but just don't forget the old saying that one can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

As it applies here, it means that you should think of the task of getting good, realistic photos as 90% good photographic technique, and 10% as after-the-fact tweaking in PS. For example, there are certain problems with a photo that essentially can't be fixed in PS, so you have got to get them right at the time you press the shutter. These include overall composition, pose(s), expression(s), timing (particularly for sports), lighting (especially of landscapes), etc. OTOH, other aspects of a photo like a bit of an error in exposure, color, cropping, etc. *can* be fixed after the fact, so you don't have to nail these aspects quite so perfectly at the time you press the shutter.

OTOH, if you are interested in fantasy composites, you still need reasonable component photos, but the ratio of effort is tilted much more towards photoshopping.

Tom M