I have been experimenting around with my new copy of Photoshop CS, and realize that I’ve never really utilized my previous copies, as much as I could. The new version has added a whole lot more to the tool and I estimate it will now take a couple of months to really understand how to use my Nikon D70 and Photoshop CS to best advantage.
For instance, I was looking at the File Folder option, and am amazed at what I can do: preview images, automatically package or create photo slide shows, annotate the photos with metadata in XMP format (nice, that), and a host of other activities. I’ve never used the File Folder option before, and can’t figure out how I did without it.
(In fact, I created a photo show and a slide show of several Air Show photos from last year — easy as selecting photos and clicking a few buttons.)
I’m running with 512MB of RAM, but I accidentally opened 25 large photos at once in Photoshop, and it managed. It took a bit, and wasn’t fast — but it worked. But I have so much to learn now. Thanks to O’Reilly, I have several books on Adobe Photoshop CS to help.
It used to be that good photography was more a matter of lighting and composition and filters and darkroom techniques. Now, one has to understand histograms and curves, 16 versus 8 bits, as much as filters and lens. But the composition and the inspiration, not to mention the love and delight, is still between you and your camera, and whatever happens to find itself if your viewfinder.
