Photoshop rules

I attended an all-day seminar run by NAPP today. It was pretty fun. You know, even after having used Photoshop for over 10 years (since version 2.0), I thought I was pretty good at it. But after attending a show like this, it's a very humbling experience.

The whole world of digital color correction and photo enhancement was revealed to me and I was thrilled. I haven't been this excited about playing with software in a LONG time. Check this before and after shots for one of my photos:

Before

After

Killer huh? Overall I learned it's ok to exhaggerate colors a bit...what looks "real" is not necessarily exciting. I know how to white balance and do tonal adjustments a bit better so more details pop out. These were areas that were more for photographers rather then graphic designers, but now it's like a big mystery of the universe was answered for me.

The speaker was Scott Kelby who's like the president & chief editor of some upteen million associations and a best-selling author for tons of Photoshop and Illustrator books. It was unreal. He's a fantastic photographer.

What I also found out is that even the BEST photographers take terrible shots from time to time. But it's the fact they know how a billion ways to fix it in post-production that makes a huge difference. So I don't feel as bad anymore.

Now at least I can "save" a few of my mediocre shots.