Photoshop is not evil!

It is no secret, that in digital era of photography, Photoshop skills are very beneficial if not inevitable ... if you want to play with the big boys that is. Never the less you can take breath taking pictures and never touch Photoshop or any photo editing program in your life. The choice is yours.

The thing is that everybody owns some sort of digital camera nowdays and photography seems to be the most popular hobby. You go to a camera shop, by yourself a digital camera and voila, you are a newbie photographer. That is how I started.

But when does the infamous Photoshop come along?

First two years I just took pictures and used PS very little. Then I noticed that you can take great pictures but so can others. Even though there is thousands of different ways, angles and styles photographing the same object, the picture comes out as a "factory image". Whether it's Canon, Nikon, Pentax or Olympus the picture quality and look is the same. What I'm trying to say ... with all those excellent cameras available, it's a challenge to take a photo that stands out from the rest.

That's where Photoshop comes along. Learning your way in Photoshop is not as easy as buying a camera that's for sure. Let's say a good photo is like a good car. Every day we see tons of Fords, Toyotas, Nissans ... some Audi's, Mercedes little Ferrari's, Lamborghini's and if lucky a few hand-made luxury cars. But still it is hard for an untrained eye to tell a difference even between two red Ferrari's. But if you want to stand out, be noticed then pimp your ride.

Photoshop in a way is photo pimping program. You can easily over do it, as with cars, but if you don't and live by the golden rule of Photoshop "the time spent editing a photo in Photoshop should equal the time you spent taking the picture" then you develop your own handwriting, that's when you stand out and that's what Photoshop is for me.

Every now and again I just spend hours in Photoshop over tuning pictures, that's training of course ;)