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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BackdoorArts" data-source="post: 105832" data-attributes="member: 9240">Valid question, but I don't believe you can put the cart before the horse here and stay interested unless you're stubborn enough to do it a certain way.  If I don't have something to post-process and clean my photos so they look nice enough to share then I may get discouraged and not want to continue taking pictures.  So I need to learn enough of my camera to take a decent picture and enough of my software to crop and touch up the shot pretty much at the same time. For me, it's been push/pull on both sides.  What I've captured with the camera has pushed me to learn the applications I have so I am happy with them.  As I find things in the software it's caused me to try and figure out why I may always be doing certain corrections and it makes me go back to my camera skills.  This drives me to learn more from others on forums or web tutorials which then pulls me further into both sides.  I spent my first nine months with a DSLR using Elements 9.  When someone saw what I was doing with Elements and the organizer they suggested Lightroom.  I brought in Lightroom 3 and used that for a year along with Elements when I wanted to use layers or some of the tricks I learned there.  Then, as my confidence grew and I wanted to learn more I tried HDR photography which introduced me to Nik Software.  From there, in short order, I upgraded to Lightroom 4 and Elements 11, and then to Photoshop CS6 just recently.  In every step along the way what I was doing, or trying to do, with the camera caused me to push myself deeper into the software.  And as I learned more about that, it made me think more about what I was doing when the camera was in my hands.  I'm not sure if it works this way for everyone, but it's an organic growth on both sides.  From the beginning of time, you can learn to take a great photo, but if you don't know how to develop and print it then what good is that - unless you want to pay someone to do it, of course?!  And as you learn to develop and print you discover that it is an artform to itself - knowing where and how to burn or dodge, what paper and film produce what effects, etc.  While we no longer get heady around the smell of developer and fixer, and our risk of toxicity is limited to how close we sit to the monitor and for how long, using these software packages to their fullest can be just as steap a learning curve, and just as rewarding, as the art of photography.  And not just the special effects stuff, but simply making the absolute most out of a well executed photograph.</blockquote>

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