How far should serious photographers go with Photoshop?

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

OK> Thanks for the reply.
Also I have a hard time learning L.R. 4 so photoshop is a long ways off for me.

My wife was pretty good using ViewNX2 when I decided to teach her the basics of PhotoShop CS6. I spent about two hours going over several photos of hers. We used Adobe Raw for the tweaking. And then PS to finish up. Used the clone tool, content aware healing brush and crop. She was removing buildings, garbage cans, signs and people by herself a few hours later. If you can find someone that knows what the are doing you can learn the bear bones basics pretty easy. It does take a LOT longer to fully learn all of what it can do though.

 

[donaldjledet]

Thanks Don,

You are right trying to learn on your own is rough.
To a person like me who normally just gets online to different websites, and don't fool with any software
its really hard sometimes to understand what a person is trying to tell you.

 

[Pretzel]

YouTube videos ABOUND with tips/tricks for the different editing software titles, too, so you can follow along, pause as you need, etc. As far as how "deep" you need to go, it depends on the "what" you're wanting to achieve.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

What I found is that the RAW editor is so much better and easier that the full PS editing. My wife shoots a Nikon L120 and it does not shoot RAW so I taught her how to bring up her shots in Bridge and by right clicking you can open in RAW and do your editing there. That is a good place to start and then work up to the other items.

 

[WeeHector]

Gimp has had it for quite some time (here) and its available as a plugin for other programs. Different names likely due to Adobe's ferocious appetite for crushing lawsuits.

According to another website these are the basis of the assorted algorithms:

Image Texture ToolsPatchMatch: A Randomized Correspondence Algorithm for Structural Image Editing

Checked this out. Thanks for the info.

Not as easy to use as PS but still great.

 

[mikew_RIP]

Need a little help here,i have read that elements has a scaled down version of this tool,if so can some one tell me its capability's and which version of elements i need,looked at getting it via Gimp but do not understand the adding plug in instructions,i know most of you guys will say its easy but after many years of having a computer please take my word for it i will not find it easy.
For what i want to do i will never pay out for a full photoshop but would really like some version of this tool,at the moment i think ime using version 2 of elements.

mike

 

[mikew_RIP]

After a bit more searching think i have found the answer,elements 11 has a type of content aware facility,for any one else who may like to see it in action.

Erasing Objects in Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 - Basic Tutorial - YouTube