Workflow (1 Viewer)

I have recently started using photoshop elements.
I know a lot of how to do stuff but not really WHAT to do (if that makes sense!).
I saw on another thread someone talk about a suggested workflow that had been posted on here but I couldn't find the thread.
Can anyone suggest a workflow of what I shoud be dong with my bird pics?

Thanks

Have you tried Youtube ? Lots of ideas on there.
cheers
Dave

Found a few bits and pieces on Youtube but struggling to find stuff specific to bird photography.

I don't think workflow would be all that different no matter what subject you are processing. The order in which you do thing, and what you aim for, will be the same. The adjustments you're going to want to make will be what's different.

When I was in your situation I bought a book dealing with the program where I wanted to do my workflow (first time around, Photoshop, then Lightroom). I had a look at the reviews to get an idea which book sounded like something I'd like to read. I also bought a book on nature photography which was very useful since the kinds of adjustments one might want to do are different there to many other subjects (and your typical examples are often human portraits, or artefacts of some kind).

I found that following one philophy about in which order to do things, and how to pick among a number of options available for my program of choice, really helped me with getting things in my head. I then used information from the other book to give me some ideas regarding what adjustments would be sensible for nature photography.

Once you've developed your own approach based on this kind of input it becomes useful to read other people's tips and tricks, because you are then in a situation to decide how they might fit into your workflow, but I think you need to get the basics solid before `pick and mix' is any good.

Andrea

Thanks. Any suggestions on the best books to look at? I would be especially interested to know which nature photography book you got.

I didn't make a specific recommendation since the original books I bought are a few years old (we're talking Photoshop CS2). At the time I got this one (other vendors are available). If you search for `nature photography photoshop' you'll find something more up to date, and I see that at least some of these books get good reviews on Amazon.

In terms of workflow I moved over to Lightroom some years ago. Two of the main authors have written on that as well as on Photoshop. All I can comment on is style, which is a bit of a personal preference. Scott Kelby's books are chatty, with a lot of informal language, but he does have a technique he's trying to teach in each section and I had no problems with understanding the ones I looked at in detail. Martin Evening's book have a more serious tone, and they're more methodical. In his books there will be some fairly dry material before you get started, but he does prompt you to think about issues you ought to think about at some point, so that you don't have to change what you do later on. It takes longer in his books to get to the practical side, and there are fewer `here's how to solve reasonably common problem X' bits in them.

I haven't tried any of the other authors. One of the very first books I ever read was about digital workflow, and I'd really highly recommend getting one of those, or picking up one on Photoshop which talks about that in some detail.

These books aren't cheap, but a lot of them are available on the used market for signficiant discounts. I do think it's worth investing time at the beginning in working out what the standard options are, what is and what isn't important for you, and then to develop an order of doing things that makes sense to you and that works for your images and your objectives. Once you have all those, it becomes much easier to develop that (because some things become more important, or because the software develops), and to use tutorials for dealing with specific issues.

Andrea

I have Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Book for Digital Photographers, Adobe Photoshop CC Digital Classroom, Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 (out dated), and Plugin In with onOne Software. Nothing specific to nature photography though. In general processing and workflow is not photograph type specific. Books I like are tutorial in nature where you can download the files in the book.