The greatest thing happened to the my world when Adobe made Photoshop in 1988. Or the worst. I’m not sure anymore. See, I have an addiction. and it’s Photoshop. I can literally spend ALL DAY on it just editing photos.
And you know it’s bad when start thinking of things in terms of keyboard shortcuts. Control+Z for undo. Control+C for copy, Control + V for paste and Control+A for select all. Control + to zoom in on something. Control+shift+E to merge visible layers, Control + J to make a layer copy. Control + l for levels, Control+M for curves. You get the idea.
It was really bad the other day when my portrait professor was trying to show us something and he wasn’t using the shortcuts – it drove me crazy. Using the mouse just takes so much more time.
So you see, I have an addiction. I don’t think there hasn’t been a day this past week where I wasn’t on Photoshop at least once.
I know I’m not a photographer, not a good one anyway. This isn’t me looking for compliments, this is me knowing my flaws. And though I’m sure there are some who might argue, all my good images were mostly accidents. I got lucky and hit the shutter at just the right time. My model was beautiful and so even a photographer such as me can’t make them look bad…stuff like that.
See, what usually happens, is I get a shot and it looks okay, but the lighting is slightly off, of the framing is off. So I fix it in post. And any ‘real’ photographers just shuttered in reading those words, “I’ll fix it in post” is not what you want to do. As a photographer, you want to spend 80% time shooting and 20% in post-production or editing, if that. Getting it right in camera means less editing to be done.
Now, I don’t know everything – I’m quite sure I know a relatively small amount of things when it comes to Photoshop, but I still love to edit photos with what I know.
It’s the coolest thing, creatively, to see that just one thing, one subtle button click can change the whole tone or look of a shot. I like to use filters, probably too much, but to each their own.
I put this image up with permission of the model.
So, now from one image, I have three that look wonderful. Each one ‘feels’ different. The warm filter gives the image an aged look, the black and white draws you to the emotion in her eyes, but the original image is just as beautiful.
My new thing on Photoshop is designing buttons. My model and friend, Amanda, owns a business. I guess you would call us partners in business. Geek Details sells ‘obscene dishware’ and geeky pin back buttons.
(Shameless plug) www.geekdetails.com
We have an etsy store as well as an Amazon one.
And I’ve been helping her expand it – I’ll design a button, a mock it up, if you will, and Amanda will fix any mistakes and enter it into the store if she thinks it will sell. Thus the button making. And just as I can spend hours editing photos, I can spend just as much time making buttons. There are so many things that must work together to make a good design. The font, the font color, the background, the word placement, font size, etc. And I love the feeling of getting all of that right. One of my proudest designs and one that showed I’ve learned something in designing (because Amanda didn’t have to fix anything at all) is this one. And yes, it is Lord of the Rings themed 
Even if Amanda doesn’t want the button design, I still love designing it. I don’t even show her all of them – I just make them for fun. And thus my Photoshop addiction. I get on it, make buttons, edit photos and when I look up, suddenly my day is gone. So it’s a good thing I do all my homework before I allow myself to even think about opening Photoshop.
Hi – my name is Elly and I’m addicted to post-production…haha. It’s so easy for me to get carried away, too! Great post – thanks for sharing!
Also, I love your Mordor button!