Over several years I found a large number of public domain images that I could use to illustrate a series of kids books I was planning.
I needed to alter the images to fit the storylines, and used the free Photoscape program, and then the paid Adobe Elements 12 one.
Neither gave me the quick and effective tool I needed, so I subscribed to the Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 program (an annual fee is paid).
Photoshop is Unhelpful to Beginners:
I downloaded them and was stunned by how unhelpful the program was for a beginner of Photoshopping. Googling for help, I found several good tutorials, and then jotted down How To notes for myself, which I now pass on to beginners of Photoshopping and Lightroom.
The Beginner’s Salvation:
These hints will take you from staring at the blank screen, to loading some of your Pics into Lightroom (LR), and then using LR and Photoshop (PS) to edit your images in ways you never dreamed of before!
Just follow these hints and you will be well launched on the road to becoming an expert Photoshopper of your own and other images.
The Big Two Learnings:
Two key learnings:
· I found how to save my images into LR so that I could start playing with LR and PS, and
· I also stumbled on an easy way to simplify my life by using LR as my basic program, and moving from LR (which allows you to make a lot of changes that work), to PS (which is the best program to make detailed changes to individual images), and then shifting back to LR to continue your work.
This saves time and is easy to do, so I recommend that you do this.
How do I start?
Just start with the General Hint #1 below, move on to General Hint #2, and then dip into the LR and PS hints.
Have fun, and amaze your friends and family with your in-depth expertise!
Please share this with your friends, and ask them to do the same.
GENERAL HINT #1: The Quick Start on Lightroom
This takes you from staring helplessly at the screen after downloading Photoshop CC 2017, to loading some of your images into Lightroom, and then being able to start experimenting with changing the looks of your pics.
The way to do this is summarized below, and came from this helpful website: Google Total Beginner’s Guide to Lightroom Step by Step Simon Ringsmuth to get there.
Just do take these steps to load up LR:
- Open your Lightroom program by clicking on the Lr image.
- It will ask you where to store the Catalog (the place you store your pics in LR). Just press Continue to choose the default directory (which is in your Users directory). LR will find your pics there.
- The next screen is the Library module – a gray, almost blank screen.
- Click on Import button in the lower left corner and go to the directory on your hard drive where you stored the pics you want to move to LR to modify.
- Your screen fills with images – your pics.
- Select Copy at the top of your screen.
- Now you choose a Destination for your files on the right-hand side of your screen. You can indicate a directory you have already made on your hard disk to store your Photoshop files (I formed one using File Explorer, named Photoshop). LR can also find one for you. LR saves images into what it calls Catalogs.
- Forget about all the choices now open to you (such as renaming your images, adding keywords etc). You can come back to this later. I added a keyword PSTest1 just for fun).
- Choose your pics you want to import by making sure they all have the checkmarks (the tick sign) in the top corner of each thumbnail preview on your screen. Click Check All to choose all of them.
- Now click on the Import button in the lower-right corner of your screen. LR will import your files and let you know when it is done.
- Then go to General Hint #2 and start experimenting with LR and PS. And have fun!
GENERAL HINT #2: Simplify your life by moving from Lightroom to Photoshop and back to Lightroom
You can modify your pics in both LR and PS; LR allows general modifications to a whole list of pics at the same time, while PS lets you take one pic at a time and modify it.
If you start with LR and then stay there but move to PS to modify one of your pics, your life will be simpler and faster than going out of LR to PS. LR allows you to move from LR to PS to treat one pic and then move back into LR again.
Google Supercharge your photography by using Photoshop with Lightroom Adobe Support tutorials for the website post on this.
To use LR as your base and move into PS for individual images, take these steps:
- While in LR, use the Edit In command to go to PS and work there and then return.
- To do this, right click the pic you want to work on (or use Ctrl Click) to go to Edit In, and then click on Edit In Adobe Photoshop; then click Edit a copy with Lightroom adjustments, and then click Edit.
- You will be taken to PS. Make your changes here, using the PS tools (such as the lassoo tool to draw around an object in your pic that you want to remove), then click on the File command in PS and click on Save. The pic is saved as a Tif file. Then Close in PS and you will be taken back to LR to work on this or other pics.
LIGHTROOM TIPS:
1 Go to Develop to Edit pics – or press D on keyboard to get there:
a. The Histogram panel measures color tones and lets you make tonal adjustments to the photo.
b. Information about the Smart Preview status of the photograph is shown below the histogram/EXIF information/RGB values.
c. Use the tools in the tool strip to fix red eye, remove dust and spots, crop and straighten photos, and apply adjustments to specific areas of a photo.
d. The Basic panel tools let you adjust the photo’s white balance (WB), color saturation, and tonal scale.
e. The Tone Curve and HSL/Color/B&W panels have tools for fine-tuning your color and tonal adjustments.
f. The Split Toning panel lets you color monochrome images or create special effects with color images.
g. The Detail panel lets you adjust sharpness and reduce noise.
h. The Effects panel lets you apply a vignette to a cropped photo, add a film-grain effect, or adjust the amount of haze or fog.
2 Crop is the square icon under the Histogram (type R); press Enter when done.
3 Go to File and click Export for the edited pic (Export = Save As).
a. Check Jpeg
b. Set quality slider to 85
c. Use color spectrum RGB
d. Set Width and Height of 2014 pixels to get a 5 by 7 inch pic
e. click After Export to Show in Windows Explorer.
4 How to go through lots of pics in LR as easily as possible?
a. In Library enable Auto Advance of pics by clicking Caps Lock.
b.
