I realize that post processing is one of my short comings so I want to fix that. My problem is finding a good Photoshop course/website that is for nature photographers. I realize I have a lot of bad habits and would need to do some unlearning. So I really need to start from ground zero, from first adjustments to the RAW image up to this magical stuff I see people doing to their images.
So if you have any experience with a good course please let me know what you’ve discovered. I hate spending money on something that then proves to be not what I was looking for.
Hi Greg,
I feel you pain with Photoshop and went through a similar dilemma back in 2020. Sometimes paying for a well-designed course that you can go through at your own pace and review when needed is the perfect way to learn. Plus many include photos for practice so you can follow along and produce the same result as the instructor does.
The first one I bought was from Matt Kloskowski which helped a lot to give me a good understanding of the basics. I think it’s the Photoshop System course which is on sale with some other Ps courses. It’s updated as big changes are made to the software, but all you need to do is download the new modules you need or want. No extra charge. Matt does landscape as well as wildlife.
My second purchase was with Sean Bagshaw to learn the TK8 Plug In for Photoshop although Sean also has pure Photoshop courses. I figured I’d have a big learning curve no matter what, so decided to go the TK route for those added benefits. Since then I’ve purchased a few other courses from Sean including some full edit classes since I always learn so much. He also has a Smart Objects masterclass which is pertinent to Ps. Sean does mostly landscapes.
I’m sure there are loads more out there and you could see if anyone on You Tube has something that’s a bit progressively structured in a playlist that could work. Nick Page is a good Ps guy. You never know what you’ll find, but it’s more hit and miss than a paid-for course with proper lessons and sample images.
For Photoshop and landscapes specifically, I would look at either Sean Bagshaw or Nick Page. They both do a phenomenal job at breaking everything down.
I try not to ever promote myself on here, but if you use Lightroom and want to learn a whole new approach to processing, I have a webinar recording that goes into my technique which has opened up doors for so many people to make processing a much simpler process while getting phenomenal results. It’s the Rethink Lightroom webinar here.
As mentioned, there are many decent courses out there. I have another tip. For me, when I was learning Photoshop years ago what helped the most was spending a lot of time working on my own photos. I found that I just couldn’t remember “how to” instructions unless I immediately did the changes on a photo of mine that I wanted to look fabulous. My process became starting the basics on a new photo : contrast, saturation, white point, then finding things I wanted to do but didn’t know how to and looking up “how to”. In no particular order I learned most of the "how to"s that way. Another way to say what I mean is that passively watching videos didn’t help me much, I had to actively be working on one of my beloved photos.
Learning how to use PS is one aspect, applying it to images to get an effect is something different. Unmesh Dinda has started a new YouTube course learning PS. Nigel Danson has a currently discounted course and he is a good teacher.
There are of course numerous ways to get a certain look to an image that these days usually are free on a google/youtube search. One thing that I will emphasise though is learning how to do selective adjustments using masks. Just doing global edits will rarely produce a striking image.