A Little Late to the Photoshop Dance

When I was growing up my dad bought our first computer; an Apple Macintosh.  I didn’t understand hard drives, memory, or much of anything when it came to computers, but I was most certainly enamored with the slick all-in-one monitor/CPU.  It was in college that I ran into my first Windows PC, surprised by how much it was like the Apple I had used years ago, so much so that I thought Microsoft had stolen or bought it from Apple.

It was in high school I took a photography class using black and white film, processing my own shots in the school’s dark room.  It was awesome, but it was expensive for a high school kid.  I put down my hobby for a while to focus on athletics, only to pick it back up again years later when things went digital (but it is still expensive).  I was still in love with Apple, and they came out with this great photography product called Aperture!  I bought it, I used it, and I loved it!  So much so that I ignored a great product that everyone else was using called Photoshop.  I’d used it before at work, thought it was okay, but never really saw what the big deal was.  Aperture was a great way to edit, store, and share my photos; like all things Apple, it is beautiful.  I’m sorry to say, there is another, and I have been unfaithful.

I had read books by photographer Scott Kelby for a few years; he was the guy responsible for helping me understand all things digital photography.  His series of books, “The Digital Photography Book” volumes 1-3 are fantastic ways to learn the art of photography.  There are two issues I had with Scott: he uses Nikon products while I am a loyal Canon shooter, and he uses Photoshop.  I won’t be switching to Nikon anytime soon, even though the sound of a Nikon shutter opening and closing is about the sweetest sound on the planet, but I think I just broke up with Apple’s Aperture 3.

I was introduced to Adobe Bridge, a companion piece to CS5 that opened my eyes, and provided me the same “Aha” moment everyone else has been squealing about for years.  It is simply amazing!  The ability to incorporate lens corrections is incredible since I often use a Tamron 10-24mm that always needs to be tinkered with because of the fisheye-like images it produces (which are appealing in many regards).  The noise reduction is frankly the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen; that was until I played with the sharpening tools in Bridge.  I then dumped Aperture like a bad habit, and quickly read “The Adobe Photoshop CS5″ book written by, you guessed it, Scott Kelby.

Though my love for Apple’s consumer electronics hasn’t diminished, I’m using Photoshop, and Bridge and not Aperture.  It’s a good choice though I’m just scratching the surface with Adobe; I’m in post-production heaven!  It’s better to be late to the dance, than not have shown up at all.  Do yourself a favor by kicking the Photoshop tires, put on your dancing shoes and give it a shot.