Comments on: Digital Photography: It’s Photography First

By: Photography News, Digital Camera Reviews and more » Blog Archive » Garbage In; Garbage Out

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 01:16:07 +0000

[...] It doesn’t matter how hard you try playing around with photoshop – if you do not start with a decent image to start with you will never end up with a decent image. This is the crux of a post by Aaron Hockly on this DogCaught blog. [...]

By: Tom Nanos

Tom Nanos — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:07:44 +0000

Here, here, Aaron!! Get it right in the camera, and you won’t have to agonize over it on the computer. The only thing I use Photoshop for now is three main things – 1. Removing of the occasional sensor dust specks, 2. Printing, and 3. Resizing for the web. Otherwise, I do everything in Rawshooter Premium (my RAW developing choice – yours may differ), averaging less than a minute per image. Set white balance, curves, saturation, check sharpness, rotation, crop, etc. all takes a few seconds per image. Once I select what I want, I batch them out to either JPEG or TIFF, and I’m done.

You know, my grandfather had a saying that’s appropriate here – no matter how hard you try, you can’t polish a turd. Instead of blaming the equipment (or expecting a $1000 camera to take great pictures for you), take a photography course at your local community college, or at the very least, go to Border’s and get a book. There’s plenty of them out there. I’ve been lucky enough to have been taking pictures on and off for the last 20 or so years, so I’ve got a bit under my belt (other than the beer gut). Does every picture I take rock? Hell, no! I’ve got stinkers too, but do I post them everywhere? Nope. Instead I learn from them – figure out why they suck, and how I can prevent that from happening in the future.

By: Camera Basics: Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO » Dogcaught: A Railroad Blog

Wed, 17 May 2006 19:45:26 +0000

[...] Photography Jam has a good article about the three basics: Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO. If you buy into my theory that you need to understand the basics before you go wild with Photoshop, this article is a good starting point. photography, tips, technique, tutorials [...]

By: adron

adron — Sat, 13 May 2006 22:33:36 +0000

I get your point. You should tell people who can’t fix their photos with Photoshop that photography is about “photos” and not “graphic design”. There is a significant difference between the two focuses.

I have myself ran into the situation many times, and simply, people need to learn proper association of word, their concepts, and their core meaning. Without this one is liable to make poor comments such as “I can’t fix my photograph with my RAW filter” and appear as they are, unknowing (aka noobie or dumb).

By: KeithAlanK

KeithAlanK — Sat, 13 May 2006 10:35:10 +0000

Oh, and to get back on-topic: Aaron makes a GREAT point with this post.
The number of people who expect RAW (of all features!) to ‘fix’ photographic ineptitude focuses attention on the myths and buzzwords and black magic that still surround digital photography.

“If RAW equals ‘better’ why do my photos still suck?”
The polite answer is that excellent photographs can be produced by anyone, using whatever camera they happen to have with them, including disposables and even Holgas and Polaroids.
IF they can recognize an interesting subject and capture it in a pleasing way.