Photoshop: Good or Bad
There is a constant battle between people about weather or not Photoshop is good software or not. There are valid arguments either way with a lot of support showing that it is purely a battle of preference. Photoshop is one of the best, most used graphic design programs around. Some people have a real talent for it, making their photos incredible and amazing, but others, take it very out of hand and abuse the uses of the program. In my eyes, Photoshop has taken away the need to be a good photographer. Instead you just need to be a pro at Photoshop.
Many would argue that Photoshop is a program that only aids a photographer in positive ways. Not only does it make photos better but it also has many other capabilities to create brand new photos as well. “Photoshop can do the graphics and the text all in one program.” The vast amount of capability Photoshop offers is definitely something to love and use in moderation to enhance your photos to the best they can be. Photoshop was originally created to make the process of digital photography possible as apposed to film photography. If you look at it realistically, when in a dark room developing your film you only get one shot or you have to develop the photo all over again. With digital photography if you have Photoshop you have infinite chances to fix blemishes and other things with the click of the mouse. And if you don’t like it, just delete the change and do it again. The things you can do in Photoshop like “cropping and straightening, dodging and burning, adjusting low and high levels independently etc. Are endless.
On the flip side, the disadvantages to Photoshop are just as many if not more than the advantages. “There is so much information out there on improving your shots with Photoshop that we do seem to be encouraged not to worry about learning good camera techniques but simply learn how to ‘fix it’ in Photoshop.” A lot of people would even say that Photoshop is taking away from the actual art of photography. Photoshop is extremely hard to learn. It takes hours upon hours of learning the system and making sure you remember every step without having to go back to the instruction book, which is a novel in itself. It is “very hard to use and you would need a manual or someone to sit with you as you learn, each different version is totally different so for each different version you will have to relearn how to use Adobe Photoshop. It also costs a lot of money to get with buying the program and the license that goes with it.” Photoshop offers a huge amount of possibilities but it also has “a lot of different tools that do very different things, so it takes time and patience with yourself in order to learn how to use each one correctly.” Yes, Photoshop is an amazing program to use carefully and selectively to enhance your photos but what about the original photos and how beautiful they are just as they are? “Some people take it out of proportion and edited too much of their picture and it’s not the real image anymore…” Photoshop is “good when you have limited time in on location and don’t have time to take different images on different settings, but because it’s all about the moment, like at an event when everything is moving fast.” But, “more time out in the field rather than spending hours at a PC also gives you more opportunity to see and capture a moment and to enjoy the natural world and it’s inhabitants. Photography should be fun, exciting and free, it should not be about being glued to a computer screen all day, what’s the fun of that?” says Heather Buckley of Heather Buckley Photography. She is someone who brought up the argument on her web page about Photoshop being good or bad for photography. The responses weren’t many but her point of view is very good. She believes in using Photoshop in moderation only for the things that your camera absolutely cannot fix such as filter effects. But she also believes there are things that you should definitely learn to do in camera such as “select the right depth of field / lens aperture, decide where you want your focus, choose a great composition etc.” Learning the trade of photography is an amazing process that everyone who wants to be a photographer should take the time to learn. Yes it takes a while to learn how to be a good photographer just as it does to be a good at Photoshop, but the truth of the matter is that you can be great at Photoshop, but you can’t really take credit for what your doing because really it’s the computer doing most of the work. If you stick to just photography, you can take all the credit yourself.
Learning how to focus your camera, how to zoom in and out, color focus, and so much more is part of what makes photographers love photography. It’s an art form that has taken huge steps with technology but the real question is, is Photoshop making photographers better? Or is it hindering the definition of what a photographer is?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Schewe, Jeff. "ADOBE STOCK PHOTOS–GOOD OR BAD FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS?." (2005): n. pag. Web. 23 Feb 2011. <http://photoshopnews.com/2005/04/07/adobe-stock-photos–good-or-bad-for-photographers/>.
Stein, Jeannine. "Photoshopped images: the good, the bad and the ugly." (2009): n. pag. Web. 23 Feb 2011. <http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/02/image/ig-photoshop2>.
