A powerhouse of the most important Photoshop knowledge

All ambitious photographers at the beginning of their carriers try to get some solid theoretical and technical knowledge of their tools of trade (understanding of the human vision and perception of light and color, as well as knowledge of cameras and lenses). Those are bare necessities that we need to get to know. Those of us who are more inquisitive and those who plan to process and output their photographic images need to know a lot more, though. That is where computers and software come in.

Without a question, Photoshop is the most important piece of software for all of the graphic arts, photography and printing industries ever written. Learning Photoshop is as essential for individuals involved in those industries as swimming is for NAVY SEALs. Every image we make by means of traditional or digital photography - even the most straightforward one - needs some kind of processing in order to make the most of its inherent quality. Anybody who tells you differently is either ignorant or lazy (or both).

The urge to learn Photoshop may occur at any stage of our advancement as photographers, but the sooner the better. There is literally thousands of books, online tutorials and videos on thousands of topics related to Photoshop. So, the question is where to turn to in order to get the most accurate and relevant instructions.

Most of those tutorials deal with very narrow and specific topics, usually intended to "wow" you into thinking that Photoshop is a magic tool full of magic tricks. Of course, Photoshop is that, too. Nevertheless, its most important idea and function is not a trickery but correction, improvement and enhancement of photographs for print and screen output.

Sometimes, those single-minded tutorials introduce some notions that are going against the Photoshop's main purposes and against logic of more general and/or advanced use. Those notions, if taken too literally, may ruin the process of thorough learning of such basic procedures as color-correction or sharpening. As a result, working with Photoshop may become a game of chances and accidents instead of a purpose. Those tutorials, aimed at a particular job, give us pretty specific set of values for adjustments necessary for that specific job. The trouble is not with the tutorial, but rather with our tendency to interpolate those same values and methods to all jobs. That is, of course, wrong way of learning and a waste of a lot of time, not to mention disappointing results leading to a real discouragement on the way to get to know a software as complex and deep as Photoshop.

So, how to avoid confusion and a waste of time? Rather than hunting for tutorials that accomplish one esoteric effect or procedure, start with books that have more general and comprehensive approach to such basics as making (mostly) global adjustments to color, contrast and sharpness, when/how/why to use or not to use each of the most popular color models and spaces: RGB, CMYK and LAB. That is what professional Photoshop stands for. It may very well turn out that after learning that, you will not be needing those "one-trick-pony" tutorials any more, because you will already know how to achieve many of those "tricks" in a more professional way.

There is no better book to grasp the fundamentals and most important functions of Photoshop on the English language market than "Professional Photoshop" written by an undisputed guru Dan Margulis. Even if you currently use mostly Aperture, Lightroom, Light Zone or any other program rather than Photoshop for your image manipulation, this book is not to be missed, precisely because it deals with basics we can not afford to misunderstand or misuse.