How did you develop "an eye" for editing?

[subimatt]

Lightroom, Lightroom, Lightroom...

Since purchasing lightroom my workload is 90% LR and 10% CS2 for "fixes".

PS is a very complicated in depth tool, elements is simplified, but still a handful. Those CDs that people mentioned above do actually work if your willing to learn. Most of it is playing around with it and seeing what different features do.

As far as the eye goes, it really depends. I spent alot of time looking at other photographers work. Its easy to look at a photo quickly and decide if you like or dislike it. Try evaluating the ones you dont like. Was it composition, subject, or effects/ mood portrayed. Once you have that figured out, everything except the subject can be altered in PS or lightroom.


Here is an example of an edit I helped Dangergirl with.

Original:

My edit:

Edit was done 100% in LR.

 

[ernie]

i start out with a few basics: curves, levels, contrast. after that it's all just random adaptions till i get a result i like. so screwing around is a big part of the learning process. that, reading tutorials and simply asking people here how they did the post-processing work on a photo they posted.

 

[JDS]

I mostly learn by reading what others did to process their photos, and then I go and try it on some of mine. I usually do a little less, or a little more of a certain effect, or combine different ones to get a different look - everyone's taste is different. And if you copied everybody else's processing to a T, well, photography would be pretty boring.