More questions!...and a rediculous pic

[Andreal]

Hi guys, Im back with more questions, I cant seem to sate my appitite to learn more about photography I'm sorry if it seems I am spamming your forums, I promise to contribute back when I know a thing or two!

Well first off, I got my tripod today, but I just had two exams so I didn't have a chance to really try it out , I've just been wandering around the house taking pictures of walls and fans and other random crap, it just feels cool to use a tripod (its a Manfrotto 190PROB, with a 804RC2 3-way head, heard they were good around the forum and after trying them out I couldn't disagree ) I cant wait to get out tomorrow and seeing what I can pull off !

I have been playing around with a trial verison of photoshop of late because it was reccommened as a tool I should get (which makes alot of sence ). I am thinking I will buy it. When I went to uni today I thought I would have a look in the IT store. They have a "student version" there of CS3 for only $250 NZD (about $185 USD). Apparently its a fully fledged thing too, nothing cut out. This seemed like a really good deal to me, but now I remember hearing something like you couldnt use the student edition if you were going to make money from it or use it professionally or something like that. Now I don't intend to make money off my photography, but maybe one day in the future I might like to go more pro, do you think there is a "upgrade to full" available for if I do decide to step it up?

I also think I should get a book of some sort, are there any really good ones anyone can reccommend, especially if they lean towards photoshops use in photography (so long as it is still within a beginners grasp to understand). Most of what I have done in photoshop so far have just been me thinking, "Hey that would look cool, lets go learn how to do it" which is fine and all, but I'm still not comfortable with the program as a whole.

Here is the first image I created with photoshop, it may not be much but it got me really excited to see my first creation come out :

This was at a mates place playing the most rediculous drinking game imaginable (I'm the one second from the right fyi). It was taking a while back, but I was looking through my images going "What can I photoshop first", then there bright green bottles just jumped out at me and I was like wow, wouldn't those bottles look cool if they were brought out even more by a B&W background. It wasn't till afterwards and I was looking for other tihngs to do in photoshop that I realised that this could be done with the history brush. I created two layers (One colour, one b&w) and then erased the top layer, took a mammoth amount of time but I was so proud when it was done .

I have also heard people talking about a program called Lightroom, I have looked on adobe's site but I still fail to see exactly what this is for. Is it also worth me getting, If it will be useful in the future then I would rather get into it as soon as possibe

Are there any other programs that I should look into getting/trying out?

Thanks for all the help guys, your all awesome and I am so excited about my trip through photography, even the learning has got me going crazy !

 

[Andreal]

Ohhhh the image doesn't look as nice as it did full sized I guess thats something I will have to get used to though, downsizing photos

 

[Mike_E]

Hi guy! Go ahead and get the student version. If you've priced the full version of CS3, well...

The thing is that there is a Huge amount to learn in Photo Shop and the sooner you get started the better!

Pic looks good BTW!

mike