Reference for photo editing?

[rachelrach11]

I have used basic photo editing software in the past. I am pretty familiar with certain adjustments but I recently became very overwhelmed when I downloaded a trial version of photoshop elements.

What would be a good book or website that explains the basics of photo editing?

 

[KmH]

Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers Using Photoshop (Voices That Matter)

The Photoshop Elements 10 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)

Color Confidence: The Digital Photographer's Guide to Color Management (Tim Grey Guides)

Photo Editing Tutorials

www.elementsvillage.com

www.youtube.com

 

[KmH]

You can also open Elements and then press the F1 key on your keyboard, or click on the workspace Help​ tab, to access Adobe Community Help, which has yet more tutorials and other resources.

 

[rachelrach11]

Are most of the photo editing programs generally the same when it comes to basic/intermediate adjustments? I know that a few of them provide more options for editing, but if I were to become familiar with one, how difficult would it be to use another?

I have never actually purchased any sort of editing software ( as you can tell) and I am just trying to figure out if they are generally the same or if certain programs are used for certain types of editing. For example, is elements COMPLETELY different from , let's say CS3?

 

[480sparky]

UI's might be totally different, some elements may have different names, but the principles are the same across the board. Curves, contrast, saturation and the like will all be the same.

 

[KmH]

Elements is a consumer grade, de-featured, but otherwise very similar version of the professional grade CS, CS 2, CS 3, CS 4, CS 5, CS 6.

Elements 10 includes an image organizer, the raster graphics editing functions, and a Raw converter, parametric image editor (PIEware). The Raw converter, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) is also de-featured compared to the version included with CS 6.

In other words, the professional grade CS has a lot more capability, and is thus more complex, than the consumer grade Elements does/is.

Adobe make 4 versions of Photoshop:

Photoshop Elements - 1 thru 10

Photoshop CS - CS (Photoshop 8) thru CS 6 (Photoshop 13)

Photoshop CS Extended - CS 3 thru CS 6

Photoshop Lightroom (a compliment to CS) - Lightroom thru Lightroom 4.

 

[bunny99123]

I have Photoshop CS5. I bought Photoshop for CS5 for Dummies. Along with trail and error, YouTube and the net I have learned a lot.

 

[12sndsgood]

When I first started learning CS5 I got a little overwhelmed so I took a step back and just started trying to learn one tool at a time and then when I had it down and figured out i'd move on to the next tool. once I had the tools down I started looking into videos on how to certain things.