Overwhelmed

[lunathea]

Hi all! I'm pretty much a virgin to the world of editing photos (aside from some exposure and color adjustments in windows photo gallery woooooooooo!!!). So I dl'd GIMP to try to at least mess around with something before my Photoshop classes in the fall. I feel like an idiot. I'm completely lost. I don't even know how to use the cursor properly tbh....stop laughing. I looked at some tutorials and even the help options and I honestly feel like it's all going right over my head. What I would like to focus on learning is how to sharpen an image a tad bit, how to lighten certain areas....hmmm and I think that's it for the time being. Please help me lol, fumbling around just isn't working.

[Izzy]

There are a few GIMP users on here that might be able to help you directly if you want to continue to use it.

I am a Lightroom 3 user like a great many people here. Starting out I think you would find Lightroom 3 real easy to work with. You might be able to get a student edition. Mine was $90. In lightroom if you can move sliders you can edit for the most part. You can buy a book for LR3 for about $30 that would get you into the finer details of using it. LR3 is so much more than an editing software. It is a library organization tool also. Best part I like about LR3 is that it does not change the original image. It works from it and then you export to have your new image. Then you can go back and edit as much as you like with the original.

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by lunathea

I dl'd GIMP to try to at least mess around with something before my Photoshop classes in the fall. ... I would like to focus on learning is how to sharpen an image a tad bit, how to lighten certain areas

You don't need to learn how to use a bulldozer just to move a small stone from your yard. Gimp and Photoshop are heavy-duty tools for those who need them. They're way more power and complexity than most photographers need.

For what you want to do, simpler tools would be a better choice. Have you looked at, for example, Picasa? Another possibility I know of is PhotoDirector, which is currently in free-beta status and is supposed to be released at $99 by the end of the month; it's pretty much a knock-off of Lightroom that's missing a few of Lightroom's features.

[faeriegodess612]

Picasa is great for small quick edits. And it can read RAW files. I use it as my organizer. If your just a hobbyist, then yeah,..just Picasa would work great. But Photoshop is the industry standard, and its a lot easier to use than Gimp. I didn't much care for Lightroom, but I do really like my Elements. It does everything I need. If you get it right in camera as much as possible anyways, you'll have less work to do in post production, saving you time.

[RLucas]

Gimp is not as hard as people make it out to be. In fact, most of the PS tuts will work with GIMP once you understand the minor differences in terminology.
Yes, I am a GIMP fanboy. Even though I mainly use LR3 now, GIMP is still nice to have when i need to do some special stuff.
This blog may be of some help to you. I used it when I first started.
Tutorials GIMP Guru
Hope this helps!

[SwissJon]

I would suggest, if you're taking photoshop classes, that you start with Photoshop Express.. Then when you start your class, a lot of the tools will be familiar to you. Lightroom is also a decent program, and a pretty good one for light photo editing.. Unless you're planning to turn pro, I really can't see those two not being enough for most of your needs.

[lunathea]

Thank you for all the replies guys. I've figured out some of the basics (dodging/burning, cloning etc), however I was trying to work on a particular subject today to no avail.



The shot itself isn't great at all (just go my gnd filter and this is the first sunrise/set that I've shot with one, I have a lot to learn obviously lol) but I wanted to play around with it anyways. What I was trying to do is punch up the colors in the sky while maintaining the fog covering the grass. I figured out how to make a digital gnd filter using a duplicate layer and mask, but it didn't seem to help.

So I guess I'm curious how much this photo can be improved (and how the hell to get there) or if shots like this are for the trash. Once again thank you!

[ArmySoldier777]

Lunathea,

I definitely wouldn't send this shot to the trash. I actually really like this once viewed in full. I just think it needs some minor contrast tweaks. I don't know much about Gimp, I'm a really big photoshop user, but I know that PS allows you to make Curve adjustments which will bring out the lights and colors in the right places.

I wasn't sure if you wanted the landscape to remain dark so that it wouldn't detract from the sunrise, so I just modified the contrast a little bit and came up with the image below. Not a whole lot difference in lighting, but I think it helps the colors a little. If you like the changes, maybe there's a Gimp user here who can show you how to achieve them in that program. I just wanted to show you that you shouldn't give up on this photo, it's a good one!

Keep up with the good work!
David

[lunathea]

Thanks for the encouragement David that's exactly what I was trying to achieve with no success lol. You've given me new hope. Off to learn how to use Curves in Gimp, fingers crossed it looks pretty as your tweak!