Awaken Your Inner Artist - Why I love Photoshop

Guest Blog by Julie Martin

Julie’s journey into photography has been one of much inspiration. Her relentless quest for perfection for nothing more than her own enjoyment is now flowing over to those around her. Still modest and humble, her love of the digital darkroom is effervescent.

And what we here at Bluedog love about Julie most is her honesty! While other photographers boast ‘this is out of camera’ or don’t acknowledge post editing at all in their images Julie does. It is a talent, as we once did in the wet darkroom. Thank you Julie for sharing and we look forward to more blogs soon.

Awaken Your Inner Artist - Why I love Photoshop

As someone who has come from a purely scientific background, the thought that there might be an artist living within me would never have occurred to me.  My journey into the wonderful world of photography has surprised me in many ways, not the least of which being the discovery of a creative streak that I never knew existed.

Awaking my inner artist first involved learning the basics of photography - how to use my camera, learning about apertures and shutter speeds , white balance and exposure compensation, all under the expert tutelage of Bluedog Photography.  As this became more familiar I started to think more about composition and using the functions of my camera in a more creative way.   During this process my computer served merely as a way to view my images and apart from judicious use of the “I’m feeling lucky” button in Picasa, editing was minimal.  I had a copy of Photoshop Elements on my computer, obtained as a bonus when I bought a new camera, but it all seemed too daunting and too hard to learn.   

Wanting to take my photography up a notch I took a Photoshop course and a whole new world opened up to me.  Now, not only could I “assist” my “mistakes”, but I could re-interpret what I had seen and present a more interesting image.  I could be artistic! The more I played, the more I learnt and the more I wanted to learn.  I’m still learning today and I happily spend hours in front of my computer editing and playing with my images.  It allows me to spend more time with my photography and as one of my great loves is travel and travel photography, it allows me to relive my adventures, reviving many memories. 

 Final Image after post processing in Photoshop.
Image by Julie Martin

Original image before processing in Photoshop.
Image by Julie Martin

Photographers versus Graphic Designers

Someone made an interesting comment at our first Photoshop Creative Series, 'that as being a Graphic Designer', tutor Diana Ziv 'would not be using Photoshop in the same way that photographers did.’ Is this a question of relevance? Diana answers what we find an intriguing question in relationship to photographers versus graphic designers.

Ms Ziv says not only do graphic designers use Photoshop for many of the same reasons as photographers, but they have been doing so for a lot longer. “Truth be told, I was using Photoshop when photographers were still using film and I was editing their images on a daily basis, removing blemishes, changing colours, spotting, taking objects in and out of images, montages, you name it,” said Diana. “Every day I was taking their images and building on them.”

Ms Ziv said photographers have been playing a catch up game with designers, trying to make up lost ground. “If anything, photographers have been very keen to learn the skills that graphic designers had to have, before photographers went digital.” She said it is also becoming more difficult to distinguish between the technical skills required of photographers and graphic designers. “The lines between designer/photographer/web designer/video editor are blurring into multimedia skills.”

Diana explained that her profession still demands more from Photoshop than photographers do. “[The] second part of the editing I would do to an image would include more or different creative techniques that photographers would probably not typically consider”.

In fact, do graphic designers deserve more credit than they are given? Are our professions combining? Indeed it is an exciting path forward we face in the multi-media world.