Is Photoshop difficult?

[olshroom]

I have read reviews on Photoshop CC. They state that CC is a difficult program to master. What are your opinions on this. I am currently using Elements 14 and am still finding new tools to use. I started using Elements 5 and have moved forward with new updates.

 

[kilofoxtrott]

Jim, we use PS in the office.
It has a lot of functions and I'm, working over 15 years with it, don't know them all.
If you've a problem to solve, there are some different ways to solve it.

In my opinion you should stay with Elements if you can do all things you want to do.

Regards
Klaus

 

[LotsaShots]

Photoshop is a twenty-year-old piece of software that suffers from too many upgrades, and trying to meet every graphic need on earth. (AKA “bloated” software). I have used it since 2007, taken class after class, tutorial after tutorial, and still find that the minute they send out an upgrade, I am back to square one. I was relieved when they decided to separate all the photography functions into Lightroom, and bought it immediately, only to find that certain, very specific things (still) cannot be done with LR: namely, stitching panoramas together, and a robust cloning tool.

If you like to do a lot of graphic arts work with your photos, like make collages, or combine images in other ways, you will need Photoshop. If you love to shoot panoramas, you’ll need PS to finish them. If you dream of replacing the background of every cloudy shot with a bright, blue sky, you’ll need PS If you frequently end up with objects you want to remove: telephone poles, wires, trash cans, or tourists atop your waterfalls, then you’ll need PS.

Also, for me, there is nothing intuitive about the functions/buttons/procedures in Photoshop. You have to keep using it, or you’ll very quickly forget the 46 steps it took to “fix” that last photo. I am hanging on to my stand-alone copy of Creative Suite 5 til it dies from old age. Hopefully by then, Lightroom will include the few things it’s currently missing.

 

[Growltiger]

It is easy. You can learn one thing at a time, and after a while you will be able to do pretty much anything you can imagine. But you have to be willing to experiment and learn. If you find something that isn't obvious there are countless tutorials and videos.

 

[Baywing]

I think you need to ask yourself is there something you want to do but can't do with your existing software?

 

[Butlerkid]

It is indeed a very complex program. BUT - if you start out by utilizing some of the excellent tutorial videos available by eith Ben Willmore or Tim grey....you can learn the basics very quickly and then gradually add more complex techniques as needed.

If you don't invest the time or spend the money to learn the basics, then you will probably struggle a LOT more. JMHO....

 

[crazy]

If Elements meets your needs, I would stick with it. On the other hand, if you are ready to jump into more sophisticated editing and processing, PS, Capture One or Lightroom may be of interest.

 

[nu2scene]

Is it difficult? Yes... And no. It depends on how you look at it and use it.

Elements is fine, but it is pretting limiting from what I remember. I used elements a long time ago, but always found that it couldn't do things that I wanted to do after watching videos and tutorials. I then had to find work arounds, to get it to do what PS did easily. So for that reason I finally went ahead and started using PS.

PS is a HUGE program and it does a lot of things. So from that stand point it is difficult. The good news, is that you probably don't need about 95% of it for photography. You'll use the same 10-20 things over and over again. So it can also be easy to use.

So if you only use 5-10% of PS why not use elements? Because elements limits you to 8 bit not 16, that right there is a deal breaker. I haven't used elements in a long time now, but it also made things like masks harder, and the tools were limited. There was a reason why they made it 10% of the cost of PS. But now with the CC version for $10 a month it's a no brainer.

In the end you'll have to decide if you're happy enough with elements, or do you find it limiting.

 

[Jonathan F/2]

I've been using Photoshop since I was a kid starting on version 2. All other photo editing apps seem odd to me!

The cool thing in Photoshop is that you can do the same thing using different methods and procedures. It's really open ended.

The only thing that bugs me is that you need to have the latest version of CC to use the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw. Considering that ACR is practically a separate program, it seems a bit forced if you want to open raws from the latest cameras.

 

[Randy]

PS has a nightmare user interface and is overly complex.
Lightroom is superb

 

[pictureted]

I used PP years ago when I scanned film. I spent a lot of time and learned a mediocre level of competency. When I got a DSLR, I used the Nikon S/W for a few years before they stopped supporting it and went to Lightroom. I agree with Randy - it's superb with a great, straight-forward interface. I still have PP, but have the same fondness for it as poison oak - I want in and out quickly and feel the need to wash up afterwards.

 

[Iscariot]

I find LR does 99.9 percent of what I need. I have both a CC subscription and the last boxed version on PS. I need to take some time to work out if the CC sub is really offering me things that the boxed version is not. I really only use it for occassionally changing backgrounds which I find the CC version easier to use because of the new select and mask functionality as well as the occasional cloning work, although Im sure the boxed version cloning will be sufficent. Otherwise LR is the way to go for me.

 

[bpdougd]

A lot depends on how much of Elements you use now. If most of your use is to do "digital darkroom" stuff and you work mostly on images that you have created using your camera then Elements is more than enough. In fact, for these uses I would argue that Lightroom is a better choice since Elements has a lot of Photoshop-ish functions that are not primarily aimed at photographers.

The central question is: does Elements meet your current and, if appropriate, future needs.

I use Lightroom for 99% of my digital darkroom needs. I use Photoshop for that 1% of my own photos that need some sort of specialized tweaking. I also use Photoshop for 100% of my repair and restoration of old photos. If it were not for my need to work on old, frequently damaged photos, I would probably ditch Photoshop.

 

[Ronald M]

Buy a book by Martin Evening or watch tutorials on Adobe TV/ you tube.

Start small, brightness, contrast , selections, and work up .

Anything LR does, PS does easier + more. LR requires you to use a catalog so it can find photos on your drive. This is a giant pain and if you are not perfect, you will lose it all.

LR does allow tethered shooting, but Nikons will NOT write to the card if set to tether. I consider this dangerous ( don`t ask why). Write to the card and import. Use image capture on Mac and you do not need LR. Bridge in PS will also import images. PS works on images from folders just like any other computer program.

I am sure 100`s will not agree, but I am old and have been doing PS for many years. It may be bloated, but does not run slow on my computer.

 

[Randy]

"PS does nothing easier than LR" is probably closer to the facts. The catalog takes 2 days to get used to and there's no risk. LR doesn't change your source files. And I'm pretty old too

 

[Palouse]

It's probably easy if you have constant and ready access to an expert or 2 who can guide you.

 

[Philinnz]

I could not survive without photoshop - have tried lots of other processors but always return to PS. I cannot get my head around lightroom. I browse the images I want in bridge, open them directly to ACR which is magic and very quick for doing a lot of routine fixes, ie white balance, lens corrections, light and dark, then open them to PS for the final tune ups including sky replacement and layered tuning. Really easy to do for what I want. Lots of additional functionality including panoramic stitching

 

[Cleanimage]

Jim - Photoshop is difficult to learn. However, with the Adobe Photographers cc suite you also get Lightroom (LR) which is fairly easy to learn. With LR you do have to get used to the LR catalog and how to import and export images. Like Gav, I probably do 99.9% of my editing in LR. Adobe also continues to expand LR features and now you can perform HDR and Panorama editing out of LR. To date, LR doesn't do focus stacking so if you want to combine multiple images with different focus points you will need Photoshop. Also, as Mary points out, if you need to do a lot of graphic work than Photoshop will be your go-to program. There are plenty of good books on both editing programs and the Internet is loaded with free tutorials so I think that once you get into it you will be ok if you go the Adobe cc route as long as you don't mind renting instead of buying your software.