Know Your Photo Editing Program’s Functions

Today’s Photo Tip: Know Your Editing Software. I have talked previously about the importance of Learning Your Camera's Functions . Just as important as knowing and understanding your camera’s functions is knowing and understanding the functions and capabilities of your photo editing program. Regardless of what program you use, whether it be Adobe Photoshop CSS, Adobe Lightroom 4, Corel PaintShop Pro X4, or a free program like FastStone Image Viewer, they all have a bewildering array of comprehensive digital photography tools, from powerfully simple one-click adjustments to cutting-edge advanced controls, so many in fact that it is often difficult to know where to start. However if you want to improve your photographs and achieve the best possible results, it is imperative that you take the time to study and learn the capabilities for each function within your editing software. Though it is sometimes advantageous to utilize more than one program to perform specific functions, you should have one “go-to” program for performing the most advanced edits. In my case, this is Corel’s PaintShop Pro X4. The best and most efficient way to learn a program is to buy a comprehensive book on it that is written by a professional photographer. I have been a user of PaintShop for more than 18 years and have seen it go through many changes, revisions and major upgrades. Over the past couple of years I have broadened my photographic interests to include shooting in RAW, trying out HDR photography, shooting HD video and posting pictures to a blog. As a result, I decided to upgraded to the latest version of PaintShop. Because this version was a major software upgrade with a completely new user interface, I decided once again to purchase yet another book (PaintShop Pro X4 – for Photographers) that would help me learn every nuance of this extremely powerful program. For a summary review of this book, go to my Software tab and scroll down to the section on PaintShop Pro X4.