Black Diamond Productions

“I don’t use Photoshop and am debating whether I need to take the time to learn. I would much rather learn to take great photos from the start.”

My opinion on this would be there is no question if you need to learn it – the question is should you learn it or pay someone who is already great at it… To properly learn PS will take a huge outlay of time and effort – I know many that have pushed aside that learning to better their business and photo skills to hire a pro Photoshop user to get done what is needed.

I think in the future you will see a significant change in who uses Photoshop vs.. Lightroom style applications.

I think you will see the photographer use Lightroom – and their "editor" using Photoshop. Or whatever workflow application you use for small adjustments etc – vs.. pixel editing of images.

If you are going to try to learn Photoshop – take my advice and before you do anything sign up with an online learning source like lynda.com and check out some of the courses first – then you can look at the initial expenditure – and the time of learning etc – and compare your bottom line…

You can get allot of Photoshop work done these days for the amount you will outlay in PS software, and most importantly your time… many never take into consideration their personal time and more should as that is time that should be spent working on the thing you really want to be best at.. not all the support role items.

That all said you should always strive for the best out of camera image you can first – do not shoot to edit… rather shoot to edit less…