Season's Greetings

I wish you all a

Merry, Merry Christmas

and a

New Year filled with blessings!

Ups and Downs with CS6

Mostly, new software turns me into a quivering mass of dread and my brain turns to unset jello. On the other hand, new program also inspires me. I get excited about all the things I'm going to be able to accomplish with the new tools. That doesn't mean I learn the software quickly and easily. It's that the joy of discovery eases the pain. 

On the Jesse Dread and Inspiration scale, Photoshop CS6 was a 9.5. I have eyestrain from the tutorials that I've watched and I still feel like a blithering idiot. The first time I launched CS6, my jaw dropped. My first thought was a panicky, "What program is this?!" I knew immediately that I was in for a long and steep learning curve. For me, it's a big leap from CS3 to CS6 and I'm still not done.

Would I go back? Not even that proverbial "team of wild horses" could drag me there. (Well, face it, if there were horses involved, who knows.) The point is I find CS6 a dramatic improvement over previous versions and only wish that I made the move earlier. 

The new ACR alone makes the cost of the upgrade worthwhile, if you shoot RAW files. Since upgrading, I have examined  RAW files previously processed in CS3 and been astonished by the untapped information. This is mostly true with the equine action photography. There were countless cases where I got everything I wanted in the image except the exposure—the black horse running into a shadow resulting in under exposure. In most cases, so far, I have found that the RAW file had all the information that I needed, after all. 

And, I haven't even gotten into those incredible brushes. I like painting with the various brushes before, but this is a whole new world. 

Especially if you shoot RAW files, give CS6 a try.  I don't think you will be able to resist it. It's that good.
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Note: new post up at http://www.anitajesse.blogspot.com/