The brotha speaks the troof!

On a more serious note...remember a few key things....

SLR photography is meant to be shot using RAW format. This will give you the greatest control. If you shoot on auto, most good P&S have better processors/algorithms than SLRs for just "snapping a pic."

Now, when you shoot RAW, the camera will skip many CRUCIAL steps that are needed to finalize a photo. This means, that the steps are meant to be finished by the shooter in a post processing program.

Basically, you NEED to edit them in your computer, the software you choose is up to you.

Photoshop CS3 is obviously the most powerful, but at least 12 times more complicated than anything else.

Adobe lightroom is a great program, fairly easy to use, and does a great job.

Apple Aperture 2.0 is very similar to lightroom, but for Apple only.

I agree with Chris, get all the books by Scott Kelby you can, and your shooting/photos will improve 300% within a month.

 

I used to like Photoshop effects like vignetting, selective coloring, boosting up contrast... but you know after some time I just got sick of it, I guess once you know how its done its not that impressive. And now I think photoshop ruins pics, its rare when above effects look good, but it can be done, many people overdo it though. Most challenging is to learn take great pics straigh out of camera.

 

If you can tell something was done in photoshop, then it's a shitty job. Photoshop should be seamless, not in your face (unless it was MEANT to be in your face.) Photoshop is nothing new, and is necessary for proper digital photos. Vignetting, effects and crap are not "photoshop."

Furthermore, the pics you see "out of camera" are still photoshopped.

 

I was commenting on some of the above photos, not photoshop? so what did they use then? I was talking about adding certain effects, sure there is proper use of photoshop though...

 

Haha, that's so nice of you.