Jim, a few years ago, sometime after my retirement, I attended an Epson Print Academy presentation down here. It was an all-day thing with some video and some live presentations. One of the live presentations was a tour through some of the neater features of Photoshop CS, which had not been out very long, as I recall. Modification layers was one of the big topics, which I fell in love with and very shortly thereafter I upgraded to CS from whatever version I was using at the time. The layer mask, which allows you to limit the area of correction, is a marvelous capability. The other great tool that I saw either there or at a photo show at our convention center is the history brush, which is much better than burning or dodging.
Point being, sometimes watching someone demonstrate the features is much better than the so-called documentation, often written by a tech writer who doesn’t really understand what is going on. At least Adobe’s documentation is better than some of the CAD SW manuals I use, which are pretty darned useless. A “highlight” demonstration can save a lot of mucking around in the ocean of features that PhotoSHop has
Hey Chris, Don’t listen to Zardoz, stay unsatisfied ( no offence Zardoz [;)] ), and keep up the comentary on you’re own critique. That’s where I seem to learn the most from you’re skills. [8D]
As to Photoshop and ‘cheating’… I only wish I had the time to post process my work to make it “look like I saw it in my mind”. I have much respect for those that have the time and talent to do so [tup]. And Chris, your work is just downright inspirational when you consider the results. 99% of what I post or upload to rrpicturearchives is right out of the camera. I know it looks it too [:-^] , but it’s more a lack of time then want… [sigh]…someday…