I’ve been doing photography off and on for over 30 years, most of which has been done with black and white film. I’ve done a fair bit of shooting with digital, but I have never sat down and properly learned digital photo editing to anywhere near the extent that I learned darkroom manipulations. It is time for me to rectify that. Having used nik silver efex since the days when it was free and owned by google, and not being willing to let Adobe claim rights to my images, purchasing photolab, viewpoint, and the nik collection was a no brainer. The problem is that most in depth photo editing classes, including the ones at all of the colleges near me, use Lightroom, which I am not willing to do. Does anyone know if a full photo editing course akin to what one might get from a 100 or 200 level college course exists for dxo photo editing products? It can be free or paid, that doesn’t matter. Thanks!
Some people here like Photo Joseph’s contributions on youtube.
I liked Anthony Morganti’s contributions, again, on youtube.
There’s really a lot to learn out there. Maybe there’s a photo club around the corner, B&H have things etc. Even if you take a few lessons in Lightroom, you can draw out it’s fundamentals and apply those in PhotoLab, just don’t look at sliders, but at what they are meant to do and how images change when they are pushed and pulled.
Imo, the most important things to know with digital capture and editing are:
never ever burn highlights. Digital is intolerant and what’s gone IS gone.
there are many ways to edit an image and no way is right or wrong - if it get you the image you want. Therefore, make sure that you know what you want with an image and learn how to get there. If you can’t, ask someone, talk.
You might find that some of what people tell you (in tutorials, classes, workshops…) conflicts with that last bullet point above. And that’s okay. If you learn one way, raise your interest and find a different way. Learning one way is doctrine, learning alternative ways unlocks your potential.
If you are seriously thinking about PhotoLab, don’t purchase it before downloading and testing it with the 30-day free trial.
Secondly, the next version of PhotoLab, version 9, will be released in less than 2 months. If you purchase a license for PhotoLab 8 more than a few weeks before the release of PhotoLab 9, and then want to upgrade to the newest version you will have to pay the full upgrade price in addition to your initial purchase. I would suggest holding off making your purchase until PhotoLab 9 is released.