Millions of photographs are taken every day and people are using photographs and images to communicate and tell stories. With the right skill-set and tools, your photograph has the power to captivate and to inspire. Whether you aspire to be a professional photographer or you are simply an enthusiast who wants to learn more, a good photography course can provide a solid foundation for you to build on.
We cover the technical skills in capturing strong images, but we also know that a photographer needs more than just technical proficiency. We also cover the artistic principles that make a photograph truly exceptional. A deeper understanding of the world of photography will allow you to nurture your own style and hone your vision. Our courses offer a structured learning environment where you can explore various techniques, experiment with different equipment, and receive valuable feedback from experienced instructors and fellow students. Whatever your motivation, a photography course can be a transformative experience that can unlock your creative potential and open doors to a world of endless possibilities.
Recommended Software For Your Photography Course
Storing your photographs on a memory card in your camera is just a short term solution. Throughout the duration of the course, you will need to save and store them on a laptop or PC (Windows or OSX). A tablet will not be sufficient.
Let’s take a look at where to store your images and the best software programs available to get the most out of your images.
Consider an external hard drive
An external hard drive is recommended to store your images and as you build a portfolio of work, you will need to back-up your hard drive with at least one other drive. ‘Backing up’ means to have multiple copies of your images on different storage devices.
Unfortunately, it is not a case of if a drive will fail but rather when it will fail, resulting in the loss of your photographs. So make sure you regularly back up by making it a part of your workflow.
It may also be more convenient to use a memory card reader instead of connecting your camera to your laptop/PC as you upload your images.
Industry standard software
Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom Classic are amongst the industry standard software programs. Adobe offers a subscription option which means it can be a more manageable cost than paying for software outright. Older, standalone versions will be sufficient to complete your course but it’s worth noting that Adobe will not update previous releases of this software.
At the time of writing, Adobe offer three monthly plans:
- Lightroom Classic plan
- Photography plan which includes Photoshop but offers less cloud storage
- Photography plan at a higher cost but with larger cloud storage
All Adobe products offer a limited free-trial period. While any of these plans will be sufficient, we would suggest the Photography Plan with Photoshop, but this will depend on your budget.
Benefits of Lightroom Classic
Lightroom Classic offers the ability to view, organize and edit large numbers of digital photographs, with its edits described as ‘non-destructive’. This means you will always be able to revert back to the original file.
To work on files within Lightroom Classic, you first need to import them into its database. Then you’ll be able to add keywords, rate the files and create photo books, slideshows, prepare images for print, create and share webpages of your images.
As your photo collection grows into a much larger quantity of images, Lightroom Classic offers an option to catalogue and manage them in a way that makes sense to you. This will help you to easily find a particular image or group of images and develop an efficient workflow.
Lightroom Classic offers Tethered Capture Support for many DSLRs which means that you may be able to shoot while connected to your laptop so that you can instantly review, edit and back up your images.
Benefits of Photoshop
Photoshop differs in that it can remove, add or dramatically change the appearance of an image. You can also work with text, 3D objects and even modify individual video frames.
Photoshop is ideal for detailed adjustments and working with layers and is a great piece of software to have in addition to Lightroom Classic.
Adobe Creative Cloud
The recommended software to complete your course
While there are a number of alternative software options available, we would strongly recommend that you use Lightroom Classic and Photoshop which are now available as part of a monthly plan with Adobe. In particular, Lightroom Classic will be referenced throughout your course material and assignments and should be considered a vital part of your photographic equipment.
You can find out more information about these software solutions on the website www.adobe.com.
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