As you move on to post processing as a beginner, there are a few landmarks that come with using Photoshop and Lightroom. I've noticed that in the past couple of years, beginners have turned towards Lightroom a lot more than Photoshop. I guess I'm old school by this new trend and because I've been using Photoshop long before the first Lightroom came out, it's still my software of choice. Of course you can do a lot of stuff with Lightroom and the entire wedding industry has greatly benefited from it, but for more complicated treatments, you're still going to need good old Photoshop.
Now, as I've mentioned, there are some landmark techniques in learning Photoshop. One of them is the ability to change the sky in a photo. If you're a landscape, cityscape or nature photographer, you know that not every time you go out shooting the sky looks its best. You might stumble onto a beautiful location without the chance of visiting it again, but the sky could be washed out and uninteresting.
To deal with this situation. I recommend keeping a personal stock archive. Each time you go out with your camera, try to focus on bits and pieces that could be used for other photos. Think about textures, roads, trees and of course, skies. Spectacular skies will often catch you unprepared, that's why having a camera in your bag all the time is a good idea.
If you have the missing ingredient, adding it to an otherwise good photograph is not such a big deal. In fact, it's one the first things you should learn about using Photoshop.
French photographer Serge Ramelli has a video just for that. (Learn his secrets here)
Learn more about using Photoshop from these recommended books:
- Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book
- The Adobe CC Book for Digital Photographers
- Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers : A professional image editor's guide to creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC