Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
7- Point System
One of the most successful books I've ever
written was
Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for
Adobe Photoshop CS3
. But, it originally wasn't
going to be called that. The original idea came
from my brother Jeff, who said he'd love to see
me write a book where I did nothing but start
off with a crappy (his words) image, straight
out of the camera, and then take that image
through all the steps, in detail, of making it
into an image that would be worthy of making
a framed print. I liked his idea and so I started
collecting problem images in a folder—images
that had good composition, but had other
problems, like massive white balance or expo-
sure problems, or anything I thought I could
fix to save what otherwise would have been
a discarded image. After a while, I had a bunch
of images, so I started writing the topic. Each
chapter would be me taking a problem photo
from beginning to end. About eight or nine
chapters in, I suddenly realized that, although
these images had different problems, I was
still using just the same few tools in Photoshop
to fix them. I was actually psyched, because
I realized that if I could teach people just those
seven points, they'd be able to tackle virtually
any problem, so I changed the topic to focus
on just those seven points, and luckily it really
clicked with users. Well, that was written for
Photoshop CS3 (gasp!), and in the years since
then, I've now streamlined my 7-Point System
to where it all happens in Lightroom's Develop
module, using just seven tools there. So here,
I wanted to share with you my updated 7-Point
System for Lightroom, so you can focus on
getting really good at just these seven points
(and refer back to the Develop chapters earlier
in the topic for more details). Get good at
these seven points, and you'll agree—
“you can't beat the system.” ;-)
