Postwork

christopher-2607496

So I've been working with Studio for a few months now and I think I have a decent grasp of the basics.

However, I am really bad at postwork. I use paint.net and I can do really basic things like composite renders to clean up poke-through and fiddle with the color levels but that's about it. I see all these amazing smoke and fire and lighting and mist and lots of other effects done in postwork and so I was thinking of picking up a graphics tablet and a Photoshop subscription but I don't even know where to start. Can anyone make a recommendations?

Thanks

JimmyC_2009

I have the Photoshop Creative Cloud membership for a few pounds a month, and it is a great way to have a very expensive piece of software for a small outlay. There are fantastic tutorials on the Adobe site which really help too. I got Lightroom with it too, since I do a bit of photography from time to time as well. Well worth it in my opinion.

I have a tablet, but I never use it nowadays, so I wouldn't know what to recommend in that area. You can do most things in Photoshop with just a mouse anyway, although a pen may be handier for some things.

cecilia.robinson

No need to splash yourself on PhotoShop. PowerPoint and GIMP, the duo will be much more than enough. I regularly texture in PP and, of course, all my postworking is carried out in it. People aren't aware of its capabilities.

Stargazey

There's also Serif's PhotoPlus. They do a free version (PhotoPlus Essentials). If you don't like the GIMP interface, PhotoPlus is more like an older version of Photoshop. To be honest its a bit "clunky" compared to PS, but you can do most of the post production work that you need to in it, and it is free!

(They also do free versions of PagePlus and DrawPlus for DTP and drawing/painting)