[roblh]

Framing and colouring both take a long time to get the hang of, since there aren’t any really consistent rules and. I’m a hobbyist who’s started putting a lot more time in over the last year or two, and it’s been a journey.

It took me a long time to internalize “fitting the whole subject in the frame”, which sounds simple in theory but often isn’t once you get away from just taking portraits of people. And also, just cause you can shoot a shallow depth of field doesn’t mean you can stop paying attention to what’s behind your subject, it still takes work and thought.

Colouring, and I guess editing in general, has been a lot of trying different tools, being generally unsatisfied, and eventually ending up with Lightroom even though it has its own problems. You’d think straightening and cropping an image would be a solved problem at this point, but all (yes, all) of the free or cheap options have serious shortcomings that make them anywhere from quirky to completely unusable. Even more so with colouring. The most powerful options are the least intuitive. rawtherapee has the worst curve editing widgets ever in history. Darktable has the most nonsensical organizing and naming of its panels.

The market desperately needs an alternative to Lightroom that isn’t Adobe, with halfway usable library management baked in. I guess this turned into a bit of a software rant, but that’s been my experience so far trying to learn how to take photos I’m really happy with.

[blueboo]

Food photography is a great genre to build these muscles. Photographing food incorrectly makes it look unappetising and alienating, so there’s a dramatic reward-gradient for framing correctly and understanding light. A small number of techniques go a long way. Successfully deploy those can be an encouraging precedent for tackling other genres of photography.

[ryshbg]

I can even spot most of my pics as unappetising. But can't do much to fix it.

Just feel that there are infinite possibilities to take this pic.

Why not my phone camera guide me to take the best pic? Why has no company done this?

[ryshbg]

I feel there is too much focus on editing and very less tools/apps for actual picture taking.

Why do you think it is so?

Don't you think taking good pictures in the first place will solve a lot of problems?

[thr0waw4yz]

Capture One is great Lightroom alternative.