About Lenscraft
About Lenscraft
I would love to tell you that Lenscraft came through a flash of inspiration, but it didn’t. The idea was born from my own frustration in trying to learn Photoshop.
Back in the year 2000, I became seriously interested in photography. That’s also when I met a great photographer who told me the future of photography was in learning to use Photoshop. Whilst I had dabbled with the software, I struggled to get to grips with it and he had the same problem. Back then YouTube didn’t exist, and the internet wasn’t what it is today. If you wanted to learn Photoshop you needed to buy a book, so that’s what I did, lots of books.
Fast forward to 2010 and I’d now read hundreds of Photoshop books, watched countless videos, and practised for thousands of hours. Despite this, I still had a level of frustration and couldn’t achieve the results I knew were possible. Most of the material I found was difficult to understand, poorly put together, didn’t reveal key techniques, and was almost always overpriced. But it wasn’t only me thinking this. This was a common complaint I heard talking with other photographers. People everywhere were struggling with their photo editing. That’s when I decided I wanted to help and so published my first book.
My first book about Nik Viveza started slowly with a few sales in the early months. Then, as word spread, the sales slowly grew. I began receiving great feedback and positive reviews, so I decided to publish another book with a similar approach. Alongside the books I also began to write articles helping people keen to learn about photo editing, publishing them on Lenscraft. Everything was going well, but then disaster struck. The company hosting and managing my website deleted everything, including all my backups.
This was 2015 and I had to start again with a new website and no visitors. This time I focused the Lenscraft website entirely on trying to help photographers improve their photo editing.
Today in 2022, I have a new vision. I want to help 1 million photographers improve their photo editing through my tutorials, YouTube videos, books, and courses. I also want to do this whilst charging realistic and affordable prices. Why should the benefits of photo editing skills be restricted to those with the deepest pockets? Knowing how to improve an image should be open to everyone who loves and is passionate about creating great photography.
If this is you, why not join me on this journey by joining my newsletter? You may just improve your own photography along the way.
Robin Whalley
Landscape Photographer & Author
