Monday, February 07, 2011
Learn the Basics of Photoshop in Under 25 Minutes
Lifehacker: "Photoshop is an incredibly powerful but also intimidating application. If you've wanted to start using Photoshop but didn't know where to start, we'll be teaching you the basics all week long.
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9 comments:
I taught myself Photoshop, and am a big proponent of self-teaching of these sorts of programs. However it always helps to have some sort of jumping off point. I would recommend to someone who reads this article, to have the program open at the same time. The best way to figure out the tools is to use them. Also, what might really help out a new user, is not only a description of the tools, but examples of when they are useful and how to do something basic using what tools.
I have always been uncomfortable using photoshop because I have never had the opportunity to play with it. It functions similar to Autocad in that there are several ways to approach the same problem and to produce the same output, it's just a matter of finding what works best for you.
Lifehacker has also put out a great series on programming basics which is great to use when thinking about writing your own excel macros.
This article is very helpful to someone, like me, who has very little to no experience in Photoshop. Although it is only the basics, as Ariel said, it is a great starting off point. Although there are problems that someone will of course run into when first starting use of Photoshop, and this short intro to the program cannot help with those problems, it can be a guide to the steps to take when struggling with a certain task. I also agree with KService in that, like Autocad, it's just a matter of finding what works best for you. There are many ways to accomplish a task on Photoshop and Autocad, and each way will be better or worse depending on the person using the tool.
I recently obtained a copy of CS5 and for the first week or so, I spent a week in severe frustration, mainly because I was unsure of how it worked. Once I got the hang of it, however, it became an important tool for working on design projects for class. I would say I have probably used at some point in every project since I got it. Photoshop is a powerful tool if you know how to use it. I agree with Ariel with the fact that a publicly available jumping off point would be very helpful in learning this great program.
I am so excited to spend an afternoon dinking around with this sometime (when I have a whole 30 minutes to myself). I've heard that the best way to learn a program like photoshop is to just mess around for long enough and google the problems but I don't have particular projects that often and look forward to at least a little more structure.
I am in the process of orienting myself with Adobe CS (I have CS2, but no money for CS5), and My Photoshop skills are extremely limited. This was a nice little set up to point out the basics and introduce me to tools that I wasn't seeking out. I think Adobe is notoriously intimidating, so any help (like this) is appreciated. Of course, it's still self-teaching in a way, but I am going to spend a little more time with this guide as I try to wrap my head around everything thaat is PS.
As someone who decided to forgo investing in Photoshop and teach myself GIMP, I wish I had had this article as a guide. GIMP's user interface is "inspired by" Photoshop's, but there are a lot of differently named equivalents in tools and functions that might have been easier to figure out had I been using a guide. Thankfully, now that CMU allows me access to Photoshop, my GIMP skills transferred pretty easily since at the core, I had gained a knowledge of how photo editing software thinks, and how to make it do the things I want it to do.
This is a great idea! I will be bookmarking this page for future reference. Photoshop is one of those programs that I have always watched other people use with great success, but once I attempt to do anything with it I quickly get lost. I can do very very basic navigation, but none of the tricks that make Photoshop worth using. II know that Anne Mundell regularly offers a Photoshop mini, but where previously it had conflicted with class schedules, these days I flat out refuse to get up that early for an 8:30 class. No thanks--as much as I would like to learn this skill, I know I won't be able to give it the attention it deserves and get what I need out of the class when my brain is not yet functioning.
That being said, this program is a fantastic tool, that as the article points out, is very similar to many other image editing programs. This makes learning the program that much of a better idea, because then you will have the basic skills to be able to use any similar program to do the work you need done.
I really like this article. usually i learn better actually learning as i work like in a class rather than learning by reading an article. i found the article easy to read and fallow, but i also agree with Ariel that having the program open and having examples for usage is a very good way to learn. Like Danielle, i also bookmarked the article.
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