photoshop

snigg

snigg

Suspended / Banned
Messages
359
Edit My Images
No
what would be the best way to learn photoshop,I would also need to buy it,I'm not the greatest on a pc so am thinking is it best to go on course or is it something I can get to gripps with myself? also wheres the best place to buy? cheers
 
Have a play around and get a good book - somthing by Martin Evening generally does the trick. It is an in depth package so do it in small steps.
If you are in a camera club that is registered as a charity it can be available for not very much money. Otherwise it is a pro package with a price that reflects.
Have you used other packages as a lot of the basic priciples are the same?
 
Unless you NEED to use Photoshop it may be an easier learning curve to use some of the free image editors first that come bundled with the computer/camera.
 
I see what you mean,I have a canon 40d but even the editor that comes with that I'm finding not the easiest to work my way around,does that say more about me than the canon editor:shrug:
 
PS is one of those programs that, if you understand what it is you're trying to achieve, is quite easy. It's often the vast scale of what's on offer with this software that daunts people but if it's say image tweaking and cloning then it's very easy to get used to.

As Ady N suggests, tutorial books are a great starting point. There are a few PS magazines out and I'm sure I've seen bookazines produced by the same publishers that are effectively the best bits of the magazines condensed into one book. I'd look online or in WH Smiths for these.

Also, there are some brilliant online tutorial websites that offer great, step-by-step advice on how to do many tasks. Hey, there are even tutorials on this website that could help you out.

I wouldn't suggest going out and buying the latest copy - it's an expensive mistake if you don't get on with it. Either buy PS Elements, a slimmed-down version designed for the everyday Joe, or get hold of a used version of CS or CS2 (from a few years ago) that will give you massive power to progress for relatively little outlay. I've actually been thinking about selling mine but looking at the prices - £100 for a full Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/Bridge package I might as well keep it. Like most software, old versions don't seem to hold their price very well so there are bargains to be had. Fleabay is the obvious place to look for used versions.

Also, look on the Adobe website; there are loads of downloads that give you 30-day trial access and there are loads of resource features on there that will give you a helping hand.

What is it you're most wanting to do? That answer could help slim down the options.

If you want a photographers tool (as opposed to the graphic/illustration features within PS) why not look at Lightroom? I've used PS since 1995 and over the last year or two I've realised that 99.9% of the things i want to do can be done in Lightroom. It's very good at image management (getting all your images together, sorting them, keywording etc) plus it has some seriously powerful adjustment functions that are easily accessible on one screen, as opposed to the drop-down menus of PS. It's about £180 new but you can get older copies - someone has an old version for sale in the classified for £50. Download the trial to see if it suits.

You can see there are options out there, and that's without even mentioning any of the others, which i'm sure someone more qualified to do so will talk about.

Courses are good but there's nothing like learning at your own pace. It's easy to do so, providing you don't mind spending time on the task and looking in the right place for information that will help you to understand how you can achieve what you want :)
 
There are loads of tutorials on Youtube about specific aspects but it is such a large package that it can be overwhelming, especially if no previous experience with any other editors. All depends on what you are after doing and how much time/money you want to invest in image editing software.
 
thanks specialman for that info,what would I like to get from it? well to be honest I don't like to do too much to a photo,so I guess tweaks and saving the odd disaster,cropping and resizing,I would like to get to a stage with it that if I ever got a paid job I would have a solid understanding to pull that off,so with that in mind would you still recommend lightroom or the full thing?cheers
 
just did some reading and it looks like lghtroom 3 fits the bill,anyone know of any deal to buy?
 
Last edited:
snigg said:
... I'm not the greatest on a pc so am thinking is it best to go on course ...
Click to expand...
If you decide you need Photoshop my advice would be to stick with Photoshop Elements while you learn. It's a very capable program without all the bells and whistles of the full-blown (and very much more expensive) version. So it's easier to get to grips with.

Then, if you decide to go on a course you'll have a bit of a start and some more familiiarity with the PC and the progam. I enrolled at my local community college and, while I'm not too impressed with the course, it enabled me to buy CS5 Student Edition for a much more reasonable price. (The student edition comes without a licence key. You get the key by supplying details of where you're studying and a scan of your student ID to Adobe online).
 
the best way to learn to use photoshop is to play with it! unless you can afford lessons then that might be better :p
try setting yourself little challenges and tasks, google some tutorials for it try to follow there method, then adapt it so its more what you wont, after a while you will realise the amount of things you have learnt to do.

Edit: if your on a budget go for elements, easy user interface, and big price drop :)
P.S. if your near id be happy to come round and show you the basics as im starting a small it help business.
 
Last edited:
If it's just tweaks then LR fits the bill. Aperture is good but it's mac-only.

Main thing for me is that I can put everything onto a hard drive, link LR to it and then I can sort, archive and keyword everything so it's easily accessible.

LR3 is the latest version (I'm on LR2.2) but you can get older versions on the used market if you look around.
 
photoshop elements is the easiest place to start and you don't really have to go for the latest (version 9) either.

i think you can pick up an earlier version (maybe 5 or 6) for about £30 on amazon or such like. have a play and have a look at the tutorials on here.. and bob's your mums brother.
 
The full "Creative Suite" is horrendously expensive and way overkill for "tweaks and saving the odd disaster,cropping and resizing" - Elements (far more affordable, albeit slightly less powerful) is almost certainly a better option, especially for the wallet! There are plenty of books covering Elements as well as those covering the full CS - have a flick through a couple in the library or Smiths and see which make sense to you. Many of the features are self explanitary and if you set up a folder with some duplicate files in it to play with, you can experiment as much as you like on "disposable" files before trying your hand on any originals.
 
Definitely agree with specialman and the other posts above - either download the trial versions or look for older second hand versions of the software as the majority of people (myself included) only ever use a fraction of it's capabilities...

Haven't used Lightroom myself but have read lots of favourable reviews and it does seem to do the majority of things required for photo re-touching.

GIMP is a free alternative to photoshop, which has the majority of the functionality to get familiar with. Obviously not quite as polished, but it's free... :thumbs:

With regards to lessons; I've always been able to find tutorials to achieve whatever it is I wanted to do (as well as finding out plenty of cool things I'd never even think of doing) through simple google searches.

HTH :D
 
Snigg - if you're buying software and are looking at photography options then Lightroom is the one to go for (I've just upgraded from 2.2 to 3 - the older version isn't as good but it's perfectly decent for getting started).

Anyway, it's designed for photography whereas Photoshop is designed to make pictures with the various drawing / editing tools on it.

For Lightroom, think Darkroom (clearly Adobe's digital alternative to the old school dark room).

It's got a Library function to organise your images and a Develop function to adjust them. You can get as detailed or simple as you need with everything from adjusting the exposure / lighting levels a bit to serious Noise Reduction etc.

It really is very intuitive to use (my Mrs picked it up in about 10 minutes and she hasn't a clue on most things like that) as it's all sliders etc.

One really really important thing with Lightroom though is that the changes it makes are "non-destructive". That means that if you make a change and turn someone's face green by mistake, you can just go back to the old version (even if you come back to it in 6 months time and realise you could improve it, the history will be retained).

Oh, and there's loads of presets etc in there to help you out if you're not too sure...

It's worth the money if you're paying for it.
 
you could also buy a couple of Digital Photo magazines, they have free CD video tutorial mainly using photoshop CS version and then if you think they are out of your depth then opt for an older version of Photoshop Elements or a free software version....I'm sure you would quickly be up and running using PS Elements whereas CS would take more time.
If you are a Student or could register on a local further Education College course, after registering with Adobe, you could get Lightroom 3 for £65 and CS5 Extended for £180
Dave
 
I'd suggest keeping things simple and cheap for the moment and getting Photoshop Elements 9. it's an all-in-one downloader, organiser, raw file converter (if you shoot raw) and editor for around £50. it can be used at a basic and advanced level and there are free online video tutorials to go with it.

Full Photoshop CS2 is a little limited in that the integral raw converter ACR cannot, I believe, be updated for some of the more recent cameras.

Have no fear if you're not much of a PC user, taking good pix in the first place is a much more important and rare skill.
 
i'm in the same boat as you hate computers-try downloading windows lve photo gallery so simple to use and it does a brill job+ it is free
 
My suggestion would be to read as many online tutorials as you can, then get the 30 day free trial here: Click Me

The thing I find with photoshop is: If you know exactly what you want to do then it's easy. SImply google what you need to be able to do and have a play around with some settings. However, if you are just trying to learn how to do everything straight away you're going to run into issues. There's so much to Photoshop that you'll never need to use it's hard to know what to study and what not to.
 
specialman said:
If you want a photographers tool (as opposed to the graphic/illustration features within PS) why not look at Lightroom? I've used PS since 1995 and over the last year or two I've realised that 99.9% of the things i want to do can be done in Lightroom. It's very good at image management (getting all your images together, sorting them, keywording etc) plus it has some seriously powerful adjustment functions that are easily accessible on one screen, as opposed to the drop-down menus of PS.


Courses are good but there's nothing like learning at your own pace. It's easy to do so, providing you don't mind spending time on the task and looking in the right place for information that will help you to understand how you can achieve what you want :)
Click to expand...

Totally agree with that, spot on.
 
cheers for all the help,I'm going to buy lightroom 3,the price seems to be the same at most places,if anyone knows of any offers that would be good,thanks again.
 
Snigg, if you're a student (or know someone who is ;)) you can get and education version for about £80 ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top