Photoshop

[misia]

Hi.

Sorry for all those questions, but I was trying to start working with Photoshop. DO you know about any books, DVD than can help me with that?

Thanks
Monika

 

[DavidTK]

Check out the books by Scott Kelby. Also, you say "photoshop" but the most recent versions of the program include "Bridge" (a photo downloader and organizer) and "Camera Raw" (raw editor). These are very powerful parts of Photoshop. I do 95% of my work in Bridge and Camera Raw, and then only use Photoshop for sharpening or any localized editing.

Which version of Photoshop do you have?

 

[Sim]

If you have no idea where to start, Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 would probably help. He takes you through the whole post processing procedure for a series of pictures, always following the same steps. Plus with CS4 on the way, you can probably find it for pretty cheap.

I've also always had good luck with online tutorials. I've found pretty good tutorials that have answered every question I've come up with.
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...7-Point-System-Photoshop-Voices/dp/0321501926[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Kelbys-7-Point-System-Photoshop-Voices/dp/0321501926"][/ame]

 

[misia]

Check out the books by Scott Kelby. Also, you say "photoshop" but the most recent versions of the program include "Bridge" (a photo downloader and organizer) and "Camera Raw" (raw editor). These are very powerful parts of Photoshop. I do 95% of my work in Bridge and Camera Raw, and then only use Photoshop for sharpening or any localized editing.

Which version of Photoshop do you have?

It's CS3

 

[goodoneian]

if you're trying to do a specific thing in photoshop, i've found that pixel2life.com is pretty helpful. it has a ton of tutorials that are all relatively easy to follow.

 

[mrodgers]

The problem I find with photoshop tutorial sites on the net is, there's way too much info and way too many tutorials. I can't seem to sort through all the graphical art stuff to find anything pertaining to photography. I don't want light beams falling through my photos nor do I want half of my child's portrait pixelated or graphically looking like a machine. I just want to know stuff that I am seeing others here do in editing.

A while back, someone new to the forum posted a landscape of a lake and a farm in the beginner's section. That person posted the original and a quick edit for contrast and brightness and asked for opinions. A few replies below the first, someone suggested some steps to do in photoshop that was more involved than just moving a contrast and brightness slider. It involved layers, selecting, inverting, blurring, and some other stuff. What it did to the OP photo was fantastic. I saved that thread and did the same outlined steps to a few of my landscape photos. It again, worked fantastic to my photos.

There are a few other recent examples that I have seen someone post an edit of someone else's photo with fantastic results. From this, I had the inkling to put a suggestion about creating a seperate section here for photoshop techniques. I find that seeing real world results from original photos posted here for C&C and someone providing an edit to make it better is far better to learn Photoshop than sorting through general tutorials you find on the net. I have seen countless times someone post an edit in a thread that I just wanted to know what steps they took to do the edit so I could possibly use them myself.

As it is now, I have created an action for the example I mention above. I also have an action for sharpening that I remembered from a thread a long time ago. Recently, someone posted a photo of their daughter which reminds me of my photos, a bit bland, washed out, and soft. A reply they got was of an edit that completely changed the photo and the child was bright, crisp, and had just the most sparkling eyes, completely different and transformed from the original that was posted. I asked how it was done, but never saw a response.

These are the photoshop tips that I want to see. I consider these real world edits and techniques that are far better and easier to understand than seeing a basic tutorial on a tips website. I wish there was a way of gathering them all up and copying them to it's own section of "Photoshop work" or something here in the forum so they wouldn't get lost in the hundreds of posts created daily.

 

[jbushee]

I found the Intro to Photoshop 7 course I took online through my local community college continuing ed section, put on by ed2go.com, a good starting place. The lessons worked in a bunch of basic info like layers, masks, selections etc. that I go back to review sometimes.

They're pretty reasonable too, and they offer either the Photoshop or Elements courses.