What's the best way to learn Photoshop?

[sebthedog1]

Hello everyone,

I would like to know what you consider the best way of learning Photoshop to be, is it using a manual, taking a course, by trial and error or another way?

I am trying to teach myself using a manual and I seem to spend hours getting nowhere.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks

Mandy

[Jim Poor]

Pick an image and just start playing. Be sure you're on a copy so you don't mess up your original.

Then, subscribe to sites and forums with PhotoShop tips.

Get some books. I recommend Scott Kelby's books as they are both pleasant to read and filled with good information.

Then pick a task you want to do and google it.

[sebthedog1]

Thanks Jim

I'll look up the books now, I've been using Brilliant CS3.

Mandy

[junglebear]

I started off by googling a few techniques such as vignetting, replacing skies and other common fixes. You can find tons of walkthroughs on these kind of things. By carrying out those few tasks on different images I started to work out how the different tools work, more by intuition and practice than anything else.
Also a lot of photos just need colour, brightness and contrast adjustments which can easily be done with sliders, if you're not looking for a too processed look.
There's a lot of walkthroughs to be found here on dPS.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

[Quo Fan]

Think crawl, walk, run.

Pick one thing and learn how to do it. Then pick another, and another, and another, so on and so forth.

By learning one thing at a time, you will retain much more than trying to learn everything at once, and you will be less frustrated.

[zona5101]

Lot of good tutorials on the internet. google "photshop killer tips"
They are short (less than 5 minute) video clips. Easy to absorb. You can subscribe to the podcasts and download them in iTunes to watch later or to watch your portable device.
A book that matches your learning style would be an asset as well as previously suggested...playing.

[Saralonde]

I've used the Scott Kelby books, youtube, dPS, as everyone mentioned above. But also check out some flickr groups. There are a number of them that show you techiques.

[wannabephotographer]

Youtube. If you're diligent, you can learn a lot in a few days. It's amazing the things you can do in photoshop - I would say it's a must know program if you want to compete seriously in photography.

[ressalg]

Here's a site with some step-by-step PS tutorials that I've used. Later, I was able to apply some of the techniques to other photos, too.

http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Phot...hop-tutorials/