Adobe Photoshop Beginners Guide
Posted: Wednesday, December 23, 2009
by Jonathan Cates
Busy Media
Photoshop is an important tool for any designer's collection. It can do anything from simple drawing to complex layer effects, and is the most widely used software of its kind on the market. The reason for its popularity is more than just how available it is. Adobe Photoshop gives you everything you need at your fingertips for any kind of graphic manipulation.
To get the technical stuff out of the way: Adobe Photoshop CS4 was officially released on October 15, 2008 and is a raster graphics editor with significant vector graphics functionality. This means its primary function is pixel images like photos. But it also comes packed with technology that uses points, lines, curves, and shapes, which are all based on mathematical equations, to represent images. This can give any Photoshop user the tools to cleanly print or display their graphics at any size (i.e. anything from thumbnails to Hi-Def quality. From a business card to a billboard without getting grainy). Understanding these advanced features of Photoshop is not required for beginners, but paves the way for years of use to anyone who takes the path.
An amazing resource for any software knowledge is YouTube. Most of the software I've ever learned in my life has been thanks to random people's video tutorials, and Photoshop is no different. With 2 monitors, you can watch the tutorial while navigating the program. Pause when you need to pause, and go back when you need to go back. There's only a couple things I've found that's really irked me about any of them.
1. 1. Annoying Voice - I just can't learn from someone who's voice gets on my last nerve.
2. 2. Boasting about one's own skills - Too many designers do it in their tutorials and they end up spending most of the video showing off.
As long as you can avoid this kind of video, you will be well on your way to learning at your own pace. For just this reason, I created a beginner's guide to Photoshop video and uploaded it to YouTube today. I really just concentrated on the basic functions to get you on your feet with the program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NVApIfLSbo
In any learning environment I've found my mind has a saturation point so it's important to know when to take a break. Often times it only takes a few minutes until I'm itching to tackle it again, but giving yourself space to clear your mind is key to absorbing anything over your head. Your frustration doesn't mean you're not getting it, or that you won't get it. In fact in most cases I have the biggest breakthroughs after my most devastating frustrations. Just as you're ready to give up, go to the kitchen and make yourself a snack. By the time you've eaten it and returned to your computer the information is easier to take in, and you may find yourself calling on things you didn't even know you had retained.
Be patient with yourself and call on YouTube to answer any questions you might have along the way!
This Article has been viewed 566 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (9 total)Great article. Well done.I have got Adobe Photoshop and I like it. I'm not all that great but I can do the basics.I had a look at your video too and I liked it. Did you know that if you post the embedded code into the article editor you can post it directly into your article? I think you should as the video really compliments the article.
My wife uses "elements" (we can't afford to purchase the full version)...thanks for "esplaining to lucy"...Rich
Makes an excellent contribution. The article seems mistitled, however, as it is not really a guide of any kind. Maybe "Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop" or "Getting Acquainted with Adobe Photoshop" or something along those lines would be better. Keep up the good work!
I'll have to try to hook up a second monitor so I can learn more about my Photoshop program. It is CS3 extended.
Brilliant, just what I need. Already save dteh video into my favourites. More of the same please
Very helpful article, Johnathan. I've marked it as one of my favorite articles. You write very clearly too. Though I have Photoshop on my laptop, it's my teenage daughter who's been doing the most with it. With your YouTube video I may actually be able to do more with this program than crop and re-save photos for the web. By the way, can Photoshop do animations? May be I'm asking too much already. ~mogama~
Printed this out and rarely do that - thanks so much! Marijo (Mary Jo is how it is pronounced)
I never realised You Tube could be a source for software knowledge. I will give it a try - thanks.
I learned something new today from you. Thanks for sharing this informative, nicely written piece. Thanks Jonathan. Best to you and yours, ~Nenita~
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.