Photoshop CS and Elements 2.0 Education

[dnhill]

I have both of these programs for manipulation of photos. My son is a college student and he was able to get these programs at quite a discount. The license agreement allows them to be on the computer at the students home.

Having looked briefly at these programs, they seem quite complicated. I have used computers for many years and have no problems with typical business use, but these are quite difficult.

My question - what is the best way to learn these programs? Are there some good books to read, training DVD's, or the like?

I realize that because they offer so many tools, it may take a while. I would like to make this as painless as possible.

Thanks in advance,

dnhill

 

[norcaldiver]

Open CS or Elements and then hit "F1" This opens the help portion fo the program.

Barnes and Nobels has a good book section, as does Borders.

Search the web for "photoshop tutorial" There are a million sites that have everyhting from tips and tricks to general overview.

 

[Dee]

Adobe's website has tutorials on both programs. I've found the best way for me to learn is to take a photo, decide on one task and look it up to learn that particular feature. Once I've mastered it, I go to another. It's slow but with the tutorials, I'm learning.

Since the books deal with topside photos, I have a hard time transfering the techniques to underwater shots.

 

[Kim]

Adobe's website has tutorials on both programs. I've found the best way for me to learn is to take a photo, decide on one task and look it up to learn that particular feature. Once I've mastered it, I go to another. It's slow but with the tutorials, I'm learning.

Since the books deal with topside photos, I have a hard time transfering the techniques to underwater shots.

My mate has found a lot more tutorials than there are on the Adobe site. I think most of them are for Photoshop 6.5 (the version before CS) but are largely still applicable. I'll phone him sometime today and ask him if he has a few URL's to suggest. I believe that you will also find a lot through Google if you search for them.

 

[boney]

Another good but is "Photoshop in a Nutshell". You can likely find it at most computer store or whereever they sell "in a Nutshell" books. I have an old one at home and it tells you what each command/filter/action does. It may seem like a lot at first but if you ever wondered what something did, this is a good book. It will also help if you know some of the terms they mention in the book but those could always be looked up as well.
Like everyone has said so far - you can find a lot of stuff on the web as it is a widely used program.
As for the best learning style, that all depends on how you learn best. I think for most people hands on is the quickest way to pick it up - so like Dee said. Find a pic and figure out how you want to modify it and go from there...
It can be quite the overwhelming program - but there's a reason why it is the industry standard...

 

[montyb]

I have Photoshop 7, and located some cd's - pretty inexpensive and do pretty good job of getting you started. They have Photoshop 101, 102, 103 and latest 201. Courses. Take a look at WWW.599cd.com
montyb

 

[StingRob]

There are a lot of good books on the market but you can also try ebooks. Will do the same job and there are free ;o)

Safe Diving

 

[dnhill]

Thanks for the references. I better get to work as I have a lot to learn.

dnhill

 

[DWJ]

Try This out
http://www.mccannas.com/pshop/photosh0.htm

Dave

 

[Bluefish]

Check out www.lynda.com for a whole series of instructional CD-ROMs

I have the version for Corel Painter, and it was excellent.