Photoshop for beginners

mufcmark

mufcmark

mufcmark

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Joined
17 Feb 2011
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589
I just started using photoshop cs5 today having never used it before. I am a total noob when it comes to this programme. All I can do is open and save pictures and select things with the magnetic lasso.

The most advanced feature I know is making perfect circles using shift:p

So how would one become a photoshop pro?

Could anyone recommend me some guides or books?
 
google photoshop tutorials or pixel2life and start with buttons and other web stuff or the main navigation of the PS.. then go to harder stuff.. web designs? photo editing? brushing?
 
you will learn it slowly, google tutorials and there is plenty to help you.

It is a expensive piece of software, depending on what type of Version you bought! it can do so much. Dont think we ever understand everything it can do before a new one comes out.
 
What were you hoping to use Photoshop for before you bought it? Retouching? Graphic design? People rarely just know 'Photoshop', just ways of using it for their intended purposes. It's a pretty big program ykno!
 
I've gotten slighlty better now.

I'm learning photoshop just to touch up photos mainly.

This will be almost like a build log but will show my progress from noob to average skill in photoshop.

Here's my first picture that I tried to retouch. It was in a tutorial :p



And here's how I touched it up slightly.



I just changed the photo filter to cool 82 and changed the density. Using the magic wand I selected the trooper and used inverse selection then added gaussian blur. I am a pro:D
 
Look up You suck at Photoshop on Youtube. Sadly the guy stopped doing them but i believe they are still up. They got loads of Views and the guy was hilarious.
 
Well I still haven't learned the pen tool yet but I'm a bit less nooby now.

I actually know how to make separate layers now and even use masking. The most useful thing I have learned so far is content aware. That is a pretty cool feature and saves a lot of time.

I can edit out objects from pictures, remove red eye and use content aware and that is the height of my powers.
 
mufcmark said:
Well I still haven't learned the pen tool yet but I'm a bit less nooby now.

I actually know how to make separate layers now and even use masking. The most useful thing I have learned so far is content aware. That is a pretty cool feature and saves a lot of time.

I can edit out objects from pictures, remove red eye and use content aware and that is the height of my powers.
Click to expand...

Problem is you haven't really learnt content aware, as it's pretty much all the computers doing. So, second pro tip: Leave content aware fill alone until you know how to do it manually (Selections, cut'n'paste, clone stamp, etc). There will be plenty of things that it just can't do, and when it can't, you'll need manual skills to fall back on.

Learning with CS5 now must be a right bugger come to think of it. It can make it so easy for you I almost don't see why anyone would learn the manual methods until they have too. Either way, start with the basics, move onto the fancy computer generated stuff later :) Your leet skills will thank me.
 
I know how to use the clone stamp and make selections to fall back on if content aware fails.

It doesn't seem to work too well when editing out stuff in the sea and I find clone stamp is better for that.

I had one image I took while hiking and just decided to edit a person out. The picture had lots of long grass and weeds and content aware filled it in amazingly. I had to use manual methods when I was close to people's arms but it was still very good none the less.
 
It just looked like your white balance was out in that photo but whatever you did it seemed to work!

I don't have much to add about Photoshop but if I've learnt one thing the hard way it's to make sure your monitor is calibrated correctly.
 
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