Photoshop CS5

[rcsteimer Profile Private message]

I just took the plunge... I upgraded from Adobe Photoshop Elements to Photoshop CS5.

In many ways, Elements is similiar to CS5, but it still a bigggg step.

Whats the best way to get started with CS5?
- Buy a Scott Kelby book?
- Any other good books or video training?
- Join the Photoshop Users group (NAPP)?

Your thoughts please..

Thank You,

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Welcome to CS5 (and the joys of things like content aware fill !! ). Anyway, I would give serious consideration to Lynda.com - I have an annual membership, but you can start with a month and see how you like it. I find that it is very helpful to watch the tutorials (often several times) and make notes. It is starting to sink in (unfortunately, at my age, it seems to leak out too !! ) Anyway, that would be where I would start. I find that keeping notes is very helpful if I list what series of tutorials it is but what was covered. I find I often want to go back and see something about masking or removing shadows from a face or how to make "hot spots" go away on someone's face. Nice to be able to go back and watch that tutorial again instead of spending a day wandering around trying to remember which one it was

mikey

[texbrandt Profile Private message]

If you have completely blown your budget buying CS5 like I did you may want to check out the freebies. Of course there are some freebies that are worthless than what you pay for them, but there is a lot of good tutorial material out there.

Terry White - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfkjHnsAsvg has a number of things up on youtube
Russell Brown has a lot of good stuff you may want to check the Adobe site.

I have the same problem Mikey does though, most days the brain is somewhat like a sieve. If you are not on deadline to produce best thing to do is play with it. Start a project and work with it and refer to the tutorials as needed. Many times I will set the laptop next to the big monitor and run a tutorial on the laptop while I work on something on the desktop.

Robert
http://texbrandt.com/blog
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum

[Diane48 Profile Private message]

I also took the plunge with CS5 after having Photoshop Elements. It is quite a steep learning curve. When I got Photoshop I had some freebies to choose from and one was a month's tutorials from Lynda.com.
I chose that one and then waited for a time when I knew I would have time to watch lots of tutorials. The tutorials were very helpful and I intend to sign up for another month of tutorials when I know I can spend the time efficiently. I think Mikey's idea of making notes of the tutorials a very good one.
I also installed the Kindle software from Amazon (free) and bought the kindle version of Scott Kelby's Photoshop for Digital Photographers. I figured that I would always be at the computer when I needed the info so Kindle was the way to go. That has also been helpful and much cheaper than buying the actual book. I intend to get a couple of other Kindle books on Photoshop one day.
Have fun (as I have done)

Cheers, Diane

[heckydog Profile Private message]

100% agree with mikey. Lynda.com is a great resource. Me and Chad Perkins are practically on a first name basis (not really ) The way they present concepts is great. You want to start out learning methods for those things that aren't similar to Elements. There are lots of plugins, free and not free, that will enhance your PS experience. Those you can worry about later but one I have been using for years is Alien Skin Eye Candy and I just got Alien Skin Bokeh. Highly recommend it.

On youtube I subscribe to Gavin Hoey. He has a bunch of photoshop tutorials and he presents them in an easy to understand way. They're usually short and specific tutorials. Personally, I learn better seeing a tutorial than reading a tutorial. But that's me.

There is soooo much free stuff out there on photoshop it's practically impossible not to find a tut on something you want to learn. And if you're using PS for photo editing, you need to check out Adobe Lightroom.

good luck, have fun with it, and don't let it intimidate you. It's hard but it's not THAT hard !!

Joe

[moehler Profile Private message]

What kinds of things are you looking to do with it? Do you shoot mostly portraits? Landscapes? Do you use Lightroom?

[Studio7Productions Profile Private message]

I found excellent advice and video tutorials from here.... http://kelbytv.com/photoshopusertv
From all the Photoshop Professionals.. Scott Kelby, Dave Cross, Matt Koslowski, and many many more.. they post a new one each week, they archive all their tutorial and can be watched at any time, paused while you follow and whatever.....

Mel

[rcsteimer Profile Private message]

Mikey, Robert, Diane, Joe, and Mel

Thanks for all your advise.


Mark, I do very little portrait work, most of what I do is indoor/outdoor sports, travel and nature photography.

I have a 30 day trial of lightroom but I haven't tried it yet.

[moehler Profile Private message]

Bob:

I would get it out and try it. Most of the stuff you are doing sounds like it falls into Lightroom and you can do a lot of work with it a lot faster.

Mark

[Merlin_AZ Profile Private message]

Free tutorials at:
PhotoshopUserTV
Mark S. Johnson Photo
The Digital Photography Connection

They each have a free tutorial each week and I've leaned a ton from them over the last 1 1/2 years.