Ok so i am trying out lightroom 3 and CS5 right now!! I am utterly lost and confused!! I consider myself to be an intelligent person, so why can't i figure it out?? I have been watching tutorials but as soon as learn something and move on it is like I forgot what i learned!! Does anyone else use something that you can get professional looking photographs as the end result that is not so confusing??
stick with it! that's how you learn. do simple things that don't require tutorials at first. try going to "image" and then anything in the adjustments panel and just have a go. don't be afraid to play around. you'll make a thousand mistakes but you'll also get the hang of it and may even surprise yourself. keep it simple!
I haven't used lightroom, but I've been using photoshop now for about 12 years. Don't be discouraged, photoshop is a professional, high end editing software. When I started using it, I was going to community college, and I took a few classes on it. I found that even though I was in a class, and a teacher giving a lecture/demonstration on it, the best way I learned it was just by doing things in it. Once you learn what the tools are and what they do, you just keep experimenting with them and you will find a way of working with them to get the results you want.
In the beginning I had the Adobe Photoshop Classroom in a Book as my text for the classes I was taking. It was a pretty good referrence, I'm sure it hasn't changed that much since then besides updating it for the newer versions of photoshop.
Lightroom is relatively easy compared to Photoshop. I'd stick with that first and then progress to Photoshop when you feel competent on the former. Lightroom is usually all you'll need for most photos.
Welcome to the Image Editor's Head Scratching Club, Amanda!
The first thing I did when I saw all the palettes (or whatever they are calling them in CS5) was shut the program down and wonder if there was "another way". Don't worry. PS can do so much, but a lot of users only use about 5% of the features, 'cause that's all they need (taking a wild guess that's how Elements came about).
Anyway, as has already been pointed out, just playing around with the software is a great way to learn - but it can also be a great waste of time. There is also no "right" way or "wrong" way of doing things in PS, just YOUR way, though each book or magazine may tell you a different method of achieving the same result. Depending on how you like to learn stuff, I would say:
1. Just mess about & see what it does & when you get bored with that
2. Give yourself a specific project to do - birthday card, wedding collage, design an advert for soap powder, replicate your favourite film poster and so on. This will force you into finding out how to do things -whether by referring to online help or seeking out tutorials or asking your friends. I found I was much more likely to retain information when I had to jump through hoops to find it. Doesn't matter how good or bad it looks, you're only training at this point so have fun!
3. If you are a book person, I would recommend Scott Kelby's PS guides. See Amazon & the customer reviews for yourself. His humour isn't to everyone's taste, but the knowledge and explanations are excellent. Quite often the PS techniques are only a couple of pages so they are easy to follow & he assumes you don't care how the software works, but that you just want to get certain results, and he is one of the best out there at this. You might also care to check out his book on Lightroom too.
4. If you like online tutorials and Google for a specific technique, I would suggest looking through at least 3 of the results, as I have found that some tutors make more sense to me than others!
5. Once you are up to speed with your own work, then maybe you can undertake a few projects for friends - wedding.birthday.family collage etc - and that'll really get you working. Then you can start making Blurb photo books of your 365 project and so on. The fun never stops.
6 At some point on your learning curve, someone will show you a way of doing something in PS in 2 minutes that takes you about 50 minutes. You may swear at this point. But it happens to all of us...
7. I know people who spend hours Photoshopping every pic they take, I know people who spend minutes doing the odd photo and I recently came across someone who would not show his pics to anybody until they had been PS'd. Like I said at the top, there's no right or wrong, just YOUR way of doing things...
8. And to avoid undue stress, always work on a copy of your image, never the original. Effectively, this just means making a duplicate layer in the layers palette. That way it's impossible to over write your irreplaceable original image of a UFO landing on the White House lawn where you just wanted to make that sunset a LITTLE more orangy....
9. Oh, and if you like taking panoramic pics, check out the Photomerge function, which will stitch them together for you. That's a lot of fun. I've used it quite a bit for my 365.
I mostly learnt by watching video's on youtube and writing everything down word for word. I have about 3 notebooks full.
I also learnt how to use the bridge in photoshop this way too. Lightroom, I just played around with until I got it right!
Lightroom looks intimidating at first, but if you play around with it for a while, you'll realize that it's actually fairly intuitive. It is my hands-down *favorite* tool for photo editing.
learn first the principles on layers then proceed with the tools on the left taskbar for whatever purpose each can possibly do. then go advanced after you master those tools. i prefer watching videos or tutorial on the basic principles on photoshop. you'' get use to it if you use it all the time. all of us here was confused the first time we used photoshop so i think its normal to not know the basics of photoshop.
Yip, just play around. That's how I first learnt PS Elements. Obviously CS5 will be more challenging. I have CS3 as I found Elements was too basic for what I wanted to do. (I used to design digital scrapbooking kits). I learnt PS CS3 from online classes I took - very easy and inexpensive. The best is to keep practising as the more you play, the easier it becomes and the more tricks you discover. It's magic! Enjoy it! I still am....
There is a plethora (I love that word - plethora) of info on the internet. When I get stuck, I type my question into a search engine like google or ask.com and I have always found an answer that is easy to follow. You can't throw in the towel - keep plugging away.
I highly recommend the Scott Kelby books for learning Photoshop or Lightroom or other Adobe products. He explains the concepts in clear, easy to understand language and sprinkles in some humor to keep it fun and fresh.
I sat at the computer with the book open next to me and just practiced the steps until it made sense. After a while it becomes second nature.
I mostly learnt by trial and error. Just playing with the prog and seeing what I could do. Its amazing what you can pick up. Also used the help occasionally. It doesnt matter if you dont get it 'right' cos even so called mistakes can be amazing!
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In the beginning I had the Adobe Photoshop Classroom in a Book as my text for the classes I was taking. It was a pretty good referrence, I'm sure it hasn't changed that much since then besides updating it for the newer versions of photoshop.
The first thing I did when I saw all the palettes (or whatever they are calling them in CS5) was shut the program down and wonder if there was "another way". Don't worry. PS can do so much, but a lot of users only use about 5% of the features, 'cause that's all they need (taking a wild guess that's how Elements came about).
Anyway, as has already been pointed out, just playing around with the software is a great way to learn - but it can also be a great waste of time. There is also no "right" way or "wrong" way of doing things in PS, just YOUR way, though each book or magazine may tell you a different method of achieving the same result. Depending on how you like to learn stuff, I would say:
1. Just mess about & see what it does & when you get bored with that
2. Give yourself a specific project to do - birthday card, wedding collage, design an advert for soap powder, replicate your favourite film poster and so on. This will force you into finding out how to do things -whether by referring to online help or seeking out tutorials or asking your friends. I found I was much more likely to retain information when I had to jump through hoops to find it. Doesn't matter how good or bad it looks, you're only training at this point so have fun!
3. If you are a book person, I would recommend Scott Kelby's PS guides. See Amazon & the customer reviews for yourself. His humour isn't to everyone's taste, but the knowledge and explanations are excellent. Quite often the PS techniques are only a couple of pages so they are easy to follow & he assumes you don't care how the software works, but that you just want to get certain results, and he is one of the best out there at this. You might also care to check out his book on Lightroom too.
4. If you like online tutorials and Google for a specific technique, I would suggest looking through at least 3 of the results, as I have found that some tutors make more sense to me than others!
5. Once you are up to speed with your own work, then maybe you can undertake a few projects for friends - wedding.birthday.family collage etc - and that'll really get you working. Then you can start making Blurb photo books of your 365 project and so on. The fun never stops.
6 At some point on your learning curve, someone will show you a way of doing something in PS in 2 minutes that takes you about 50 minutes. You may swear at this point. But it happens to all of us...
7. I know people who spend hours Photoshopping every pic they take, I know people who spend minutes doing the odd photo and I recently came across someone who would not show his pics to anybody until they had been PS'd. Like I said at the top, there's no right or wrong, just YOUR way of doing things...
8. And to avoid undue stress, always work on a copy of your image, never the original. Effectively, this just means making a duplicate layer in the layers palette. That way it's impossible to over write your irreplaceable original image of a UFO landing on the White House lawn where you just wanted to make that sunset a LITTLE more orangy....
9. Oh, and if you like taking panoramic pics, check out the Photomerge function, which will stitch them together for you. That's a lot of fun. I've used it quite a bit for my 365.
I also learnt how to use the bridge in photoshop this way too. Lightroom, I just played around with until I got it right!
I sat at the computer with the book open next to me and just practiced the steps until it made sense. After a while it becomes second nature.