I've bought a few different books but most were to text booky for me. I need a good basic tutorial for photoshop, I don't know ANYTHING other then auto correct, resizing, etc. I'd love to learn and have even thought about taking a live class that the local samy's camera puts on. Any tips?

 

you'd have to get more specific in what you want to accomplish.
ps is damn near open-ended so you'd probably get better answers
if you said something like "i want to do vectors with the pen tool or i want
the simplest way to do nondestructive masks or blah blah blah."

one thing i can tell you right off the bat....learn and love key shortcuts.

 

I want to be able to change coloring in photo's, to liven them up make them look more crips, turn color into B&W, etc


what are key shortcuts?

 

Check out www.good-tutorials.com to get started.

I also have a bunch of actions that I've made myself to save time. I can send them to you if you PM me your email addy.

 

I just played around with it until i figured out what everything does...took me a while but that's how i learn..not with tutorials. after you get the basic functionality and concepts down (i.e. learning layering concepts are pretty key) it's really up to your own creativity to figure out how to effectively use it...so many hacks/tricks its unreal. you can never know it all.

Oh..and never underestimate photoshop help...good stuff in there.

 

I'll recommend a book -

Photoshop CS2 for Photographers

I've found it to be very worthwhile for various photo retouching jobs.

Mike

 

Now I recently got this Enhancing digital photography with Photoshop CS2 I am not sure how good it is because I haven't opened it yet but if anything maybe you can get one too.

Enhancing Digital Photography with Photoshop CS2
with: Chris Orwig http://www.chrisorwig.com/
Running Time: 14.5 hours

Price: 149.95

 

I have this book by Martin Evening and it's not bad. To me, however, it seems like the book's target audienceis people that are already well versed in film photography and want to know how to apply their current skills in the digital world.

The book I would probably recommend first is:
The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers
by Scott Kelby
ISBN: 0321330625
Linky to Amazon

It does not try to teach you Photoshop. What is does do is present several dozen tasks you likely want to do with Photoshop and then walk you through how to do them in a step-by-step fashion.

 

I'd probably sign up for a class in Digital Photography/Photoshop at a local college, other institution, or even camera shop. IMO, it'll be much more beneficial to have someone run through the different steps with you in-person, and it would be great to have a live person there to answer any questions. You can't beat hands-on training. Also, they'd be able to provide tips on *both* photography itself, and photoshop......You'd be able to learn more about the art of photography, taking good shots, your camera, and post-processing.

 

So I assume I now need CS2?

 

that sounds like what I need, thanks

 

I'd love to, but none of the local ones offer them. They offer standard film classes where you spend time learning in dark rooms, etc.

 

I've learned some stuff on Phi's site. Go to the bottom of the page to the Video Tutorials.

http://www.phidong.com/photoblog.php

 

And while we're on the topic don't forget:

http://www.photoshopkillertips.com/

Not really a "tutorial" site per se but still incredibly useful. It's produced by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals so it's about as "authoritative" as you can get outside of Adobe.

 

I just killed an afternoon on that site... Good stuff!

 

man the world shrinks in half with the internet.
i know phi d from a photography forum.
i think i even bought some stuff off him awhile back.
is he a az member too?

 

I know him as 48 (previously phidong) on another forum. pdp= Phi Dong Photography... your not him are you?

 

You might be able to find an older edition that matches your version of Photoshop.

Mike

 

Thanks for all the help guys Needed excuse to get away from playing online poker

 

Desaturate (turn black and white): ctrl+shift+u
To mess with the colors- go to image > adjustments > curves, levels, hue/saturation, etc
To sharpen an image and make it more crisp- try going to filter > sharpen > unsharpen mask and mess around with those settings

www.photoshoplabs.com is a good site for some tutorials as well as www.dpchallenge.com.

 

here are a few i use...


http://fotofects.com/categories/Tuto...ffects/?Page=3

http://tutorialoutpost.com/