Adobe Photoshop is the leading professional software tool for creating, editing, and manipulating digital images and photos. However, when an average user runs the program for the first time, they have absolutely no idea how to do anything! With layers of unmarked tools, and hierarchical menus several layers deep, most people are lost. Which means most people need help with Adobe Photoshop. There are many online sites that offer Photo shop tutorials, lessons, and introductions. Spending an hour or two working through some sample lessons and examples will greatly pay off in the long run. You can pick up Photoshop skills that you will use over and over.
Some tutorials you will find online offer Photoshop techiniques like:
Changing Eye Color
Remove Blemishes
Enhance Photos
Remove Objects from Photos
Remove Red Eye
Replace the Sky
Sharpen a Photo
Remove Backgrounds
Remove People out of Photos
Extracting Background
Fix crooked scans
Remove Wrinkles
Restore Old Photographs
Clean up Dust & Lint from scans
Digital Face Lift
Balance Skin Tones
Change the Depth of Field
Create a Panoramic Photo
Crop Photos
HP offers an online Advanced Adobe Photoshop course. They cover image selection and composition, color correction techniques with adjustment layers, layer masks and advanced vignettes, and complext color images. Here.
Adobe has an entire section on their website devoted to free Photoshop tutorials and tips. They provide hundreds of how to's, quick tips, and expert insights to sharpen your skills with Adobe Photoshop. Here.
PlanetPhotoshop.com has a huge section of tutorials: highlighting, sharpening images, panoramas, effects, photography, text, tools, layers, videos.
Adobe Evangelists has a big list of Photoshops tips, tricks, and tutorials in PDF format.
PS Lover.com - large selection of Photoshop basic skills and techniques, special effects, text effects, colors, and other tutorials.
Another option for learning how to use Photoshop is to check out some books at your local bookstore. You can pick up a 400 page volume for about $30, and then go through it at your leisure, covering the topics you want to learn or need assistance with. Check out Adobe Photoshop CS One on One by McClelland (includes 2 hours of video tutorials on CD). Also Adobe Photoshop CD Studio Techniques by Willmore, for intermediate to advanced Photoshop users. Topics include: palette primer, selection, layers, resolutions, line art scanning, grayscale, curves, color management, color correction, working with RAW images, channels, masking, sharpening, shadows, retouching, and much more.
How to Buy Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is an expensive program - Amazon lists it for just under $600. Adobe has had problems in the past with people distributing and downloading illegal free copies of Adobe Photoshop to avoid this huge price tag. There is a huge underground warez network for freely downloadable software like this, but of course this violates copyright laws and is illegal. So while people will try to download free copies of Photoshop, that's not something we can recommend. A better route to follow to save money on Photoshop is to look into student discount versions that are available. If you or someone you know is a student, you can usually get Photoshop at a discounted priced - about 50% off. Search for "academic software" or "student software" and you will find some retailers that cater to the education market.
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