Adobe Photoshop Course - Using Online Basic Photoshop Tutorials and Videos

If you are just getting started with Photoshop, the best way to learn is with an Adobe Photoshop course that has basic Photoshop tutorials and videos. Videos are a great way to follow along with a knowledgeable Photoshop expert as they teach all of the basics of Photoshop.

When I first got started, I used a book that was published by Adobe to try and build my knowledge base. Although the book was helpful, it was limited in that sometimes it was not clear what the book was talking about, so I wasn't sure if I was learning everything correctly or not.

With online basic Photoshop tutorials and videos, though, it is much easier to learn Photoshop online, and be sure that you are learning the right way. Many of these videos are shown as if you are viewing the teacher's desktop, so it's easy to follow exactly what is going on.

The many basic Photoshop tutorials out there teach you everything you need to know to get started with Photoshop. Most of these tutorials have video as well as written steps for you to follow.

If you're looking to build your own Adobe Photoshop course by finding your own basic Photoshop tutorials and videos, you should start with lessons on the interface and tools for Photoshop. Also, try to find a few lessons on layers, which is one of the most important aspects of Photoshop. This will help you build a solid foundation for more advanced techniques later.

As you get master the basics, move on to more challenging videos. These videos will really push what you can do, but will give you the ability to create awesome Photoshop compositions. You should always be trying to learn more as you expand your personal Adobe Photoshop course.

If you're having trouble finding the right videos to start with, you might consider paying for an Adobe Photoshop course. One of the best is Photoshop by Example, which has a lot of easy to follow, step-by-step videos that will help you quickly master the basics of Photoshop.

Learning to Use Photoshop - Secrets For Learning to Use Photoshop

*Learn Photoshop with just a basic knowledge of computers
* No huge, cumbersome manual to print out or purchase
* Cut through the fluff and learn the "real stuff" quickly
* Learn faster by watching and following along
* Start using Photoshop at an expert level by tonight

For anyone interested in making money as a graphic designer, learning to use Photoshop is one of the essential skills you will need to develop. If you build web sites, learning to use Photoshop will help you save a lot of money by doing graphics yourself instead of outsourcing.

Adobe Photoshop is the acknowledged leader among graphics applications, and is the recognized standard for creating and editing images and photos on the computer. Photoshop is not just for professional graphic and web designers - even hobbyists who enjoy editing graphics and enhancing digital photographs can gain a great deal from learning to use Photoshop.

One thing to be aware of, though, is that learning to use Photoshop does have a pretty steep learning curve. Although Adobe Photoshop has a well designed and well thought-out user interface, the program sports an incredible number of features, and just getting familiar with them can take some time. New Photoshop users with previous knowledge of graphic design may not necessarily understand the terminology and the tools used for editing images within the application.

There is good news! Learning to use Photoshop does not need to be difficult or hard - many people are surprised at how quickly they are able to master the fundamentals, with the right training. Thankfully, there are many good training programs and tutorials that can really help you out while you are learning to use Photoshop. Among these resources are a number of Photoshop tutorial sites, software that teaches the basic functions of Photoshop, and a wide variety of books that teach different aspects of using the program.

The top resource for learning to use Photoshop that I've come across is PhotoshopByExample. This top-rated course helps you learn quickly by using very sharp and easy to follow videos that show every important function and aspect of learning to use Photoshop like a pro.

* Learn from the ground up - no familiarity with the software necessary to start learning to use Photoshop.
* All toolbars, buttons, menus, and settings are explained in a simple, easy-to-understand way so you won't be confused about what something is used for.
* These videos were made to be fun and interactive! The Photoshop instructors in the videos are enthusiastic and make learning to use Photoshop exciting - you can tell they know what they're doing with each step. They take lots of time to introduce practical examples of why certain techniques and tools are chosen over others - real world applications that many other courses totally skip!
* Where there are small differences between PC and Mac, everything about learning to use Photoshop is explained clearly for both systems. There is no longer any good reason for putting off your decision to start learning to use Photoshop!

Learning Photoshop for Photographers

Professional photographers can have an Adobe Photoshop product and Photoshop tutorials made just for them.

The product is called Photoshop for Photographers. Tutorials for this Photoshop version are readily found online for under $100. Let's take a look at what you can learn with these Photoshop photography tutorials for Adobe.

By visiting this vendor's site you can peruse an online demo of the first three chapters of the Photoshop Photographers tutorials before buying the entire CD/DVD package.

The introductory CD includes a basic introduction to the uses of Photoshop for Photographers, as well as the best way to use the tutorials to teach you Photoshop.

You'll watch an introductory demo, and then learn how to customize your own Photoshop workspace.

You'll learn to take advantage of essential Adobe Photoshop shortcuts, including keyboard shortcuts.

You'll watch a demo about the elements of taking snapshots with your Photoshop program. You'll learn about presets for your Photoshop tools as well.

The second CD contains CDs that cover the basics of contact sheets and file browsers. You learn file browser basic, and how to export your chase, and alter your metadata. You'll be taught how to rename your batch, assign keywords, create your own contact sheet, and your Photoshop picture package.

The next of the Photoshop tutorials focuses on brushes and styles of fonts. You'll learn about Adobe brush palettes, how to be more creative with your brushes and how to create your own style using Photoshop.

All of the above is part of the free online demo, the starter package for Photoshop tutorials. Masking is the next part of the CD/DVD package. Here you'll learn simple masking techniques and quick masking.

Next is the Photoshop technique of selecting and creating patterns. The Photoshop tutorials will teach you as well how to take people out of your shots, how to change your photo backgrounds, how to use the extracting filer and how to create the backgrounds of your choice. You'll learn to master the blending modes of Photoshop as well as its adjustment layers, and adjustment for curves, for levels, and for saturation and hues.

Color sharpening and correction is the next of the Photoshop tutorials for photographers. On this CD you'll tackle improvements to the default settings for your auto color, and corrections of curves and levels color. You'll be able to remove a red face after these Photoshop tutorials, and will know how to sharpen, burn and dodge.

With these Photoshop tutorials you'll be able to convert your color photos to black and white, mix your color channels, and calculate your lab color and channels. The tutorials will teach you about using your photoshop camera RAW, and converting your digital negative. You'll learn basic and advanced RAW for Photoshop, expediting its workflow and its batch processing.

A Great Way To Learn How To Use Photoshop

If you are on a mission to discover a way to learn how to use Photoshop, then the easiest way to start off is as simple as studying the interface and a few of the most elementary Adobe Photoshop tools. It might also help to seek information with regard to how to use layers, that will help you build a solid foundation for more complex skills that you will have to learn later.

In case you already have some experience with using Adobe Photoshop and need to make use of Photoshop to create your own Photoshop portfolio to make an extra income, an excellent way to reach advanced levels quickly will be by following online Photoshop classes allowing you to access both basic and leading-edge Photoshop lessons with training videos.

Videos are a great way to educate yourself as you follow a trained Photoshop teacher as they uncover all of the basics of Adobe Photoshop and working at your own personal speed. With video tutorials you can study how to use Photoshop by rewinding, omitting and researching whatever you do not understand. Also, Photoshop tutorials are invariably readily available by simply logging in, so you can learn at any time you chose.

In case you are intent on discovering what Adobe Photoshop can do for you, you need to educate yourself on the most important tools to start using in Photoshop similar to;-

1. Vanishing point - enables you to very easily clone, paint as well as transform using tools that instantly adjust to the visual view of ones images. This one thing will cut hours off accuracy design as well as photo retouching steps.

2. Image warp - fold, stretch, pull, distort and wrap any graphic into condition, just as easily as clicking on a button or dragging custom control points. This tool enables you to make product or merchandising images and other creations that exist only within your imagination.

Just what exactly will be the true benefits if you discover ways to use Photoshop?

1. Enhance your design skills and seriously find out how Adobe Photoshop can add some real beauty to your digital photos

2. Learn a completely new as well as possibly very rewarding job skill since being able to utilize Photoshop is something press based companies are desperate to find on today's CVs

3. Improve the overall appearance and feel of your web site using Photoshop because your banners and ads will quickly look a lot more cooler as compared to your rivals.

Bottom line:- So what exactly is the easiest way to learn how to use Photoshop?

Well Photoshop lessons for newbies available on the web provide the utmost options for people to take full advantage of their Photoshop program and their Photoshop skills. Simply by watching these instructional video tutorials, it is possible to get a lot more productive and artistic in your efforts using the Adobe Photoshop program. You'll be on your way to mastering Adobe Photoshop while you follow step-by-step video tutorials that truly make it straightforward to understand how to use Adobe Photoshop quickly.

If you're concerned with having to pay on the internet, then you're going to be very happy to know that additionally, there are sample Adobe Photoshop lessons which you can get for free, which will reveal to you the general quality of the actual video tutorials available. And most significant of all, ahead of purchasing any Adobe Photoshop instructional videos, make sure there is a money-back guarantee included, and that you can be sent a free back up CD of the actual Photoshop video tutorials, in case you have any kind of troubles to access them online, or downloading them, that can often be the case.

Learning Photoshop - Painting With Photoshop

Both painting and erasing are simple with Photoshop. The painting tools in Photoshop are a fundamental part of just about anything you can do with this program. Not only can you paint in color, you can also make selections, create transparency and much, much more. Let's take a look at just a few of the more widely used tools in Photoshop such as the pencil, line, paintbrush, airbrush, eraser, paint bucket, and gradient tools, their functions, and their differences.

You can't paint without a brush. Photoshop 5, finds brushes in a floating palette, while Photoshop 6, the brushes palette are attached to the option bar as a drop-down menu. Many brushes are available from the standard to additional ones from the Photoshop CD. The shape, hardness, and spacing of the round brushes can be tailored, and you can also create your own custom brushes from any option that allow you to adjust sizing.

The brushes palette menu allows you to reset, save and load brushes. What are some basic brush palette functions? Photoshop 5: If you want to make a new brush without changing an existing brush, choose New Brush from the palette flyout menu. Double clicking on a brush permits you to modify the diameter, hardness, spacing, angle, and roundness while it changes that brush in your brushes palette. To rotate through the brushes in the palette while painting, use the bracket keys [ and ] to cycle through the brushes in your palette. Holding the shift key down while pressing the bracket keys will take you to the first or last brush in the palette.

Photoshop 6: When you make adjustments to a brush you can click the preset button to add it to the brushes palette. You can also choose New Brush from the palette flyout menu to make a new custom brush. Clicking on the brush preview in the options bar allows you to change the diameter, hardness, spacing, angle, and roundness. To adjust the brush size on-the-fly while painting, use the bracket keys [ and ]. Holding the shift key down while pressing the bracket keys will adjust the hardness of the brush. Try out the brush options and experiment with them for feel. You can return to the default brushes at any time by choosing reset brushes from the brush palette menu.

Now let's add that color. The most frequently used tools are the paintbrush and the airbrush. Paintbrush is most likely the tool you will be using for most projects. The shortcut key is B. The Paintbrush tool applies color to your project much in the way a conventional paintbrush would paint on paper or canvas. Other options in paintbrush include wet edges that applies paint more in the manner of watercolor paint or markers, a fade option in the options palette that can fade the opacity only in Photoshop 5.x, but can also fade the size and color of brush strokes in version 6 and a paintbrush options palette (Version 5.x) and brush dynamic menu (Version 6.0) are where you would go to make changes to the way Photoshop reacts to stylus pressure if you do not have a pressure sensitive tablet (if you do, you'll want to use your tablet's pressure sensitivity to achieve fading). The airbrush tool works more like a traditional airbrush or spray paint. Its shortcut key is J.

The airbrush puts paint on a bit lighter than the paintbrush tool, but when you hold your mouse button down without moving the cursor, the paint builds up just like it would if you were to hold the nozzle down on a can of spray paint. Instead of adjusting the opacity for the airbrush tool, you set the pressure. The higher the pressure is set, the thicker your paint will go on. The airbrush is particularly useful for painting delicate shading and highlights.

There are tools available more designed for drawing. The line tool is used to create straight lines and arrows. In Photoshop 5, the line tool short cut is N and the toolbox location is shared with the Pencil tool. The line width and arrowhead locations can be adjusted through the options palette in Photoshop 5.x. In Photoshop 6, the line tool is shared with the Shapes tool. In the options bar, you can decide whether to create the line as a shape layer, a path, or a filled region. The pencil tool allows you to apply paint color that always has a hard edge (like drawing in color). The shortcut key for the pencil tool is N in Photoshop 5.x. In Photoshop 6, the tool is shared with the Paintbrush and the shortcut key is B. Shift B toggles between the Paintbrush and Pencil tool.

You can cut corners and fill areas with color at a time. The Paint Bucket is the easiest of these painting tools, used to fill areas with solid color or patterns and works by filling with color based on color likeness chosen by the tolerance setting. The paint bucket has a blending mode menu and opacity control, just like the layers palette, allowing you to change the way the paint blends with the pixels you are painting on the same layer. The Gradient tool allows you to apply graduated color fills that blend from one color to another. Gradients are not just limited to two-colors. You can generate custom gradients using several colors and variable levels of transparency for unlimited effects.

The Gradient tool shortcut is G. In Photoshop 5.x, Shift G toggles the five types of gradient fill types. In Photoshop 6, the gradient fill type is selected from the option bar and Shift G toggles between the gradient and paint bucket tools. There are five types of gradients: Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected, and Diamond. The transparency checkbox enables gradients with transparency; otherwise the transparent areas are filled with the neighboring color. Reverse flips the order of colors in the gradient. You can also use patterns as paint and fills in Photoshop.

In version 5, you need to define a pattern every time you want to use a different one. Defining a pattern is simple, just make a choice and choose Edit > Define Pattern. Anytime a pattern is defined, the tools and commands that required a pattern fill will show that option. When you want to use a different pattern, just select it and choose the define pattern command again. In Photoshop 6, pattern fills are selected from a menu of patterns in the options bar. To add a new patterns you just open the image and choose Edit > Define Pattern. Patterns can be used as fills with the paint bucket and the Edit > Fill command. You can also paint with patterns using the Pattern Stamp tool. This tool shares the toolbox with the rubber stamp tool. The pattern stamp works like a paintbrush, but instead of solid color paint, it paints with the presently chosen pattern. The aligned check box causes your pattern to line up even if you stop one brushstroke and start a new one. When aligned is unchecked, the starting point of the pattern is reset each time you make a new stroke.

Of course we make mistakes, so let's know how to fix them. The eraser tool shortcut is E. The standard eraser tool has four painting modes to choose from: paintbrush, airbrush, pencil, and block. The eraser tool paints in transparency, unless your layer is a background, in which case, the eraser tool paints with the current background color.

The eraser tool options are basically the same as the painting tools, with the addition of one new option: Erase to history. When you erase to history, it works just like the history brush. The Magic Eraser works just like the magic wand, but instead of making a selection, it immediately converts the pixels to transparent. The areas to be erased are controlled by adjusting the tolerance and contiguous options. Clicking once erases all the pixels that fall within the tolerance range. If the magic eraser is used on a background layer, the background is involuntarily promoted to a layer. This tool is best for when you have a background that is mostly one color. One click with the magic eraser and the background is gone.

The background eraser also erases to transparency, but instead of using only the tolerance range, it continuously samples the background colors in your document as you erase. It's useful for backgrounds that have a range of colors in the background, but where the background colors are still different from the foreground object you want to isolate. It works best with a moderately large brush. The most important thing to remember with this tool is to be careful to keep the crosshairs away from the object you want to keep. When using this tool, you may notice some bits of the foreground object becoming slightly transparent along the edges. You needn't be terribly concerned with this, because you can always paint those bits back in using the Erase to History option or the History Brush.

There are a few tricks and tips in Photoshop. Photoshop is set to show the painting cursors at the actual brush size. This setting can be changed through your Preferences (under the Edit menu in Photoshop 6; the File menu in Photoshop 5 and earlier.) In most cases you'll want to leave it set to brush size. You can toggle to exact cursors without going through the preferences dialog by locking the caps lock key. Anytime you have a painting tool active, you can press the Alt/Option key to temporarily change to the Eyedropper and pick up a new foreground color from anywhere in the document. You can adjust the pressure of the airbrush tool or the opacity of the other painting tools by pressing the numeric keys on your keyboard instead of going to options.

While a painting tool is active you can cycle through the blend modes using Shift -(minus) and Shift (plus). These shortcut keys also rotate through the layer blend modes when non-painting tools are active All the painting tools have the capacity to be faded using the Fade command. In Photoshop 5.x, this command is under the Filter menu. In Photoshop 6.x, it was moved to the Edit menu. After using any paint stroke, fill, or filter, you can select this command to fade it back so it blends with the original pixels. You can also use it to apply a blend mode if you forgot to set the blend mode before applying paint. Now with a little practice, you'll master Photoshop in no time.

Photoshop Can Be Easy to Learn - Start Today

If you are a beginner at digital photography and want to learn how to manipulate your images, I recommend you learn Photoshop. Now, there are plenty of inexpensive Photoshop clone programs available for download, but that's not what you should be learning. If you are serious about digital photography on any level, you should be learning Photoshop.

It is the industry standard and one of the most powerful image editing applications known to the industry. Aside from just editing digital photos, Photoshop can be used to create logos, design affiliate websites, design eBook covers, design CD covers, convert photos into paintings and much much more. If you are not sure about spending $800 on Photoshop, keep reading this article, you might change your mind.

Back in December of 1982, Adobe Systems Inc. was founded, but probably had no idea of how quickly Photoshop would become such a popular application. Finally in 1989 when Adobe Photoshop was launched on the Macintosh, the beginning of a whole new generation of photography was born. Photoshop has come a long way since version 1.0, and is still being developed and improved every year. It seems that when Photoshop has reached it's perfection, yet another version is released.

Some of the world's best photographers and digital artists use Photoshop for every master piece they create. Some artists have used Photoshop to make a living, creating stunning pieces of art and selling them for thousands of dollars. Now, you don't have to be an artistic genius to make money with Photoshop. The good news is, you can use Photoshop for some of the most basic digital edits and still generate money. It's just a matter of being creative. If you are a Photographer like me, it is essential to use Photoshop.

Without Photoshop, you'd never be able to fix an imperfect smile, or correct bad lighting, or swap out heads in a photo. (my favorite thing). Seriously, you can do that! Once I was shooting some infant photos and I had shot several dozen photos of infant twins. I could never get both of them to look perfect at the same moment, so I just got their best expressions from all the photos I shot and then merged them into one photo to make the perfect shot.

Adobe has drastically improved the features and usability in Photoshop over the years, but for a complete beginner, it can seem overwhelming. So how do you learn Photoshop? Well, there are dozens of ways to tackle the application, but there is only one way to truly learn anything. Patience and time are the two key elements. Unfortunately, there is no magic method to learning Photoshop, so it will take time. You can't just plug information into your brain, it's not that simple.

To really learn Photoshop, you need a step-by-step video course that will help you every step of the way. Similar to learning in a classroom environment, you'll need an instructor to walk you through the most essential features. Without knowing the most essential features, it's like walking through the dessert with no water and no shelter. You will be lost and completely hopeless. After some time, you will probably give up and quit. Photoshop is not hard to learn, but you will need instruction and video seems to be the method of choice when it comes to learning Photoshop.

The main thing to realize is that you CAN learn Photoshop It is not so difficult once you learn the basics. Without the basics, you'll be searching the internet for ever trying to find the perfect tutorial. YouTube and the video sharing sites are loaded with Photoshop tutorials. Yes, I agree, there are some fabulous tutorials out there, but they are just tidbits of information.

You can watch tutorials all day long and learn small bits of Photoshop, but you'll still be frustrated at the end of the day because you still don't know where half of the tools and functions are. Doing tutorials are great for experienced users or others who just want to freshen up their skills. To become a Photoshop Master, you must first learn the basics; such as the menus, tools, layer styles, layer adjustments, filters, adobe bridge and more. Without the basic understanding, you'll only continue to get frustrated. Once you learn everything you need to know about the basics, then you can start watching more free video tutorials. This will help you expand your ability to apply amazing effects and begin to compete with the Pros.

As mentioned previously Digital Photography Pros use Photoshop, as well as many other programs, but Photoshop is always the program of choice. If you want to make money with your photos, design beautiful websites and graphics, or create stunning artwork, Photoshop should be your #1 program of choice.

With patience and good step-by-step instruction, you will learn the application quickly. If you are interested in learning Photoshop, we recommend you start with a Photoshop CS3 Tutorial.

Become a Photoshop Expert in 10 Steps

After working with Photoshop since version 4 in 1999, I realize that nobody really knows every thing that Photoshop can do. This makes it a great toy and tool, because there's always something new to discover. But you can learn most of it and keep learning. I recommend the following habits if you want to become a Photoshop Expert.

For this article, I'm defining expertise as being able to:

imitate something from real life (e.g. how shadows and light really work, how glass and water bend light).
guess with reasonable accuracy how a particular effect was created by someone else in Photoshop.
troubleshoot your own errors as well as someone else's.
manipulate pixels non-destructively.
work efficiently through the proper use of shortcuts, panels, actions, and tools.
know how and when to use most of the features in Photoshop.
Here are the 10 things I recommend you do if you want to be a Photoshop expert.

#1: Own the latest version of Photoshop
It's pretty hard to really experiment with Photoshop if you don't have your own copy at home. Having the latest version is important too. Particularly with the last two versions, CS3 and CS4, new features are added all the time. These features usually either make your job easier (like the Adjustments panel), or give you tools that didn't even exist in prior versions (like some of CS4's 3D capabilities).

I do recommend you purchase your own copy. Please don't used pirated stuff. If you are a teacher or student who is not using Photoshop for commercial purposes, you are allowed by Adobe to purchase the educational version at about half-price. It is as fully-featured as the non-educational version. You can usually buy this version at college book stores, or online at sites such as creationengine.com.

You are allowed to run your Photoshop software on two machines. I have one copy on my desktop PC and one on my laptop for travel.

#2: Play and Make Mistakes
Experimentation and play is the key to learning something beyond the basics. Try out all kinds of tools and filters, and see what they do with different settings. You can't really ruin Photoshop. And if you do, you can reset all the defaults by closing Photoshop, then pressing and holding the Shift+Ctrl+Alt keys (Mac: Shift+Cmd+Opt) while Photoshop restarts.

Take a bunch of photos from your camera (or online) and throw them together. See how blend modes change an overall image as layers are moved around. Try all of the layer adjustments, and every filter combined with another filter. Don't worry if it's ugly. You're learning. And there's always the History panel to allow you to back up several steps and try something else.

#3: Take a Class
To be honest, I had an awful Photoshop teacher. He did little beyond schedule what we were supposed to complete in the textbook. I stopped going at one point. I had learned how not to teach, and four years later I was teaching Photoshop. What a good teacher can do is give you assignments you never dreamed you could do (and enjoy!) More importantly, a good instructor can give you personal guidance when you don't even realize you made a mistake, or there's a typo in the textbook, or you accidentally skipped something, and something goes wrong.

Finally, a good instructor will give you projects to do that give you real-world scenarios and specifications. This prepares you for making real money with Photoshop.

#4: Go to Seminars
Kelby Training provides absolutely fantastic seminars all over the United States. I have had teachers such as the amazing Bert Monroy and Dave Cross. These seminars have increased my creativity and efficiency in Photoshop beyond belief. The day-long seminar is always fun and very inspiring. Go to one of these seminars if you can, or find something comparable in your area.

#5: Read Photoshop Magazines
Photoshop User Magazine from NAPP is the undisputed master when it comes to American Photoshop publications. You can find it for $10 at book stores, or you get an automatic subscription when you become a NAPP member. You will need that NAPP membership to access the tutorial files online. Each issue has a bunch of tutorials at all levels, plus reviews of products and news about the industry. The magazine caters to photographers, designers and hobbyists alike.

Layers Magazine is great too, but does not cater just to Photoshop users. It addresses almost all of the Adobe design products. It only has a couple of Photoshop tutorials per issue. If you work with Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, and Dreamweaver as well, this mag's for you.

I also like to buy those really expensive ($15) imports from the U.K., such as Advanced Photoshop and Photoshop Creative. These can be found at book stores too. Unlike Photoshop User, they include a CD-Rom with every issue that provides all the resources for the tutorials, plus brushes, textures, and the like. These magazines sound like an awfully big expense at first, but they are so worth it. The tutorials are always very well done, and gorgeous to boot.

#6: Read Photoshop Books
Some Photoshop books out there are not so great, but most of them are really top-drawer. When considering a Photoshop book for purchase, look for three things:

Are the images really beautiful or interesting? I have a book here I taught from before I really evaluated the images. They are bordering on ugly. Find a book that makes you feel like you can't wait to create those images.
Is the book written to your level? It can be really frustrating if the instructions are too easy or too hard for your experience level.
Does the book match your learning style? Some books use blocks of text and others make each step into a bullet point. Some have more step-by-step images than others. Decide what works best for you and look for books written that way.
I do have three specific book recommendations. Each of the books below contains wonderful tutorials, and is written very well.

"Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature" by Matt Kloskowski
"Photoshop Fine Art Effects Cookbook: 62 Easy-to-Follow Recipes for Creating the Classic Styles of Great Artists and Photographers" by John Beardsworth
"Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One" by Deke McClelland

#7: Do Online Tutorials
I love doing online tutorials. Some good places to find Photoshop tutorials are psd.tutsplus.com, good-tutorials.com, and tutorialized.com. If you work with online tutorials enough, you find some favorite writers. Look for tutorials writers who provide enough images, proofread their work, and don't leave steps out. You should be able to create a result that looks much like the one promised by following exactly what they have written. As with books, look for tutorials written to your skill level. But push yourself to do more challenging stuff than you're used to.

#8: Be a Community Member
This can take many forms. Sometimes I like to check out online Photoshop forums and see if anybody needs a question answered. I often find cool ideas for myself as well. I also hang out on Twitter, and follow a large number of fellow graphic and Web designers. They are always feeding me new links to incredible online resources. I have RSS feeds I read from my favorite design blogs, and I comment on all of the articles that move me. I read everything by smashingmagazine.com and minervity.com.

There are design communities in the offline world too, of course. I am a member of the local group called ADAC. When I had more time a few years ago, I was even a board member. Real-world design clubs are a great opportunity to learn all about design in addition to some of the business aspects of freelancing (ADAC once had a great talk from an intellectual property attorney about copyright law for artists.) More importantly, you can come away inspired with fresh ideas by looking at the works of others.

#9: Learn Other Adobe Programs Too
Photoshop rarely works in a vacuum for most designers. There are many times when a Photoshop project is enhanced by the contributions of artwork done in Illustrator, for example.

Learn how to save your work for the press using Acrobat. Learn how to create vector artwork in Illustrator and import the paths into Photoshop. Learn how to place your Photoshop files into InDesign. Learn how various Photoshop plugins can expand your design horizons or make your work easier. These are but a few examples. A thorough understanding of Photoshop must include an understanding of how well it plays with others.

#10: Teach Photoshop
I wasn't a Photoshop expert when I started teaching Photoshop. I am now, thanks in part to having taught it. Teaching Photoshop helped me develop my expertise in ways that no other experience can. When you have to communicate how to do something to someone else, you come to understand it in a way that sets it in concrete in your brain.

I often get my students to find something new to learn, and then have them turn around and teach it to another student. And when both students make mistakes during this teaching process, they both learn more. Writing tutorials - and finding out if someone can follow them - takes this concept step further.

How to Use Free Photoshop Video Tutorials to Master Photoshop Quickly and Easily

Free Photoshop video tutorials are a great way to learn how to use the Photoshop program. They say that if you listen you forget, if you see you remember and if you do you understand. Well, by listening and watching video tutorials about Photoshop, and following along in your own program, you are doing all three together.

By watching an expert operate the Photoshop program you have the best chance of learning, and also remembering and understanding what you have learnt than by any other learning method.

And Photoshop video tutorials are nothing else but movies of the expert operating the Photoshop program. You are effectively 'looking over the shoulder' of the expert and watching every click of his mouse.

You can read instructions, manuals, books by other authors, and Internet websites about Photoshop. But to learn quickly and clearly nothing beats learning from Photoshop video tutorials.

With Photoshop video tutorials, you can see how buttons, collages or even paintings and indeed complete websites - yes websites - are created. Instead of laboriously reading through books describing what needs to be selected, activated and clicked, you can simply imitate the mouse movement and clicks performed in the video knowing that you are actually doing exactly the right thing.

The learning curve is easier to climb and the results are easier to compare.

Not only that, you can watch how it is done from the very beginning to the very end and sometimes you can even have explained why it is done in that particular way.

Sean Dodge wrote on his blog and article called "5 Important Criteria that Make a Great Photoshop Tutorial". But Sean is writing about screenshot-and-text step-by-step tutorials, not video tutorials. In fact, I haven't yet found an article discussing the format of Photoshop video tutorials.

Did you ever make a Photoshop mock-up of a website design before getting down and dirty with the code? Then consider the the SiteGrinder program.

Basically, the SiteGrinder program turns Photoshop into an easy-to-use and fully functional web design tool. With SiteGrinder, designers will now have the freedom to totally let their creativity loose and then, without skipping a beat, transfer their designs to the web.

SiteGrinder lets you design web pages with dynamic text, e.g. served from a database and 'poured' into a web page containing code. Examples are weblogs and Content Management Systems content. It is hard to believe that a Photoshop plug-in should be capable of doing so, but it can be done and quite easily.

There is a collection of free video tutorials showing the proper use of various SiteGrinder techniques to build web pages from Photoshop documents.

There is no way that the same information could be imparted so effectively except through the medium of video tutorials.

A PSDTUTS tutorial from Fabio shows how your can recreate a realistic-looking watercolor effect with Photoshop brushes. Fabio demonstrates how the hair can be re-made with the popular watercolor brushes from Bittbox. This tutorial is static screenshots and written text. I think it would be much more interesting and beneficial if it had been a Photoshop video tutorial instead.

Another Photoshop tutorial from Fabio shows how to "Create a Spectacular Flaming Meteor Effect on Text". But again, it is a screenshot and text tutorial not a Photoshop video tutorial.

With Photoshop Video Tutorials you can learn how to get more consistent color with the videos on color management as it relates to Photoshop. Resources include detailed information on color calibration, using ICC profiles, and how to get consistent color results from Photoshop.

This means that you can prerecord actions or processes in Photoshop that you can then save and turn into a button that you can then simply click and Photoshop will do the whole action for you. It's mainly used as a timesaving device and saves the hassle of doing menial work like basic Photography fixing or cleaning your scans so you don't have to do it over and over again because you can just click a button you created.

The procedure to do this is explained in the Photoshop video tutorials.

If you execute a huge zoom you can make Photoshop pause a moment while it figures out what to draw. Photoshop CS4 has none of this: zooming in from 3% to 1600% is so fast and smooth it's like you're falling into the image.

The File Browser was introduced as a major update to Photoshop 7 and was later improved in Photoshop CS. When a directory is viewed for the first time, the File Browser or Bridge will build a cache of the image previews.

Plugins can be opened from within Photoshop and act like mini-editors that modify the image.

As to storing your Photoshop images, RAID 0 is very useful for temporary data such as page files and Photoshop scratch disk placement. It is not recommended for files you need to keep.

There are many websites about various aspects of Photoshop, but to find them all and to learn what is on each one can be very time consuming. Luckily there is one website that has done a lot of the searching for you. That particular website hosts hundreds of Photoshop video tutorials and they are all free to watch.

The tutorials have been pre-selected for their relevance and quality by the website owner and arranged in logical groups depending upon the subject covered so that it is easy for the user to quickly find the best Photoshop video tutorial that answers his questions.