With So Many Photoshop Tutorials Available, What Will Work Best for You?
Knowing how to use Photoshop effectively is extremely valuable. Whether you are an amateur photographer taking pictures of your children or pets, or a professional advertising designer creating international campaigns, Photoshop has the tools you need to make your images perfect.
Learning Photoshop can be a great experience, if you find the right Photoshop Tutorial. With millions to choose from, how do you know which will work for your individual situation?
There are a few general categories Photoshop Tutorials fall into; classroom instruction, online learning, and books. Just about every one of the 10 million plus Google hits will point you toward a product in one of these categories. What works best is different for each person because we all learn differently. Here are a few things to consider for each category.
Classroom Instruction:
Hands-on training from an Adobe Certified instructor in a class room setting will get you on your way to becoming a Photoshop master in no time. These courses are offered in schools and community centers around the world and accommodate a variety of experience levels. You can find information about where and when these courses take place on Adobe’s website.
Most courses are a combination of text-book and hands-on instruction that includes assignments and tests to help track individual progress. Classroom instruction works best for people who learn better in a structured environment, or people who tend to have a lot of questions.
A downside to classroom instruction is that you may have to wait several weeks for the next class to start and it may be quite expensive. Students will also have to find extra time to attend class, which may not be a possibility in this chaos we call life.
If classroom instruction doesn’t sound appealing or you just can’t possibly find the time to squeeze something else into your schedule, consider the next three “work at your own pace” options.
Online Learning:
Online learning is great because it allows you to work at your own pace from the comfort of your home. Just remember, you can’t learn Photoshop in a couple of hours and any website that claims otherwise isn’t worth your time.
If you want to get straight to the best site for online learning, look at lynda.com. This site covers everything from basic fundaments to advanced animation techniques. lynda.com is always up to date and offers several courses in Photoshop CS4. You can also learn any version back to Photoshop 6. The site even has tutorials for Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, and Photoshop Express.
lynda.com is a subscription site which means you have to pay-to-play. The fee is about $25/month for a standard subscription. Another benefit to this subscription is it includes all of the nearly 600 courses available at lynda.com, including products in the Microsoft Office Suite.
Don’t forget to also look at free online Photoshop tutorials. For instance, Good Tutorials.com offers a selection of topics ranging from fundamentals to web layouts and animation. It doesn’t cover as much as lynda.com, but it is a good all around tool for learning Photoshop and it’s free. Also, if you can handle PG-13 language and want a spicier Photoshop Tutorial, check out You Suck at Photoshop. 
Free online Photoshop Tutorials are generally best for people who already have a good understanding of Photoshop fundamentals. Once you learn the basics, free online tutorials can teach you the really cool stuff.
Books:
If you learn best by reading and following instructions, you will be happy to know there are thousands of Photoshop books to choose from.
The “Classroom in a Book” series is one of the best and it includes a CD with project files to work with as you complete each lesson.
Also, check out Deke McClelland’s “Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One.” Coincidentally, Deke is the instructor for many online Photoshop Tutorial videos found at lynda.com.
Congratulations, you made the decision to learn Photoshop. Now get busy. You’re friends and co-workers are waiting to be impressed when you show them how a photo can be greatly improved by simply blurring the facial pigments, or how you can create an artistic representation of a photo by applying a mask.
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