Photoshop is huge. I have been using PS since version 4 and I know only a fraction of what it can do.

Even the top 0.0001% of Photoshop gurus don't know all it can do! Really, and they admit it too.

Here's my best tip to make your life easier: Sell your Photoshop and buy Photoshop Elements 4.0 instead.

Many common tasks are easier to do in this program, and masking is so much better it's not even funny (even PS graybeards become envious when they see this).

Elements doesn't work in CMYK, but you are probably not going to do CMYK anyway (and it can import CMYK images if needed). There are of course other limitations, but overall your life will be so much easier with Elements than with the full Photoshop.

Even the top 0.0001% of Photoshop gurus don't know all it can do! Really, and they admit it too.

Even the Photoshop engineering team doesn't know all it does. Twice I've been present when people on the top tier of the team (think the names you see on the Adobe splash) have been present, and been shown by a Photoshop guru, a means of doing something that the engineers didn't realize possible.
Pshop has taken on a life and culture of its own.

pshop is an amazing product. I really wish premiere was as good. :)

moh- dreamwaver just became an adobe product. it's no harder now then it was years ago. (which is a good thing!) Front Page is a pretty crappy program. you might as well use your word processor to make webpages (dreamweaver is amazing though).

there's many other photoapps out there to chose from, many free or cheap. But, odds are if you couldn't understand pshop you're not going to get any of the others. Two right off the top of my head are The Gimp & Paint Shop Pro.

Are you serious? I was sure that the Photoshop manual covered everything.

I recommend that you take an actual training course at a local community college. It may very well be less expensive than some of those books & DVDs. Photoshop is unmatched software (sorry gIMP), so learning Photoshop and/or Photoshop Elements will be necessary to some extent, I'm afraid.

I learned on DPaint and migrated to Corel's PhotoPaint when I got my first PC. It does everything I ever want in an editor. I also have Photoshop, but can't do what I do with Photopaint with the same ease. My one son uses Photoshop and I'm constantly trying to help him achieve the same effects I can create easily in Photopaint. Besides, it's dirt cheap compared to Photoshop.....especially if you have access to student discounts at places like AcademicSuperstore.com

Go with God my son... Go with the BIBLE!

Years and years ago.. i bought a "100% Adobe Photoshop bible 5.0"
(whole series of books for diff apps - believe IDG? is the publisher)

I sat there, went through EACH page, and "played along" with the examples in the book until i got..

Haven't looked back since...

Been creating killer DVD covers, labels, menus since.

Book teachs the fundementals.. layers.. selections.. ect

I Did read a "PS WOW!" book after that and\ i would have been lost on without my bible studies- that gave a lot o example of applying what to do with the "tools" you know ..

Its pretty easy once you catch on... ya just gotta study that book and make urself the teacher.. and that means DOING the homwork assignements after each chapter.

You can get these books cheap at Half-price book outlets.
And the thing is.. they are usual older versions...

But old skool i think is where its at......... i ave adolbe 5.5 and have been just fine there.... Thinking all the NEW flashy CK blah blah next version were probably made WA Y to complicated/annoying..(had to to justify price $$ upgrade).

As softare updgrade go... you finally get a GREAT rock solid progrm that everyone loves.. then in order to make the $$upgrade sell... they whistle and bells it all up which just hoses someone trying that as FIRST experience.


See if you can get an old version.. i would say 5.5-6point to use
then get a cheap BIBLE book ... and play along!

LEARN photoshop! stick with it... practice like the book says.. you should catch on.. no need for a class.

Just HANG with it!!!
LEarn the fundemnatlas...

you can do it.!

I've been using Ulead Photoimpact for years. It does everything I've ever needed to do. Also complicated enough that I takes a while to learn how to do things.

I have wanted to get into Photoshop, but never found a way in that wasn't way more expensive than Photoimpact and never knew about anything that I really couldn't do well enough with PI. Maybe it happens, but I never saw a cheap offer for PS. I never used Photoshop, but I get the impression that on the basic stuff, the main difference from Photoimpact is in layers. Maybe finesse in selection tools too.

So Photoimpact is a pretty good younger cousin of Photoshop, I'd say. I know DSE has used it and said positive things about it sometime back.

I use Photopaint 12 and Adobe Elements 2.0 to print 13 x 19 pictures on my Epson R1800 without any special color corrections and the results are outstanding. (I can't tell the difference between ecktachrome prints the same size). Adobe Elements 2.0 came for free with my Epson scanner, one of the biggest bargains ever. The R1800
printer does a magnficant job of blowing up pictures, best I have ever seen. Quite frankly I almost fell out of the chair when I saw the results of blowing up a jpg website picture of 221k at 1080 x 770 to 13" x 19". Adobe Elements has a much easier learning curve than I expected from those people.
JJK

"Adobe Elements has a much easier learning curve than I expected from those people."

I've been using PSE2 forever. It's great. I've just never seen the need to spend $600 on Photoshop.

One thing about PhotoShop is that it has features for all different kinds of needs. One way to get a hold on it is to focus on your particular needs.

For example, if your interest is in taking pictures from your digital camera and improving them, there are some really good books along the lines of "PhotoShop for Digital Photographers." One such book is by Scott Kelby.

If your interest extends to importing digital photos into digital video, there are books for this too. Richard Harrington writes some. He also has some great DVDs for this.

But if you get one of those catch-all books that are generalized PhotoShop training, you'll feel like you are trying to eat an elephant and you can be lost. Those kind of books can serve another purpose. They can help when you want to go deeper into a subject (like making a selection, masking, layers and compositing, and so on.) You'll of course need to mix this with actually doing and experiencing.

I guess some of this kind of depends on how much of a hobby you want to turn this into. More so if it is to be a profession.