Reptile & Amphibian Forums

feedback. It took 6 hours and a lot of determenation (it dosent look like it) one thing would go wrong after another arg!!

Photoshop is a beast ! All I can say is practice practice practice. Ive been using it for years and Im alwasy finding new stuff out. Here are some of my photoshop work...

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If that's the original file size, I'd suggest working with a larger image. It's easier to work on details that way.

Here try this site it may help you out some....
Photoshop Tutorials

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6 hours seems a bit long; not to sound mean or anything.

Are you making use of multiple layers or just trying to do everything on a single layer? Photoshop used to be all about selections and alpha channels; now it's all about the layers.

Don't be afraid of layers. As long as you keep them well lebelled so you know what is what and where any given layer is in relation to the other layers, it's quite easy to keep straight. To relabel a layer, right click on it in the "Layers Palette" and select, "properties"(I think that's it).

And as Keith said, just play around with it. My only disagreement is don't think of it as practice, 'cause practice is too much like work. PLAY, PLAY, PLAY to learn photoshop. The only part that you really might want to practice is the keyboard shortcuts. That really speeds things up, too.

A good first starting point, open up one of the sample images(preferrably one of the flat, un-layered images)and go through the filters menu one by one, undoing after each filter. Do the same thing with the "Image" menu too.

The only book that you may want to get to "learn" Photoshop is one of the Adobe "Classrom in a Book" editions. The tutorials on the internet are capable of teaching you most of the technical things you probably should know. Steer clear of things like the WOW! books. I've found them primarily good for looking pretty on a bookshelf and not much else.

If you decide you want to do some really serious work with photoshop in the future, pick up a book by Dan Margulis called "Professional Photoshop" it will also have a version number in the title, the priniciples are the same in all versions of the book, but it does sometimes help to have the copy specific to your version of Photoshop. It focuses on color correction, but is a great book for other things as well. There are some other decent books I'm sure, but between "Professional Photoshop" and the "Classroom in a Book" you should be pretty well covered. Remember that "Professional Photoshop" is an advanced book, so don't rush out and buy right away.

Have fun playing around with your new friend.