Here is a series of lessons for those of you wanting to learn how to use Photoshop. There are thousands of Photoshop books and Tutorials available, so why have another one?
Simple, the difference is that this is the way I would have liked to have a Photoshop tutorial to work through …
Because I have never come across a book which taught Photoshop the way I would like to be taught.
Everything you read from me in this section is original. I have written every word – no plagiarism – no copy and paste – unless I have made explicit accreditation.
You will, however, find a copy of this series on the BusinessMasters website.
The ideas and concepts are of course not original – I doubt if there is anything in Photoshop that has not been written about somewhere by someone.
This course will never be complete – but I will try and approach it as if you, the reader, were a student who starts off knowing nothing about Photoshop and is interested to come along for the ride for as far as it goes. It will be built on an ever increasingly challenging basis and each article will assume that you have read and “sort of” understood what has been done before.
I will try to include both a bit of theory and a bit of practical in each post.
I will try and write this text so it is valid for most versions of Photoshop, so sometimes you will have to use your intelligence if you see something different on your screen to what I am talking about – i.e., I will be intentionally vague sometimes. Too much descriptive precision can actually be counter productive.
I use PC’s for my graphic work, not Mac’s. The reason is not because the Mac is inferior (far from it), it is just that the particular CAD and 3D programs that I work with every day are not well supported on the Mac. Photoshop, however works almost identically on either platform, so this course will be perfectly usable for Mac users as well. (Just remember, if I mention a particular keystroke combination using the CTRL key, Mac users use CMD #; If I mention the ALT key, Mac users use OPTION. )
Why Photoshop?
The first subject to look at is why we want to use Photoshop at all.
At first glance there are many arguments NOT to use Photoshop:
- I’m don’t like to waste money – Photoshop is expensive. (See below: This part is controversial)
- I haven’t got the time – Photoshop is complicated.
- I have an image editing program – it came with my camera software.
- I can buy a cheap image editing program that will fix up my pictures just fine.
- I can download a perfectly good freeware program like Irfanview .
So why is Photoshop so popular and widely used?
Simple – it got momentum early on – Photoshop is 21 years old this month. (Version 1 was released in February 1990). Once enough people started using it, new users could find help and training on Photoshop because it was widely known; more users started writing about it; more documentation became available and the program became a juggernaut.
It is now an industry standard which has so much support and documentation that it’s position is almost unassailable.
Really?
There are lots of image manipulation programs that can do just about everything that Photoshop can – cheaper and (arguably) easier. BUT PHOTOSHOP IS THE STANDARD.
There is an old saying – don’t re-invent the wheel. In the case of Photoshop, other programs may doubtless be good, but they just aren’t Photoshop.
Life is short and we all have very limited time. That’s no justification for wasting a second, learning any other image editing program because eventually, you will be brought back to Photoshop again anyway. (All roads lead to Rome syndrome)
The good part is that you don’t have to know all about Photoshop to use it. I read a statistic somewhere that 95 % of those who use Photoshop in their professional life use less than 5% of it’s features. Learn what you can from whatever source it comes and soon you will be doing stuff in Photoshop that you never believed was possible.
WARNING: THIS PART IS CONTROVERSIAL
There are a number of ways of obtaining Photoshop:
- Buy the Adobe Creative Suite. (a bunch of Adobe programs). Cheapest way for us in RSA to do this is to buy the suite online from the Adobe store. Costs a lot – (R14000 – R22000 depending on the suite you buy)
- Buy an older (legit) version from someone that wants to sell – ( Gumtree etc). Be careful – this is where pirates hang out.
- Use a free castrated version that is often supplied with graphics hardware.
- Use a free old version that is often supplied with graphics hardware or in magazines.
- If you are a student or have a kid who is a student at university or a college you can often get a legitimate educational copy cheaply.
- Ask a friend or any kid older than 12 years old to “install” a version on your computer. You don’t want to know where it comes from.
- Download a pirate version.
Ethical Issues
- If you make money from Photoshop, buy it. No question. Do the right thing.
- If you intend to make money from Photoshop, invest in it. Future upgrades are usually much cheaper.
- If you want to “learn before you buy”, then you need to be very clear on what you are doing – legally and morally. It is highly unlikely that you will get caught, but just be sensible.
- If you just want to use it casually, you decide…
On the one hand, technically, the Law is clear – if you use software without paying its license fee, you are a thief. Finish and klaar.
BUT…
On the other hand consider this:- Photoshop was never cheap and would never have become the market leader that it is if people didn’t use unlicensed copies of it. Most giant software corporations work on the principle (although they can never officially admit it) that they are quite happy if you illegally download the software as long as you don’t then re-sell it (that’s real software piracy). The logic goes like this: A new user obtains a copy and learns to use it. When the user becomes a serious user he/she then usually goes legit and buys it or gets his/her employer to buy it.
A few months ago I was talking to a bloke who works for a large software corporation and he told me that some software companies actually sometimes post perfectly legitimate copies of their software on the “software archive” download sites. It gets more people using the stuff.
It’s up to you to make this kind of ethical decision. No one else can do it for you.
