Adobe Photoshop Guides

Welcome to my Adobe Photoshop Guide section. For those of you who do not already know, Adobe Photoshop is the graphics industry's top picture editing tool. Almost every single professional graphics studio and printing house in the world uses Adobe Photoshop as its no.1 photo-editing tool. Half of the movie special effect backgrounds you've seen have been produced with the aid of Photoshop. And almost every modern magazine you have ever read has had its pictures edited or colour corrected using Adobe Photoshop. Make no mistake, if you are interested in graphic design or photo retouching techniques or even just computer art then Adobe Photoshop is definitely the only way to go!

On the down side learning to use Photoshop can be a very expensive business. The videos and courses out can cost you a fortune. There are a number of detailed books out about it but generally they are not very easy to learn from. So that's what this section of Nicky's Digital Solutions is all about. These guides are aimed both at teaching people who have never used Photoshop before and also those who think they know it quite well. I will not just restrict myself to just showing you how to use Photoshop. Knowing how to use a hammer, saw, chisel etc., doesn't necessarily make you any good at carpentry. Digital editing is more than understanding how the tools actually function. Just reading the Photoshop Manual will tell you all you need to know about that. Instead I will concentrate on making sure you understand just how these tools can be used in real life. What is more I intend on giving you a crash course on art and graphic design in general. So this is also an artists website as well as a Photoshop one.

All the blurb aside, most of Adobe Photoshop is not actually that hard to use once you understand the basics. As with anything we do its vital that we have a very good understanding of the basics. Hopefully my guides will fill this need.

 

Notes / Tips

I have tried my best to write these guides in logical order. In other words you should always read them from the top guide to the bottom one. If you start reading half way down it is very likely that you will not understand what I am talking about!

After much consideration I have decided to use Adobe Photoshop 6 as the basis for my guides. It's currently the latest version and looks a little different from the previous ones but generally the options are the same.

If you are serious about photo retouching I suggest you buy a graphics tablet since it makes life a whole lot easier. Everything I explain can be done with a mouse of course but it's hard to compete with a good quality graphics tablet because we are used to drawing with a pen. One word of warning, though; if you are going to fork out for a graphics tablet I suggest you get a large one. About the size of your mouse mat is fine. The reason for this is it is very hard to make meaningful pen movements on something the size of a postage stamp! Otherwise you'd probably be better off just using your mouse instead. Wacom seem to make the best range of affordable tablets but they are still quite expensive :o\. To be fair everything I show you in my guides will be done using nothing but a normal mouse.

Before you start any serious Photo Editing I suggest you follow my colour management advice found Here. I hope you find these guides useful.

Nick =o)