I have a copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0, from 2002. I really don’t know how to work it and I’d like to. I have found a website (Linda.com) that offers tutorials, courses, and training for Photoshop, but the one that looks like it might be appropriate is called Learning Photoshop 6. It says the course was released in 2002. So would it be appropriate for me to try to learn Elements 2.0 from this source? Or are Photoshop 6 and Elements two different things?
Elements is basically Photoshop-lite. If you have to learn Photoshop, any number of free tutorials will be helpful as commands have changed very little over the last 5 yrs. The basics are always the basics.
For something different, that still allows you to do everything PS does, yet is free and a little easier to use, check out Gimp.
I switched two years ago from PS to Gimp, and love it.
I actually once tried Gimp, but not knowing the basics of PS, I was lost in Gimp. I think I need to start with PS and then I might, as you did, change over.
I would certainly take the Basics tutorials, they are extremely helpful and will work across more than one platform. They can be slightly boring, but once you know how to work with basic tools, layers, and know how to manipulate images you’ll be well on your way!
LYNDA.com is a great resource for learning all manner of graphic and web dev programs. She was a pioneer in the field of web graphics at the beginning of their being such a thing as web graphics.
Will taking a course in PS 6 help with Elements? Dunno, have used PS for many years (since 2.0) but have never seen Elements.
One thing that you could do for free is just use the built-in help in Elements (or online, however it’s done in that version). Adobe has always had pretty good help/tutorials. Look for something called “Getting Started” or similar.
Hopefully you already know whether the version of Elements works. I had PS Elements 2.0 for Mac and it stopped working because the self-updater was unable to contact Adobe for whatever reason. Thus a perfectly usable piece of software wouldn’t let me use it anymore.
Yep - and in fact, the Help utility for my Elements doesn’t work, so I’m really in the dark. Fortunately, I think I can poke around in the various training videos on Lynda.com to get a sense of what I can do with the thing.
Before you sign up for a training course, try these tutorials. When different, Elements instructions are noted. I found them easy to follow, with general info and instructions that could be applied to other areas. Plus, you get to do some cool stuff while learning.
Elements 2.0, as far as I know, has most of the standard features of full-strength PS of that time. They merely stripped out the more advanced or esoteric features and toolsets (yet I think introduced some features that’s aimed more at new/casual users). I believe it can’t convert from RGB to CMYK and so forth. Version 2.0 was a while ago, but so was Photoshop 6 (around 2001 or so… 10 years!), so I can’t quite remember what the differences might be, but overall, it should be an okay starting point, and you should be able to follow along on Lynda.com.
I learned how to use Photoshop from her book way back in 1997. At that time it was indispensable. I think she was on the Photoshop Mailing List too. A few of the pioneers were, at least.