I have a copy of Photoshop on my computer. I’d really like to learn how to use it, first as a hobby and then maybe even find ways to make money off of it.
I also have a copy of “Photoshop for Dummies” and while extremely well-written, learning how to DO something by reading about it doesn’t work well for me.
Does anyone know of any good (and cheap) ways to learn how to use this wonderful program?
Look for Adobe Press’ Photoshop Classroom in a Book at your local library. It doesn’t really have to be the one for the same version of the program, but it would help.
The CiaB series is done in a series of fairly real-world type projects, with steps to create them. After you go through that, then look at your Dummies book again. It should appear a lot more relevant once you’ve learned how to accomplish a few things. Another great book is Real-World Photoshop, by David Blatner (who many regard as the world authority on the program).
Thanks, Saltire, I’ll look into that.
Just bumping this because I posted it rather late last night, and hopefully I’ll catch more graphics folk at work today by bumping it. 
There are also lots of websites with PhotoShop materials.
I learned it by messing around with it mostly, with some help from books for the complicated operations.
Just go ahead and play around with various tools and stuff to see how things work.
I agree with Urban Ranger on just messing around with the program. I’m self-taught in Photoshop and I find that I’m quite proficient in the program, but even after three years, there is still tons more I could learn. It’s a fantastic program to take advantage of, and you can never get bored. There are lots of personal tutorials on specific effects you can search for on the internet.
What version do you have?
Just make sure you learn what each tool does, that will help your learning process go smoothly.
I’ve got the latest version for Mac OS X, gobbles, and it runs surprisingly well on my little G3 iMac.
I find that I usually need little formal instruction before I grasp a computer program and feel comfortable experimenting with it. But whenever I start up Photoshop I’m like “Ahhh!! Too… many… tools.” Maybe that Adobe book will do the trick, though.
I have The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers, and I like it a lot. There are lots of screenshots, and it doesn’t have large blocks of text. I think it’d make a great companion book to the For Dummies book you already have.
There are just TONS of photoshop tutorials on the Internet. I find them to be the best source for learning photoshop, because they often even have sample files to download, and are specifically targeted at the task you want to do.
For example, I have an old photo album here containing a lot of degraded photos. So I went to Google and searched for, “Photoshop photo restoration”, and found links like this:
Photoshop retouching tutorials
Beginner Photo Restoration - Photoshop Tutorial
BTW, that last site is ‘Photoshop Today’, an online magazine, and they have literally dozens of detailed tutorials on how to accomplish things in Photoshop. Just go through a lot of the tutorials, try them yourself, and over time you’ll develop a good understanding of how all the tools fit together.
There’s always your local community college…shouldn’t be too expensive to take a Photoshop class or two.
I just went to the bookstore, poked around the Photoshop books, grabbed one that seemed reasonably clear to read, and jumped in. Okay, okay, it was Photoshop Elements (a.k.a. “Photoshop WIth Our Really Pro Stuff Hacked Off”), but the idea was the same.
Just play with it, it’s not that hard to learn.
You sound like me. In which case I’m forced to recommend the good, but, well, pricey, solution of taking a class.
I fooled around with it for a couple years, and was getting it to do…sort of what I wanted, most of the time. But it wasn’t until I took a (excellent, but, yeah, pricey) Photoshop/Illustrator/Quark class, that I really “got” it (layers! do you know what you can do with layers? ANYTHING! :>)
Like Kilt said, though, there are probably much less pricey community college classes, oreven weekend seminars that would at least get you though the “so many tools!” part.
Second best would be the tutorials, I think.
It may be a question of learning styles…
My first recommendation is to take a class in a local community college. Photoshop is so complex and there are so many things that can be done with it a good course on basics, layers, blending modes and will accelerate your learning curve. Learn the keyboard shortcuts as that will save a bunch of time. Here is a good begining site. Here is a nice Forum where there are many talented people. A neat site here for photo restoration. Take a look at some of the photo challenges they run.
I started dabbling with PhotoShop in 1996 and am now highly proficient with the program, even though there are some operations I don’t know. The good thing about PhotoShop is there are always at least two ways to do the same thing. [I mean a goal, not various operations.]
http://www.fark.com has photoshop contests at least 4 days a week. Some people even use MSPaint to do their entries! I’m still pretty bad with PShop, but I get better rapidly when I participate in the contests. Looking at web tutorials is good too.
And if you start to feel like you’re getting pretty good and thus need your PShop ego taken down a notch, go look at http://www.worth1000.com
-Ben
Ha! That’s actually one of the very reasons I want to learn Photoshop! Though my main reason is because I think it would give me a few more options in terms of what I could do with my career. Plus, I have a feeling I’d just really like it. Thanks for all the suggestions so far!