Photoshop Basics

[GlennZilla]

I got my Photoshop instruction in school, however I learned more from the free (ad supported) tutorials available at www.tutorialized.com. If you see a specific trick and want to figure out how to do it, odds are that it's detailled there.

[RPMiller]

Yea, I got all my basic instruction in school as well. I then learned a ton over the years from tutorials and others that used PhotoShop semi professionally. The biggest problem I face is that I don't use it constantly and the basic instruction I took was rocky at best so I've been having to shore up my foundational understanding quite a bit while trying to learn more advanced stuff.

[GlennZilla]

Well, I like to think I have a pretty fair handle on it. So if anyone wants me to write a tutorial for something specific, feel free to drop me a line.

I have been tinkering with a list to cover some of the topics I see mentioned here. But working on my own projects as well as other less enjoyable responsibilities has but me in a time crunch.

Plus I don't know if anyone wants to hear my rants about how I make selections (usally Color Range and Marquee tools, not the wand) or the "Non-Destructive Editing" rant.

[RPMiller]

The Channels and Masks training I mentioned above taught me all about selecting using channels and doing non-destructive editing. If you can relay that information, I definitely think you should. I'm amazed that I ever got by without knowing how to do that stuff.

I especially enjoyed learning how the various selection tools really work and which ones are best for different scenarios. Awesome stuff. Just that training video alone was enough to make me feel more confident and more like an intermediate to advanced user. So again, please feel free to create a new thread and rant away.

[pyrandon]

Ummm, GlennZilla---if you're offering, I for one would love to see you do tutorials on anything and everything PS related. I'm totally self-taught (usually by trial & error), so anything you'd like to do would be much appreciated.

I'm with RP that Channels would be cool to know (masks I have a decent handle on, but still...). I do almost nothing with them. I also almost never use the pen/paths options, so if you could show that it would be cool too.

If you do decide to make tutorials (please please please), then it would be great to see it used on a map, of course, so we can see the application in action as users of this site would most likely find important and applicable. Just an idea.

[GlennZilla]

Well, the channels will require a little research. I don't mess with them as much as I could for our applications here. But I'll work up a few posts on The pen tool/paths you mention as well as Masks and Non-Destructive Editing which I think would be helpful.

But I have to get through the holidays with my 20 month old daughter first.

[kalmarjan]

Sorry, I did not see this post for a long time. (My son, takes up a lot of time.)

Probably the best advice I got from Deke about channels is the dreaded calculations command. Now, a lot of people see it up in the images drop down and wonder what the heck it is.

Well, if you take an image that has high contrast in two of the color channels, but cannot really choose one that is greater, a good technique is to copy both, then use the calculation command to "combine" the two. Usually, if you play around with the settings in the command, you can get something that has a lot of contrast so you can then take it to your curves dialogue.

It is at that point where you really get the great selections. See, without that command, the channels panel would only really be useful half of the time.

I may get some time here in the next week or two to get something going to demonstrate the command to you all, if there is interest.

Sandeman

[jejo]

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