Shopping 101 – a guide to the guides

Editor’s note: I will keep this post updated with (what I consider to be) some of the best and latest Photoshop tutorials. If you know of a great tutorial not mentioned here, please post about it in the comments.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked (after – of course – “Is this Shoppped?”) is “How can I learn Photoshop?” I blogged previously about various photo editing software available for purchase and download, but what do you do with it once you have it? This post is dedicated to those of you who need to learn Photoshop so that you don’t launch the software and stare at your computer screen wondering: Now what?

Get some class: The method of instruction I recommend the most is taking a class if possible. Check your local colleges and trade schools to see if they have continuing education classes. If you do not have the money or opportunity for that, there are some cheaper (and more readily available) options…

Hit the books: For those of you who learn best the old fashioned way, there are some great guides out there. The best I know of is written by Adobe (the makers of Photoshop) and is called Adobe Photoshop CS4 Classroom in a Book. The chapters are set up as lessons and you work your way up from beginner level through more advanced features of the software, and the book has an accompanying disc that walks you through those lessons step-by-step. There is a “Classroom in a Book” for every major creative software Adobe makes, and I highly recommend all of them for those of you who are just starting out.

I also recommend Photoshop CS4, Volume 1: Visual QuickStart Guide. The Visual QuickStart series has a guide for just about any software or programming language you need to learn. They are very comprehensive, detailed and walk you through step-by-step. The “Dummies” series of guides are also very good. There are “Dummies” guides for Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Elements 8.

After you get a good foundation in the basics, there are lots of guides out there for more advanced users – recommendations vary depending on what you want to do though. Do you want to learn digital illustration and art techniques? Or do you want to learn how to create photorealistic montages? Maybe you are just a budding digital photographer who wants to create the best images possible or you want to learn how to restore & retouch your family photos. There is a guide out there for practically anything you want to learn!

Do some online Shopping: For those of you who just blew a big wad ‘o cash on Photoshop and have no more money invest in tutorials – you can learn the ropes online! Adobe has a lot of resources on their official site – videos, articles, tips & tricks – as well as a great community of users helping each other out. Other sites I recommend: PSDtuts+, Photoshop Lady, Photoshop Lover , Gurus Unleashed and you can always check out the Photoshop tutorials people post on YouTube.

Have fun: All tutorials and guides aside, the best advice I could give a new user of Photoshop is just open up the software and play with it!