Needing a PS tutor

33 posts / 0 new
Last post
Needing a PS tutor

I'm not sure if there is another place for this or not or if it's even ok for me to ask if anyone would be open to help tutor me in PhotoShop.
I know there are tutorials but I'm even too ignorant to use those... LOL
I need a little hand holding to get me going if anyone is interested.
I know Paint Shop Pro really well but it's not the same and I like what comes from PhotoShop better.

You can email me if you are interested. ( [email protected] )
I can use Skype, phone, or other methods for learning or teaching with someone.
Thanks for your consideration!

There used to be a class of video tutorials but I never paid for it and not sure if it would really help since you kind of are looking for one on one type help. I just struggled through the video tuts over and over until I got it. But I do ok as long as I could hear and see what they were teaching. I'll let you know IF I find anything.

I had PS for a few years but was too intimidated to use it. I was much more familiar with PSP so I stuck with that. Then I switched to a mac and PSP is not compatible so I had to learn PS. At first I used styles, I could change the appearance of something by applying a pre-made style. Once I got comfortable with that, I was comfortable enough to tweak styles to get the effect I wanted - which is seldom the exact effect of a style. For example, I could turn off shadows, decrease bevels or soften them.

I am not one that can follow tutorials but I like to look at things and try to recreate it, in my own way.

Is there something particular you want to know how to do?

Ok here's three of the ones I could remember after a week... LoL I'm not sure if they are exactly what you need as they are kind of paid courses, but maybe you could contact them and see if they could guide you to someone willing to do ONE on ONE tutoring? Just an idea, sorry I'm not of more help Deana.
https://www.jessicasprague.com/ *** https://scrapgirls.com/classes *** https://digitalscrapbookinghq.com/store/

Also, like Gina above (who's a great designer) some of them may be willing to answer questions for you if you posted specific needs here. Most of these ladies are who and how I learned to do pages. I'm not a designer though just a scrapbooker, but they are very talented!

I appreciate all the links Shawna. I don't have that kind of money to invest in lessons.
I'll keep searching and asking.
For now I am trying to just figure out how to make the icons/tabs larger so I can see them better lol
I'm hoping that this week I can dive into PS more.
It took me a few days just to find groceries in our small town. Everyone has almost wiped the shelves clean.

I appreciate your encouraging words Gina!
I have done a little with styles that I have found or purchased and play with the effects a little,
but I don't seem to be able to figure out how to make things like using vectors.
I want to be able to make my own shapes, papers and such for scrapkits so I'm not limited as to how I can use them.
I'm always afraid of getting into trouble since I'm not good enough to change things much yet.

Photoshop is not a vector program, it works with pixels. You can open vectors in PS but it not the same as working in illustrator. Illustrator is a vector program. There are a few other programs that are vector base but I am not familiar with them.

Marisa has lots of Photoshop tutorials HERE. Here's one for making your own texture paper.

You can also pick textures from here and apply it on top of color, adjust the layer to overlay, soft light, multiple.. whatever gives you the desired look.

Photoshop can do very basic things with vectors. You can switch the shape tool to work with paths instead of just drawing the shape, and as long as you're still working on the path (rather than stroking or filling it), then you can resize and do other things vectors would do. But at some point you'll need to actually put the pixels in it.

Smart objects also generally function like vectors (depending on the object in question), but that's about it.

Hi, Deana! I used to teach PS to middle schoolers. I would love to help you get you off the ground so to speak. It can be a fairly complicated program for straight up beginners. What kind of experience do you have with the program?

I would love that Deborah! Thank you very much for offering.
I've just played around with it. I know Paint Shop Pro well but PS frustrates me and I can't see icons as well in PS.
Many things I'd like to understand with this. I have basic ideas of how things work in a program but not the particulars to accomplish what I'd like to do like make designs, papers etc. to make a kit. I have many styles and actions... but I just play and stumble around..lol
My email is [email protected]

Just sent you an email.

Oh Man Deana- I feel your pain. When I started learning, it was at my husbands encouragement. He had been playing around with PS and taking tutorials for about 3 months. When I decided to give it a try I found if very frustrating. I was always asking him for help... Took about 3 months to master the basics to the point I could figure things out on my own. So funny that I did not watch the same tutorials as my husband. Now that I am more knowledgable about the software, I enjoy the tutorials.

I have both PSE and PS. They are similar enough that I can stumble around PS fairly well, but PS doesn't have the 'Photo Bin' that PSE has. I just don't know how people scrapbook without being able to see all the things they have opened in the program for use in a layout. It so frustrated me that I have stuck with PSE. But PS has more control and Paths! I feel like I really should take the plunge and try to master it too. Sigh!

Good Luck!

Oh dear.. your story scares me more Christine lol
Adobe was always confusing to me as to what program to use.
There were so many of them and I knew nothing at all when I was looking at the different options.
Since I have to pay monthly for this program I thought I'd start with the cheapest one which is only PS CC2019.

I use to have a friend that was wonderful to work with back when I was learning the computer and how to change coding, etc.
She's since passed away. I have no physical friends that do what I do on the computer. So I am reaching out to my cyber buddies,
or at least any that want to be one, to learn PS. smiley

I replied Deborah.. ty for responding. I'll wait to hear back from you.

I am sorry Deana- didn't mean to frighten you. Just don't give up! Once I got over the basic learning hump (3 months for me) it was so much easier and enjoyable!. I was so excited to see Deborah's generous offer to help.
I own my copy of PS- I don't have a monthly subscription. And my version of PSE is old- 2014 I think. But all of PSE's are owned copies still and pretty reasonably priced if you don't want a monthly prescription fee... just saying...

Christine,
Where could I get PS or PSE to own and not pay a monthly/annual fee?

I don't know for PSE, but one option for PS is to find a copy on eBay. They were up to CS6 when they switched to Creative Cloud (which is the subscription-based one). I bought a copy of CS5 off of eBay a couple months ago myself, to upgrade from CS2.

I use PS CS5.5 for many of my raster/pixel-based designs, and am also proficient enough with drawing and editing vector shapes in it to help with teaching that, if you'd like. I first started using PS to edit/clean up/crop my photographs back when I was wanting to open a studio for location portraits and sell some of my landscapes for art prints and cards, but then the addition of a new chronic diagnosis made that plan impossible. My weakest skill in PS is painting things with brushes and having them come out without blurry edges.

I'll drop you an email, in case you'd like to have more than one tutor.

I sent you a message Holly. I'll be back in awhile
I can't get into my emails today for some reason.
Gmail and Yahoo can't get codes sent to my phone. grrrr

Deana, If you are a teacher, have a college student or are a college student, then you can get a fantastic monthly rate. The awesome thing about the subscription is that when updates come out, your software is automatically updated to the newest features. I don't think you can own a copy of PS anymore. It looks as though the only way you can work with any software version newer than 2013, you have to go with Adobe Creative Cloud (which is the subscription service).

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with PS. I've just used the product for over 20 years and I LOVE it!! smiley

That is what i thought Deborah.
I'm not a student or teacher, so no discount for me.
I pay the monthly fee...sigh but it's more affordable than buying the program.
and like you said... it is updated without "additional" cost.
I still love having my own. smiley

Deanna: smiley you might consider looking for an older version of PSE on ebay or gumtree, I make most scrapbook pages in PSE 12. I use PS for photos not for layouts.

I have been working with Photoshop for several years. It really is not that hard after you get used to it. Of course, it is capable of doing SO MUCH MORE than I use it for and what you will need it for to do layouts. Keep with it. I am always looking stuff up on you tube such as "How to warp a shadow" etc.

I appreciate all your help you gave me Holly!
Thank you!

I highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/user/PhlearnLLC ive been using PS for ages for many clients and businesses and this showed me a lot and it's easy easy easy

Also Linda.com which will take you through PS step by step with very good videos, probably the best on the net but its not free.

I started with Photoshop Elements years ago. It is not difficult to learn. As well, you can buy it outright unlike Photoshop which currently only comes with a subscription service (although you can get older copies of Photoshop off Ebay). It is also considerably cheaper than Photoshop. (Although if you are a registered student, you can get the full Photoshop much cheaper than the regular price.)

I have a older copy of Photoshop which I use occasionally. I'm working on learning to get better using it as it is more complex than Elements. It can do considerably more things than Elements (like check gamut in designs, create text paths etc) and it is preferred by designers for this reason. As another poster pointed out, some of the things you learn in Elements do carry over into the full Photoshop.

Thank you Ben. I'll check it out

Great tip about Photoshop on eBay! Will look for Illustrator and InDesign too.

Just make sure you read carefully so you know what you should be getting. Some listings only sell the box, not the software (often, but not always, a scam to try to catch the unwary who think they're getting a great deal on the software. Supposedly it's for "collectors" who just want the box). Others are selling upgrade copies, which will only work if you're upgrading from a previous version of Photoshop, and depending on the upgrade copy, only specific older versions of Photoshop.

For instance, I recently purchased CS5.5 upgrade. I selected a listing that said it could upgrade from CS2, which is what I had been using. Initially, the seller accidentally sent me a copy that could only upgrade from CS5.0. We got that sorted out, thankfully, but it is something to be aware of. (I had other upgrade issues, but they were tied to either my CS2 copy being a student license copy, or more likely, due to the CS2 validation servers being taken down, and thus having to use the "cracked" copy provided by Adobe themselves to install my software, meaning my registration key technically didn't match my software, and the upgrade failed; Adobe helped solve that problem, though not without oblique complaints that I wasn't willing to buy a subscription for CC when I had what should be a perfectly functional copy of CS5.5 in hand.)

Deanna: smiley As for tuts I have been with Adobe's university ever since, for most lessons they provide dl's so you can repro the example 1 on 1. I never looked for anything else, I guess I am pretty happy with their tuts.

Do you happen to have a link for the Adobe university? I Googled it and didn't come up with anything that made sense.
Thank you Bina!

Pages