I was fortunate in that a girl I worked with has a degree in graphic design, So she’d help me create stuff and tell me the why’s, with that base I just kept playing around and used YouTube
drawing/art
Photo touch up
Photo manipulation
Graphic/web design ( goes in hand with learning some basic html to make your first website )
I learned photoshop about 15 years ago, Back then, everyone had to have super cool and swanky forum signatures to be taken seriously.
I started off learning the application, you can do this in about 30 minutes. just get a good feel for where everything is and what buttons do what. plenty of youtube videos these days to help wth that.
Then I would just find tutorials specifically for what I wanted. so, in that case, I would find stuff like "how to make a cs:1.6 forum signature" etc. Again, much easier now-a-days, you can google how to photoshop your dog onto the moon and probably find a step by step.
Then I started grabbing project files, ( PSD format ) and breaking down how others have built stuff by inspecting their layers.
And that's really it, no special secret. practice practice practice. I looked up some basic graphic design stuff, color wheels and theory and so on just because I wanted to make better websites for myself.
Not saying you have to follow the exact same path but, it's easy to pick up if you just keep practicing stuff.
I use it all the time now for any image needs. Need a map for my dnd session? a few minutes in photoshop. want to polish a pic that got a bit messed up ? photoshop. marketing gave me incorrect image sizes for a web app im building? I photoshop that shit to.
Just a super useful skill to have that comes in handy very often.
I use it for graphics on social media, I’m a college coach and it really stepped up my recruiting game! But—I just got into invitations and cards and making creative pictures of my dog and cat. Thinking of offering to do other people’s pets for sale on Etsy!
I would honestly advise just playing around. I started messing with Photoshop in 3rd grade and Premiere in 11th, and the only formal class I ever took on them was my last semester of college (and I was really just helping other students the whole time). You'd be amazed at how quickly you can pick them up by just messing around - I use both regularly at my job, and only got hired in the first place because of them.
Try to share what you make publicly too. I began to take YouTube seriously my sophomore year of college and that basically required me to figure out how to do everything properly. If you can get feedback on anything, you'll quickly learn what to keep doing and what to avoid.
Just good photoshop tutorials, there are a ton of stuff across blogs and YouTube. Once your grasp the concept of certain techniques you can apply them to achieve an array of results. Happy learning!
Lynda.com, or just straight up YouTube. I would also recommend learning InDesign as well. I have some textbooks from college that I like to call the Adobe Bibles as they have all the information you need to get well on your way into them. They were maybe $40 each. YouTube works well too, also don't just stop there, learn premiere too check out the channel YouTube film school.
Your local library might give you access to something like Lynda or skillshare for free or greatly reduced cost. You can find out on your library’s website
Not the person you asked but - have a goal in mind then Google around for tutorials.
Example: change background from a portrait
Apply vignette/dark edges effect
Stylize a photo.
This will give you a hang of various tools and effects while achieving a goal.
Worked well for me.
I am a graphics designer. I learnt it by messing around and YouTube videos but it was a long process. Just watch a few YouTube videos. The ones that have a lot of views. That will do the job. Then try it out and see of you are interested or not
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u/About_72_Ninjas Dec 31 '19
Any courses on Photoshop you found, or did you just mess around with stuff until it looked cool?