A quick question about Photoshop

[Sephina Frostbite]

So I keep getting burned when I pay for photos to be done. Im jaded now and I just want to learn how to do it on my own. I love photography anyways and photo editing has been always an area of intresting. Can a person learn how to use photoshop well through youtube or does it require a college course? Thanks for the information in advance.

[Lexia Moonstone]

you don't need a college class to learn photoshop.  I learned from a book, but that was before there was youtube, there's tons of tutorials on youtube.  If you don't want to spend the $ on photoshop there is all so gimp, especially if your just using it for photography.

[BlueTrianon]

I think it just depends on your personality and learning style.  

Personally, I'd start with some quality YouTube introductions to see if you'll like it at all.  I don't think I'd jump immediately to a college course unless I was already taking classes and just needed more credits for the semester.  

If you do decide that this is something you might enjoy, don't forget about the professional tutorial sites.  Many of them offer free trials now, too.  Some of them offer "courses" of study in programs including Photoshop.  They can be more rigorous than you'd think. 

[Venus Petrov]

Gimp is free and easy to learn.  Plenty of information is available on the web, including youtube vids. There is no need to pay for anything until you have played with photo editing a bit.

[Ohjiro Watanabe]

Also consider Paint.Net which is free and much easier than either photoshop or gimp. It doesn't do everything that gimp and photoshop do but if you are new to graphics editing both of those programs will have a zillion options you will never need which contribute to an overwhelmingly complex interface. There are also lots of free plugins which will cover the filters and effects that you may want.

Although I have gimp I mostly go to Paint.Net because it is just faster to use.

If I want to know how to do something and there isn't a Paint.Net tutorial then I just look for the gimp/photoshop tutorial and figure out how to do that in Paint.Net.

The skills you learn will transfer to a more advanced program if you decide to go there.

Good luck

The Paint.Net fanboy.

[Kelli May]

There's also a lot you can learn online about the basics of photography which applies to SL photos. Google 'rules of composition'; there'll be hundreds of articles. If you learn how to frame and compose an image you can get a good picture to start with, or if necessary, crop it artisitcally when you get as far as the editing stage.

SL gives lots of opportunities to learn by practice that aren't available in RL, particularly for portrait photography. For example, you can easily be your own model, and you don't get tired holding a pose. If the sun is casting an ugly shadow, just move the sun or change the lighting to something softer. Need some fill-in light? No need to buy expensive studio lights, just rez a prim and set it to be a light-source. Make it invisible and you won't have to worry about it keeping it out of frame. If you can't rez where you are shooting, attach it like a facelight.

[JennaSu]

CreativeLive.com gives free seminars on photoshop, photography, videography, pretty much all things creative.

[Lexia Moonstone]

Something else to look into would be the photo tools in the firestorm viewer, it's got some really useful features that you would have on a RL camera,  Lens angle, depth of field,  plus great lighting controls, and some useful filter, and you can set the file size which saved me from having to crop in gimp which is the number one reason I need to uses out side photo editing software.

It's not a full replacement for photoshop or gimp but shoulden't be over looked.  The photo tools in firestorm I find are more useful if you have time to plan your photo in SL. 

 

[Rufferto]

I am not a Photoshop expert, but I love playing with it and trying new techniques. I find most UTube videos move too fast for me, but I've found a lot of text-and-photo tutorials on the web.

I learned most of what little I know through a college "extension" course. I had to show up in person, but it forced me to meet deadlines, and the professor was able to help when I had some problems.

This was some time ago, but the class used "Adobe Photosop Classroom in a Book" as a text and I would recommend it. 

 

 

 

[Bree Giffen]

Well, that's interesting. I just saw that Adobe offers Photoshop for 10 bucks a month now. Ive been staying away since they went to a subscription model but the new price looks tempting.

Photoshop definitely doesn't need real classes to learn. Google and YouTube offer up a lot of information. People love to give lessons online.

[Sephina Frostbite]

I just saw that too. I was pretty excited about it. I am definitely getting it. And thanks everyone who helped me out!