Green eyes

[Evertking]

Been practicing Photoshop non stop for a week.. I'm going crossed eyed. Someone told me a while back that Photoshop was hard to learn and even harder to do well.. and it really is. It's something is very easy to over do and I'm very guilty of that. I guessing it would take every bit of a year to be proficient at a somewhat decent level.. the memorizing of shortcuts, actions and different tid bits on how things interact with each other.. trying to store that in the mind along with iso, shutter and composition is mind melting.
But I love it and I'm stubborn enough to keep going till I have learned it inside and out.
I wish I would have started with Photoshop a year ago but.. with the advancements in camera tech and the quality that even comes off a phone, I now see that if you have to be able to do what the average Joe can not. You have to be willing to put in the
Work and not just stop at learning your camera.
I have used one work book that was suggested to me from here and it was wonderful for getting me started but now I'm looking in to places like Phlearn, lynda ECT... If anyone uses these, which do you recommend?

[rpcrowe]

There are several Photoshop training aids that I like...

The Phlearn series is nice as are Serge Ramelli's YouTube videos ( https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...shop+tutorials ) and I also like PIXimperfect on YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...fect+tutorials )... The problem with the videos is that they are aimed at specific areas of Photoshop and are not comprehensive overall tutorials.

Adobe also has some very good tutorials on Photoshop, Lightroom and Bridge...

I was going to recommend the Tony and Chelsea Northrup Kindle book, Photoshop CC essentials for Photographers which I purchased for $9.99 USD from Amazon.com. However, I was shocked to learn that the price of this book has been increased to $24.99 USD. I am not sure if the book is worth that price.

Generally, I think that Online tutorials are better than paper books since Photoshop is still an evolving and changing program...

Lynda.com has a series of excellent videos. Some are on YouTube, others are available by subscription and some libraries have free access to the Lynda.com tutorials...

Since you already use Photoshop. I suggest that you add the free (as of now) NIK software as a plug-in for Photoshop.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
I like NIK very much while other folks such as Manfred are not that keen on the NIK capabilities. However, for free, you cannot lose...

I like viewing video tutorials on my Chromebook while I have the Photoshop program open on my desktop computer.

[DanK]

Mike,

You may get more answers if you post this in the "image post-processing and printing" forum. That's where people look for questions about postprocessing. I only noticed this thread because Tapatalk has an "unread" heading that ignores which forum things are in.

I don't consider myself a master of Photoshop by a long shot, but I am comfortable doing a fair amount in it. I used a few Lynda.com videos and found them helpful. The benefit is that you see how things are done and can practice along as they do it. The disadvantage, as with any videos, is that you are stuck with their pace. For most things, I simply search on the web for explanations. that sometimes ends up taking me to Adobe tutorials.

Photoshop is very complex--in part a natural cost of its remarkable breadth and power--so my recommendation is to simplify to start. I'd forget about most shortcuts to start. I'd also forget about plug-ins like Nik until later; while I find Nik useful, it's one more thing to learn. I tackled Photoshop one topic at a time: how to make selections, then how to make selections into masks, then how to copy masks across layers, how to use various blend modes, and so on. As I did that, I picked up a small number of shortcuts that are central to some of those steps, like ctrl-J to duplicate a layer, but I still don't know as many as I should.

And sometimes, if I get stuck, I just post a question.

Dan

[rpcrowe]

There is one definite advantage in Photoshop CC, it is actually getting easier to do things in - especially masking!

[Manfred M]

There are tutorials on the Adobe website that are quite good. I personally find that the paysite, Kelby One; put out by the same people that do the Photoshop User magazine is ultimately my favourite source for this type of information.

[Geoff F]

This image looks good to me, Mike. Her eyes are well to the side but in this particular case I don't find that to be a problem because she is looking straight forward towards the camera and her head is tilted at a pleasant angle.