Best way to learn how to really use Photoshop?

Best way to learn how to really use Photoshop?

Author
Discussion

Ari

Original Poster:

19,328 posts

214 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
My ambition this winter is to learn how to really use Photoshop. I've seen so many photos on here and elsewhere that have been utterly transformed by post processing (I believe it's called) and I really wouyld like to be able to do this.

I know the basics, how to lighten or darken an image, straighten a horizon, crop, etc but I want to be able to do stuff like this:



(Hope it's ok to post this but it was already on PH).

There are a billion tutorials on youtube, any of those worth following? Or books? Or courses?

What is the best way to learn?

GetCarter

29,358 posts

278 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
Should point out that 60% of that image was probably in the taking, not the post production.




Edited by GetCarter on Thursday 20th November 14:51

Ari

Original Poster:

19,328 posts

214 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
GetCarter said:
Should point out that 60% of that image was probably in the taking, not the post production.
I get that completely, but having worked on the 60%, it's the other 40% I'm interested in.

For example, there's no sign of that rig in the finished image, and that didn't disappear in the taking.

GetCarter

29,358 posts

278 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
Ari said:
GetCarter said:
Should point out that 60% of that image was probably in the taking, not the post production.
I get that completely, but having worked on the 60%, it's the other 40% I'm interested in.

For example, there's no sign of that rig in the finished image, and that didn't disappear in the taking.
Fair point. Taking the pic is fairly simple compared to the pp. But for anyone else looking in, you need to start with something to work with!

ETA. Didn't notice it was you Ari

Edited by GetCarter on Thursday 20th November 15:19

Pickled

2,051 posts

142 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
Ari said:
I get that completely, but having worked on the 60%, it's the other 40% I'm interested in.

For example, there's no sign of that rig in the finished image, and that didn't disappear in the taking.
Practice your cloning technique, with content aware ability on PS these days, its a lot easier to achieve than it used to be, remember to check that you don't miss any reflections/shadows of the rig.

pidsy

7,958 posts

156 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
OP - similar to you in wanting to learn PS. got myself a nice mini mac and an eizo colouredge but...

i dont even know the basics. so i'm going on a night course starting in january for 10 weeks (1 night per week). its at my local college and cost me £85.

theres and "advanced" course as a followup to get the basic down. then itll be a mixture of online tutorials and whatever else i feel i need.

all the guys i know who use it professionally say its practice makes perfect.

lots and lots of practice.

MysteryLemon

4,968 posts

190 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
The best way to learn Photoshop is to use it. Find out what stuff does and be imaginative in ways to use it.

There are loads of free tutorials online that will help you get to grips with certain things. One website that springs to mind (with this being a car website and all) is Digimods.

http://www.digimods.co.uk/tutorials/index.htm

The subject matter may be somewhat questionable these days but the techniques are generally pretty sound if not a bit outdated with current Photoshop, although they will teach you how to use the basic tools rather than just trying to get photoshop to do everything for you. Content aware will only get you so far (and usually not very far at all...)





Edited by MysteryLemon on Thursday 20th November 15:37

Ari

Original Poster:

19,328 posts

214 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
GetCarter said:
Fair point. Taking the pic is fairly simple compared to the pp. But for anyone else looking in, you need to start with something to work with!

ETA. Didn't notice it was you Ari

Edited by GetCarter on Thursday 20th November 15:19
wavey

Ari

Original Poster:

19,328 posts

214 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
pidsy said:
OP - similar to you in wanting to learn PS. got myself a nice mini mac and an eizo colouredge but...

i dont even know the basics. so i'm going on a night course starting in january for 10 weeks (1 night per week). its at my local college and cost me £85.

theres and "advanced" course as a followup to get the basic down. then itll be a mixture of online tutorials and whatever else i feel i need.

all the guys i know who use it professionally say its practice makes perfect.

lots and lots of practice.
I didn't know they did this, I'll have a look.

I did do a basic one day course a while ago which was hugely beneficial, but clearly you're only going to get a few basics in a day.

Ari

Original Poster:

19,328 posts

214 months

Thursday 20th November 2014
quotequote all
MysteryLemon said:
The best way to learn Photoshop is to use it. Find out what stuff does and be imaginative in ways to use it.

There are loads of free tutorials online that will help you get to grips with certain things. One website that springs to mind (with this being a car website and all) is Digimods.

http://www.digimods.co.uk/tutorials/index.htm

The subject matter may be somewhat questionable these days but the techniques are generally pretty sound if not a bit outdated with current Photoshop, although they will teach you how to use the basic tools rather than just trying to get photoshop to do everything for you. Content aware will only get you so far (and usually not very far at all...)





Edited by MysteryLemon on Thursday 20th November 15:37
That looks interesting, thanks. smile

ExPat2B

2,157 posts

199 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Photoshop...

I am on a bit of a journey these day with Photoshop.. here are some of the things that made a huge difference to me.

First is interface hardware. You need a decent keyboard, and a quality gaming mouse with switchable DPI fast refresh and a quality mouse mat. This makes pixel level control of the mouse and smooth movements possible and easy. It will also add macro support which you can assign to photoshop actions to speed up your workflow. For example, I have one button on the keyboard assigned to a series of photoshop actions that builds out the highlights and shadows tonecurves, builds a saturation map etc. I recommend Razer Deathadder mouse, Sphex mousemat, and Blackwidow keyboard.

Next is the physical hardware - You will want as a minimum a 4 core AMD or i5 intel CPU, a mid tier GPU ( AMD 7770 or NVDIA 650 )

Photoshop is a memory hog, you need 8gb minimum RAM and 16GB highly recommended.

Photoshop should be installed on an SSD. All files that are being processed and lightroom catalog should be sitting on a solid state harddrive. This is 100 times faster than a regular harddrive and makes a huge difference to loading and saving. Photoshop should be configured to use the SSD as its scratch drive.

You need 2 LCD screens. One for the image, and one for all the photoshop tool bars and histograms. They should be decent quality and white balanced and gamma adjusted.

After years of using photoshop on substandard hardware, I really can't tell you how much the above sped up my workflow. Everything happens instantly now.

The next big change is your personal workflow. The biggest speed improvement is hotkeys.

The minimum you should using is the below :

CTRL-J to make a new layer,
CTRL ALT SHIFT E to stamp a new layer from all visible layers
Hold down alt key and right click mouse then move mouse vertically and horizontally to adjust brush size and hardness
CTRL-D to deselect
D to switch to default colours ( useful when airbrushing masks )
B for brush
I for color picker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnXHO8x8W3s

Next is the basic Photoshop concepts to master.

Layers, layer masks, channels, clip masks, thresholds and creating layer masks from them, selection, and refining the edge of selections.

Once you have masks and selection mastered, learn the blend modes and when to use them to sharpen blend and enhance images, the frequency separation technique is incredibly useful as it allows you to split the spacial information from the colour information which makes retouching and cloning an image much easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKiSUBWAObA

Channels is next, channel selection and creation is the heart of fast mask creation for highlights and shadows based on luminosity.

http://christopherodonnellphotography.com/exposure...

Next is the adjustments - in my opinion, the curves tool is the one to really master. All other adjustments are really just creating curves. You can do white balance highlights shadows and colours in curves, all with much more control than the other tools.

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/03/18/photo...

Next is tools, learning the different tools and when to use them is key.

http://phillihp.com/2013/02/12/adobe-photoshop-cs6...

The cloning and dodge tools are worthy of particular attention, learn when to use the different types and when to sample layers and automate texture creation.

Colour theory is next. Understand RBG, CMYK, LAB and HSB and when to use them for sharpening and printing. Understand how to create a pallete for the image and adjust the image to it rather just relying on what came out of the camera. Doing this is important - its one way to put your stamp on the image and create a personal style that means your images are recognisable. Dan Winters is an expert on this.

http://www.danwintersphoto.com/

Lastly is automation. You should be able to create actions for all of the above tasks to speed up your workflow, and then assign them to hotkeys on the keyboard. For example, having an action that creates a luminosity channel for shadows, then creates a new layer with a mask based on that channel with a curves adjustments layer to allow you to instantly selectively brighten, darken, or change the saturation or colour temp of the shadows is incredibly useful, and once setup will save you hours.

Droplets are next. Once you have actions setup for one image in a shoot, you can apply those actions to all images in the shoot. You then can open up each image form the shoot and adjust to taste, however 50% of the work is already done. You can create droplets to save all TIFFs as JPEGS, to crop down to a size, to save and sharpen for web publish. All with much more control and quality than lightroom gives you.

http://kelbyone.com/course/rc_automatingcs6/





LdnShtr

2,929 posts

242 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
ExPat2B said:
Photoshop...
This is a great post. I thought I knew Photoshop pretty well but didn't realise you could hold down the ALT key to adjust brush size and hardness. I've always used the [ and ] keys. There's always something new to learn. smile

Pixel Pusher

10,188 posts

158 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
LdnShtr said:
ExPat2B said:
Photoshop...
This is a great post. I thought I knew Photoshop pretty well but didn't realise you could hold down the ALT key to adjust brush size and hardness. I've always used the [ and ] keys. There's always something new to learn. smile
A lot of what was said there was very informative and helpful.

This first bit stuck out though.

First is interface hardware. You need a decent keyboard, and a quality gaming mouse with switchable DPI fast refresh and a quality mouse mat. This makes pixel level control of the mouse and smooth movements possible and easy. It will also add macro support which you can assign to photoshop actions to speed up your workflow. For example, I have one button on the keyboard assigned to a series of photoshop actions that builds out the highlights and shadows tonecurves, builds a saturation map etc. I recommend Razer Deathadder mouse, Sphex mousemat, and Blackwidow keyboard.

If you're really serious about your PS skills, chuck the mouse in the bin and get a graphics tablet & stylus, Wacom Intuos preferably. Think about it. What do you write with? What do you draw with? It aint a mouse.

Keyboard makes no difference whatsoever.

Also, I'd be more inclined to rely less on formulaic actions for items as important as tonality etc.

Do it manually.

With a graphics tablet.


StuH

2,557 posts

272 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
I'd certainly go along with comments re hardware, interface particularly, being really important (right tools and all that) I use both a tablet (Intuos) and a gaming mouse, with switchable DPI as mentioned earlier in the thread, crucial for things like the Pen tool. I found mastering the Pen tool really helped with compositing and layering work. Also 2 SSD's (one for scratch disk), 32gb ram, and a Mecury compatible GFX card, colour calibrated dual monitors.

In terms of training I've tried most, and have about 40 or 50 Pshop books on my shelf, plus I'm a member of Scott Kelby, who do some good stuff, but my absolute go-to MUST have resource is lynda.com, there is a huge range of Photoshop training material (as well as other Adobe creative suite apps, graphic design, colour theory, photography, typography.....the list is endless) and they are continually updates as new features are released. A few examples of the hundreds available:

http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Photoshop...

http://www.lynda.com/Camera-Raw-tutorials/Photosho...

http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Photoshop...

http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Photoshop...

http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Creative-...

http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Advanced-...

LdnShtr

2,929 posts

242 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Pixel Pusher said:
If you're really serious about your PS skills, chuck the mouse in the bin and get a graphics tablet & stylus, Wacom Intuos preferably. Think about it. What do you write with? What do you draw with? It aint a mouse.
I'd definitely agree with that. Getting a medium size Wacom tablet made a big difference for me. Going back to a mouse would be hard work!

Pixel Pusher

10,188 posts

158 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
I've just re-read my first response and it seems a bit dismissive, apologies ExPat. The rest of your post was excellent. thumbup

To expand on my point, any brush based function on PS will really benefit from using a stylus.

You'll achieve much more pressure control & sensitivity using the stylus and the latest Wacom's have a function that allows you to rotate the image on screen to make long brush strokes that match the arc of your arm. Saves you turning your upper body to suit.

Certainly I would prefer to use a Mouse for Illustrator though.

Path cutting in PS is equally accurate when done with the pen. It's really about how much practise you get.


ExPat2B

2,157 posts

199 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Pixel Pusher said:
LdnShtr said:
ExPat2B said:
Photoshop...
This is a great post. I thought I knew Photoshop pretty well but didn't realise you could hold down the ALT key to adjust brush size and hardness. I've always used the [ and ] keys. There's always something new to learn. smile
A lot of what was said there was very informative and helpful.

This first bit stuck out though.

First is interface hardware. You need a decent keyboard, and a quality gaming mouse with switchable DPI fast refresh and a quality mouse mat. This makes pixel level control of the mouse and smooth movements possible and easy. It will also add macro support which you can assign to photoshop actions to speed up your workflow. For example, I have one button on the keyboard assigned to a series of photoshop actions that builds out the highlights and shadows tonecurves, builds a saturation map etc. I recommend Razer Deathadder mouse, Sphex mousemat, and Blackwidow keyboard.

If you're really serious about your PS skills, chuck the mouse in the bin and get a graphics tablet & stylus, Wacom Intuos preferably. Think about it. What do you write with? What do you draw with? It aint a mouse.

Keyboard makes no difference whatsoever.

Also, I'd be more inclined to rely less on formulaic actions for items as important as tonality etc.

Do it manually.

With a graphics tablet.
Your alright Pixel Pusher, I have followed some of your work on here and it is hugely impressive.


I do agree for some people tablets are better, I realise its a personal thing, but I don't get on with graphics tablets at all. Much prefer my mouse, with properly setup hardware acceleration it needs much less arm/wrist movement than a 1:1 tablet. How do they handle two screens ?

I do agree about not being formulaic, but actions are only to setup the layer and the mask and the initial curves. You then adjust the curve manually to set tonality to taste. It just speeds workflow hugely not have to follow all the steps to get to the point where you are manually adjusting that point on the curves layer.

Pixel Pusher

10,188 posts

158 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
ExPat2B said:
Your alright Pixel Pusher, I have followed some of your work on here and it is hugely impressive.
I'm hobby level at best. The days of doing photoshop as a living are long gone squire since I moved into an admin role.

Luckily, I have people here to do it all for me now and what those guys can do still makes me giddy.

Thanks for your kind words though.

thumbup


ETA, sorry, I missed the dual screen question. No different to be honest, you just get used to the scaling on your tablet. Of course, on your main working screen, you 'travel' less but it's rare that you have to make bold strokes.

Most of what needs doing happens in a small area. The guys here mostly have different sized screen. Main work screen are 30" Mac Cinema displays with a smaller slave screen for tools.

Works fine.

smile



Edited by Pixel Pusher on Friday 21st November 16:32

Ari

Original Poster:

19,328 posts

214 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Some really great (if slightly daunting) help there guys, thank you very much indeed! beer

I'll start off with those Lynda tutorials and see how I get on.

Thanks again, appreciated!

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Pixel Pusher said:
If you're really serious about your PS skills, chuck the mouse in the bin and get a graphics tablet & stylus, Wacom Intuos preferably. Think about it. What do you write with? What do you draw with? It aint a mouse.
Honestly I bought one, tried it, just cant get on with it, back to my Razer deathadder.