curious about something

"macky" wrote in news:3SNXa.88435$0v4.5977292 @bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:

do accomplished graphics artists believe that you can self-teach yourself PS from a book or that you have to take courses from a good instructor?

Depends on the instructor. I’ve been at this since version 2 and I’d be pleased to pay for instruction from someone like Kai Krause. OTOH, most of the available classes/seminars I would be able to teach.

For a beginner, almost anything is good until you get a feel for what you need to be learning. Are you doing commercial offset printed media? Web design? Presentation graphics? Fine art? All of them require specialized knowledge and skills, but it’s hard to know what those are (and therefore what you need to learn) until you start trying to do them and get a grasp on the concepts and lingo involved.

Coincidentally, almost anything is better for a beginner than the Photoshop manual, which is pretty much just a reference book, which assumes some working knowledge of the tasks and program.

I don’t know about anyone else’s thoughts on this, but my personal one (based on personal experience) is that you can teach yourself. I pretty much thought myself design and the tools I use (been working full time as a graphic designer/web designer for over 3 years now in a design firm). As far as the tools, I would say that I learnt 35% of it through books and other printed (or digital) forms of information, the rest was all experimentation and putting enough time into it. Not all of it in design though, I have to say I learnt a lot of photoshop while working in my personal artwork, which is entirely digital.

But if you get the opportunity to take some classes from a -good- instructor, then by all means. I learn a lot from other people as well, from sharing what I know and listening to what they have learned, or simply asking for their help. In some regards, I wish I had taken some courses and skipped some of the though areas at the beginning of my career.

-enhypnion

On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 12:58:39 GMT, "macky"
wrote:

do accomplished graphics artists believe that you can self-teach yourself PS from a book or that you have to take courses from a good instructor?

Eric Gill …

"macky" wrote in news:3SNXa.88435$0v4.5977292 @bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:

do accomplished graphics artists believe that you can self-teach yourself PS from a book or that you have to take courses from a good instructor?

Depends on the instructor. I’ve been at this since version 2 and I’d be pleased to pay for instruction from someone like Kai Krause. OTOH, most of the available classes/seminars I would be able to teach.

Eric, unfortunately Kai Krause has been incommunicado at his German castle for the past 3 years and is working on projects that probably won’t relate to software, much less Photoshop (the site’s in German – the English language version is incomplete):

http://www.byteburg.de/g/introduction/intro

He has an interesting philosophical read in his "betabook" (don’t fret about the German, it’s also available in English):

http://www.byteburg.de/g/content/philosophical_betabook

Macky, for Photoshop instruction, you might consider the following excellent sites:

http://www.russellbrown.com/body.html

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/

http://www.wacom.com/top40/gurus.cfm

Hope this helps,

Adrian

http://www.amenfoto.com/

thanks to all for the insights…….appreciate you taking the time to comment…… macky

"Adrian" wrote in message

Eric Gill wrote in message

news:…

"macky" wrote in news:3SNXa.88435$0v4.5977292 @bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:

do accomplished graphics artists believe that you can self-teach

yourself

PS from a book or that you have to take courses from a good

instructor?

Depends on the instructor. I’ve been at this since version 2 and I’d be pleased to pay for instruction from someone like Kai Krause. OTOH, most

of

the available classes/seminars I would be able to teach.

Eric, unfortunately Kai Krause has been incommunicado at his German castle for the past 3 years and is working on projects that probably won’t relate to software, much less Photoshop (the site’s in German – the English language version is incomplete):

http://www.byteburg.de/g/introduction/intro

He has an interesting philosophical read in his "betabook" (don’t fret about the German, it’s also available in English):

http://www.byteburg.de/g/content/philosophical_betabook

Macky, for Photoshop instruction, you might consider the following excellent sites:

http://www.russellbrown.com/body.html

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/

http://www.wacom.com/top40/gurus.cfm

Hope this helps,

Adrian

http://www.amenfoto.com/

(Adrian) wrote in
news::

Eric, unfortunately Kai Krause has been incommunicado at his German castle for the past 3 years

Yep. And I really doubt I could produce the amounts of money that would interest Mr. Krause in taking time off from his philosophical pursuits (if any could). I referred to a well-recognized PS guru to make the point.

<snip>

I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned this resource yet, but the Photoshop WoW! books are invaluable in what they can show you what you can do. But, beware, some of their tactics are pretty advanced and instructions can be difficult to follow. Photoshop comes with it’s standard "Help" files, that show you what the features of Photoshop are, but not necessarily how to use them to do what you want to do. Most of that comes from playing around with the application.

However, making kickass images is a lot like building websites. If you don’t have any specific goal in mind, it’s more difficult to actually generate something of value to yourself. Here is what I reccomend. Create this imaginary company, who has contracted you to develop some marketing proposal ideas for them. Then, set aside a course of action like designing a logo, color schemes, and so forth. Then, put your ideas together and get to work. If you’re not good at making fictional clients, ask for help. Besides, there’s nothing that people like more than role playing. Just an idea. It’s what I’ve done in the past.

Also, don’t get filter happy. There are much better tools in photoshop to use, than just filters. The layer blends actually create some of the best effects I’ve seen to date.

Chris.

"macky" wrote in message

do accomplished graphics artists believe that you can self-teach yourself PS from a book or that you have to take courses from a good instructor?

so beveling and embossing the hell out of it isn’t a GOOD thing?

he he.

"Eric Gill" wrote in message

…
Coincidentally, almost anything is better for a beginner than the

Photoshop

manual, which is pretty much just a reference book, which assumes some working knowledge of the tasks and program.

And a lousy reference book, at that.

It helps to start with the manual that was supplied with the program. There are sooooo many tutorial resources out there. I think it wise to at least get an understanding of what features are available… straight from the horse’s mouth… i.e. the software provider

"macky" wrote in message

do accomplished graphics artists believe that you can self-teach

yourself

PS from a book or that you have to take courses from a good instructor?

"Warren Sarle" wrote in news:3yWXa.323718$nr.13223061 @twister.southeast.rr.com:

"Eric Gill" wrote in message

…
Coincidentally, almost anything is better for a beginner than the

Photoshop

manual, which is pretty much just a reference book, which assumes some working knowledge of the tasks and program.

And a lousy reference book, at that.

Yeah, well, come to think of it, I gave up on the damned things around version 4.

"zuuum" wrote in message

It helps to start with the manual that was supplied with the program.

There

are sooooo many tutorial resources out there. I think it wise to at least get an understanding of what features are available… straight from the horse’s mouth… i.e. the software provider

That would make sense for a lot of software, but the Photoshop manual does NOT give you an understanding of what features are available. Try looking up the Curves dialog in the index. Or look up Image Adjustments. It tells you to see the online help. The Photoshop manual is pathetic.

I truly believe you can teach yourself – and it’s not just graphics, it’s anything. I have taught myself 2D and 3D graphics, databses, various programming languages… all from web reference and the odd book here and there.

Only thing is you will probably take longer, miss things out here and there and sometimes end up with ‘sloppy’ ethics instead of good workflow.

Just a thought.

"macky" wrote in message

do accomplished graphics artists believe that you can self-teach yourself PS from a book or that you have to take courses from a good instructor?

Warren Sarle wrote:

"zuuum" wrote in message

It helps to start with the manual that was supplied with the program.

There

are sooooo many tutorial resources out there. I think it wise to at least get an understanding of what features are available… straight from the horse’s mouth… i.e. the software provider

That would make sense for a lot of software, but the Photoshop manual does NOT give you an understanding of what features are available. Try looking up the Curves dialog in the index. Or look up Image Adjustments. It tells you to see the online help. The Photoshop manual is pathetic.

Where is Chris Cox when we need him?