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After months of using Photoshop, I'm thinkg about ditching it for a simpler program.
I'm quite capable of cropping, resizing, brightness/contrast/colour/levels adjustment, but anything beyond that leaves me feeling so frustrated I want to throw the computer out of the window.
I'm curious if others here were once in my situation but now use it effortlessly having persevered.
To be fair I don't find the whole thing too intuitive and it has a vertical learning curve. I'd really like to be able to exploit all the fantastic things it can do, but feel like giving up.
For those who have been through this, how did you learn? Was it videos, books, a course or just playing?
My most recent fit of rage with it was trying to use the magnetic lasso tool to make a selection, then invert, then apply blur (to selectively blur the background in a picture I took at a friends wedding). Someone at the local photo processing shop (who runs a studio etc) to me to use the pen tool which seemed easy to start with but then I tried the same procedure with the pen tool and it starting telling me about vector masks (or something).
I find some of the tutorials on EPZ helpful, but they don't always explain WHY you're doing something, just to do it, and that doesn't help me to learn. Then the other thing is when I follow a tutorial and I don't have the buttons/options that the tutorial shows.
Any help/support/advice or comforting words would be appreciated.
One of the best tutorial sources I found was Digital Photo magazine. There is also a great website which I will look up and post on here.
I found the tutorials the easiest way of understanding what and why things happened. You just need to spend a lot of time playing around, and seeing what works for you.
Which full version of PS are you using?
Emma ;o)
I found the best way to learn PS is with Digital Photo magazine. Each month it comes with a set of video lessons that take you through modifying a picture completly. I found it very usefull to help you know what tools to use when.
Chris
the way i learned photoshop was got to it over time - i started years ago using smaller simpler programs and progressively worked up through them getting more complex each time and taught myself mostly by trial and error experimenting - anything i can't work out for myself i go online and there are many websites that offer very good tutorials for beginner, medium and professional level users.
paint shop pro was one of the first more complex programs i used and i used to love the effects and things one can do with it but its biggest problem like other programs of the time was that i didn't have layers - when i first got hold of photoshop 4 my life changed for the better straight away - i could build my images on layers and work on the background stuff by turning off the foreground stuff.
i appreciate your frustration - it would be great if we could all be advanced experts at things from the beginning but unfortunatly this isn't possible unless you stumble across a witch with a wand - just use patience, work your way up through the complexity of each thing you want to learn and you will get there in the end - once you are good you will think to yourself "how did i ever struggle, this is a peice of pis..." =)
don't give up as that way you will never learn it - instead, if you find something difficult then approach it from a different way. i've been using photoshop for several years and there are still things that i struggle with but gradually getting the hang of. the lasso tool and pen tool are very difficult because they are so fiddly but with perserverence you will learn
Oh and the answer to computer frustraion is to lower your expectations. Instead of expecting it to work properly and be understandabble, start from the position that it dosn't work and you will never understand it. then you get to be pleasantly surprised once in a while 
Chris
Seriously, I think what you're experiencing is something many people go through with Photoshop. It's such a powerful application that it takes time to get to grips it. Even then, most of us probably never use it to it's full potential.
I've not got much beyond the basics myself (I have Photoshop CS). I mostly use Adobe Camera Raw, Curves/Levels, Saturation, rotating and resizing, sharpening (high pass or unsharp mask), some rudimentary use of layers...and that's about it.
I bought a book - Adobe Photoshop CS one-on-one - Deke McClelland and started working through the chapters with the accompanying video tutorials, but I only completed about 3 chapters. I've just not had time to get back to it recently.
Don't give up. Decide what you mostly want to do with Photoshop, and concentrate on learning those features.
Edit: Thanks for posting the link, Emma. Looks useful!
Doug
Thank you for all your advice. The website looks like a good place to start Emma, and by pure chance I also bought my first copy of Digital Photography magazine a few days ago, just got to get around to reading it.
Now if only my girlfriend was as understanding and helpful as you EPZ lot...
I know how you feel,have been there,I think I still am times. I brought from Amazon, Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Classroom in a Book (CD Rom included).
In 20 lessons taken at your own speed you cover most of what Photoshop can do.
Hope this helps
Ian
Hi Simon,
I too have problems with Adobe Photoshop, epecially using the magnetic lasso tool, I was following a video tutorial this week and also wanted to throw my computer out the window, I will have to read up on how to use it properly.
I too am mainly into landscapes and I find I do not normally need to use much of photoshop. I tend to sorth the white balance out in the Raw Shooter, then save so that I can then work it in Photoshop, here I sometimes need to rotate the horizon but most of the time this is ok as I tend to use a spirit level in the hotshoe of the camera. I use levels or cures to adjust contrast sometimes alter the colours slightly and then sharpen by using one of the Fred Miranda plugins.
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