DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

You're right. YouTube is a great free learning source. But if you really want to learn it - practice it daily.

Latsok Loc: Recently moved to Washington State.

Google "Creative Live dot com" and browse their site. They have loads of courses in many specialties, including photography and photoshop. Some of the best course I've ever taken ( including while in college, through professional seminars, etc) are Creative Live's Photoshop[ and post processing courses taught by Ben Willmore. You can watch live courses for free while they are live streaming, or purchase past courses. Check it out, great stuff.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

95

And you are right!. You can watch youtube videos all day long, and,(alt least to me) they are worthless unless you actually perform the options on a photo. The video explanations are straightforward, and seem to make a lot of sense. but...when you try it there are almost always a few glitches that must we worked out. Books for me are worthless. Every time I looked for the solution of a problem in a boo, I could not find an answer. Either the the book was old, or the answer wasn't there the first place. 95% of the time, Google will have the answer, if the question is phrased correctly.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

I think there's a couple of useful roles for the videos:
1. Once you get far enough along in the learning curve, you have enough knowledge to put what you see in context - you understand all the basic steps, and the video helps you consolidate that knowledge into a new skill.
2. When you're studying a book (and that's how I normally learn), sometimes things just don't make sense. Watching a video can clear up that confusion.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

Watching a video and stopping it to try the step must require two monitors or two computers, one to watch the video, the other to perform the action on a photograph. That or switching between windows on one computer, which to me would maybe be more confusing.

With a book, it is open beside you and the computer. It only requires that the pages be turned. Much simpler than switching between monitors, starting and stopping a video, rewinding the video, etc.

But that is only my opinion. To each his / her own.

Toby

DW this is an excellent list. It must have taken a ton of work to put together. Thanks for posting

rfcoakley Loc: Auburn, NH

[quote=Latsok]Google "Creative Live dot com" and browse their site. They have loads of courses in many specialties, including photography and photoshop. Some of the best course I've ever taken ( including while in college, through professional seminars, etc) are Creative Live's Photoshop[ and post processing courses taught by Ben Willmore. You can watch live courses for free while they are live streaming, or purchase past courses. Check it out, great stuff.[/quote]

As part of this year's Adobe max, Ben provides a 3 part tutorial on lightroom/photoshop integration. There are a few advanced nuggets in that that I found interesting. He mentioned his website during those 3 sessions, so I took a look. I found the latest free video very interesting - its on applying curves adjustments to a B&W image. I learned a lot from that - his step-by-step video instructions are thorough and easy to follow. Scrolling through the courses available on his subscription site, it is very comprehensive.

I second the Ben Willmore recommendation.

Photomac Loc: The Dalles, Or

Many great references above. I too, have struggled with PS over the years and I finally figured out that we all have different learning styles. One of the main issues that I figured out is that in order to learn this complex program is you have a vision of where you want to go and then learn the basic tools of how to get there to fulfill that vision using the various features. So I made a list of the tools I needed to master, other than the basic list on the left side of the screen, brush, healing clone, move tool etc. to do the basic pixel changes after ACR or LR, then moving on to plugins. Then I looked at more complex layer tools like masking, more selections, clipping, using opacity, blending modes and finally channels. Understanding the various assets and the real estate helps your brain have a reference or road map to get you there. The final challenge is learning composites which is sort of the final stage. We need to think of ourselves as artists, with P/S as our palate we use to paint our canvas. You've got to learn where those paints are located on the palate to paint.

WDCash Loc: Milford, Delaware, USA

Good info here.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Try reasoning by looking back from the photos which you wish to accomplish... what do you need to get to the finished product. If you are not a special effects person then you will need a simple program with simple tools, not PS. If I want special effects then if I were to use PS I would have to go thru multi-steps, if I used an editing program equipped with the Plugin[s] then the work would be easy and quick.

Plugins, to use a food analogy, plugins used with a simple edit program are a cake mix ... stir and the job is done. PS is more of a do it from scratch; that is a lot of work.

Regarding the fee, one year of PS is over $100 and for that, you can buy Affinity $50 and free upgrades. The $50+ leftover can go toward plugins. The goal is photography, not learning a program that you will not need most of. The plugin requires almost Zero training... you just use them and you arrive at your goal quickly and not frustrated.

Photomac Loc: The Dalles, Or

Well said.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

[quote=dpullum]Try reasoning by looking back from the photos which you wish to accomplish... what do you need to get to the finished product. If you are not a special effects person then you will need a simple program with simple tools, not PS. If I want special effects then if I were to use PS I would have to go thru multi-steps, if I used an editing program equipped with the Plugin[s] then the work would be easy and quick.

Plugins, to use a food analogy, plugins used with a simple edit program are a cake mix ... stir and the job is done. PS is more of a do it from scratch; that is a lot of work.

Regarding the fee, one year of PS is over $100 and for that, you can buy Affinity $50 and free upgrades. The $50+ leftover can go toward plugins. The goal is photography, not learning a program that you will not need most of. The plugin requires almost Zero training... you just use them and you arrive at your goal quickly and not frustrated.[/quote]

I have been using PSE for quite a few years and have become accustomed to using it. I like the ability to make an adjustment in very small increments. Maybe I did not get into the others deep enough to fully use their adjustments. I do like what I can do in PSE.