Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

Ima gonna keep beating the stain I think the dead horse left.
Try Gimpshop. It's easier.
Try Youtube. It's free. Lotsa stuff. Install XDM for downloading your faves for later. Sort them.
Try everything. Know what and how and where every feature and button on your camera. Try out the "This is how I did ..." tutorials and examples that interest you. Try out a bunch of little lessons- reading and watching people play the piano is NOT the same as doing it yourself. Try fixing some old crappy shots, and some new goodies, too.
You WILL get better. Quick.

10MPlayer Loc: California

There is a lot of good advice about learning Photoshop here. I think the best thing to do it to learn Lightroom. You can do 95% of what you need to do in it. I rarely use PS. When I do it's to add a different background or to change a face in a group shot. I'm not proficient enough to do much more. If you are into the arty end of photography or interested in creating graphic images the options are limitless. Photoshop is the standard of the industry.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

There is only one version of Photoshop you can buy today... that's the $120 a year subscription that includes both Photoshop and Lightroom. You have to pay rent on them every year or they stop working.

Are you a professional photographer?

If not, I would recommend you consider Adobe Elements 2019 instead. It's more of an all-in-one and can be purchased outright with a permanent license for $100 (sometimes less on sale). Buy it once and you can use it until Adobe introduces a new version with one or more features you just gotta have or until you buy a new camera that's no longer supported by your now-older version of Elements.

Mainly, Elements is MUCH EASIER to learn to use than Photoshop and Lightroom.

Elements has built-in support for new users. You can choose between "beginner", "intermediate" and "expert" modes for more or less guidance in your work. And you can switch between them any time.

Lightroom and Photoshop have no built in support at all. LR isn't too difficult to learn... A book, a class and a month using and you'll probably be up to speed. Photoshop is another story. It's extremely complex and the learning curve is steep. Figure on buying a stack of books and taking about a year's worth of college level courses to really become expert at using it.

Lightroom and Photoshop are designed to work together... LR is primarily an organizer and cataloger, with light editing capabilities. PS is the "mac daddy" of all photo editing software... with very minimal organizing and cataloging capabilities. Neither LR nor PS is truly compete without the other. That's why they're offered as a package in the subscription. There's a lot you can do with just LR... But you can't really finish images to a high level without Photoshop.

Elements is all-in-one... it has editing, organizing and cataloging features. It's sort of a "lite" version of both LR and PS, in a single program.

Elements, Lightroom and Photoshop all have Adobe Camera Raw at their core... That's what's used to convert RAW files from your camera into various usable formats.

For most people, Elements can do all they'll ever need... A lot of people get in way over their heads with Photoshop. Or they subscribe and only use Lightroom because it's easier... But then they are more limited in their ability to edit their images completely (and may not realize it).

hughck Loc: Lincoln Park, MI

Check out the community college. I teach in the Detroit area at a local college and the cost is very low. Seniors 60 years threat live in an area that supports the college can take the classes for free.

johnmccarthy Loc: North Hampton NH

Phil Steele has an excellent courses that are reasonably priced that will cover layers, portrait retouching, changing backgrounds etc. https://steeletraining.com/index.htm?gclid=Cj0KCQjwh6XmBRDRARIsAKNInDGNIjK7_Hg6G0O5GHQpFuKjDQvHubZKN_jQA-eu7yik7dUNsbyIh-0aAlnwEALw_wcB

bleirer

I also started with elements and found it very good. You can easily switch between beginner, advanced, and regular views to get a lot of support. Most of what you learn applies to Photoshop if you eventually switch, probably does 80-90% or maybe more of what Photoshop does.

fotoman150

Photoshop isn’t that hard to learn. Don’t be scared. I could literally teach you the basics in an hour and if you repeat the steps a few times you will be able to do most of what you need. I don’t recommend Photoshop Elements because if you ever want to learn Photoshop everything is in a different place and you have to start from scratch.

My advice is to bite the bullet and jump in with both feet. Elements is $100 but Photoshop and Lightroom is $120 a year for both together and you get constant updates. It’s a no brainer. And when you’ve learned it you’ve got the best knowledge there is and you can be proud of yourself.

The advice you hear about learning Lightroom is right on the money. Lightroom is easier and faster and has most of what you need. Then if you need to you can put the finishing touches on with Photoshop but I rarely use it any more. However, learning both is a plus and highly advisable.

Al P.

I've been using PhotoShop CS6 for a number of years (since that edition was new), but find that I can't use resources for RAW, which are regularly updated on the subscription version. $120/year is probably not all that unreasonable, and probably not much more than one would have spent buying the latest versions of CS6 as they came out.
GIMP is free, and while it doesn't have 100% of the bells & whistles present on PhotoShop, I think it may have more than one will need or use, anyway.
I'm planning on switching to GIMP in June on my retirement, when I'll have a bit more time. From what I can tell on the videos, most of the common things you do are done in a similar fashion, maybe with different names or keys. Sort of analogous to switching from Windows to iOS.
For comparisons, see:
https://expertphotography.com/gimp-vs-photoshop/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpbp1d0JJc4
Just Google photoshop vs. GIMP, or better, check out some of the GIMP tutorials, which seem to have proliferated nicely on YouTube

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

Retirement and more free time...now that’s funny 😄