Suggestion for newbies...

okay, seems like the board is getting a bunch of photoshop newbies, and this is a good thing..

but, your all getting to hung up on tutorials, it seems like in every thread there is someone asking for a tutorial, and while tutorials are helpful, you also have to spend a good chunk of time in photoshop just playing around. see something you like, try to reproduce the effect in photoshop, don't know what all the filters do? go through, render clouds and then run every photoshop filter on it, run one, undo, run another, undo, etc.. so that you can learn what filters produce what type of effect.

Tutorials have their uses, but, you also must have an imagination, and the ability to improvise effects, other wise tutorials will eventually just limit what you can do...

my two cents..


Snore
(hope this makes sense.. )

And don't forget to copycopycopycopycopy... :D

Hey they gotta start somewhere right? "How-To"s are what you have to start with because you can do them with out even understanding how or why it works.

Once you can grasp certain concepts than you can start experimenting. You can't really expect them to feel too comfortable with going off on their own right away. Doing the "filter dance" and just randomly using filters isn't going to be as effective as remember the filters in some tutorial you used. Doing something on accident is really helpful in learning filters but doing something on purpose w/ a plan makes it much eaiser.

Knowing filters is a #1 priority though. Or atleast in the top 10. Once you have them down and what a combo of them can you can mix and match techniques w/ various tutorials.

i think experimenting is the way to go. sure the work you produce at first may be crap but that's how you learn.

when i was learning i never used any tutorials (i didn't even know they existed)...and look at me now, a pillar of the community!

I'm a newbie to photoshop and before I'd scream for a tutorial I would:
a) look for one myself
b) ask if there is a tutorial on it out there
c) try and see if I could create the same effect with out one
d) Ask for help!!!

Everyone seems to scream for a tut on everything as soon as it's posted. No one ever says, 'Well I tried to create the same effect but was unsucessful. I tried to create the effect by.... Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can improve my results?? No one seems to realizes that this is also art and that it's personal self expression. GET YOUR OWN IDEAS PEOPLE!! Take the initiative to learn things on your own. It's one thing to learn a technique but there are so many clones of other peoples artwork out there it's sickening.

Just my rant.

It's like everyone's searching for THE magic formula that will take over the world.

I think one of the first thing you have to do is learn the tools and layer modes.

I'll second that, I put tools, layer blending, masking, etc., WAY ahead of filters in terms of critical knowledge. Filters are just the finishing touch, throwing filters on a poorly created image just gives you a sparkly poorly created image. Your mom may like it, but that doesn't mean it's good (no offense intended to any moms out there).

Chris