Where did you learn photoshop/graphic skill?

N

Nixxon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 28, 2006
Messages
149
I really would like to begin webdesign, graphic arts etc.

Where did you guys learn your talents from?

Schools, tutorials, etc?

Community College etc.?

Thanks
 
Graphic Communications degree from state university... I'm sure there are easier ways to do this though. :)

Best way to learn a new program is to set out a specific project for yourself, and play around with the program until you can achieve exactly what you had in mind before-hand.

You should absolutely learn to draw out your ideas before you ever sit down in front of a computer. Don't let the software dictate what your image looks like - decide before-hand what look you want and then find the way to create it. If you can't figure out how, then go look at tutorials; but I would advise you not to just go read how to do one specific effect and try to duplicate it - this will leave your work looking really canned and predictable.
 
Well I'm already fairly familiar with Photoshop and how to use it, but when I go to the advanced tutorials I find I missed on some kind of basic use and I feel like I'm always backtracking.

As far as website development goes... same there.

I look up tutorials on certain things, and I know to do certain things decent, but putting all these techniques together is beyond my skillset/knowhow.

Not sure how clear that is.. but it works in my mind.
 
Oh as far as drawing free hand.. that probably won't happen. I"m TERRIBLE at drawing. I wish I could get better but I can't. I was more thinking of photo manipulation etc. then using that for website design
 
Digital work began in junior high in the late 80's when Adobe released Illustrator 88+ and haven't looked back. Went on the filmschool later on, but continued to freelance. Changing with the times as well. Wow, just realized it's been that long, lol!
 
I learnt photoshop on my own and I do consider myself to be very good at it considering I had no training and what not.

Trial and error is the way to go.
 
Self-taught. Photoshop is remarkably straight-forward, so just spend time with it. Over time, you'll begin to develop your own style, and you'll know what tools you need to achieve the designs you have in your head. No big deal.
 
There was this game called NFL Fever 2000 and there was a big modding group trying to create better textures for the game, as well as creating a college football mod. Went through lots of online tutorials for each thing I needed to learn.
 
self taught as well, "the eye" cannot be taught by anyone but yourself. Hands down the most important part of photography.
 
My studies in Photography, and Web Design lead me to learning Photoshop. Although I learned to use it as a Photographer first, I think that was a good choice for me. It allowed me to focus more on using the tools to aid my photos, then designing from scratch. I am far from the artist, and to add, I'm color blind. So for me when it can time to draw, doodle, sketch, design, crop etc, it was all second nature. I new where the tools where, what they did, and how to achieve my desired effect. The biggest plus was organization and work flow.

Not to mention I have been playing around with CAD programs since the Amiga 500. Holla I miss my Amiga.
 
started young in the traditional sense (pen and paper). An obsession with special effects back in the late 80's/early 90's when I was a kid naturally lead me toward computers. Took some college courses which really helped discover new ways of approaching a project in Photoshop/Illustrator.

For the most part though, it's self taught. Grandfather was an illustrator (way back before computers) who always inspired me to try and get better

Now it's a hobby with occasional moonlighting on the side
 
Self-taught, mostly out of necessity. I've been running a gaming enthusiast site since I was in middle school and pretty much had do everything to keep it fresh; from the writing to the graphics design. I'm not very creative and have little to no artistic ability, so I just pick up enough to get by.

Lately, I've been getting into vector tracing since it requires very little artistic talent (just a ton of patience!) and can produce some impressive stuff.
 
my limited photoshop experience was mostly self taught, and via tutorials found online
 
self-thought, mostly out of boredom and just trying different things until it worked. going over wide variety of tutorials also helped me discover few different things here and there.

note that, i'm only using photoshop/LR for my photographic needs and nothing else.
 
I've been using Photoshop since version 3, but it wasn't until CS2 that I really learn on how to use all the features. That's because I took a college course and I working towards my degree in Computer Graphics as a Digital Animator designing computer games and websites.
 
Free web tutorials and exploring the software on your own is the best (easiest?) way to learn IMO.

After some time just screwing around making photochops, I started working with a photographer.
It's always good to approach some things differently in an effort to learn (unless someone else is paying for your time)

While at SCAD, i took some photoshop/design classes, but they were so open, I'm pretty sure everyone just figured the stuff out on their own.
Dive in and get involved in forums!
 
I learned photoshop and web design self taught along with my brother since I was in 5th grade. Started by making anime related websites and learned a lot from that. I just mainly just messed around with the program and did a plethora of tutorials.

After that I got a lot better in high school where i took 3 years of web design and 1 year of flash programming. Ran my school's site and that gave me some good web site management experience.

After college I started freelance and im still fine tuning my skills today. Mostly just by playing around with photoshop and learning from others.
 
I remember the first tutorials that got me into web design were at zymic.com. I followed one of their complete template tutorials, and then proceeded to make my own Unreal Tournament-based site similar to the tutorial's layout. That was back when CSS was non-existant, and I was in 7th grade with my first custom-built computer (XP 2500+ used to be such an epic CPU for overclocking xD).

Anyway, I basically just kept at it, following more online tutorials. Eventually I branched off to my own style, but I still enjoy viewing some of the more creative websites (http://www.cssshowcase.co.uk/) so I can just learn how certain things can be achieved within CSS/jQuery. Seven years later, I'm still in the game, and don't plan on leaving it. I still have about 5 years before I get my degree in Graphic Design, and my skills are still developing excessively... I don't know why the hell I love doing this so much, but I really hope to make it a career in the long run.

My live sites in the past couple of years are as follows...

FragBiscuits - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.fragbiscuits.com/ (Never went anywhere... was made for fun. Didn't even know what CSS stood for back then, as you can tell in the layouts (what's left of them anyway.) )
UPUP Media - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.upupmedia.com/ (Same as above, but actually had a few notable parts... I created a "dugg" article called "The Five Most Embarassing Ways to Die in a FPS". That was pretty sweet. I also made about a thousand dollars in ad revenue from a lot of the Photoshop tutorials/free templates I had listed. Not the best income, but damn, I was definitely the only one in my school getting ad revenue from a website for sure :p)
RyneP - http://www.rynep.com/ (Similar project to UPUP Media, but sadly went nowhere as I'm too busy with college to get it going anywhere. Still has a little bit of content on there.)

It's pretty fun looking back at what I did. I can't believe I thought some of the crap I did was visually pleasing... lol. Who knows what 5 more years will entail! Currently I'm freelancing and working with a few dedicated clients constantly.
 
Self taught. My early drawings were done on the keyboard believe it or not.
 
Self taught, usually the way to go. Look at other examples Put your mind to it, and you can do anything you want, really.

Deviantart.com is a good site to look at awesome user-made work.
 
I was taken by the damned liquify tool in PS7. I was in high school and happened to walk into one of the graphics classes and saw someone using it. I got a copy of it from a friends dad who happened to be a graphical artist and I messed with the program over summer. By the time the school year started again and I had a computer graphics class, I simple looked at the pictures of the end product of the tutorial and figured most of it out on my own. I hurried and finished them all in a couple weeks and had the whole rest of the school year to do some of the advanced tutorials. Our end project was to just create something in Photoshop. If I remember correctly, I took an image of some coastal town and made a surreal sky/backdrop and put dolphins jumping out of the water.

Of course, that image was probably extremely crude compared to what I do now and, sadly, I don't have a copy of it. :(
 
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