learning curve?

[Gunther409]

Hey everybody out there in Photoshop land, I just found a copy of Photoshop 7.0 and I've just started learning it. I've looked around and found only one or two video tutorials and one text tutorial. My question though is what is the learning curve on this program? Could I expect to be fluent in 6 months? Is it longer, shorter, does it depend on how good of an artist you were to begin with? Just curious how long I should go before I chuck my computer out the window out of frustration.

Thanks all!

[Anid Maro]

Depends on what you're doing with it and what your previous art experience is.

In fact, Photoshop is vast enough that probably every artist has their own unique way of using it.

If you want, the link in my sig might help you out, it's a compilation of tutorials intended to help out beginners. Something in there should help you get a handle on Photoshop.

[Snarfevs]

Photoshop is vast

Quoted for truth. Photoshop is the kind of program you can use for years and keep discovering new functionality in. And yes, everyone will find a subtly (or perhaps extremely) different way of using it. The beauty of this beast however is that functionality is sufficiently compartmentalised as to never hit the user with a technical impasse. You can learn features by discovery rather than by necessity. With it however comes the price of rather predictable behavior in new users as they discover filters (like the ever so useful lens flare and plastic wrap), then blending modes, then layer styles, then dodge-and-burn shading, ad infinitum. Proficiency usually comes well before differentiable style. At least it did in my case. :\

[FlipMcgee]

From my personal experience the learning curve for painting in PS is very steep, especially when compared to learning Painter or OpenCanvas (very easy and which I recommend to absolute noobs). It took me a year to paint in PS like this (http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/760/09kv3.jpg) to this (http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/5046/mcgee02jv6.jpg). I kid you not.

How I thought myself without the benefit of buying dvds or taking classes in the beginning was just forcing myself to do a sketch in PS, no matter how clueless I was of technique or proper use of tools, for a minimum of 5 minutes. Every day. Checking out online tutorials and threads like the one bumskee started here as I progressed.

Posting works for crits also has helped me fine tune my process like with color management issues for example. As Anid Maro has mentioned, drawing experience helps too. This becomes apparent when it comes to customizing your tools and tweaking your artwork with the image adjustment tools (levels, color balance, etc.).

In short, practice works!


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[Gunther409]

Wow, it looks like I might stick to pencil & paper for a while. Though I do love the ease of which Photoshop can be used (since I'm always on my computer) a learning curve of possibly years is a bit of a put-off. I think I'll venture a little further anyway and take a look at those tutorials in Anid's sig. Thanks for the answers guys! ^_^