Lesson #01 The Beast Called Photoshop
Written By Darren

I have to say off the bat, it's not easy designing, especially at first. Not only are you designing but in reality, you're also marketing. A person must know how to basically make something out of nothing or very little. However, marketing is another topic and I'm here just to talk about working with this beast called Photoshop...or at least, that's what some people think it is.

I've been designing full-time for about 4 years, but I've been drawing since I could pick up a pencil and using graphics programs since getting rid of my Commodore 64 and stepping up to an Apple Macintosh. Yes, I doodled around with many graphics programs ranging from Windows Paint to Ulead PhotoImpact. After using PhotoImpact for about 6 months and hearing all about Photoshop, I finally decided to try and tackle what looked to be the most complex program I've ever laid my eyes and hands on. It had funky looking graph whatchamacallits (called levels and curves), a ton of brushes that I have to select from, things called layers and all these other gizmos! Whew! I would break out in a sweat just looking at all of the stuff that I had to learn. There was just no way and not enough hours in the day to accomplish this learning curve. So (like most Photoshop virgins) about 2 minutes into opening it up and staring at a blank drawing area, I decided I would learn it another day and closed it back up.

After avoiding it for about a month, I finally told myself that in order for me to be taken seriously I had to learn this "serious" program. Guess what? After tightening up my belt and filling up the coffeepot for an all-niter, I came to realize that it's not really that bad. It's actually quite an impressive piece of software that expanded my design ideas ten fold. I was amazed at how much more control I could have over all of the individual items I drew on the screen. I could bend this, skew that, move the drop shadow without affecting the original object. I could use this layer thing and play with one object and not affect another. "This is amazing!" I thought.

OK. Enough geekiness. It's been a great learning experience getting to know Photoshop. Once I got the idea out of my head of it being too complex and unfathomable, I started to learn bit by bit what this software could do. Sometimes I learned through reading other tutorials and many times by mistakenly hitting the wrong button and seeing the effect. I actually don't see how else I could do site designs without it and it's definitely paid for itself many times over.

Photoshop is the main image editing software that I'll be discussing in the tutorials. You can get a trial version of it at http://www.adobe.com. The licensed product costs about $610 at the time of this writing. The current version is 6.0 and it comes in both PC and Mac editions. For these tutorials, I'll be using a PC. Many software stores such as CompUSA, Staples and Best Buy usually carry the product. If you're buying it for the first time, be sure you do NOT buy the upgrade version. Photoshop is a stand-alone software product, meaning that you don't need another program to run with it. If your budget permits, you can buy one of the Adobe bundle packages that include other useful programs with it, such as Illustrator (used highly in print design work), LiveMotion (for Flash style of animation), and others. Photoshop 6.0 now comes pre-packaged with Adobe ImageReady which is the software program that allows you to easily prepare your images for the web AND which automatically creates the HTML pages by clicking a few buttons! We'll be using ImageReady in later tutorials to do the image compression for the web and for animation.

For the best performance and minimal computer crashing, I highly advise you put as much memory on your computer as you can, especially now that memory is very inexpensive. You may not need 1Gig of RAM, but having at least 256Mb of RAM will really enhance your computer's performance. Also, WindowsME seems to have many glitches while trying to handle Photoshop. I recommend upgrading to WindowsXP or stick with Windows98 if you have that installed.

Photoshop also allows you to use other types of software that enhance its abilities. These are rightly called "plug-ins" and "filters" because of their ability to install and plug right in to Photoshop without any effort on your part. Plug-ins and filters are used for many purposes, but many software companies develop the kind that make it easy for you to add cool effects to the lettering and images you design in Photoshop. Plug-ins can be found at the software company's homepages. Some of them are Alien Skin, which produces the popular EyeCandy software and Right Hemisphere, which has some high-quality (but memory intensive) 3-D software. Right Hemisphere is more like a bi-directional interface to Photoshop instead of a plug-in. I'll be listing and talking about many more filters and plug-ins in upcoming tutorials and articles.

Although I like doing much of my effects using the built-in functions of Photoshop itself, the use of third-party filters can not only enhance your images and help you make some really cool effects. It can also help you to work faster, because the effects are usually added by the click of one button.

By being offered the great opportunity of writing the Photoshop tutorials for Cozy Academy, I'm looking forward to showing how easy it can be for anyone to learn this excellent software program without feeling like you're being tested to become a nuclear physicist. I'll be starting with the basics and later present practical samples and exercises that will speed you on your way to designing like a pro.