I'm a pretty intelligent person. I'm very computer literate. I know html and multiple programming languages. And yet I can't even do the simplest things in photoshop!
I can usually get by if I'm editing a premade image, but if I have to do anything from scratch, I'm dead in the water.
I know it can't be THAT difficult to use.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I seem to lack the photoshop gene too. I suppose I need to play with it more but last time I tried to do anything it was a disaster.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Well, Photoshop is designed to let you edit premade images. Creating something from scratch is more the domain of Illustrator.
If you aren't familiar with the Photoshop tools, though, maybe you could buy a book? That's how I got started in Maya, and it worked like a charm. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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You can do a lot of the same stuff in Photoshop that you can in illustrator- it's just a lot easier to do in Illustrator. The pen tools are there just the same. Gabe from Penny Arcade uses Photoshop exclusively to "ink" his pencils.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I tried to use it to ink my pencils and it didn't work well, even though I was following a step by step guide from a web page (granted, it was for a different version of photoshop)
I learned Dreamweaver just by mucking about and using the help/tutorial. Neither of which is helping me in Photoshop at all.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Strider, get the Adobe Photoshop Classroom-in-a-Book. It's about twenty dollars, I think, but it's the best book I've ever read for any program. It provides examples and projects for everything, and there are twenty projects in there all focusing on different parts of the program. I love it - until this spring, I'd never taken a Photoshop class but learned everything from experimentation and those books. And I hate learning new computer programs. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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But it seems cool, I'll probably pick it up. $20 is more than worth not having to deal with the frustration of not being able to do anything in photoshop.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
well, I'd like to learn how to use it in general. Because it'd be good for me.
But right now what i'm trying to do is create some buttons for a webpage. Easy right? Well not for me!!!
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Yes, Gabe from Penny Arcade does use photoshop to ink, but he has a wacom, (A very high end and expensive one at that) which is kind of like a sketchpad for the computer. Very nice, but probably too much for your purposes.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ok, here's an example of a really ugly circle button. If I explain stuff you already know, I'm sorry, mainly I'm going to cover as many details as I can. Note: this is for photoshop 6. If you have photoshop elements, it will probably be different.
1) File > New -Dimensions 4 inches x 6 inches (though, really, this is just a pick and guess part, and turned out my size was way too big)
2) Click on the text tool (the big T over there). -Type 'Hey'. Size of it doesn't matter, you can fix that later.
3) One of the selection tools (usually in the top left corner) is for a circular marquee. If there is a square, click and hold and then pick the circular one.
In the layer palette, click on 'background' (if you are having troubles finding this place, go to "window > hide layers" and it will take it away, then go "window > show layers" and it will bring it back.)
4) Click and drag the mouse on your canvas till you have a nice sized cirle highlighted.
5) Ctrl + V
If you notice, in the palette that has layers, there is now a "layer 1" that contains a white circle that you just selected.
6) On that layer pallete, it will have a layer called "background". By that layer, there should be an eye looking thing. Click that. The white back ground goes away leaving you with the white circle and the text. Note: it is not deleted, just not visable.
6) Click on where it says "layer 1" in the pallete. It should be highlighted now.
7) Select the move tool (on mine it's an arrow with a cross by it). Move the white circle until it is under your text.
8) In the layer pallete, click on your text. That layer should be highlighted now.
9) Click edit > free transform (note: on elements it's image > transform > free transform) and scale your text to fit your circle. Once done, hit enter.
10) In the layer pallete, click on layer one (your circle). Then right click on it and click on 'blending options.' If this option doesn't come up, you want to right click a little more to the right then where you did previously.
11) Now comes the style part. What I did was this:
Click on 'drop shadow'.
Click on 'inner shadow'.
Clicked on outter glow. Once the options for that came up, I :chose 'screen' for blend mode :changed the color in the box to red :gave it 75 percent opacity
Clicked on Bevel and Emboss. Once that option came up, I chose :inner bevel as style :depth of 231 percent :direction: up :chose an angle of direction that I liked. :I also messed around with the size and distance till I had a cool effect.
Clicked on Color Overlay. I chose blue as the color in that box. I also chose a blending mode: normal.
I know tutorials suck eggs, but I do hope this helps. If you do have Elements, I could try to change it for that, if you need me to.
posted
A good quick way to get good 3-D effects for small buttons is to use Filter>Render>Lighting Effects.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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