How I Went From Photoshop Oblivious To Photoshop Empowered
When I bought my Canon EOS 20D several years ago, I decided I needed a good editing program to do justice to the amazing pictures I was planning to take. I looked at the price of Photoshop and nearly had a heart attack, but then I found the much cheaper Photoshop Elements that seemed to handle everything I thought I would need.
However, over the years I never progressed far beyond cropping and the auto-enhance feature in Elements. I got frustrated every time I tried to do something more complicated, never really grasping how to accomplish anything. I had hoped to do some creative projects, but a feeling of ineptitude held me back.
Enter Ladies Learning Code.
I first heard about Ladies Learning Code when I saw a tweet from someone attending their WordPress workshop. Having spent the past year working on this blog, I have been looking into upgrading my skills to modify the appearance and functionality of this site – a workshop on how to do that was definitely something I was interested in. That’s when I visited the Ladies Learning Code site and signed up for their newsletter so I would hear about future events.
When a workshop for Photoshop was announced, I knew I had to buy a ticket. Maybe I could finally learn some basic Photoshop skills! So for the incredibly reasonable price of $45 + tax (which includes breakfast and lunch), I signed up and found myself driving to Toronto yesterday for an incredible day of learning and creating.
Yes, I skipped fishing for this workshop, so I was really hopeful that it would be a good day.
Finding the George Brown College of Design proved to be a little difficult for this country girl, but eventually I found the right location, registered, and got settled in.
One of the amazing things about a Ladies Learning Code workshop, is the number of people who volunteer to be instructors and mentors. With a ratio of four students to one mentor, you will never have to wait to ask a question, and you will learn as much as you care to before the day is out. My group had the very outstanding Angelica Ramos as our instructor, and many wonderful designers as our mentors.
When we first opened Photoshop I had the usual reaction of, ‘Ugh, I am so lost!’ We began by creating a mood board – selecting colors and fonts that we felt represent ourselves. Just the introduction to kuler would have made me feel like the day was worth it. I am terrible at selecting colours and finding others that will go along with them, this tool was incredibly helpful.
While working on the mood board we began to use layers. Layers have always been my nemesis in Photoshop. Yet, after hearing Angelica explain how to organize them and show how they work together, I began to realize that I could view them much like the databases I create and maintain for work – they stand on their own but together they create the overall result you are looking for.
Our next step was to create a Twitter background. I was looking forward to this because I was getting tired of using the standard backgrounds provided by Twitter, and wanted something I could personalize, that wasn’t just a picture I had taken. This is where we were introduced to the pen tool, and I have to admit this almost got the better of me. Knowing when to do a hard click, or when to click and drag was a little frustrating at first. But eventually, with the help of our awesome mentor, and my incredible desk-mate, I began to understand the tool and make it do what I wanted.
In a short matter of time I created a page curl and added my initials to create my own Twitter background. Success! While I have a long way to go in smoothing out the work I did on this, the fact that I had managed to create it, using a program that used to scare me, gave me a great sense of accomplishment.
Next we moved on to creating a Facebook profile picture. Here we learned about the magic wand tool, and how to continue to erase background from the picture, how to use the clone tool and touch-up a picture, and how to add a new background. I honestly had tried to accomplish this before on my own and had never made it work. In a couple of hours at this workshop I learned how to use the tools necessary for this project, and get a finished image.
Finally, we made a Facebook cover photo. This was beyond awesome and I love my finished product (although I’ve already started considering ways to tweak it). By this point, I was actually starting to feel comfortable in the Photoshop environment, and enjoyed being able to use some of the functions we had already worked with to create this final project. This was by far the most involved project, but I found it was easier to understand what was required for this, because I was developing a basic understanding of the program.
We finished the day by adding our completed projects to the mood board, and I quickly logged into Facebook to update my pictures.
I cannot recall the last time I have learned so much in one day. When I walked into that classroom yesterday morning, I was oblivious about how to operate in Photoshop. When I walked out yesterday afternoon, I felt empowered. I felt like I now had the basic skills I needed to began creating. Photoshop no longer scares me, it intrigues me. I also have a new found respect for all designers. Working with powerful software like Photoshop is not easy, and being able to create from scratch (not just follow the steps like I did yesterday) seems daunting.
One other important aspect of the day, was getting to meet so many fantastic ladies. Some were fellow bloggers, other were web developers, others just wanted to get into design. Everyone was eager to learn and help out.
I can’t wait for the next Ladies Learning Code workshop that I can attend. WordPress is coming up again and I’ll be waiting on the computer trying to get a ticket as soon as they are available (these tickets sell out fast).
Here are my final results from yesterday’s workshop:
The final product.
argosgirl
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I owned a digital camera before getting a computer, and got Photoshop 5 years before finally logging on to the internet. If I’d taken a Photoshop course I would be much better today at blogging! Seriously…great start there. Don’t pressure yourself too much and just have fun with it.
Thanks John! I’m just playing around with it right now, we’ll see what happens 🙂