Photoshop Improvement

Cryptokid

So hey guys, I have Photoshop CS5, and I like to make people signatures and stuff occasionally. I really enjoy making sigs for people, problem is, is that I'm not very good. I can make stuff that people like, but I have to browse through and find a tutorial that intrigues me, and use it for the base of the signature. My other problem is that I just don't know what to put in the signature half the time. For example, I started a sig for someone with a big sister from bioshock in it. I used a purple to slightly brighter purple, radial gradient as the background, and put my render in place. Now I have a bunch of empty space, and don't know how to fill it or put the person's name, or even what font to use and how to style it.

Any Photoshop help/tips would be great. Thanks!

MushroomStick

Take some design classes or at least read up on it. Photoshop is just another tool for artists, not a substitute for fundamentals.

TychoCelchuuu

It's also a good idea to read signature rules for forums before making signatures for them. Like before making your signature, for instance.

Cryptokid

Ah crap man sorry, could have sworn I had switched that to my edited version. No one said anything in any of my previous posts so I had forgotten about it. I'm posting mobile so I can't upload my edited one so I just removed it for now. As for taking classes I can't do that till grade 11 so there isn't much I can do about that ATM. I know Photoshop is just a tool, I just need some tips for it. Even some links for good starter tutorials would be great because I don't even no where to begin exactly.

Reznik

http://psd.tutsplus.com/

That site has tutorials for everything, beyond just making signatures. But remember to pay attention to the techniques being used and not just the end result.

Also, just keep cranking out pieces. Challenge yourself. Come up with a limitation - like no brushes or textures - and make a sig around that. Play around with blending modes. Just keep experimenting.

Lucky Cynic

I started with photoshop in a similar manner as you- just tinkering with signatures and the like. The best thing you can do I'd say is to start learning and pushing all the buttons. Learning what (most) every tool or pulldown menu option does goes a long way. Then you can start moving away from applying random filters to actually designing something really cool.

For instance, you can make a neat textured background with rendered clouds. Throw on a directional blur. Place your render. Lasso loosely around the render. Then right click the selection and do "select inverse." Hit delete and you just faded in your render a bit in about 12 clicks.

Tricks like that come with time and picking up and trying out tutorials can be a good way to get your feet wet, but at that point, you're developing tricks, not skills.

If you have some time and money and want to get more serious, check out Lynda.com. There are freebie video tutorials there. The website is $25 a month and the courses can drag on for hours and hours, but if you want to learn ins and outs of something fast, lynda.com isn't a bad way at all. It is how I picked up InDesign in about 2 weeks.

Godfather

If you're anything like me, just pushing buttons isn't good enough. I had the toughest time learning photoshop in the beginning because I was told to just "push buttons" and "figure stuff out", and to be frank it was a bit frustrating. Yeah there are tutorials out there, but a lot of them expect you to know at least basic knowledge, or the other ones will teach you obscure things that are a bit too specified.



Here's what you want to do. Go here for your video tutorials:

http://www.photoshop.com/tutorials?keywords=&sort=rating&product=ps&difficulty=1

I've used tutvids before, and the problem is that it was kind of boring. I went through all the basix videos and it barely got me to scratch the surface. If you wanna go the video route, this is probably the better way to roll.



A beginner like you should have some solid exercises to work with; something that can show you step-by-step exactly what to do. Most photoshop books out there are more reference guides than anything, or will glaze the basics once and then expect you to remember it for the rest of the book. Stay away from these books, they won't help you out.


Now THIS is what you want right here:

http://www.amazon.ca/Layers-Complete-Photoshops-Powerful-Feature/dp/0321534166

This book focuses almost exclusively on one feature, but by the end of the book you will know Photoshop pretty darn well.

This book is great because it will walk you through every step of the way, will consistently remind you of all the shortcuts, and will gradually build your confidence in the program. It's an exercise book, and you can download every one of the image downloads they use in the projects here:

http://www.kelbytraining.com/books/layers/


This is also exactly what you'd be looking for even if all you're interested in is building signatures for websites.

amateurhour

Seconding the Layers book. My secret santa got that for me for Christmas and it's been a TREMENDOUS help to me.

MagicToaster

Cryptokid wrote: »

My other problem is that I just don't know what to put in the signature half the time.

Design, much like scultping, is not about putting things in, but taking things out.

Why don't you guide us through your creation process? Tell us what steps you take; from the initial request or idea to the final product.

Willeth

Reznik wrote: »

But remember to pay attention to the techniques being used and not just the end result.

This is great advice for anything, but especially here. Internet tutorials can be a great help for specifics but if you don't understand why each step gets the result it does the learning you get from them is next to useless.

Cryptokid

Thanks for all the replies guys, some of them seem really helpful, tomorrow I'll get right into some of these. As for your suggestion magic, I'll post a pic of my most recent signature and go through the steps in my thought process to make it.

ArbitraryDescriptor

This is my advice for a lot of things, but it works for photoshop too.

Go to lynda.com

Pay them $15 for a month subscription. Watch the videos.

Photoshop "Essential Training" is 11 hours, broken down into 21 chapters, and each chapter is made up of several 1 to 10 minute video tutorials. You can skip the ones you don't need (like the first 6 chapters on working with cameras and RAWs); in my experience, lynda courses are pretty a la carte.

Alternately, the 'One-on-One' courses are ~65 hours total in three courses: Fundamentals > Advanced > Mastery

They look pretty good, but I can only vouch for them in terms of the lynda's tutorials I've used usually being excellent*

*Overall. I'm an experienced user so sometimes they drag through minutia I'd just as soon skip; other times that minutia reveals some little trick or hot key that I never knew existed.

[Edit] Tips: Avoid information overload. Limit yourself to a few hours a day and take breaks. It is also important that you do everything you see. If you just watch hours of video and don't apply it, you aren't going to retain the knowledge. They provide exercise files for everything, make use of them.

Godfather

Something else to consider:


You ever see those ritzy Photoshop magazines with all the cool covers and how-to guides to make some really incredible illustrations? Stay away from those.

Not that they're bad, but because they are almost exclusively for experts or seasoned veterans of the program. I'm using one right now, and while they do tell you how to do this-and-that, you need to know the program like the back of your hand in order to get any real use out of it.

The covers of these mags will tell you "quick and easy way to do (insert whatever)", but it's all a ruse. They may look flashy, but save your money and stick with something else, tempting as it may be.