Learn The Basics of Photoshop in 25 Minutes

www.lifehacker.com/au has a very nice introductory tutorial on the basic usage of the tools and basics of Photoshop. It’s a nice start for anyone wanting to begin with Photoshop, and will give students an idea as to how we can go further in our classes.

When you want to continue with your Photoshop instruction, be sure to Contact Us

Remember, we don’t only teach Photoshop for image editing – we also teach a number of the less-expensive image editing options. Many of Photoshop’s abilities are echoed in some of the more “consumer level” programs, as well. You can get some great control over your images using Photoshop Elements, for about $80 right now! We teach that, too!

See the Lifehacker video here.

Photoshop’s 21st Birthday!

wpid-PS-2.5-4-2011-02-19-12-161.jpg

Adobe Photoshop turns 21 today. I want to thank Photoshop, the Knoll Brothers and all involved for giving me so many years of fun, and helping me to make a living as well!

This image is how I got my start with Photoshop. Version 2.5, and the upgrade to Version 4.0 (skipped 3.0!) Look! Dual-Density Floppies!!!

Since Photoshop is old enough to drink, but can’t (it has NO THUMBS!) – let’s all raise a glass in honor of this amazing piece of software!

Selecting, Copy, Pasting, Drag & Drop Part II

So, how much do you really know about the various methods to select text, and copy or move it to other locations in your computer? In Part II of a two part Tutorial, I teach about what you can do with the data you select – Cut it, Copy it, Paste it, or Drag & Drop it.

Many of my very experienced students have found that they’ve been going about making their changes the long way. The goal of Part I (Selecting) and Part II (Copy/Paste/Drag & Drop) of this tutorial is to teach students the most efficient methods of selecting text (either a lot or a little), and getting that text to another location in a document, or into another program entirely!

This tutorial focuses on Microsoft Word 2010, but the techniques used here are system-wide. They can be used for text programs, image programs, getting things off the web, spreadsheets… once you know these techniques, Just experiment.

Let me know if there’s anything that was missed, and if you DID learn anything new. I look forward to your comments.

For more tutorials and videos, please remember to visit our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/AYM4Training

Selecting, Copy, Pasting, Drag & Drop Part I

So, how much do you really know about the various methods to select text, and copy or move it to other locations in your computer? In Part I of a two part Tutorial, I teach about the first step in controlling what you copy and paste – SELECTING!

Many of my very experienced students have found that they’ve been going about making their changes the long way. The goal of Part I (Selecting) and Part II (Copy/Paste/Drag & Drop) of this tutorial is to teach students the most efficient methods of selecting text (either a lot or a little), and getting that text to another location in a document, or into another program entirely!

This tutorial focuses on Microsoft Word 2010, but the techniques used here are system-wide. They can be used for text programs, image programs, getting things off the web, spreadsheets… once you know these techniques, Just experiment.

Let me know if there’s anything that was missed, and if you DID learn anything new. I look forward to your comments.

For more tutorials and videos, please remember to visit our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/AYM4Training

Backing Up!!! – and an excellent Deal for Mac Users

Since I have a lot of Mac based clients and students, and since all my clients and students know how much emphasis I place on BACKING UP your data, I thought I’d share this link for an excellent deal on Macintosh Backup Software – Prosoft’s Data Backup (which I’ve recommended to many students). Check it out at:

http://bundles.shakeonit.com/page/weeklyspecial

The beauty of a program like this is that you can make a “bootable” backup of your Mac, so if your computer’s hard drive errors for any reason, you can simply startup from your backup drive and continue to work. Data Backup can also make backups of only your own documents, or any combination of items on your computer. Even with Apple’s Time Machine, which is a great and FREE product, the backups are not “bootable” and the system must be restored before you can use it again.

This seems to be ALWAYS the case with Windows computers. It appears (please correct me if I’m wrong) that Windows machines can be fully backed up (at least, in Windows 7), but they must always be restored to be used – there’s apparently no “bootable” backup option. For instructions on how to accomplish a full backup, take a look at this article:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/53645.aspx


About Apple’s New App Store

I’ve been meaning to write a review of the brilliant apps created by TastyApps (Mac only), and will get to it very soon.

In the Meantime, their blog has an EXCELLENT opinion about Apple’s new App Store (not the iPhone one, but the one they inserted into their new OS 10.6.6 update). He writes not only of the impact to small software developers, but also addresses the effects on us, the consumers of software. I believe this is something about which we should be wary.

And although this article is Mac-centric, please note that Windows has used a similar (but not as accessible) update model on many products for some time – and as you all know, these ideas propagate…

See the TastyApps blog post, here: http://oven.tastyapps.com/?p=31

Cool Color IQ Test

For my design students, you may really get a kick out of this! X-Rite, one of the companies that make great Monitor and Printer color calibration tools, has come up with this test to determine your color acuity.

As it turns out, our ability to distinguish small color variations becomes less acute with age (and other factors)

I tried this about a year ago, and found out that, thankfully, my color acuity was much younger than I am!

Even if you’re not a design student, but you’re into color, this test is really interesting and you may find it fun.

http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_toolframe.aspx?action=coloriq