Recommendation for (online) photoshop class

January 6, 2015 7:54 AM

I'd like to improve my photoshop skills and was hoping to find a good online course to take.

I don't have much experience with online learning and don't know what sites to look at or what courses to take. I'm a dedicated amateur photographer so my main goal is develop more skill at photo processing, retouching, etc, which is a blind spot in my skills.

I'd be willing to pay for something really good but I don't feel comfortable blindly giving someone money without knowing what I will get.

posted by RustyBrooks to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

I've had a lot of luck with the lynda.com photoshop courses. Well organized, easy to follow, thorough. I used them for more advanced PS techniques but their foundation courses in other Adobe products have been great. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee but then have access to a wide range of online courses.
posted by oneaday at 8:09 AM on January 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Any particular one? There are 353 photoshop courses on lynda.com...
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:15 AM on January 6, 2015

What do you feel are your weakest Pshop skills? Start there and expand as needed.
Seconding lynda.com.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:12 AM on January 6, 2015

Thirding Lynda.com , the free trial period should give you an idea before you commit for a longer paid subscription.
posted by PardonMyFrench at 9:23 AM on January 6, 2015

Nthing Lynda.
posted by IzzeYum at 10:30 AM on January 6, 2015

When I want to learn anything new at lynda.com, I search for "essentials" with the software/technique. This Photoshop Essentials for CC looks good, but there are other ones for earlier versions of Photoshop, too. Lots of material on dealing with Camera Raw, but it moves on to universal PS basics, too.
posted by maudlin at 11:10 AM on January 6, 2015

They also have several retouching courses, videos and articles. I haven't used any of them, but anything quick from Deke is usually worth it.
posted by maudlin at 11:13 AM on January 6, 2015

Best answer: Lynda.com is great, but, currently, KelbyOne has the better teachers for photography and Photoshop, imo ( Kelby himself, Katrin Eisman, Dan Margulis, etc.).

Try a month at both sites, ask them what they would recommend for you
to start out with. They'd want you to keep coming back, so you'd probably get the straight poop, as it were.
posted by Chitownfats at 3:05 PM on January 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I went with KelbyOne and for the last few days I've been watching a lot of videos and working with photoshop a lot, it's definitely been a big help.

I decided to swallow my ego and watch a few beginners videos to start out, and that was probably a good idea. A lot of things in photoshop have really been streamlined since I was proficient at it (think, say, Photoshop version 6, like 2000ish) and things that used to be multiple steps are now accomplishable in single actions. They've also managed to make a lot of common operations non-destructive, which is really nice.

I'm tackling some harder lessons now and I think the subscription will really pay off.
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:46 AM on January 12, 2015