Transfer to photoshop

Hi everyone,

I was in doubt wether to put this post here or in the computer forum, but I think this is the place where most photoshoppers are so I put it here. (If the mods feel it's not the right place than please move the thread)

I'm very much into digital design. I make websites and animations. For years I've used paint shop pro. When I started using it, it was still considerd a very good piece of software. However over the years photoshop turned out to be THE software to use and paint shop pro became something that, well... something I didn't want it to be.

The other thing is I also use flash and dreamweaver and since they can communicate with photoshop the most obvious thing to do is make the step to photoshop. So I tried.... for about half a year. And it drove me nuts.

I can't even find the most simple functions (and I know for sure they must be there) and if I find them they work totally different than paint shop pro. Now I'm not a newbie to pc's and software but I really don't know what to do now.

Has anyone here made the step from paint shop pro to photoshop and how did you make the transfer easier for yourself? Also tutorials drive me crazy, because I know what layers are and what vectors are and that kind of thing, so I don't need to go over that again. I just need to know where I can find the functions and how to apply them, so does anyone know of any tutorials that just discuss the functions and not how to make layeres and all the other things I allready know.

Thank you in advance!

Yes I did... Photoshop is pretty much industry standard... If you can use photoshop you are worth something or so it seems...

But yes it takes a lot of time and practice... I had the same problems when I first started using photoshop, but now it's second hand...

Wish I had a simpler solution for you, but I really don't... Also if you have a friend that knows how to use it real well you might ask them to show you how to do things... Give yourself a project and then anything you don't understand ask about, once you've done it a few times you pick it up real fast...

Good luck!

Thanks for your advice.

I have indeed got a niece who is pretty good at it, I never thought of that since she lives far away but with email I could ask her some questions.

It's a good thing to hear that you've managed to master it... it gives me some new hope, thank you!

You may not like tutorials but it's a great place to start. When you follow one you start to learn where all the functions are and how to use them.

Best of luck, you can do it.

Thank you! I just have to get myself over the tutorial bit I think... I can be very stupborn

Yeah, just remember a tutorial is just like someone sitting next to you teaching...the only difference is that you need to read it to yourself.

Fortunatley for me I started off using photoshop so didnt need to make a transition. As was said previously I think when we all started using photoshop we were overwhelmed. My suggestion is to first learn how all the menus and palletes work as well as to find and play with all the basic commands.
If you have some specific questions I'll do my best to help you with them.

As far as layers go ... layers are handled through the layers pallette which can be accessed through window>layers once you find the layers pallette you can create layers, delete layers, switch between layers etc. I would also reccomend you learn photoshop keyboard shortcuts. They make life a lot easier and save a bunch of time.

Once you get the hang of photshop you will see it is a very logical and easy program. I have tried to use paint shop just for the heck of it and alwasy give up becasue it can not match the capabilities of photoshop

Thank you for your advice. I do have one specific question. In photoshop there's something called layer styles. In paintshop pro for example you'd chose a gradient fill and add a pattern manually. In photoshop they are preset. That's nice but sometimes I have trouble finding a style I like, so how can I design my own layer styles?

They are not nessesarily preset however they are attached to layers. If you double click on a layer the styles menu will pop up. It is true that each style has a preset but it is possible to customize each style. When your styles pallette pops up you can expand the stlyes by clicking on the individual stlyle. For instance when you click drop shadow it gives you a bunch of differant options that you can change in regard to the drop shadow. Also YOu may want to remember you can not apply a style to a backround image. The backround image first needs to be converted to a layer by double clicking the backround image.