In search of biginners help

[Mudbone]

Hello all, New guy here, Some photography experience, new owner of Elements5/Premeire3, and cannot really afford books(although thinking about getting elements5 for dummies). I am looking for free online training resources geared towards a beginner for both of these programs. Any recomendations greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Inspeqtor]

If you do a Google search under video for Photoshop Elements you will get quite a few hits.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Photoshop+Elements

[epaul6]

You might try this site.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/Photoshop_Elements_Tutorials_and_User_Resources.ht m

Even though a lot of these are for earlier versions-they should work.

[Kathy]

Have you checked out the "Helpful Links" section of this forum?

There are lots of links to tutorials there.

Kathy

[Bill McMahon]

You might try this site.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/Photoshop_Elements_Tutorials_and_User_Resources.ht m

Even though a lot of these are for earlier versions-they should work.

I am a struggling beginner as well and I will tell you that my experience is quite frustrating when you follow Earlier Version tutorials, Adobe seems to have a penchant for changing things in a most frustrating way, at least from my novice perspective. I've downloaded nearly a dozen tutorials from About.com and I'm batting about 0.200 using them. It is very frustrating when you get a third of the way through one of these tutorials and then the next "step" leaves you in the middle of no where...

Bill

[kimi_boo]

Bill

Before you spend money on a book. I would highly recommend the layers course offered here. I signed up the day I found this site. Without it, I think I would still be lost.

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/training_courses/

Good Luck. :)

[Bill McMahon]

Thanks Kimi......but are there any FREE sources?
Bill

[frank abramonte]

Try these sites. I'm fairly certain that they are free. If you have specific questions just post them here. Some to these sites will be about photoshop, but most of what you learn will also work in elements.

http://www.nobsphotosuccess.com/

http://www.radiantvista.com/

http://www.photoshopuser.com/how.htm

http://www.panosfx.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

http://www.good-tutorials.com/

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/sketch/sketch.htm

http://www.easyelements.com/photoshop-borders.html

http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=209

http://graphicreporter.com/tutorials/elements_tutorials.html

http://www.image-access.net/calc/index.html

[Diana]

Here are some really great sites for Elements tutorials:

http://www.hummiesworld.com/ (http://www.hummiesworld.com/)
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/tutorials.shtml#PS (http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/tutorials.shtml#PS)
http://cottagearts.net/tutorials_photography.html
http://www.classroomhelp.com/workshop/pse/
http://myjanee.home.insightbb.com/tutorialselements.htm
http://www.shooting-digital.com/columns/schwartz/elements/elements.asp


Don't discount the scrapbooking sites, even if you don't do scrapbook-type layouts, their tutorials cover the tools and features and how to use them.

Diana

[Inspeqtor]

Diana,

Thank you very much for showing us the PSE tutorial sites! I have them all bookmarked for later viewing :) :D

[cats4jan]

I learned Elements by learning digital scrapbooking. I first started with a digi-scrapping book and then found hummiesworld.com

I found that in working on the projects - the way Elements functioned finally "clicked."

I have four books, but until I started working on digi projects, I just couldn't figure out Elements.

BTW - do a layers course first - no matter where you choose to learn Elements

Layers is the key to Elements

[tcape]

If you're looking for free online help with Elements, don't forget to check links for "Photoshop." I've found that most of the Photoshop tutorials can be pretty easily adapted to Elements. When I did a Google search for "Photoshop Elements tutorials", I got a very limited list. But when I did a search for "Photoshop tutorials" and "Photoshop videos", I got a very long list of websites offering free training. Some excellent help out there.