Take training in Photoshop seriously.

Jumping to Photoshop without training in Photoshop can be a frustrating experience. I had my first practical experience with Photoshop in 1995. It was one of the most rewarding and frustrating experiences of my life. I was producing an animated feature film for our new independent company in Merida, Mexico. We were developing this project with an incredible talent, that was the rewarding part of the experience.

I had never been part of a project that depended on editing and digital compositing. Some of the people I worked with and met at the time were great talents in the world of high-end digital solutions: People who had ascended to the top positions in Apple Computer and Silicon graphics. And then there were the geniuses who had just come out of college and they could do anything you could imagine on a Macintosh computer with Adobe Photoshop. Just seeing them use Photoshop to color animation frames in a fraction of the time they would have taken painting the pictures by hand was a great learning experience for me.
I had the opportunity to see people with incredible talent doing amazing things with Adobe Photoshop. But when I sat down and started playing with Photoshop, trying to emulate the simplest effects I had seen creating others with so little effort, I quickly had problems. I didn't take the time to look for any kind of training in Photoshop; I learned to cope with simpler design software.

I did what I had to do for my text presentations, but I stopped dreaming that I could ever do something for myself with Photoshop. Like many people, I decided that Photoshop was too deep for me, anyway I wasn't a graphic designer or a visual effects artist, so I didn't see the need to enroll in Photoshop training. And like most people, I thought training in Photoshop was only for those who wanted to turn their skills into Photoshop into a professional career. I didn't have time to do it, I didn't really need it, so I removed the "Photoshop training" from my wishlist and continued with other things. That was a big mistake.

Not long ago, I was forced to realize, after all these years, how badly I need to learn enough editing and digital composition to create better graphics and videos for the Internet. To begin with, it was just a hobby, I said to myself, but something that had been in my mind since I had crossed out the "Photoshop training" on my wishlist. I had mastered the simplest software and got everything I was going to get from it. There is only one program in the world that allows me to do what I want to do with photos and videos: Photoshop. It's time for me to get serious about Photoshop training.

I hope you also decide to take the training in Photoshop seriously. It's one of the best investments you can make, even if you just want to take full advantage of your photos and videos from the Internet.