Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. Or San Diego.
I’m in San Francisco for a little workshop called BlogShop.
It’s a two-day workshop to try to help me learn Photoshop.
Unfortunately for me, Photoshop is like algebra: it’s really hard, it’s not clicking without extreme mental effort, I wish I could cheat off someone else’s paper, and it will require me to just keep practice, practice, practicing it to get even a rudimentary grasp on it.
For everyone who uses Photoshop, God Bless You. Can I hire you?
For everyone who doesn’t, and wants to start editing your images, I recommend Lightroom. It’s much more point and click and user-friendly, at least for my brain. I self-taught myself, with practice, but Photoshop is another beast.
I hit up the coffee shop on our lunch break to see if a little java would help my post-lunch concentration. My latte was great even though my brain was fried.
I would have loved a piece of Crack Pie to go with my coffee.
Or some homemade chocolate brownie action in the form of a Oreo Cookie-Stuffed Brownie with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
No chocolate, but I tried my best to stay focused anyway.
As soon as I hit publish, I am going for a run and I can’t wait. It’s going to feel so good to move around and stretch my legs after a flight and sitting in all-day workshop. After that a really hot shower, dinner, and an early bedtime are in store because it all starts again tomorrow morning. My day started with a 3:30am wakeup call today in San Diego in an effort to make this a one-night rather than two-night trip in San Fran.
Have you attended any classes or events lately that were covering new-to-you subject matter? Did it come easily to you?
The workshop is excellent and it’s one of those things that there is so much information being presented and I’m likely only grasping a quarter of it, at best.
I don’t even know how much I don’t know.
The workshop today was geared more toward the basic commands and principles in Photoshop, and how to create image collages and do fun things with images rather than editing an actual picture.
If I want to create something like this, I could (sort of) begin to embark on it. And it would take me 3 hours.
If I want to edit pictures of Samoas Bars that I shot on my camera and plan to post on my blog, I’ll stick with Lightroom 3 (I will probably upgrade to version 4 sometime soon)
This is the type of workshop I could take ten times and get something new from each and every time as my basic fundamental knowledge increased, so would my comprehension of it all.
Have a great night and thanks for the KitchenAid 7-Quart Stand Mixer Giveaway entries
Loved reading about your class, Averie! And I agree about Photoshop: I used to own Creative Suite and worked my way into using Illustrator, but Photoshop remained a mystery. I have a question: so would you be able to create that pretty green collage with Lightroom or do you need to use Photoshop to do something like that? Thanks!
First of all, keep doing what you’re doing. Your photos are FABULOUS. They are all the same size, they are flawless, the lighting of your photography is gorgeous, your photo composition, food styling, girl, you have it goin’ on..so you could edit with a brown paper bag over your head and it wouldn’t matter :)
But one limitation of LR is that you cannot easily make collages. Now, I *just* upgraded to LR 4 over the weekend and there’s a “make a book” feature and in that section, you can drop in pics into pre-set cells or quadrants, sort of collage style, but you can’t control it like you could with CS5. However, considering I could never do anything in CS5 anyway, I’ll take the “limitation” which at least would mean that I could create…something rather than nothing.
Photoshop is a beast, definitely. I have the CS3 suite and although I do use Photoshop, each time I open In Design or Illustrator, I cower and close it. I use Apeture for my every day editing. I only use Photoshop when I’m creating my headers. Otherwise, I have no patience for it. Once every blue moon, I’ll chose a photo I like and create all the layers, but it takes forever. No way! Sounds like a fun workshop anyway, and any excuse to go to San Fran is nice. My youngest is there in school.
Yes those layers take FOREVER! I could see getting faster and more proficient at them but so.many.steps. I use LR 3 for my editing and just upgraded to LR 4 two days ago! Love it!
I have never photo shopped anything in my life … I feel so technology illiterate.