That is a CP classic you're dissing
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Cool. I'll look into it. Thanks!
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I learned from a combination of high school courses, college (Art Institute of CA SD), my close friend/co-worker (Airbrush artist/sculpter/graphic designer) and YouTube. And Adobe, honestly.

Like a lot of people under 40, i've been using it since i was a teen, and still use it to this day. I don't think im alone in saying that it's something we grew up with, like Word, Power Point or Excel. Im guessing most people in my age group have at least a basic fundamental understanding of how to use it.

I use it to promote my shop. To create website graphics, T-shirts, flyers, stickers, banners etc.

I am NOT a pro, though i've done graphic work as side jobs in the past. I've just been using it long enough to know how to create whatever content i need to market my business. Here's my 2cents:

1. Fuck around with it. Import an image and slap it up with filters and shit. Familiarize yourself with the program and where things are. Get a general idea of what things are and where to find them.

2. Just focus on the basics. Layering, Masking, Pen Tool, Lasso Tool, gradients, shapes and lines. You can learn all this for free from Adobe and YouTube. Don't let certain posters or guides etc confuse with you with a bunch of unnecessary bullshit. It's not that complicated. The bulk of your work in photoshop starts with what i mentioned above. What i mentioned above is what you'll be using the vast majority of the time.

3. Once you have a handle on the basic tools, find an art style you'd like to imitate and then do it. IDK, maybe take a picture of your car and turn it into an 80's style retro car ad. Go to YouTube and search up Retro-80's Art Photoshop Tutorials. It's a great way to make something cool and get familiar with different techniques.

4. Keep using it. All the time. Keep creating. Keep using the internet as a resource. There's literally a guide for everything.
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Things like that it might be easier to hand sketch it and then import it into photoshop and clean/refine it there.

My buddy does a lot of Rat-Fink type art. He'll sketch it out first and then import it. Colorize and refine the lines in photoshop.

If you want to do it all digitally you could combine some techniques. You can start with a good stock photo and then manipulate that. You could start with a photo of a real eye and then, with a series of filters, make it look like a sketch, and then layer other images together using the same technique.
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I have zero real world artistic ability, I'm afraid. I was messing around with some old cartoon pics last year and I had to rely on my own artistic ability for maybe 5% of the work and it was an absolute nightmare. I just can't visualize in my head how things should be. There was a shot where a character had her hands together with her fingers interlaced and my brain was simply not capable of figuring out how each finger would overlap the other at the proper angle so that it would match the position of her hands.


Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to keep studying this stuff. My biggest hurdles are 1) I have bad study habits. I tend to fall back on using the little bit of knowledge I have to get a project done instead of taking the time to learn new skills that would make that job easier. 2) Knowing that it is going to take years to learn how to do this stuff is very discouraging. Yeah, I know that's not logical but I have a tendency to second guess myself particularly when it's something that is going to take some time and effort.
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The core tools and principles have barely changed at all from CS6 to CC 2021.

There's nothing you learned/did in CS6 that you couldn't do in the latest release.

" AI make amatuers look like pros" ....just....shut up.
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No, no no no no.

No.

You can't sketch? Great! Don't worry about it.

It is NOT, i repeat, NOT going to take years. Not even close. It's not that complicated.

Learn the basic tools. You can learn that stuff in a week or less. Understand that once you understand how to layer, how to use opacity, how to cut an image out of an image, how to enhance and change colors, how to draw straight lines and shapes and how to apply filters, then you're most of the way home. Those are the fundamental building blocks. All the other tools are going to be a bit more project specific.

Everything else is just technique. And art styles and specific projects you can learn on a case by case basis by following step by step guides on YouTube.
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I was here posting shitty MS Paints while KC Tattoo was still in diapers.


Now if you would have said "Demonpenz you are not" then I would have agreed with you.
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This is pretty much the bottom line. And a short, simple way of reducing my long-winded posts. Understanding the tools you'll need makes this process that much easier.
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Just start using it. It's really not that difficult to figure out. If you have questions, use the included Adobe help, and if that doesn't solve it just Google your question. Guaranteed whatever you're asking has been asked 100,000 times already...
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I've got questions.

1) Is there a way to keep selections on permanently? Having to reload multiple times seems like wasted effort. I know I can save them, but occasionally I need to apply an effect or paste something into multiple levels.

2) Is there a way to paste into multiple layers simultaneously?

3) Imagine you are painting on a layer or mask using one color, but are painting different sections at different opacities. A problem arises when the two strikes meet because both of the opacity levels are combined. Is there a way around this?

4) Is the Timeline mode for creating animated gifs as shitty as it seems or am I just missing something? If you want to preview and then alter your layers it turns into a disaster because of the way the timeline frames are automatically affected by turning the visibility of the layers on/off. GIMP is so much easier to use, but its color palette doesn't produce the same caliber of gifs.

5) Occasionally I will try to move a layer and a different,seemingly unrelated, layer will move instead. I highlight the layer I want to move, select all, and a different unlinked layer will move instead. What am I doing wrong?
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