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In this topic you can find some tutorials about working with Photoshop. It is not meant to be a Photoshop manual, but when you follow the tutorials you may find it helpfull.

Working with layers
Photoshop works with layers, get used to using them. Aside from the minor attraction of being able to keep your image organized by putting each element on its own separately labeled layer, the advantage of layers is that they allow you to edit your photo's/artwork without editing the original. You did something silly on a layer and the photo looks bad now? Delete the layer, and everything is in order again.
I could write a lot here, but why invent the wheel twice? Photoshop cafe has written a nice tutorial on it, which you can find here.

Messing with the waterhole
This is about messing with pics from the waterhole, and may give you insights about selecting parts of photo's, working with layers, and resizing photo's. If you want to mess with a waterhole picture, read this.

Sharpening the right way
The next one is about sharpening, if you want to publish photo's in any way, electronic or in print, read this: Sharpening photo's.

Colorcorrection with Levels
The photo is now sharpened, so lets start getting the colors right.
Levels

Colorcorrection, fixing a colour cast
Ian Weatherburn has posted a nice tutorial (including a Photoshop action) on his site. You can find it here. Note that at the bottom of the page you can download the tutorial as a .pdf file as well, so you need not be online to try it out.

How to use Photoshop as a neutral density filter

A gradual neutral density filter gives you a gradual transition between light and dark thus giving you the possibility to expose a photo with very light and dark areas correctly. Think of a photo with a white beach and a dark blue sky and you think of a neutral density filter. Read the rest here.

Landscape Photography: Straighten the horizon
If you do landscape or panoramic photography it is important to have the horizon level. Photoshop has a nifty tool for that, called Measure Tool which is tucked away under the Eyedropper. All you need to do is:
1. Open your image in Photoshop
2. Select the Measure Tool from the tool palette
3. Click and draw a line along the horizon
4. Select the Image/Rotate Canvas/Arbitrary... menu option
5. Click OK on the dialog that appears to straighten the horizon
6. Crop the image using the Crop Tool to remove the unwanted bits.
But of course it is easier with some graphics to explain it, so go to this excellent tutorial (and site).

More tutorials will follow, but give me some time to write them

Feedback needed: is what I am writing in the tuts clear enough? I have been working with computers for something like 14 years now, all day, everyday, and for me it is easy.
I have tried to stay in layman terms where possible, but am sort of blind to problems emerging computer users may have.

I am unclear about using multiple layers, in fact layers are an absolute mystery to me. Any chance of a quick explanation, and also how do you select a different layer if you are working on one? I am sure you can explain this in a short post?

Otherwise your articles are easy to follow and very helpful.

regards
bwana

I think the tutorials are very well written. Easy to understand.

No troubles here either as I've worked with photoshop in the printing industry. Believe me the one who taught me could benefit from some of your info. Easy to read.

I added a link to a tutorial. That should help you out.

This is a great post!!!

Being a bit on the anti-microsoft side, I use the GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program), but a lot of the things written in this tut work 'as is' in the GIMP.

Thanks for the info.... loved the part about sharpening

Those tutorials are VERY useful indeed: thank you for posting them as well as the link to the layering tutorial.

The internet is like a river, with each person learning and then passing on something to those who come behind. You are contributing to this by your educational posts. Dank U Wel.

Added: Colorcorrection, fixing a colour cast

Ian Weatherburn has posted a nice tutorial on the web, see the link above.

Great tutorial. Thanks.

Hi there!!!

This one is for Duques who seems to be the resident photoshop expert. (Mind you, my question is probably so basic that just about anyone can reply). As others have said, your tutorials are really very very helpful. They sometimes sound complicated but when you go through, step by step, on photoshop then things work perfectly.

I am a beginner with any kind of digital photography and maybe this has already been answered on the forum somewhere....

I have been practicing cropping some of my photos with photoshop and I was wondering... if I want to have the cropped pics printed by a photographer (either ordered directly on internet or taking my memory card to a photograpic shop) do I have to resize the cropped pics to their original size or is this done automatically? For pics that were standard format and are now square (for example) after cropping, same question....? I'm really not sure what to do with my resized, reframed photos....

Thanks for any help Graeme

You do not need to do more work. You should send them cropped as you want, but keep in mind how you cropped them. The papersize may need to be changed to a larger format, as often you only have a choice of 10x15 or such sizes.

Your photo's will not be in the 2x3 sizing, and that may mean that if you don't watch it the tops and bottoms will not print. A preview should help.

Ok that sounds clear enough!!! Many thanks

Graemy

I have tried to sharpen a photo for the first time. I found the "quick and dirty way" real easy and friendly to use. Thank you very much! I am not sure within what parameters I must adjust I tried the 180/0,4/0 suggestion, but it seams as if 180/4/0 gives better results. Or am I overdoing it a bit? The original photo and the sharpen one with the bigger radius.




Greetings
HoepHoep

You overdid it a bit, but that´s probably due to the fact that your focus is actually a bit behind the bird.
Can you mail me the original, so I can try to do some `magic` on it? I´ll explain what I did so you can try it yourself.