Reminder: Many students who came into contact with design at first thought that learning PS well was enough, but in various fields, the requirements for designers were actually more than "being able to use software". If you want to be a real designer, maybe you should look at the excellent collection of Self-study from scratch.
0 1: It is not a one-off event to learn PS well.
Interest-is a good start on the road of PS masters: if you are not interested in PS, but deliberately learn it because of work needs, then no matter which master's tutorial you watch and which PS master you go to, you can only learn a little.
02. Aesthetic basis: This is very important.
Many students come to study, and some have been doing PS for many years. Why didn't they make progress? Some people began to complain that they were stupid, or that they didn't have a good teacher to lead their progress? Most people talk about the mechanical work of the photo studio, which makes them too numb. In fact, in the final analysis, the aesthetic foundation is weak!
So how to improve your own aesthetics? Or is there a teacher who teaches you aesthetic lessons?
In fact, although everyone's aesthetics are very different, they are all the same. And art is to teach people how to appreciate beauty. It is very important for PS to make up some art foundations properly.
Non-professional students should not only appreciate good works, but also read a lot of books about beauty. They must have a clear and profound understanding of beauty and understand its course. Seriously, this is one of the differences between artists and designers.
For books in this field, it is suggested that students choose the right books in the designer's book navigation and make progress together.
03: Is color matching difficult to learn?
Whether color matching is difficult to learn, the most important thing is to see your grasp and acceptance of color and so on. Because color matching involves light and shadow, color, aesthetics and so on. It's not just playing with a few tools.
04: Can you learn PS without art foundation?
Of course you can learn this! Take me for example, I have never studied art professionally, and even the most basic sketch has not been trained formally and systematically. Art is just part of my hobby. In my spare time, take some time to get to know it briefly, that's all. Of course, it is better to study art systematically and then PS, and then color matching. Because color matching involves the basic things of art, so don't make excuses to say that you don't have time to study art, and you don't need to study it specially. As long as you like, time can always be squeezed out.
05: Can you still learn PS when you are old?
There is no age limit for learning PS. As long as you want to learn, there is nothing you can't learn. It's just that older friends are not as memorable as young people. But if you learn it, you won't forget it. Unless you haven't practiced PS since you learned it. Many of my students are over 500 years old, but their learning motivation has never lost to young people. The so-called happy old age Learning PS can really add some color and happiness to your life.
06: After learning PS, some technologies are always not applied?
Any PS technology has its corresponding function. Not that it can't be used, but that it can't be used.
One reason is that the photographer's work can't impress you. This is very important. That's why you have no inspiration, no PS. There is another reason: I still don't know how to analyze the photos, or I didn't analyze them correctly. Once the analysis is wrong, your next steps and tools will always be wrong.
07: The higher the PS version, the stronger the function?
Novices don't know much about the level and function of PS version. However, many people think that the higher the version, the better the picture. Or the higher the version, the more powerful the function inside. In fact, any version of PS can be adjusted for color matching and retouching. Conversely, the lower the version, the faster it runs. Because there are few additional plug-ins, it runs very fast.
Although every time you upgrade a new version, it will bring some surprises, because every version upgrade will add some new functions or optimize some interfaces. It stands to reason that the higher the version, the better, but some functions you may not need. No matter how the software is upgraded, the original functions and usage methods will not change. Personally, the best version at present is CS3, 10.0. However, some original files must be opened with the latest PS version. This varies from person to person.
08: Is it useful to learn the PS tutorial on the network?
Because many students suffer from no teacher's guidance when they are beginners, or because of work reasons, they can't take so much time off to attend training courses for the time being. They can only study through the internet. The internet age has brought us great convenience. Many PS websites and photography websites will publish some PS tutorials from time to time. It provides a learning platform for those friends who can't participate in field study due to special circumstances. However, the PS tutorials on this platform are varied and mixed, which makes many beginners go astray. Because of the online PS tutorial, there is no professional to supervise and evaluate the technology and check whether the tutorial is qualified and correct. Everyone is wandering around on the internet. It's hard to tell right from wrong, good from bad. The same tutorial and different websites have different effects after forwarding. Many parameters and fonts are full of mistakes. Sometimes a sentence is not accurate, and the adjusted photos are completely different. So my suggestion, if there is no foundation, is to go to the bookstore to buy professional PS technical books and videos to learn. For those who have a PS foundation and can distinguish the advantages and disadvantages of some PS technologies, they can refer to their ideas and methods appropriately, take the essence and discard the dross.
It is very important to have the guidance of a good teacher, especially a self-taught designer. I recommend students to read this article "Awesome! A complete self-study guide for designers, with systematic and scientific methods, will be of great help.
09: Can you imitate when you just start learning PS?
It can be imitated completely, and even I strongly recommend imitation. Although you just started to learn PS, at least you can tell which works you like and which you don't. Although you can't say why you like it, or what's good or bad about other people's works. But you can use your intuition to practice what you think is good as the object of imitation. Only in this way can we slowly discover the law in imitation. After a certain stage, don't imitate blindly. Because if you want to break through yourself, you can't always repeat the footsteps of others. It's best to have a teacher to guide you when you imitate, so that you can know how accurate you are. What did you miss?
10: Do you need to know something about photography to learn PS?
The answer is yes! Why do you say that? Because photography is inseparable from the later period, especially in the digital age, almost every photographic work will use the later period to enhance the aesthetic feeling of the work to a greater or lesser extent. Don't think that there is no post-film era. The darkroom at that time, to put it bluntly, was the later stage.
Some tools in PS are easy to master, but some methods and principles of color matching are difficult. Light and shadow are the most commonly used and basic things in photography. So some people say that photography is the art of light and shadow. Later color matching and retouching also need to master these knowledge. To be exact, color matching is also dimming and shading. We know that in PS, RGB mode is the mode of light, and RGB is the three primary colors of PS. It's not the color of paint, it's the color of light. Therefore, it is very helpful for you to know some photography knowledge properly.
1 1: Can laptops be used for color matching?
Strictly speaking, none of today's laptops can be used for color matching. Even if the IPS panel is portable, there will be corresponding differences. If you are not strict about color, you can buy an exercise. I recommend ASUS and Dell as practical and affordable monitors. Note that only IPS panels can be used for color matching. If you have enough money, you can buy Zhuo Yi and apples.
12: How to get inspiration from PS?
Presumably this is a topic that many students often care about. Actually, it's not too difficult, as long as you put some thought into it.
Do you like watching movies? In particular, some blockbusters with more eye-catching special effects in the later period will be your source of inspiration. If you don't have time to watch, you can go to the movie forum to download their posters. No matter the color or design of the picture, it is a good motivation for your study.
Do you like fashion magazines? The pictures inside, whether photography or color, will give you new energy and make your inspiration active again.
In the words of a great man, life is not a lack of beauty, but a lack of eyes to find beauty.
13: I just learned PS. Where do I start?
Most students want to learn more advanced courses without a solid foundation, which will lead to a very slow progress of the whole course and have a negative impact on the students themselves-they will think that the more they learn PS, the more difficult it will be. Because the basics are too important for PS scholars, some people don't even know how to use the most basic tools, so they want to learn creative synthesis and advanced color matching. They always think that advanced courses will be more in-depth and detailed. Actually, it is not. Advanced courses are based on the elementary level. Without a good foundation, it is difficult to understand the truth.
Some people have worked in the later stage of the studio for many years without even knowing what the channel is. I don't know anything about application images, channel mixers, gradient mapping, etc.
These are all within the basic scope. At least we must understand the functions and functions of these tools in order to make better progress on the road of PS masters. Therefore, it is imperative for beginners to learn PS and lay a good foundation.
14: Is there any conflict between PS and photography?
Although PS has been developed for some time now, it is still in its infancy compared with photography. The camera has been developed for nearly 200 years since it was invented by the French in 1839. Computer, scientific name electronic computer, was born in1946; Photoshop 1.0 was born in February of 1990, less than 30 years ago. For some senior photographers, there will still be many people who reject PS more or less. In their view, photography is photography, an independent art of light and shadow, and there is no room for any foreign elements. PS is PS, only computer software. Once PS is integrated into photography, it is not photography. Of course, from their standpoint, these views are correct. After all, they don't have more time to learn about PS and explore its magical functions. I think with the continuous development and progress of science and technology, the digital camera is digital because it must combine the advantages of digital technology and art with the camera itself to develop a larger digital art, which is far from being achieved by simple photography technology. And human thinking will gradually change with the development of science and technology era. PS and photography not only do not conflict. And they will complement each other. Their perfect combination will produce a more beautiful image.
15: How to make good use of PS tools?
There are not many commonly used PS tools, but each tool has its own unique usage and skills. Levels and curves can be used to adjust colors and improve brightness/contrast. Why did you invent the curve and add another layer? Can't you use one of these tools? Of course not. Since both can exist at the same time, there must be a reason for their existence. Because many people don't understand their characteristics, they will use them blindly when mixing colors. When learning these tools, we should not only find out their similarities, but also distinguish their differences, so as to play their characteristics more quickly and accurately in color matching.
16: How to distinguish the quality of PS works?
Whether a person's PS works are qualified depends on whether the highlights of the image are too violent, whether the details of the dark parts can still be reflected, whether the middle tones are too natural, whether the colors and contents of the image are coordinated, and whether the weather expressions of different scenes can be adjusted accordingly. Like a person's work, maybe just a glimpse. But it takes a long time to analyze a person's work. Some people, because of their own vision and aesthetics, have not yet found the shortcomings of other people's works, so all the works you like are not necessarily qualified.
17: How to make your work better?
Nowadays, digital SLR cameras are very popular, and the threshold is low, so many people can afford them. Pick up the camera and press the shutter, and you can take a good image under the right circumstances. But after a long time, I always feel that the images taken are too ordinary. No matter what I take, it's like taking a commemorative photo. That means you should learn PS.
To shoot your own work, you must first have an idea. For example, if you want to shoot a sweet type, you just want to simply show a girl's shyness and innocence. Then, in PS post-production, you will get unexpected gains by executing LAB mode and adjusting color scale and A and B channels. Different expression techniques will have corresponding colors in post-processing. For example, sad people can match cool colors such as blue and cyan, and happy people can match warm colors such as red and yellow. Of course, this is just a simple idea and analysis, and the specific operation will be broken down in detail in the future tutorial.
18: What kind of people will learn PS well?
First of all, keep a correct attitude and consult modestly, so as to gain more knowledge. People who practice repeatedly and study hard often make faster progress.