Adobe Newbie

After months and months (ok, probably about a year or so) of waffling back and forth on whether or not I was a Photoshop girl, I still haven't decided yet I suppose.  I'm so indecisive!  I got lucky and received Photoshop Elements 12 for Christmas (Thanks buds!) so I suppose it was sort of decided for me. And I spent the day researching all sorts of digital scrapbooking goodies on Project Life, Pinterest, and Etsy. Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get home to install the program and get started.  

Well the program is installed and...and...and...I haven't a clue what the heck I'm doing! I took a few classes on lynda.com a few months ago on Adobe and remember thinking it was intense then, but I assumed I'd remember some tips and tricks so I could at least upload a picture or 2.  Yeah, not so much... The worst part about this is that I have all these nifty free downloads and templates to start playing with and I can't even figure those out.  

Thankfully, DigitalProjectLife.com has anticipated these little intricacies of Adobe, and has provided a link to JessicaSprague.com which not only has classes for Photoshop Elements but also nifty Scrapbooking courses for Wacom tablets - of which I have also no idea how to use. Thank God for technology!

Creative Genius, I Am Not

I have been dying to learn how to use Photoshop and all of its creative friends for a while now.  I had planned to take a class but the course kept getting cancelled due to low enrollment.  Then, my company decided to purchase us a subscription to lynda.com. (If you don't know anything about lynda, and you love learning new software, you really should check it out-Amazing!!)

Anyway, I started the fundamentals course this week (10 hours! And that's the first of 4!).  Like a good student, I even downloaded a free 30 day trial of Photoshop so I could follow along and practice.  Now, if you must know,I've never used it before which could have something to do with my reaction but, really!?  How many flipping buttons could this program have?!  Between the left panel, right panel, menu bar and the extras that are on many of the buttons, count me thoroughly confused!  The program is chock-full of ways to do all kinds of fun things but how can you remember how to do them if you can't even figure out what buttons are what?

I taught myself Visio, Sharepoint and Access so I'm not completely computer illiterate (just slightly...) but I think I'll need a PhD in Adobe before I will actually be able to use it to do anything I want...The worst part of it is, that all Adobe products share the same interface.  Therefore, if I have any hope at all of learning Flash, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, or any other way cool designer-y goodies, I'll really need to figure out these darn buttons!