Adobe
Photoshop,
the ubiquitous and industry standard graphics software for photographers,
designers, digital artists, as well as casual enthusiasts, can be a baffling
application to understand the first time you fire it up. Luckily, littered
across the vast space of the web are tutorials in all shapes and sizes that
will help you get up and running in no time.
In this post, I've pieced together 12 excellent Photoshop
tutorials geared toward beginners. If you're a complete novice or a casual user
of this software, you've stopped by the right place.
Because this is specifically for beginners — and because
Photoshop's robust set of features is near-bottomless — I've skipped
intermediate and advanced topics such as drawing with the Pen tool and working
with 3D effects.
If you have tips for aspiring Photoshoppers, share them in
the comments below.
1. Getting
Started with Photoshop
This tutorial on SitePoint, a popular site for web
professionals, will guide you through the Photoshop fundamentals and the basic
tools available at your disposal. It's an excellent jump-off point that will
give you an understanding of what you're up against.
The tutorial starts with a bird's-eye view of Photoshop's
workspace to get the reader familiarized with the lay of the land. Then it goes
on to cover essential concepts such as saving files (and the various popular
formats for the web), an introduction to shortcuts that all Photoshoppers
should know, how to choose colors, and much more.


If you're just starting out with Photoshop, you will no
doubt be spending plenty of your time using the Tools panel, which contains
various tools for working with type, painting, drawing, moving objects, and so
forth.
In this Photoshop tutorial, you will get a beginner's
overview of the various tools contained within the Tools panel. From the
selection tools to the retouching tools, you'll learn all about them and their
uses.
The most important concept you should understand about
Photoshop is its layering system. Layers allow you to stack different objects
and images to keep your work separated, ordered, and easily editable.
This guide will walk you through the utility of layers using
a hands-on, step-by-step approach (so fire up Photoshop and get ready to get
your hands dirty before diving in).
In photography, filters are camera accessories that you
place on your lens to capture photos that will have fascinating effects. This
concept is digitally incorporated into Photoshop and is a convenient way of
editing your images quickly. Filters can be functional (such as the Sharpen
filters to help you correct blurry photos) or stylistic (such as the Texture
filters that give your images unique texture effects).
By reading through this tutorial, you will uncover the power
of filters in Photoshop.
Layer styles are one or more effects that alter a layer. For
example, if you wanted to make a layer semitransparent or if you wanted to give
your text one of those slick "Web 2.0" gradient effects, you can do
so by applying and adjusting layer styles.
Adding layer styles, using layer style presets that come
with Photoshop, what the various layer effects do, and more are covered in this
tutorial.
Adjustment layers are Photoshop layers that affect all other
layers beneath them (unless you use an adjustment layer as a clipping mask —
but that's an advanced topic for another day). It's typically used to enhance a
graphic, such as if you want to adjust the colors of an image (which you can do
with the Color Balance adjustment layer).
This crash course in adjustment layers shows you what you
can do with them in Photoshop.
For most casual Photoshop users, the most enticing and
important utility is the software's ability to correct, digitally enhance, and
fix photos.
This Photoshop tutorial covers the various tools and
commands that you can use to retouch and enhance your image, including a
run-down of the Patch tool, sharpening tools, and more.
Whether you want to add a text caption on a photograph, lay
out a brochure's copy, or create your typographical poster masterpiece, the
tool that will help you get the work accomplished is the humble, but powerful,
Type tool.
Creating text layers, resizing and modifying text, and
adjusting text characteristics, such as tracking and line-height, are a few of
the topics covered in this tutorial.
The Free Transform command is going to be your go-to tool
for resizing, rotating, and modifying your graphics. This Photoshop tutorial
will show you just how handy Free Transform is in your image editing workflow.
Maybe you want to remove the background from a photo, or
select just a certain object in an image and use it in another Photoshop
document. Whatever the case, selecting things inside your canvas is a task you
should expect to do plenty of times in your 'shopping career.
Set aside 30 minutes, follow this Photoshop tutorial, and
you'll know all there is to know about the assorted tools and techniques for
selecting areas in your work.
If you'd like to speed up your workflow and extend
Photoshop, it's best to understand how to manage presets. This tutorial
specifically covers installing and managing Photoshop brushes, but will also
get you started into exploring various other presets such as patterns, custom
shapes, and so forth.

Do you find yourself repeating certain tasks in Photoshop
over and over again? Maybe you're constantly resizing your images manually to a
certain width and then saving them as a JPEG for use on your blog. Or maybe
you've unearthed the perfect combination and sequence of filters and layer
styles, and would like a way to automatically apply it to a batch of images.
Check out Photoshop actions, a feature that enables you to record and save a
sequence of actions.
In this 6-part tutorial, you will learn about the built-in
Photoshop actions as well as how to record and save an action.
These 12 tutorials will have you on your way to Photoshop
mastery. If you've had success with other tutorials not on this list, let us
know about them in the comments below.