How to get started in Photo Shop for slicker GUI's

What helped me more than screenshots was some of the video tutorials. I still suck at it, but with screenshots what I found was stuff I thought looked good, but had zero idea how to duplicate.

I like to learn on my own and I enjoy discovering things. Photoshop is something I am proficient enough at for touch panel GUI work. It took me years of trial and error and advice here and there, online tutorials etc. If you are serious about increasing your skills and value as a programmer, find someone in your town who is either and advanced graphic arts student or a professional artist and pay them to give you lessons. I wish I had done this from the beginning.

I still call my wife over to make changes for me.

For our bigger stuff we have access to a graphic artist, so I can pretend I have talent. She wonders why I buy lunch every time we work together.

There were a few on the CQC forum by a very talented guy by the handle of ripper. He switched jobs, and doesn't have much time to muck with his system nowadays so he doesn't come around much, but they're still there.

I also bought a Photoshop video tutorial & book, but i've watched nearly none of it. I scan the book now & again, but am generally too lazy to do much.

drawing buttons.

Drawing Logos with the pen tool.


That is a cool asset to have ready access to. Lunch would be well worth it, esp in my case.

Don't get me wrong, she bills by the hour for her time as well.

The Paint.net message boards have a ton of tutorials as well. They are of course geared towards paint.net (a Photo Shop-like free app), but I would imagine that the basic concepts would still be applicable, just the mechanics would change. Playing around there has really helped me to go from "I've got no what I'm doing" to "I can mimic and adapt the skills of others into something somewhat usable for my purposes".
One of the hardest things for me was simply not having the frame of reference required to intuitively "get" the workflow in creating custom graphics. The tutorials really help that.

As a long time Photoshop user, let me welcome you to the club. You have chosen a program that you will never master and have the most fun trying.

Get either Layers of Photoshop User magazines. Both give real detailed examples for all skill levels. Print works best for this kind of stuff because you can look at it while you do it unlike with video. Really if you are on a single monitor setup it is next to impossible to watch a video and follow along in the app. When learning Photoshop print is your friend.

Next check out the Photoshop User TV and Pixel Perfect podcast. Both teach you a good mix of basics and advanced techniques that while not specific to UI design teach you how to use the tools. You can also check out one like 2 Minute Photoshop Tricks. This one goes through stuff fast and mostly deals with photos but some times has some good nuggets of information.

For information straight from the horses mouth check out Adobe's community. They have wonderful time savers and suggestions to get you started. Some even post psd file examples that make the learning process easier.

Lastly look into learning Illustrator also. Photoshop is great but when combined with Illustrator you have a deadly combination. The learning curve for it is steep but will worth it. Since learning it things that I used to take hours doing in Photoshop can be done in minutes and I can freely switch between the apps.

Ok, this it the last thing, get a tablet and ditch the mouse. This will make allot of tools like the pen tool easier to use. I use a Wacom Intos for my heavy lifting and a Bamboo when I travel. Since you are starting out you shouldn't have too many bad habits to unlearn and it helps promote learning the keyboard shortcuts. Photoshop is a 2 handed app and there is nothing more annoying than having to go to the menus for every function.

Once again welcome to the club.