I spent a lot of time on the Adobe Photoshop web forum. Most of these participants are the pros and they always had answers to any question I may have had. I also use Lynda.com a lot. Costs $25/mo, but it is well worth it.

Photoshop is such a comprehensive program that it's easier to define your tasks and learn how to do them than to try and learn the entire program through reading a book.

I agree, if one learns what one needs, and not worry about the graphics and trying to make a bad thing good, one can excell. Try learning something needed on a daily basis or over a few days. (Try experimenting with some of the features -- you will soon learn what you really need). It will be surprising how little one needs to edit a photo. I have seen where many are getting by with the Adobe Lightroom because of all its features other than editing. Check out the Adobe web site for some interesting things. Not all has to be purchased. Use adobe and be specific with request - adobe will bring millions of hits, just ask for layers, for example and you will zero in for something that will not confuse you.

I disagree with the ease of the program and you will figure it out. The one thing I can not master is placing muliple photos on an imagae and it not look like a scrap book page. I am going to have someone show me how to do this. The other is using the clone tool to delete a big image with in a photo.

Practice, practice, try once, throw it in the trash, try again, and again and eventually you will get to where those of us who have been doing PS for years and years have gotten to, maybe....

You should get a subscription to Photoshop User . They offer many tutorials every month and you'd learn a lot in an easy way.

BTW, check the preview of Photoshop CS5 on Adobe's website, it made me drool. Can't wait to upgrade.

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Practice, practice, try once, throw it in the trash, try again, and again and eventually you will get to where those of us who have been doing PS for years and years have gotten to, maybe....

That sounds like a very time consuming way to learn something new, especially when there are so many good tutorials around for a software like Photoshop that has hundreds of options.

One must remember -- not everything can be done in photoshop - And, it does take repetition -- as with many things if you don't use it, you will lose it. Do a exact search as for removing objects see:

http://www.showandtell-graphics.com/remove-objects.php

And, as one will see there is no magic -- it takes repetition to get it right.

Many times a lot is wasted trying to do all, expecially when most of it is not useful, but just an exercise that turns out to be futile. lol

There really is a lot of free out there. Then, one becomes accomplished, they can go out to the many great books out there that one can use once one begins to understand the basics and the use of tools that they need to do the job. many paths can be taken to get to the same place -- it just is a matter of how long you want to take to get there.

Many professional photographers prefer LightRoom to the full version of Photoshop for good reasons of efficienccy and that it leaves the original free of editing so it can be returned to and tweaked for a different style of image presentation. The sad part is you can't get entirely free of the database that LightRoom runs under.

There is an alternative that has an image database only if you want to use it, and a much better and more efficient image editing workspace. It is Lasersoft SilverFast HDR, which will handle nearly every dSLR Raw format file, as well as high-bit raw scan files.