When I was a kid my family lived in England for 3 years. When we moved back to Canada and I started my first year of high school it became obvious that I was really far behind in French class. I mean I had NO idea what the teacher was saying.
I was sure that I was going to fail the class and felt that I’d never catch up, that I’d never remember anything. And I felt that I didn’t even know where to start.
(That’s a common challenge when we are trying to learn something new)
My parents hired a tutor for me. She was a college student who was studying languages (she was fluent in 6 or 7 languages). Initially she tried to get me to speak french the entire time we were together but I was still at that “I don’t know where to start/I don’t know anything” stage.
She took a step back and suggested that we start with the basics of greeting someone, saying please and thank you and so on. Breaking it down into a few essentials gave me the confidence that maybe I really could learn to speak french. Slowly but surely I started to get the hang of things and by year end I barely scraped through with a passing mark.
Fast forward to my graduating year of high school and on my oral french exam I scored 89%. All thanks to that tutor who showed me how to break down a daunting subject into more manageable pieces.
Over the years that approach has helped with lots of learning challenges, not the least of which was figuring out Photoshop and teaching a class on it a couple of weeks later (in 1990 when there were no real teaching aids).
That’s why my approach today is to tell people that you don’t need to learn every single tool and menu in Photoshop. There are essentials that are important to learn first, then gradually add more tools and functions as the need arises.
This approach also helps with another common concern with learning Photoshop: “I don’t have enough time”. Agreed. You very likely wouldn’t have enough time if you were going to sit down and learn – and remember – all 60-something tools and all 600+ options under 10 menus. But you don’t have to learn it all, so you can break things down into smaller chunks of time to learn the essentials.
That’s why I invite you to take a closer look at the type of Photoshop training I provide on learningphotoshop.cc. It’s a combination of detailed in-depth courses and short focussed tutorials designed to help you know where to start and to help you find the time to learn and remember.
Merci et bonne chance dans l’apprentissage de Photoshop.