Adobe Photoshop: Beginner's Guide for Photographers

Adobe Photoshop is at the core of pretty much every creative project, and even more so in those that involve photography. Photoshop’s non-destructive editing process allows photographers to experiment with all kinds of looks, settings, and, ultimately, achieve the exact image they set out to capture through editing and retouching.

Mikael Eliasson is a London-based portrait photographer who relies on Photoshop to bring that extra oomph to his photos. In this 5-course Domestika Basics, he gives a thorough walkthrough of all the photography-related tools the software has to offer.

In the first course, get to know Photoshop and its interface, learn how to create new documents, work with layers, use brushes, transform images, and more.

Continuing onto the second course, learn how to modify the three key image adjustment parameters: brightness, contrast, and color. Start with these easy tools and gradually progress to more advanced ones such as curves and levels.

The third course focuses on the particularities of retouching landscape and architectural photos. It will also be your first introduction to Camera Raw, a software designed to do more precise editing and retouching of RAW files.

Once you’re done with landscapes, it’s time to work on portraits. Explore tools such as cloning, adjustment layers, gaussian blur, and others to fine-tune your portraits by enhancing skin tones, removing redness, brightening eyes, and more.

To round off your experience, Mikael focuses a whole course on tips and tricks that will help you become a well-rounded Photoshop user. Learn how to work with a graphics tablet, use actions for a quick and efficient workflow, understand the CMYK color model, experiment with filters, and deliver a file to a client.