Fundamentals of Photoshop: Creating Efficient Workflows, Tips, and Tricks (Photoshop V)

In collaboration with Adobe, we're excited to announce a free 5-class series on Adobe Photoshop CC for Beginners that'll run from March 1 – March 31st 2015. Each week, you’ll create projects in Photoshop and submit your work on Skillshare for feedback from your classmates, pushing your skills even further.

If you complete all project assignments before the final deadline, you’ll be eligible to receive a free voucher to take the Adobe Certified Associate exam in Photoshop (a $95 value). The top student chosen by the class teaching assistants (TAs) will also be awarded 1 free year of Creative Cloud membership. Judging will be based on quality of projects submitted and student participation.

This is the fifth class in the 5-class series.

Important Notice

A trial of Adobe Photoshop CC or Creative Cloud membership will be needed to get the most out of this course. If you’re not a Creative Cloud member we recommend that you download a free 30-day trial of Adobe Photoshop CC when you start the course.

→ Click here to start your 30-day free trial of Adobe Photoshop CC

→ Click here to purchase a Creative Cloud membership

Welcome to the fifth and final class in this five-part series of Photoshop classes. Throughout this series we'll cover everything you need to know to become a Photoshop pro. Knowing how to use Photoshop is an incredibly useful skill and is commonly used by anyone from photographers to graphic designers and illustrators. It is such a robust program that can be extremely overwhelming. I'll do my best to make you feel comfortable while I teach you the ins and outs.

This series is perfect if you're slightly familiar with yet aren't completely confident in your Photoshop skills. If you have never opened Photoshop and are feeling brave; this class is great for you too! It’s absolutely fine if you’ve never opened Photoshop until now.

Photoshop is such an exciting program as it allows you to produce so many kinds of beautiful things. Anything from beautiful business cards and stationery to websites tailored just for you can be created in Photoshop. The goal of this series is to get you to expert level so that your imagination can go straight to Photoshop’s canvas.

What You'll Learn
In this class (Photoshop V) you'll learn some truly time-saving techniques from going back in your Photoshop history to creating Photoshop actions that you'll be able to use again and again. Topics covered in this class include:

• History and Time Traveling. Photoshop allows us to go back in time and revert back to a previous state. That really comes in handy when you make a lot of decisions that you don’t end up liking. I’ll show you around the history window to make sure you’re comfortable time traveling. See you 5 minutes ago!

• Create Actions. Photoshop actions are a huge time saver. If you find yourself going through the same design process when using Photoshop, actions are definitely for you. Together we’ll learn how to record actions, save them, and reuse them over and over. You’ll thank me later.

• Batch Editing. Continuing our “time saving” theme, I’ll show you guys how to batch edit layers and quickly apply the same layer styles over and over. This is one of my favorite things to do and really allows me to work fast.

• Organize Layers. I'll show you some of my advanced techniques for organizing layers. Being extremely detail-oriented and picky about how my layers are organized allows me to keep a clean, stress-free workflow. Unorganized chaotic layers really equal a ton of unnecessary stress. We’ll probably add years to your life with this lesson!

• Move Around Your Canvas. I’ll show you how to customize the way Photoshop looks by rearranging windows, manipulating the toolbar, and changing the color of the interface.

What You'll Make
At the end of the class you'll create your very own Photoshop action for editing photos. You'll be able to save this action and use it again and again at the click of a button. Take a look at the images above to see my favorite Photoshop action.

Required Class Supplies
Adobe Photoshop. If you don’t have the program you can download a 30 day free trial here. All class tutorials are recorded on a Mac using Photoshop via Adobe Creative Cloud. You do not need a Mac or the most recent version of Photoshop to follow along. Most of the tools are consistent across all versions of Photoshop. 

Please note: Photoshop Elements is a limited version of Photoshop and is not recommended for this course.

Other Classes in This Series:

• Photoshop I: Getting Started with the Interface
• Photoshop II: Drawing, Layers, Masks, and Selections
• Photoshop III: Typography and the Pen Tool
• Photoshop IV: Color, Swatches, and Blending