Training Suggestions Please?

[kstein]

I would be very interested in furthering my training but have some limitations.

So far I have taken the following courses:

New York Institute of Photography.

Katrin Eismann's Book Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, went through it like a sponge! I still use it often as I am not good at remembering.

Deke Mcleland's (sp?) Photoshop 7 Total Training DVD's.

Can any of the Pro's please reccommend additional learning opportunities other than practice, practice, practice, which I also get plenty of?

I am geographically challenged. We have only one Community College with sparse offerings. Come to my town and it's like travelling backward 200 years. Our funeral home still has a horse and buggy, but I think that's cool. I'm not complaining, I Love it Here, it's just hard to find real live people who teach this stuff. With 3 kids and the economy, travel is not an option!

At what point is enough - enough - and I can call myself a pro?

What school did you go to?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you

kathleen

[CJ Swartz]

Kathleen, if I'm hearing you right, you're asking both for information, and for a way to determine your current level of proficiency ( in another thread, you mentioned not being sure that you deserved to charge "so much" for your work.)

I think that you can find both information AND validation here at RetouchPRO. I've listed some links to some of the hundreds of threads from the past 18 or so months that talk about how we learned, tips on where something new can be learned, how people describe their interests- amateur/hobby or pro; info related to running a business in a professional and money-making manner, etc. And these are just the threads in a few of the sub-forums -- there is much more information at your beck and call (even in your beautifully rural section of the USA) here in the older threads of the forums. AND a ton of tutorials available for free on the internet -- not all about retouching, but many that teach skills that can be used in retouching/restoring.

The work that you submitted in your first question was good. You already are in the business, and you already have clients. You are a professional. But even teachers, doctors and other trained professionals take refresher classes or read about new tools and methods. Everyone can always work on getting better. You'll find reviews about new books, videos, on-line classes, traveling workshops etc. as you look thru the Education forum -- most folks haven't majored in art, but those who have recommend a good art class to the rest of us. I think you'll find that most of what the working pros here have learned was by reading, practicing, and sometimes by taking a class or workshop on a certain subject or from an established expert. Most of the college classes that use Photoshop won't have time to devote much time to retouching/restoring while trying to teach all that PShop can do.

If you want to test your skills as well as learn new ones, just stay around, read and try out the different critiques-requests for help, as well as the Challenges. The Challenges would be my first recommendation for you when you have a few hours free between paying jobs.

...and Welcome to RetouchPRO!

Challenges


How did you learn "soft skills" of retouching?

Courses - beneficial?

All threads in Education Forum

Threads about retouch/restoration as a business

[kstein]

Maybe what I need to do is figure out your site. Everything is still set at default from my initial sign up. Maybe I need to fool around with the settings to get more posts. When I click on archives, I get an error. I guess I need to figure out where the old stuff is stored now. I only get 2 topics on education when I'm logged in. You link has a lot more. Thank You! If I had seen this first I never would have written.

[Stephen M]

Hi Kstein, on this site - try using the search feature to search for keywords that may help your hunt. Browse the forum section manually for topics via the various sections. Have a look at the challenges etc for folks steps and thoughts. There is a huge amount of info here, but like you said it can be hard finding it when you need it.

My personal site may be of some help, I have written a few articles of my own and the links page has many links to graphics topics that are categorised, with links to the specific topic in question as well as the hosting sites main page which will often have a lot more stuff to offer than just the topic in the category in question.

I would hope that these links can form the basis for further education for you - that is why they are there, if I think a web-page has good info then it goes to my links page for easy reference (this page grew out of my personal favourites list, which was getting hard to manage).

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/PSTV_links.html

Regards,

Stephen Marsh.

[kstein]

Thank you, going through all of these will keep me busy for a while. To collect all of this you must have been doing it for a while! I put it in my favorites and will use it often!

[CJ Swartz]

Maybe what I need to do is figure out your site. Everything is still set at default from my initial sign up. ...need to fool around with the settings to get more posts. When I click on archives, I get an error.

Kathleen,

It takes most people a while to figure out how to navigate around here, and we're all quite happy to give you some ideas on where to look for things while you're learning your way around -- we've all been at the beginning with you, and it can be confusing. Doug Nelson has put together a great forum, and once you get used to where everything is located, you'll be even more impressed.

**The Archives are temporarily shut down** -- that's why you received the error message. Doug will let us know when they are re-opened. He's had to expand the bandwidth capacity to run the website and some things just aren't available for a while.

If you click on a main Forum and go to its main page, look down where it says "Showing threads 1 to ? of ?, sorted by "--", from: Here you can click on the down arrow and choose to see threads from just the last day or two, last month or two, or look at all from the beginning (Aug. 2001). Once you get used to it, it's not too bad. The Search function does NOT work great, at least for me, but you can also try it.

Stephen Marsh's weblinks are fantastic, and if you spend the time to read (and re-read ), you'll have weeks of great training materials.

If you haven't already, read the FAQs http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/misc.php?s=&action=faq

Lots of things to look at, but you can use your skills while reading and using some of the materials -- so HAVE FUN!