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My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Custom Shapes Tutorial: Brand New!

Yup! We’re actually going to have tacos today!

I worked hard today for several hours and got exactly ONE tutorial rewritten. It’s far better than its predecessor and it’s here. In it, I create a butterfly shape from a photo, make it into a Vector Mask, and save it as a Custom Shape.

I am really enjoying exploring this stuff, learning more, and getting creative with my writing. I do hope that someone someday reads it.

I’ve been pondering the question of my own relevance. I’ve decided that I’m relevant as long as I’m still alive and creating. All I have to do is to pinpoint and reach my audience. I’ve done that before; I’ll do it again. But, this time, it must be different, because the communication media are so different.

In 2007, I didn’t even have a smartphone. I don’t think that e-books were even a thing. There was no such thing as “social media,” except for ICQ, IRC, and Usenet groups. I did most of my communication in those days through Usenet and my own bulletin board hosted on my site. I know that I will be handling my website communication through a Facebook group and email, of course. I hardly ever even look at email anymore, though, because it’s gotten so taken over by garbage.

I’m thinking about other concepts. I’m 63. The majority of my audience before was people at least as old as me, though I had some 30-somethings and even people in their 20’s. Would “Photoshop for Geezers” be a catchy thing? How about “Photoshop for Grown-ups?”

Or maybe age isn’t that big a deal. I just know that I’m not going to try to compete with the “look what I can do” YouTube videos. Ugh. I just can’t imagine anyone learns well from that kind of thing.

Categories
My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Four New Photoshop Tutorials

I’ve been a tutorial-writing fool! I’ve added 4 new ones since my last blog entry: Making a Spiral, Custom Border, Basic Shapes, and Poster Effect. I’ve also joined some Photoshop Groups in Facebook, to get a sense of the climate out there, what’s needed, what’s already there, etc..

Collin in a Warhol poster effect

What I’m learning is that there are many people doing what they call “tutorials,” but which are what I call “show-off videos.” Yawn. And the overwhelming lot of these are doing effects that I was teaching 15 years ago. I wonder if what’s old is new again, or if these people were just not born yet.

Janee’s Bubble Border

There’s still much new that I need to learn and, while I’m at it, write tutorials about! 3D stuff looks intriguing and there are lots of new-to-me things to explore in the menus.

I got to the frustration point with that digital painting I was doing, and have not picked it up in a few days. Maybe today would be a good day to do have a go again.

We took Jodie to be groomed again yesterday and, once again, she was sick today. After we took her to be groomed 6 weeks ago, she got so terribly sick, so I am wondering if it’s something that they did to her, some kind of cleaner that they use on their cages, a treat that they give, or if Jodie is just so used to her serene and placid life here that the stress of the grooming salon is too much for her. Whatever it is, it’s terrible. Jack and I gave her a dose of Pepto Bismol this noon, and she is feeling much better now, at least.