Tips for Photoshop Newbie

Okay..i know most of you here are Intermediate (or professional?) but im sooo bored and got nothing to do and thought i'd like to share something with you.

1. The first thing that you must have yet the most important thing is Photoshop Software....kidding! It's a part of it but you must always be creative and love designing.


2. Since you're a newbie, i don't think so it's wrong to imitate someone else design. But DON'T imitate the whole things and don't you even dare to think bout it. Just take a lil' bit of it. Such as the text effects, background and so on. You must have something to get started, right?


3. Be more observant. Try this...reach any magazine, pamphlets and such that near you. Look at the text, colour scheme, headlines and so on. Observe them. Know how to do the effects or style? Apply it on Photoshop. I always observe the design in magazine and later on, i'll try to do the effects.


4. Join any graphic forum to improve your skill. Please make sure there are atleast two or three people that you can consider as professional in the forum. Because they would comment your artwork more details rather than That's pretty!, I love it!, It's amazing! and so on.


5. Don't hesitate to ask someone if you don't know how to do certain things.


6. Bookmarks every tutorial or graphic site that you think is good and make sure you organize them. Don't mess it up with other links.


7. Make sure you check the link or resources page on every graphic sites. Perhaps you would found something much better than the current sites.


8. After you know how to do certain thing by following a tutorial, try your own way after that. Let's say, in the tutorial, you have to set the Gaussian Blur to 2.0 but you can do more if you want to and if it looks much better.


9. You can use text effects on image instead of the text.


10. You would just basically experiment with layer style, filter, blending modes and so on.

These all are my graphic resources. Try check them out! There are more actually...

Brushes
In Obscuro
Miss M
Hybrid Genesis
GBB
Classic.Tere-art
100x100 Brushes
Spy-Glass.net

Fonts
Dafont.com
Font Paradise
Graffiti Fonts

Graphic Sites
Aethereality.net
Digital Bristle
Reckless Design

Tutorials
My Janee
Cosmic Graffiti
PixelFX Tutorials

And these two are my favourite site. All the time...
Celestial-Star.net
Good Tutorials

How To Install Font and Brush to Photoshop

Fonts
After you downloaded the fonts and unzip them, (Make sure the fonts in TrueType or OpenType) go to Control Panel > Fonts > File > Install New Font > Go to the folder where you put the fonts and wait for the thing to list down the fonts and then Select All > click OK.

Now, you're not only can use those fonts in Photoshop, you also can use it in Microsoft Words and so on. Meaning, you install them to your computer.

Brushes
After you downloaded the brushes and unzip those brushes, copy them and go to Program Files > Adobe > Photoshop 7.0 > Brushes and paste them into that Brushes file. Make sure the brushes in ABR format.