Muscles hurt when you train them. Pain is usually a sign of making progress.
Never panic.
Must say that I understand both views. I suppose Madster did like I did. Don't suppose I asked ten questions on PS on a forum. I figured it out with tuts, articles, some books and a lot of trial and error. I came from Photopaint 9, and Photopaint had a histogram tool, and an incredibly easy transparancy tool. It took me months to find how to get similar results in PS. Just like it took me months to find out that there is also a rotate/scale etc under the Edit menu, allowing to edit layers instead of the whole image under Image. I suppose she wants to say that muscles need training, and that all you find out yourself goes deeper and helps you to gain self-confidence.
I learned a lot answering questions because it means being confronted with unforeseen problems, and also to learn how to simplify answers into the most common everyday speech.
All questions are valid and merit an answer, but Mark himself says in his Beginners tuts to try and find help in the help and the manual too.
quote: Straightening the learning curve...
The time you spend doing the things i will suggest on this page will help you to get the most out of the new and, no doubt, exciting things that you will be learning from all of the Photoshop sites on the web that you go to. Not just mine.
Don't misunderstand me here though. I'm not saying that you shouldn't go out and try all of the cool effects tutorials out on the web. What i'm merely saying is that if you find yourself confused about something, or an effect doesn't work quite the way you thought it should, then do these things first before giving up on it or mailing someone for help.
Or as i like to think...
Try getting your feet wet in the pool of your own knowledge first,
before asking someone else to let you soak in theirs.?
Look in the Help Files under EDIT.
There is where you will find a whole lot of information on most of the tools and basic functions of Photoshop.
Open a picture or photograph.
With the image opened, browse around in the menus and try things out.
This will take you all of an hour or so, but believe me, the next time you try someone's tutorials you'll be much more comfortable & confident following the instructions they're trying to explain to you.
What i mean by browse is, have a look at the content of Photoshop's many menus.
Open the IMAGE menu and apply some functions.
Open the IMAGE/Adjustment... menu and apply ALL of the functions in that menu.
Open the LAYER menu and apply ALL of the functions in that menu.
So her point of view is also valid. There is no way around it: well-rooted knowledge comes from trying things out with the manual at hand. And by doing tuts. Some people usually answer with internet adresses. Fine by me, but I see no difference with Madster saying that someone should do a search on the net to find tuts. There is a very good series here on this site, for example...
http://www.photoshopgurus.info/beginners/masks-clipgroups.shtml
This explains the question that is asked here. The answer is on this site, beautifully explained and we're here to give further help if necessary. But it can really be discourageing to see that all this work that has been done is not even looked at.
This could be seen as the dark side of a board: taking the easy way, the way downhill. And I suppose this is what Madster tries to say.