Fun With Photoshop

Today was an interesting day.

Instead of going to work this morning, I went to an all-day seminar on how to use Adobe Photoshop. Since my job is soon going to require some graphics work, and since I've essentially never used Photoshop before, and since it's a fairly complex and powerful program, the powers-that-be decided that I could use some training. So they paid my entry fee for the seminar, and I'll also be paid for a full workday. Sweet.

Honestly, when they approached me about attending this seminar, I was thrilled. I was thinking I would probably only learn enough Photoshop to perform the extremely basic functions I'll need for work. I've been intrigued by Photoshop for a long time, and I was really interested to get at least a little more deeply into it than that. I've seen some really cool stuff that people have made with it. Of course, my cousin is a fully trained graphic designer, so I have little hope of ever getting close to the really cool stuff he does with it. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to try, though.

The worst part of the day was having to get up earlier than usual in order to be there on time. My workday doesn't start until 9:00 each morning; the seminar started at 8:30, and it was in an area of Toledo I wasn't entirely familiar with. To top it off, I was out kind of late last night, so getting up before noon was something of a challenge, let alone before 8:00. I managed, though.

The seminar was incredible. My mind is still buzzing, actually. I can't really go into specifics, partially because they'd probably just bore everyone to tears, but mostly just because they crammed so much information into one day that I think my mind is still trying to process all of it. The trainer was showing us a lot of really cool stuff, and I was trying to take it all in and write notes at the same time. I didn't get many notes, really, but I do think I retained a pretty fair amount of it. We were also given some pretty comprehensive guidebooks for the information being covered, and that will help bring it all back for me later when I'm actually trying to use the program.

By the time the seminar was over, I actually had a headache, probably from so much informatino being thrown at me in such a rapid-fire manner. I'm sure it helped that I was interested; otherwise I'm sure I would have zoned out and missed a great deal. I really wish I could take this seminar again after I've actually used Photoshop for a while, because I think it would really help to have a refresher. Maybe I'll be able to talk the company into sending me again if it's hosted in Toledo again in the near future; after all, a new version of Photoshop is coming out next month, and it would also allow me to get into the more advanced section of the class instead of just the basics. It's worth a try, right?