How I Became A Photoshopper

I bought my first Dell computer in 1998 after a year with WebTv. It came with a basic image editing progam which I don't think I ever opened. PhotoSuite 4.0 was my favorite back then. I used it mainly to make birthday invitations and greeting cards. Then, I found out about Adobe Photoshop!
Not much has changed other than, now I own a Compaq and Photoshop CS3.

Janee Aronoff

About three years ago, I stumbled on a website containing free tutorials. My sister had given me Adobe Photoshop 5.5 because she was more interested in Paint Shop Pro. I spent a year studying Janee's tutorials and this is where my journey began with art and here at LVS.
Anyone interested can learn more about Janee at her website myjanee.com
Janee was offering on-line classes but had postponed everything at that time due to her husband Michael's illness. I was able to complete her Launchpad series before she closed her classes indefinitely.
My first online classes were rewarding and full of creativity. I would wake up with ideas I'd dreamed of when I slept! I met alot of very nice folks on her community message board. Some of which were my class instructors. We all pulled together and kept occupied with monthly Art and Tool of the Month challenges.

Katrin Eismann

A few of the folks on Janee's message board were involved in a group study using Katrin Eismann's book Photoshop Restoration and Retouching
Anyone interested can learn more about Katrin at photoshopdiva.com
Me being a newbie and only having free tutorial experience at that time, I jumped in and restored Katrin's Jimmy photo.
I loved the comments I got with this project and when they ask, "How did you do that?" I just responded with, "Easy, I just cut him from crown to chin and flipped him over." Well that wasn't all that needed done but it was a good start. This is where my brute force method began.
Currently, our group is studying Katrin's book Masking and Compositing.

Shan Canfield

Finding Shan was a special bonus I received when studying Katrin's book. Janee and Shan both contributed to the third addition of Restoration and Retouching. Anyone interested in finding out more about Shan Canfield can visit her website at photoshopmama.net I adored her work and soon began to search for more. Hint: She's been posting video's at Utube if anyone is interested. Shan has incredible glamour style with portrait images. I learned many things watching her videos and experimenting. Everything short of moving to Tennessee for a real course.

My Artwork

...that's me, "Absent Minded"...

Rainy Daz	My favorite. She's a real Boyd's bunny. After redrawing the eyes and a few other things, I duplicated the image, changed to duo-tone, and then painted back in the color. The roses are from a painting I did and the rest was done with shapes and textures.
Harvest	This was made using a photo I took of my grapevine and another where I stretched one cluster around a chair.
Devine	Not necessarily something I would have thought of on my own. I made this for an Eye photo challenge. It's amazing what you can think of trailing off other people's ideas. In this case, all I needed was an eye.
Skater	I have made alot of paintings using Shan's watercolor technique. This is my latest and best.

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