I would like to understand and study Photoshop before I do next for portrait/fashion retouching.

There are 3 courses call Photoshop CC 2018 one-on-one from fundamental to mastery.

Do you think it is a good start to learn and study about Photoshop before I start learning about portrait/fashion retouching?

It would take years before you get comfortable with retouching. Enough time to get all three courses and hundred more.

I'm not familiar with them, but I can honestly say you will find a great deal (nearly everything) for free on Youtube. It's just a matter of knowing what to look for. If you are just starting out and need to know about the basics focus on layers, masks, adjustments and tools.

Those are going to apply to a technique that you are going to use every single time: dodge/burn. There are a few ways to do it, but Google Natalia Taffarel. She has a really good setup in which she uses curves as opposed to 50% gray, there's a little more freedom in it but honestly either work. It's going to take a lot of practice and as I said Youtube ways to actually apply it and see it work so you know what to do and why you're doing it but that is what you should practice the most, because you are going to use it on every image.

If you have trouble, or need more advice on where to go after that like Grading, Frequency Separation, Composite, etc. don't be afraid to send me a message and ask questions. I'm always happy to help.

Most of my professional photography was done during the film era. In 2011, when I bought a DSLR and started shooting again, I relied on lynda.com for information about Photoshop.

Some of the instructors on lynda.com (especially Deke McClelland, who is familiar with using PS for graphic design as well as photography) are extremely knowledgeable.

The main problem with Lynda’s approach is that I found NOTHING about a proper workflow.

I started working on four photos from my first digital shoot. It too me seven weeks to finish the first photo. (I started over about once a week.)

The first thing I did, after checking a couple of MM portfolios to see what the “proper” size for in image on MM is, was crop the RAW file (in Adobe Camera Raw). Cropping should be about the next to last step (just before sharpening) in Photoshop.

The second thing I did was sharpen (well, oversharpen) the photo (in ACR). As I recall, Lynda’s video series on sharpening was SEVEN HOURS long.

I didn’t realize until several weeks later that I was doing everything in the wrong order, that I had sized the photo way too small (in ACR), and there was nothing I could do about it – except to start over again.

I viewed lynda’s courses on PS CS5 (the current version at the time). I found that most of them (even the “fundamentals to mastery” courses) were largely “updates” and presumed that the viewer had seen the videos for CS4, CS3, etc.

Also, I found that a number of other courses (none of which said anything about workflow) on fashion retouching, portrait retouching, retouching skin, etc., were necessary – and even after I viewed the ones that seemed relevant, I felt that something that was missing.

What was missing was PERSPECTIVE – not only a proper workflow (which is essential), but what filter or tool to use in a particular situation.

There are 10 ways to do many things in Photoshop. The videos would show you one way to do something, but they didn’t tell you whether that was the best way to do what you were trying to do in a specific situation with a specific photo.

They showed you certain ways to do things – but they didn’t do a very good job of explaining when you would want to use one approach, and when you’d want to use another.

So I bought a course on “The New York Style of Retouching” from a retoucher in Pennsylvania. From that, I learned all about blurring the skin to oblivion. After I bought it, I realized that that wasn’t the style of retouching that I wanted.

There are several retouchers who do a good job of teaching Photoshop the right way. Four of them are Aaron Nace (phlearn.com), PixImperfect (on youtube) and Pratik Naik (who has courses available through creativelive.com and rggedu.com) and Ben Willmore (also on creativelive.com as well as his own website).

All are excellent Photoshop instructors and are very knowledgeable, and I have viewed tutorial videos by all of them.

Ben Willmore is probably the most knowledgeable. Back when Scott Kelby started building his Photoshop empire, way before the others had even heard of Photoshop, Ben was Kelby’s go-to guy. Ben did all the VHS tapes on the really difficult or complicated stuff.

Perhaps he is the best at breaking down a complicated topic, so that you not only understand how to do something, but WHY it works and WHEN and WHY you should use that particular approach.

Ben has a number of videos on creativelive, but they were made during different timeframes. One video might explain a few tools or an approach to doing something with PS CS5. Others might have been made using CS6, and others during different years with different versions of PS CC. To my knowledge, there is no comprehensive course about using a relatively current version of Photoshop.

Also, his videos aren’t just about retouching people photos. He also goes into travel photography, landscapes, graphic design, etc. Depending on what you shoot, that could be a plus or a minus.

Pratik Naik specializes in high-end retouching of photos for ads (especially beauty and fashion ads) as well as editorial photos for magazines like Vogue and Elle. I like his work a lot, I have all of his videos (that I know of), and since I shoot mainly people (models), I find his approach very useful to me.

However, he doesn’t go into using all of the tools that PS offers (some of which are mainly for graphic designers, but many are also appropriate for use in photography). He doesn’t teach every way to do everything, but he gives you enough information to handle most situations that will come up in model photography.

Since Pratik is working with top professional photographers, his videos are mostly about enhancing photos, not about “fixing mistakes” that occurred during the shoot.

His work is very high-end, and he doesn’t take (or teach) many shortcuts, i.e., he doesn’t teach the fastest way to do everything (which, imo, is fine in some cases).

Pratik’s courses focus on fashion (and even more so beauty) work. He puts a lot of emphasis on retouching skin and managing color.

Aaron Nace (phlearn.com) is a funny guy (and a commercial photography and retoucher in Chicago) who has a ton of PS instructional videos. Some are free. The “pro” versions cost money. You can get a free membership to Phlearn, or you can get access to everything including the “pro” videos for $9.99 a month. If you want to download the videos, you have to pay for each video for the privilege.

Before you sign up to Phlearn, check around. It usually isn’t difficult to find a 10% discount. (The difference is only $1 a month, but it adds up. lol)

Aaron is also very knowledge. But sometimes (especially in the free tutorials, which are shorter and move faster), he moves a little too fast for me to keep up. He does teach shortcuts, but doesn’t always go into the “long (high-end) way” to approach a situation (e.g., he spends more time on substitutes for dodge and burn for skin work than on D&B itself).

I recently discovered piximperfect.com (Unmesh Dinda) on youtube. Unmesh offers a full-length course on PS on his website, but I haven’t seen it. Both Unmesh and Pratik moved to the US from India, and I understand that they’ve become very good friends. Their English is very good, not difficult to understand at all.

What impressed me about Unmesh is the depth of his daily “one-topic” tutorials – and how innovative he is at finding new ways to do things in Photoshop that I’ve never heard about anywhere else and new and undocumented solutions and workarounds to overcome some of the PS limitations and shortcomings.

But he also has several “one minute” tutorials on several topics for those who don’t want all the background and information.

All of four of these retouchers have a presence on youtube. You could just start sampling their videos and find one whose style you like.

With the exception of Pratik and Aaron, they will often (on youtube, at least) demonstrate a technique on a particular photo. However, in some of his videos, Aaron shows the retouch from beginning to end. He is also the best on compositing – but you need to understand Photoshop before you start making composites.

If you’re just starting out, though, you need a cohesive, in-depth tutorial that provides perspective (including workflow) and covers most of the tools that you’ll be using, not just a one-topic youtube video, to get you started.

If your focus is on beauty work (and to a lesser extent fashion), you might begin with one of Pratik’s courses. (I’m pretty sure that his most up-to-date one is the one on rggedu.) Pratik is the only one of the four whose focus is entirely on beauty and fashion work.

Btw, RGG is owned by Rob Grimm, a internationally-known food and beverage photographer whose studio was a few blocks from two of my previous studios on Locust Street in the Locust Street Business district, which has become the center of activity for professional photographers in St. Louis.

Rob and his assistant, Gary, have done a couple of tutorials on photographing beer and other beverages. However, RGG’s other tutorials were done by experts in their own areas and don’t reflect Rob’s particular specialty.

If you want a more general course, I’d go with Aaron Nace’s hours-long current comprehensive course on Photoshop.

Either way, I’d bookmark and follow all four of them on youtube and check out their websites. Whenever I’m looking for a way to approach some obscure PS problem that I’ve never seen before that isn’t covered in the general courses, I go to youtube, and I usually find a solution from one or more of these guys (especially Aaron and Unmesh).

Here is another vote for Lynda.com.

When I learned to retouch in photoshop I bought a book by Martin Evening--and supplemented it with another book on compositing. Here's the last one Martin Evening did for Photoshop: https://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Photoshop- … 1138086762

What I like about Martin's approach is that he is a commercial photographer. The compositing book I have used really helped me as it was written by a professional retoucher who made a living compositing.

That compositing book is awesome. I wish I could remember the title for you

I used Lydia when learning InDesign.  It was helpful, but I think the problem with such tutorials is you waste a lot of time on things you may never use and not retain the things you really need to know and it can be a PITA to go back through a long tutorial to find that one little thing that’s holding you up.

hi . . i have formal photoshop training from .
https://www.nyip.edu/courses/photoshop- … tographers  .
but it is expensive.

practice this .
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/tutorials.html