Tutorial for a new user

[PatriciaMHaselhurst]

Hey, I would like to learn how to use this program and, eventually, be able to draw&design professionally. I tried tinkering with it on my own but it turned out to be too complicated Could you link me any easy to understand tutorials which are up-to-date with the current version of PL? Thanks in advance.

[photoken]

What, exactly, do you want to do?

PhotoLine is a very versatile program -- with it, you can

• Edit photographs,
• Create new drawings by hand,
• Create graphic designs,
• Layout pages and other items for publishing.

Have you ever used an image editing program? PhotoLine uses the same basic operations that other image editing programs use.

The three most important areas to become comfortable with are:

• Using Layers
• Selecting specific areas
• Working with masks

The PhotoLine help file is a good starting place to read about those functions, and it's a very good idea to pause while reading to actually try what you read.

You can search the Web for "PhotoLine tutorials" and find many videos showing the use of the tools, etc. (A lot of the tutorials are in German, but so what? They're videos....)

Don't hesitate to ask questions here. We'll do our best to help.

Be aware that to "be able to draw & design professionally" will require years of study and practice, but you can do it! Good Luck!

[bruce1951]

Ken one more important asset is needed to be successful. "Imagination'. That's something that can't be built in to any software. I think you'll find the 'best' users are those who have 'imagination' and know their editor well.

regards

[photoken]

Hi Bruce,
Yep, imagination and craftsmanship are the common things in any successful endeavor.

[bruce1951]

Ken this is an evergreen issue for PL. How many times has a 'better' manual been discussed? Photoshop has a huge following for a number of reasons. One of the key reasons is the huge amount of tutorials and books available. Some folks 'hate' PS but stick with simple because they are afraid of the lack of support for other products. Until better documentation becomes available PL with will always remain a small player. It's not enough to have great developers and a great support forum. Folks like videos and books.

regards

[Herbert123]

Good documentation is one thing, but not key in adoption of software. I would argue that the main issue here is that PhotoLine does not have ANY tutorials (either video or written ones) that are up to snuff at a (semi)professional level. There just aren't any. No Lynda.com, no Udemy, nothing. Zilch. The quality of PhotoLine video tutorials on Youtube is rather sub-par.

As long as that remains the case, PhotoLine will remain a niche image editor - although we (the hard-core users here) are very aware that PhotoLine does not even have to hide behind Photoshop in terms of image editing.

Compare Affinity Photo: Serif provides many tutorials aimed at high-level users, as well as low-level users. Because of the popularity Udemy offers courses as well: https://www.udemy.com/affinityphoto-solid-foundations/
And AP has been on the market for how long? two years, or so? PhotoLine TWENTY years, and still no user base to speak of compared to other image editors.

This is not to diss PhotoLine, or anything - far from it. I think PhotoLine is far superior to AP (for the most part) and other non-Photoshop image editors. But for some reason PhotoLine's user base is not very "community driven". I know - I tried - for the past three years I mentioned PhotoLine where-and-whenever I could. And yes, it's become slightly more known. I like to think I have had a noticeable effect in this regard (posting new releases everywhere I can, even getting ousted from the Affinity forums because I kept comparing Affinity Designer and Photo with PhotoLine).

But I stopped doing that now. I am focusing on my own game project for the upcoming time, and less on marketing other people's software for free

With Serif's tremendous marketing I just do not see how PhotoLine can become more popular. Not unless something is done about A) marketing, and B) tutorials/resources for both beginners (and more importantly) professional users thinking about making the switch from Adobe to other software.

Issue (C) (for me) is that PhotoLine is not that easy to integrate into a visual effects, 3d, or game developer's pipeline - the lack of scripting is hurting PhotoLine in this regard. It can be done, but requires too many external tools. And while Photoshop has a thriving plugins and scripts ecosystem (Gimp as well!), there are certain key things I cannot do yet in PhotoLine. This also makes it a harder sell to professionals.

My two cents.

[photoken]

123,

I'm not sure that "professional" users ("semi" or not ) actually need tutorials, or base their usage of a program according to how many tutorials are out there. After all, if someone is a "professional", he should be comfortable enough to experiment with getting his desired effect.

PL also shouldn't require much in the way of tutorials for casual users. It's already got the "Automatic Correction" filter that is a single-click solution for users who just want to make their cell phone photos look a little bit better for posting on social media sites. (However, as I've said before, this correction should use the "Sharpening" filter rather than the "Unsharp Mask" filter.)

To my way of thinking, PL therefore most needs tutorials targeted to the "intermediate" users -- those who have a particularly difficult snapshot to correct, or who want to enhance their images just a little bit more. These types of tutorials would expand on the basic explanations in the Help file to examine more sophisticated uses of the tools.

[bruce1951]

IMHO 'all' that is needed is a clear, clean and precise Quick Guide developed. List all the features as they appear on screen with a one line description. No 'fluff'. Almost anyone who comes to PL has some background with another editor. So as long as they know what features are what and where to find them them they should be fine. (Histogram Correction = Levels). Failing that they can always come to this forum. Remember we are all doing something different with PL. So what I require may not be what others require. So writing a 'complete' manual for me is a waste of time as some features are way beyond my needs or understanding.

Be careful not to over think a solution to what is really a very basic problem.

regards

[jlblav]

bruce1951 is right. Besides to be with PL from 2001-2003. In the past I used a lot PL. Today I am "non-frequent user".

As an example, another day I needed to do small animation in PL and it was not that easy. Even with Gerhard helping me with tutorials, I think could be more tutorials on animation. With written text (help) about animation is almost impossible to do it.

At my company I do many tutorials on our subjects. Many for internal usage, some for specific questions that users do (and that can help others) and generic ones for users. The internal ones are the fastest to do, as I have no production "care". The specific ones I also try to do "no care". The generic ones a "bit of care". I can tell that today, with youtube, we can be less carefull. Why? To be carefull the time to produce rises exponentially.

Fo these tutorials I use ViewletBuilder, that for me is much better than Camtasia for example. It allows to do fast tutorials as it is very friendly at capture time. Has many edition resources, that I us just the basic, as a way to not rise production time. So, if someone thinks into do tutorials on PL animation, I suggest VLBuilder
Regards
Jose

[photoken]

IMHO 'all' that is needed is a clear, clean and precise Quick Guide developed. List all the features as they appear on screen with a one line description.

Hey, guys, how is that an improvement over simply hitting the F1 key? Whenever a tool is selected or an adjustment layer window is open, that F1 key immediately gets you to the relevant explanation....

[bruce1951]

Ken you missed the point! A Quick Guide would be based on the UI. Formatted to allow 'easy' navigation around the UI with a simple explanation of each option.
To use F1 you have to know where to start in the first place. Hence the need for a Quick Guide. (ie if you are a new user looking for Levels how do you find it? A glance down the Quick Guide you would see 'Histogram Correct' - Commonly referred to as 'Levels').

regards

[photoken]

Bruce,
I still don't see the use of that. What could be a more "easy" navigation around the UI than the UI itself?

[bruce1951]

Sorry Ken. But obviously you have forgotten your early days with PL. ALL new users need help finding features. Clicking through multiple UI drop down menus is not the answer. Especially when we know PL uses some 'unusual' terminology. Would a new user know to look under Tools or Filters to find Sharpening? Then you have features buried within drop down menus. ie managing plugins. Which beginner knows to look in Filters?

As basic User Guide designed properly would be a great help. (Graphic based rather than text based).

regards

[photoken]

Hey Bruce,
Sorry, but your "User Guide" just tries to duplicate the PL User Interface. Trying to find a specific feature would be just as difficult in that guide as it is in the UI.

What do I remember about my early days with PL is not knowing the "PL term" for a feature I used in other programs, so I propose the following:

Using Photoshop's terminology as a reference, the PL Help page for a feature should have the following as the first sentence (right under the title):
(This feature is commonly called "<function name>" in other software.)
Only if the feature is named differently, of course.

That will make it very fast and easy for a new user to search the Help for "Levels" and get the Histogram Correction page, e.g.

[greenmorpher]

Ken, I believe you have misunderstood Herbert's use of the term "professional" and "semi-professional". You took him to mean "profesdsional user" -- I believe he meant "professional quality video tutorial".

And yes, I believe he is right. We DO need tutorials, written or video, of some quality. I've been using PL for years now, but I still don't understand stuff. I've been doing most of my sharpening with Focus Magic, but just recently, I tried PL's sharpening in a couple of situations with good results. However, I still don't understand the kind of situations in which it is preferable to apply the different sharpening tools, and how to apply them.

I posted about this a few days ago -- no takers in providing a quick tutorial so far.

There should be a short video tutorial taking me through sharpening.

And doing lots of other things.

Such tutorials should be focused on doing common things -- commonly needed things. Something else I struggle with is white balance. Que?

So video guides should be showing new and less developed users like me how to step int PL and use it for editing their pix and creating images and stuff.

A quick guide would run through the menus, all levels of them, with a brief ILLUSTRATED (this is a graphics program) guide to what each item does.

You referred to the Auto correction. Ken, that was condescending nonsense. Ever used auto correction? I have, and I find it works remarkably well about 50% of the time. it tends to get confused by dark skin, which features in a lot of my pix. Sometimes the results are just bizarre.

BUT the point is that anyone moving to PL is looking for something more than auto correction. That's why they got PL rather than have e.g. iPhoto or Photos do their processing. You don't buy a program of PL capability to use auto correction -- and I might add, that in terms of developing your capabilities with PL, auto correction is a dead end.

I agree with your suggestion regarding the use of Photoshop terms to assist in describing the terms used in PL. Whether anyone likes it or not, P'shop is the default app in image editing and everyone (well, lots of people) know the terms, even if they have not personally used them.

Cheers, Geoff