Is Adobe Photoshop Right for You?

Just the basics, please

To begin working with Adobe Photoshop, open an image you want to edit. You can open photos that are on your hard drive, or on removable drives, like your digital camera. Start with the most basic functions, like Crop, Adjustments and Filters.

Use the Marquee tool from the tool palette to select the area of your photograph you want to crop. This tool is in the upper left hand corner. Once you've selected the crop area, find the Crop option under the Image menu at the top.

It's important to remember that when you Save, your original photo will be overwritten. Use the Save As option so that you can return to your original photo if you're not happy with the changes you've made.

If your picture is too bright or too muddy, open the Image menu at the top of the Adobe Photoshop screen. Under Adjustments you can fix the brightness and contrast, color saturation and experiment with color correction. Other Image options include rotating the canvas and changing the image size.

Now it's time for some fun

You can transform your photograph thousands of ways with Adobe Photoshop. Open the Filter menu, and start having fun. The Artistic filters allow you to add brush strokes, use a pastel affect, or give your photo a neon glow. Blur does exactly what you think. Other filters let you add clouds, sharpen edges, add spotlight effects, and pixelate your picture. Use filters on top of filters to create unique effects.

Well, heck, I don't know if I want to pay for Adobe Photoshop

Adobe is rolling out a free version of Photoshop called Adobe Photoshop Express. It's a basic web-based application, without all the bells and whistles you get with the full version of Photoshop. It's worth a test drive.

Adobe Photoshop is a remarkable tool for both professional and amateur. We've only scratched the surface of its features here.