Hello from North Carolina, USA
 

A little bit about me.....
I'm a Christian wife, mother and grandmother.
DH and I have been married for 36 1/2 years.
We were HS sweethearts.
Our 4 children are grown and married and have given us 7 grands so far!
DH is a pastor and I am blessed to finally be able to stay at home!
I've been involved in digital scrapbooking even before I found out it was called digital back in 2005 as I used to create pages in Word for Windows. It is definitely my addiction!

Welcome Vicky. I'm so glad you are here. That is so funny that you started in Word! I actually did my first layouts in Print Shop which was a desktop publishing program. I had no idea that there was anything like Photoshop or Paintshop and was so excited when I found those programs.

My first scrapbooking program I bought was Scrapbook Factory Deluxe. Then I got Photoshop Elements V5, then V6. After that I didn't really care for the updates so just stuck with V6, even designing with it. Then earlier this year, my son gifted PSCS5 to me but I didn't have time to learn it. So I took a break from designing to learn the program (which I have not started yet, LOL!) I'm having too much fun working on a CT again!

I moved from Publisher to Paint Shop Pro. I used that for several years even as I had PCSC3 sitting on my desk. I was intimidated by the learning curve. But then PSP started getting 'glitchy' so I finally installed Photoshop and buckled down to learn. I love Photoshop-the effort to learn was so worth it!

Debb, did you take any on-line classes to learn PSCS? I just recently bot PSCS5 for Dummies, but haven't taken too much time to look at it yet.

Welcome to DSAG, Vicki!

The learning curve for CS5 is huge, but worth it. I started out in MS DIP, but only for a very short while. I migrated to PSE. About a year later, I upgraded to CS5. I was very frustrated at first, because there are big differences. I forced myself to use CS5 ... even in a speed scrap (which was a HOOT!). It felt like it was taking me three times as long to do the simplest things. HOWEVER, it was well worth forcing the issue. I love CS5 and highly recommend that you take advantage of having it.

You can google to find some free tutorials online. I found that to be the easiest way to learn.

Good luck!

Lisa

Hi, Lisa!
Thanks for the welcome! And thanks for the CS5 encouragement!

Vicky

Hi Vicki,

I have to agree with Lisa - there is so much to PS, but it is that power that gives you the ability to do so much. There is so much out there that you can learn from. I started just working with photos, as I needed to use it for work. When I saw it's power, I began using it for scrapping. The ability to use layers, masks, and blend modes, among other techniques - pushed me to keep learning. Such a great program!

I started with online tutorials. Mostly for me it was translating what I already knew about Paint Shop Pro to PS. I was used to working with layers so I just needed to figure out PS's tools. We used to offer a class her at the Guild but it was written for a much earlier version of PS. I've always intended to redo that but I haven't had the time or the funds to upgrade from PSCS 3 to PSCS5.

Welcome Vicky!