Photoshop Phun

Since I'm a self-taught photographer and also have never had Photoshop (PS) classes for post-processing, I rely on the web a lot for research. I recently came across a link to a site for free high-res stock photos, stock.xchng at http://www.sxc.hu/. If you're looking for some free pix to manipulate for your site, with no copyright repercussions, this is your place. I'll be using some of these photos myself while learning some new PS techniques. According to the quick stats, there are 390,295 pictures currently available and more photos are added daily. You are able to search the database by word, resolution, category, photographer, and date.

If you're a blog stalker like me, you may also love the Blogs tab, which gives you access to the blogs of a lot of creative people.

Another favorite feature is the Tutorials tab, which gives a ton of tutorials for PS techniques. Some tutorials are definitely better than others, but if you're a PS beginner, it's a great place to start diving in.

I've also been looking at a lot of PS tutorials on YouTube. My favorite "teacher" so far is photoshopmama. Not only is she good at explaining editing processes, but the videos and visuals are some of the best I've seen.

For a sample of some of her work, click on the photo below to access Photoshop Mama's Pencil Sketch Tutorial, which is great!

If you know of any other great sites for free stock photos or PS tutorials, please email me!

Happy Photoshopping!