Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Or in my case Who's afraid of Photoshop?

While it might seem strange to compare how I felt about Photoshop with the famous play by Edward Albee, it was the first thing that came to my mind when I opened the programme, for more reasons than you can imagine. First of all, there is the title. Being a pun on the song "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?', I found it strangely relevant to my first experience with Photoshop. As if it wasn't confusing enough to figure out how to navigate from the home screen but then, when I uploaded my first image, I had to face all those buttons, functions and possibilities which had no meaning to me. I was being eaten alive by the panic I felt. It honestly seemed impossible to me that at some point I will be able to make any sense of Photoshop. Not only that, but I will be actually capable of manipulating series of images that were to be my Photo Essay. A project that not only had to tell a story of some kind and have an idea behind the images, but also had to be a representation of my skill set, of my ability to work with Photoshop. The combination of both those things had to make sense as well. No need to tell you how easy it is for a great idea to be destroyed by poor execution.  And then it hit me - forget the title, this was exactly like the play! "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" is neither a tragedy, nor a comedy for me. It is somewhere in the middle. It is about coming to terms with life as an absurdity by itself and only then, acknowledging this, we can achieve some form of personal normality. We all live in an illusion we create for ourselves. We can at least try and make the best of it. Which is exactly how I felt with Photoshop. Being able to decode on my own the basic functionality of the programme I was pretty sure I will be able to produce something, mediocre at best ,but still. I have created for myself the illusion that I have handled this pretty well and anything I do is more than expected, considering my zero previous experience with the programme. I gave it few days thought, not being able to open Photoshop. Yes, it does sound overdramatic, but I can assure you the struggle was real! On day 3 it was obvious I will need some help to produce something better than an upside-down picture of my library! This is when I decided to give LinkedIn Learning a chance. First of all, if you are a University student and you have been granted access to the platform, use it!  There are so many opportunities there to work on your skills set! After going through the tutorials and courses available, I ended up choosing two of those and here are my insights on 'Introducing Photoshop' with Deke McClelland and 'Photoshop 2021 Essential Training: The Basics' with Julieanne Kost, both available at LinkedIn Learning.

• Never assume that if a tutorial is 3 hours, this will be the time it will take for you to finish it. Especially, if it is something to do with improving your technical skills. The first one I watched was 3 hours that turned into at least 6, if not more. And there is a reason for that, which is my next point.
• Always, when doing one of those, make sure you download the exercise pack provided. It consists of all the files the lecturer is using, while going through the different functions and actions you are there to learn. This way you can simultaneously repeat what is happening on the screen, in my case more than once, until you are sure you are fully grasping it. Never presume that just by watching the tutorial you will emerge proficient in any programme, really.
• Make sure you choose wisely between all the tutorials! My advice - make sure the tutorial is heavily broken down. The ones on the pictures provided had little segments one after the other, each dedicated to a different button, function, action. This way, if you feel unsure about something you already went over, you can always go back and repeat only that segment without the pain of going back and forth in one long video file. It also helps if you want to cover only certain functionality and leave some for another time. It is also less overwhelming. The segments are short enough for you to decide and take a break anytime and not really break the continuity of the tutorial.
• Make sure your software is up to date and your hardware supports it - nothing worse than being halfway through and realising that your version is too old for the functionality explained or your laptop is struggling with the programme. If that is the case, a lighter version or another programme might be more suitable for you. I had to change laptops at some point as the one I started on was definitely not up to the task.
• Finally, make sure you have fun! While my objectives were clear - learn as much as possible, practice, complete my project, somewhere along the way I realised that there is nothing wrong with actually taking some time and trying different things just because. Once you actually know what you are doing it can be really empowering, especially considering the efforts you know you have put into it!

Going back to the title of this post I can definitely say "Not me!". Yet, it took a lot of hard work and many hours for me to get here. Don't be afraid to do the same, it is so worth it!