Which is the best Magazine for Photoshop?

<p>Hello</p>

<p>I can only afford to get a subscription to one of these magazines. Which is the best for learning Photoshop and improving my Digital Darkroom Skills/techniques?</p>

<p>1) Photoshop Essentials<br>

2) Photoshop Creative Collection<br>

3) Photoshop User Magazine</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for everyone's help</p>

<p>Better Photoshop out of Australia is outstanding (but not inexpensive if you don’t love in AZ).<br>

Of the three you listed, the only one I’ve ever received was Photoshop User Mag and its nothing all that great IMHO. </p>

<p>None of them, IMO.</p>

<p>www.lynda.com</p>

<p>is a better bet, with more than 250hrs of video tutorial for 25$/month... i have rarely see a *good* magazine on Photoshop.. most of them show you how to do tricks, like how to turn type in glass effect, how to turn your image like waterpainting etc... none of them really terah you anything about Photoshop itself.</p>

<p>Well, of the magazines listed I would opt for Photoshop User Magazine as it is part of your NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals). Besides learning how to turn type into glass :) you get several other member benefits. The biggest one for me is free shipping from B&H. This alone pays for my membership several times over during the course of the year. I actually just bought my new Mac Pro via Apple's NAPP discount and that saved me hundreds. So even if you don't like the magazine, there are a lot of other worthwhile benefits. </p>

<p>I would rather invest in a good book or two than a magazine subscription. My favorite so far is "Photoshop CS5 for Nature Photographers" by Ellen and Josh Anon.</p>

<p>I second Patrick's suggestion that most magazines are not good at explaining what Photoshop does as much as how to do specific things and that it's better to get a subscription to an online learning site.<br>

I've looked at the 3 magazines you mentioned and of the three I found Photoshop User Magazine to be the poorest of them all.</p>

<p>Get one of the Scott Kelby books to start with, and once you're going into more detail, focus on the issues with the help of dedicated books. I've noticed that most magazines are mostly useless, and contain topics that are either too advanced or too far off the road. A book is something which accompanies you every time you open Photoshop, and you can leave it on your desk for quick reference.</p>

<p>Patrick is so right about Lynda.com. The video lessons are amazing. Well worth the money.</p>

Another vote for a lynda.com subscription. Which version of Photoshop do you use and what type of photography

interests you?

<p>I joined NAPP and received Photoshop User magazine for a couple years. I thought it was oriented much more towards graphic design than what I do, which is more or less straight photography. There would usually be one article in each issue that I found helpful, the rest just wasn't stuff I cared about learning. The single biggest benefit for me was the ability to call a tech type with NAPP and get questions answered and problems solved without being put on hold forever and from someone with an accent you can understand.</p>

<p>Like others have said, there are better ways IMHO to learn Photoshop than through a magazine. Lynda.com was great, I got something like 25 free hours as one of Adobe's freebies for upgrading to CS4. I liked it so well I stayed on for another four or five months and then went back to it for another couple months recently. At $25 a month it's a bargain. Scott Kelby's books are great and a lot of people also like Martin Evening's books.</p>

<p>i havent used lynda.com, but i use kelby training and love it (i'm a NAPP member also, and agree, lots of discounts and bennies that mitigate the annual fee). also, there are TONS of free training video's for specific effects and tools on youtube. free training is all over the net, some outstanding, some you get what you pay for. but kelby and lynda seem to most consistently get top reviews (tho they aren't free!)</p>