Learning Photoshop on a Laptop

yeahbut

Hi

I've always wanted to learn photoshop.

But Ive always put it off because, I've never had a decent enough computer, just a small -and slow, laptop.

Maybe that sounds daft, but I'm finally upgrading the laptop and interested to know:

Do you necessarily need a PC/mac, with a large monitor?

Would a 15-17" laptop screen suffice?

Im looking at an Asus vivobook from Komplett, 8GB, i5 processor, 256 GB SSD. Seems to meet PS requirements.

Thanks

awec

You can edit photos on a laptop for sure, many photographers do it.

Once it meets the min spec for photoshop it will work. For larger images, it might be a little slow when applying certain edits but it will still be more than usable for a casual user.

CelticRambler

As far as software/technique goes, a laptop will work in exactly the same way as your PC, but be aware of the small but significant effect that a laptop screen angle can have on the image you see. While this isn't really a problem when surfing the net or watching a video - your eyes/brain will "fix" the image so that it looks right - you may find that your first photoshopped images look quite different on another screen, or when printed. One simple way to control this is to hook up your current monitor to the laptop and cross-check (or even edit) using that screen before signing off on any important projects.

Effects

You can always get a second external monitor for your laptop. I often work with mine that way, using a 24" monitor.

Alanstrainor

Just go for it no matter what machine it is. Photoshop is actually relatively light for most tasks. And now here's a question, should you be using photoshop at all? If your goal is to touch up photos and make small (not so small!) adjustments for the vast majority of photographers lightroom is all you need.

Which programs you use depends entirely on your goals.

OldGoat

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Just go for it no matter what machine it is. Photoshop is actually relatively light for most tasks. And now here's a question, should you be using photoshop at all? If your goal is to touch up photos and make small (not so small!) adjustments for the vast majority of photographers lightroom is all you need.

Which programs you use depends entirely on your goals.

Lightroom is the Adobe version of a kit lens.

OldMrBrennan83

How do you learn it anyway? Just play with it or are there any decent online training materials out there?

OldGoat

Patww79 wrote: »

How do you learn it anyway? Just play with it or are there any decent online training materials out there?

I took out a one year subscription to Lynda.com (Now LinkedIn Learning).
I tried using free tutorials from Youtube but the amount of noise to signal was too great and so I went for the paid route instead.
After that it's just practice, practice practice.

PTH2009

I'm doing an ECDL module on Gimp 2.0 with is similar to Photoshop

You should have a look at it. Free software and is pretty good

OldGoat

Also try Photopea
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057929290

I took a cursory look at this and am going to go back and give it a bit of a stress-test when I have more time to play.

blackbox

For Photoshop on a laptop I'd recommend getting a good mouse rather than trying to use the touchpad.

awec

Kelbyone.com has some good photoshop and Lightroom videos.

Some of them are free too.

CelticRambler

blackbox wrote: »

For Photoshop on a laptop I'd recommend getting a good mouse rather than trying to use the touchpad.

Strongly second that!

Bacchus

yeahbut wrote: »

Hi

I've always wanted to learn photoshop.

But Ive always put it off because, I've never had a decent enough computer, just a small -and slow, laptop.

Maybe that sounds daft, but I'm finally upgrading the laptop and interested to know:

Do you necessarily need a PC/mac, with a large monitor?

Would a 15-17" laptop screen suffice?

Im looking at an Asus vivobook from Komplett, 8GB, i5 processor, 256 GB SSD. Seems to meet PS requirements.

Thanks

To better answer you, I'm interested to know what you hope to be able to do with Photoshop? What is your goal here? Photoshop can be overkill for many routine editing flows and I would see it as either a tool for creative editing or for touching up photos beyond what you can achieve in say Lightroom.

I fall into the latter category and found YouTube and getting hands on with PS has been a good approach. Every now and again, there's some new "problem" I need to address in Photoshop and I just learn about it on YouTube.