I’ve been using Elements for a little more than 2 years now, both 1 and 2, and have been reading this forum just as long. I have learned so much from you people it’s incredible. Everybody seems so friendly and helpful and rarely seems to get frustrated with newbees. On the other hand, I have occassionally visited the Photoshop forum and have noticed a totally different tone there. They seem to be very impatient with new or repeat questions, even getting upset with posters. I would be very intimidated posting there if I used Photoshop, very comfortable here though. Thank you!
Hi, I am a regular poster on the Photoshop Forum, and I remember all of the posts from the past several years. There are two sides to the Photoshop forum, one is for Mac and one is for Windows. You will find the more intense artists and professionals on the Mac side, where I hang out. There is little tolerance for those who come on as newbies and purport to ‘know it all’ – they get chewed up handily. But for honest regular folks, like you and me, we are the friendly bunch who enjoy the craft and art and the privilege of being employed to run the best software on earth – Photoshop.
I got Elements on a disk with a Wacom tablet I bought for home use and I am very impressed with the program. It is a little Photoshop. This is nice because if you ever want to step up to Photoshop, you will be prepared in many areas of how the tools work and how the program operates.
One of the differences is our reaction to seeing a posting by a ‘newbie’. Here, we see it as an opportunity to help someone solve their current dilemma, learn to enjoy the program, and, hopefully, become a contributor to the forum and even the Challenge. In other places, the reaction may be a bit less constructive…
You want to get an example of what I’m saying? Read this. A guy posted a Photoshop 7 question on the Photoshop Album forum. I kindly instructed him to post his question on the Photoshop Forum. Jim Lutte (Adobe volounteer) moved the thread to Photoshop Win Forum for the same reason.
Later, someone (whose name I won’t mention) took the time to let me know I was wrong whereas, of course, I was right in suggesting this guy to move his post to the other forum (because my post was in the thread, and not Jim’s) :
"Ray…
I believe yer lost, sonny.
Head down the road apiece, and ya know where the old Knoll house used to be? Keep going.
Then, when you get to that corner where old-man Cox rolled his haywagon, turn right. Go till you see the Burma Shave sign, and stop before you get to the last one.
Get out an’ holler real loud; a friendly Mr. Hewitt will be along to point you the rest of the way toward where yer goin’. "
And, of course, the guy posting the question in the first place never got an answer!
Ray, who definitively thinks some people have way too much free time 🙂
I get your point about the unhelpfulness of some in other forums. I hope you forgive me but when I read the persons unhelpful note I couldn’t help but wonder where he lives and what kind of accent he has in his speech. My guess is that he chews gum, comes from the southern states and walks around in cowboy boots. Am I right?
You want to get an example of what I’m saying? Read this. A guy posted a Photoshop 7 question on the Photoshop Album forum. I kindly instructed him to post his question on the Photoshop Forum. Jim Lutte (Adobe volounteer) moved the thread to Photoshop Win Forum for the same reason.
I saw the same posting but had no idea, that it had been previously moved by a forum host. I too thought it was in the wrong forum but went ahead and answered the question as best I could.
Frankly I don’t think anybody would ever run up against that person face to face anywhere in the country – except maybe in a tavern around midnight just before the bouncer put him out the door. He sounds like the kind of smarta– that gets his jollies long distance. It would be interesting to know if the person uses his own name or hides behind a user name, except I’m too lazy to look. 🙂
Hey… I’m a newbie! Could someone chew me up and spit me out so I feel at home? I like it here as well. Everyone on this side of the fence puts there pants on one leg at a time versus the other side where Geeves the butler does it for them while they look down their long noses at him. 🙂 (Insert snappy rim shot here)
Wow, cookgreg-the-newbie, we usually like to do everything we can to accommodate requests from newcomers for "help", but I’m not sure anybody here can handle this one! I get a touch snippy every once in a while, but I have to be in a really bad mood before that happens. The day has just been going too well. Maybe later? 🙂
As for the topic at hand, I’ve been using PS for about 5 months. The product itself can be intimidating at the beginning. Prior to coming into the Elements U2U, I hovered in the Photoshop forums w/o posting. One thing I observed was anxious newbies who, understandibly want to know how to do THIS right now without doing any research on their own. That is when I saw "the regulars" eat them up. I don’t think their intention was to curb enthusiasm, but rather to encourage them to dig through all the bells and whistles for themselves. THEN, if they still had questions, it would be alright to post. They just use (at times)a snide tone to express it. Me, I’ll just relax in here you where I don’t have to worry about fangs and claws if that is alright with all of you.
I too saw your helpful post redirecting the person to the correct forum. I’ve read enough forums to have realized that it was most likely reposted by a moderator and was appalled at the responses you received.
By the way, I go to Montreal each year for the Grand Prix, what a beautiful city you have! (You live in Montreal right?) In fact, it was the pictures I have taken at the Grand Prix which got me started with all this Adobe stuff. Maybe someday DSL will come to my little rural part of heaven…sorry, New Hampshire, and I will be able to post some.
After my initial post I was a bit concerned that I may have offended some users; it’s nice to see that I was not alone in my feelings. Thanks again to everyone fo the help over the years!
On your next trip, be sure to visit Old Montreal. You’ll get a really good sense of old Europe. And the restaurants are all fabulous and for a very reasonable price! From there, take a walk in the Old Port, and enjoy the festivities, and perhaps an IMAX movie as well 🙂
From Montreal (driving), we’ve visited New York, Plattsburg, Burlington, Saratoga Spring (very charming city!), and of course, Toronto and Ottawa. Next trip is New Brunswick.
Chateau Frontenac!!! Wow, a fabulous place to go on a honeymoon! Quebec city is very charming, all year round. In February, there’s the Carnival. However, I don’t like cold, so I’ve never attended.
Perhaps should you post a picture of grand mother to Grant so that it would turned into a retouch Challenge ? Would be fun to see what people can make of an old picture!
These pictures are either in our attic or my brother’s so I had better start looking for them. There are some neat ones that I remember, so thats yet another winter project for me! PSE sure does great things for old photos, I remember the first challenges. Jane
While you in Texas have chewing gum stuck to your boot heels, I, in Louisiana, have the more frequent problem of boot heel stuck to the chewing gum in my mouth-the classic hoof-in-mouth disease.
That’s a beautiful park. I love the old oak trees.
I’ve only been to New Orleans once and that’s been a while ago. I’d like to go back some day.
At the time I was there, I didn’t know that I had early Louisiana ancestors — I didn’t get interested in genealogy until later. Now that I know, I’d kind of like to see some of the areas where they lived. They ranged from New Orleans, Pointe Coupee, and up into what is present day Monroe. My great-great-great grandfather drowned in False River near Pointe Coupee in the early 1790’s.
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