Hi,

Im pretty new to digital art, especially with photoshop and was hoping you could give me some advice on where to start.

Ive watched loads of tutorials, read loads of guides and of course used imaginefx but no one really seems to be able to help a proper beginner with little to not photoshop experience.

 I get basics, layers, brushes etc, but nothing I do comes out anywhere near as good as I expect it too...

 Anyone got any beginners advice? Tips tricks etc?

 Any help is greatly appreciated.

(if there's already a thread for this, please feel free to point me towards it :) ) 

Welcome, I am new to digital as well been about 6 months taking it seriously, my best advise it to just practice and then practice some more. Every time I do something whether its a painting or a sketch I figure out something new. I do a lot of research, watch tutorials, and keep practicing/learning, ask questions. this is a great site for help as all the users are very helpful, I am know where close to where I want to be but the time I have spent this year making a serious push into digital, I have seen improvement.

Stick to it, post in the sketch/wip forums and ask for help! 

i've asked the same sort of question before, and got the same sort of result that you have. The thing is that it's really difficult to give those sort of tips, it honestly does come from trying and trying, and each new painting you do, you'll learn something new. Firstly what sort of painting style do you want? do you paint realistic or cartoon etc? 

some things i learnt along the way: 

The things i struggled with was the canvas size, if you are doing a 'proper' painting make the canvas size around 3000 pixels, have the resolution at about 100 to start, you can increase as you start detailing.

People differ with the opacity and flow, but i personally keep the flow to about 60% and the opacity to around 40% as i couldn't work with full flow and opacity (this is a vague guideline, you'll find your way) 

to build shades just go over and over an area, colour picking to get a smooth blend.

Don't use dodge and burn too much (if at all) you can achieve the same results using just brushes.

don't shade with black, or highlight with white, it doesn't work.

i think that's all for now.  

keep posting as you go along, and welcome to the forum  

Thanks for the replies!

 I appreciate it's difficult to explain to a novice like me and I guess practise practise practise has got to be be way forward, picking up the tricks as I go along.

 I am a semi realistic/cartoony artist. I enjoy putting a spin on realistic work that turns it away from realism (if that makes any sense?). Having said that, cartoons are easier to draw so I will probably spend some time on cartoons for the foreseeable future.

 Thanks for the tip about the dpi. I've read to work at about 300? How do I change from, 100 to 300 later on, is it just in the image menu?  

no problem, the tips i gave are all personal opinion and you'll probably get alot more!

you can change the dpi by going to image -> image size and you can increase there 

This guys tutorials put it together for me

 http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

I paid the 10$ for his adding color to a black and white image and it made a huge leap in my progression 

Thanks.

Ive always been wearying of the majority of 'pay to view' tutorials because I've heard bad reviews about how YouTube is better (and free).

 A colouring guide would probably be worth it though, because I find blending to be really hard. My colours come out blocky, and I can't get them smooth at all... :(

**out**

Edit- I take it back, that website looks really good! Will definitely be spending some time picking up methods from there. Thanks! :) 

Most good tutorials are made by people who had years of experience. Maybe you are on the right track, but just need to practice more? When you don't get something done right the first time, it does not necessary mean you lack certain knowledge, but simply need to practice and develop the skill. 

Perhaps you could show us some of the stuff you have done? It is always good to let others look at your work, so you know exactly how you are doing. There is also a chance that there are other issues holding you back, and you may not know what you really need until you show your stuff to others and get their opnion.

Yeah, I've certainly found that recently digitial art is all about practice! But So is traditional, so it's all relative.

Ive found the basic tutorials in the website recommended above amazingly helpful! Defiantly going to use the techniques there, and learning the photoshop shortcuts will be really helpful too.

I will definitely post a wrk in progress piece soon, as I've got a landscape piece of my local castle currently on the books. Once I'm less embarrassed by it I will ask for a wip critique!

Thanks for all the supportive replies. Much appreciated.