Learn Adobe Photoshop: Fundamentals for Getting Started

This class opens with a promise it mostly keeps: skip the keystroke dump, learn Photoshop by building one thing. That thing is a web banner, and the entire 88 minutes is structured around it, from a blank 1024x512 canvas at the very first lesson to a compressed JPEG ready for upload at the last. The project frame keeps a topic that can sprawl into a hundred disconnected tips feeling like a single coherent session.

What actually gets taught

The backbone of the class is the Layers panel, and it earns that focus. Rather than defining "layer" and moving on, the instructor drags in a background texture, two PNG graphics, and text, then spends real time on ordering, grouping with Command G, locking, and toggling visibility, building the instinct that everything in Photoshop stacks. From there the class layers on non-destructive habits early, introducing adjustment layers for hue, saturation, and levels instead of editing pixels directly, which is the single best habit a beginner can pick up in a first sitting.

The background removal lesson is the strongest stretch of the course. It walks through three approaches on the same image, the Magic Wand, the Lasso, and finally the Pen tool, and lets the visible difference in edge quality make the case for precision tools rather than just asserting it. Tracing the frame edges with the Pen tool, converting the path to a selection, and inverting a mask is a genuinely transferable skill, and it is taught with enough repetition that a beginner could follow along on their own file afterward. The companion explanation of smart objects versus rasterized layers, shown by scaling a rasterized image down and back up until it turns blurry, does real work to explain why Photoshop keeps warning you before it destroys resolution.

Where it thins out

Text and effects get a lighter pass. Tracking, kerning, and applying a gradient overlay or drop shadow to type are demonstrated competently, but mostly as "click here, drag this," with less of the why that made the masking section land. The final stretch on saving and exporting is useful in a practical, avoid-a-mistake way, distinguishing a working PSD from a flattened export JPEG from a web-optimized JPEG, and showing the file size difference between quality settings, but it is closer to a checklist than a technique.

The course also stays narrow by design. It does not touch selections beyond the basics, does not get into color correction depth, and treats Photoshop's more advanced compositing tools as out of scope entirely, which is fine for its stated audience but means graduates will need a second course almost immediately.

Bottom line

As an on-ramp for someone who has never opened Photoshop, this earns its place. The single-project structure, the layers-first approach, and the Pen tool masking lesson in particular give a beginner something concrete to repeat on their own files. Anyone past the absolute basics will find little new here, and the effects and export sections feel more like a tour than instruction, but for its stated level the pacing and project focus make it worth the 88 minutes.

What you will learn

• ·Setting up a new document with the right pixel dimensions, resolution, and RGB color mode for web output
• ·Organizing, grouping, locking, and reordering layers, plus using non-destructive adjustment layers for color and levels
• ·Removing a background precisely with the Pen tool and a layer mask, and knowing when to compare that against the Lasso or Magic Wand
• ·Applying layer effects like gradient overlays, strokes, and drop shadows to type and shapes
• ·The practical difference between a smart object and a rasterized layer when scaling artwork
• ·Exporting the same file correctly as a working PSD, a high-res JPEG, and a compressed web JPEG