CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Ok, my friend wants to know how vital is it to have the manual? And I want to know how hard is it to use for begginers? Thanks for all answers!

Um well, in my experience, a Photoshop manual is pretty much useful only if you already have a basic working knowledge of Photoshop. I only use mine when I need to look up very specific info on a certain subject.

Just playing around with photoshop, it's not hard to learn what the basic tool buttons do just by experimenting. You can draw, fill shapes and use layers and filters pretty easy. But unless you have prior knowledge from another progam about masks, channels, and the highly technical features of photoshop, you won't really learn how to use those efficiently unless you take a course, or perhaps read the manual from cover to cover. The thing with photoshop is...there are a million different ways to do the same thing. So everyone tends to develop their own favorite 'set of tools'.

BTW, I love your Roy animation. <stares at it all day>

The manual? I have Photoshop CS, and I have to say that I haven't really touched it. XD Yes, it probably is useful, but you can pretty much get all the information you need from tutorials on the internet. What I do, though, is buy some.... guidebooks, I suppose you could call it. The two series that I've been sticking with is "Visual Quickstart Guide" and "Bible."

The program itself isn't hard to use, but, as you said, you're a beginner, and I remember that when I first started, it was fairly challenging.. of course, you can always get help. ^^ You can check out these tutorial sites:
http://good-tutorials.com/
http://www.n-sane.net/
http://www.tutorialman.com/
Just three of the many good sites for Photoshop tutorials. As soon as you get a hang of the basic functions in Photoshop, you should do fine. ^^ Then, you can start exploring with all the more advanced functions..

good question. I just usually look up a tutorial. THat's the way to go

I have never used the manuel or really any Phtoshop book for that matter. I would have to agree with everybody else that in general tutorials and books from the "Visual Quickstart Guide" and "Bible" series like Sunako suggested are better. The ones in the Visual Quickstart Guide series are easier, but will still teach you lots of good stuff, while the one in the Bible series are thick, huge, and full of lots of good stuff.