Photoshop tutorial(s) for the Affiliate Marketer? (26)
Hi there,
It seems that most of the Photoshop tutorials out there are heavily focused into the photo retouch and that kind of thing.
I'll like to know if any of you can recommend a tutorial that is more geared to the Affiliate Marketer: banner creation/design, buttons, website layouts and that kind of things.
It doesn't have to be free.
Kind regards and thanks for your help!
EDIT: maybe this thread was best suited in the design section
I would just try any very basic photoshop tutorial you can find as probably the functions explained there should already do the job for your needs unless you're into fancy designs. Buttons and stuff like that can be usually done pretty easy using the blending options and corner rounding in photoshop but generally should be done in CSS. I would just use a very basic tutorial to show you the first steps in photoshops and after that, learning by doing is the way to go in my opinion. Just try to rebuild banners / designs you like or want to modify and you'll get the catch pretty soon I'd say 
Take a look here: http://ipyxel.com/category/tutorials/photoshop/
I have a BHT link for a photoshop tutorial series designed especially for internet marketers. Can PM you the link if you want.
Originally Posted by peanut
Originally Posted by prateekdwivedi
Thanks a bunch for your help!
There's some quality Photoshop info right here on STM:
Polarbacon's Photoshop Tips And Tricks thread is really useful.
Vivid's post on getting higher CTRs with Photoshop edits works - I can vouch for it.
Also, if there's anything specific you'd like a tutorial on, Photoshop-wise, let me know - we can consider it for a future tutorial or tutorial series on STM. If it's quick you might see it very soon indeed!
Originally Posted by bitgamers
It will be really nice to have it, if you are so kind to MP me the link I will really appreciate it
Thanks a bunch for your help!
Originally Posted by prateekdwivedi
If you want to get better at Photoshop, learn lots of the most used keyboard shortcuts. When they become second-nature I guarantee you'll be at 200% productivity.
I am also interested in a PS tutorial geared towards IM skills. That would be awesome if you could pm me the link pratee. Also, does anyone know of any good Dreamweaver tutorials for basic IM skills? I can make things work for both of these programs but I feel like there is a ton I still need to learn.
Google is your friend. I had some very good video tutorials, if I find them I'll post a link here.
Lastly, if you don't want to struggle with photoshop for high CTR banner tweaking, try http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ons-in-no-time
The series is called photoshop for internet marketers. My u/l speed is very very low so it will take me some time to upload.
What specific areas would people like tutorials for? Banner creation, landing page graphics, animation, something else? I'll definitely look into getting those done - seems like this is a bit of a hidden need I didn't know about!
Originally Posted by caurmen
One tip for you guys who are weak on Photoshop skills; Photoshop elements is 10x easier to use than regular Photoshop. You can probably use it right away; the user interface is that easy..... Although there are less bells and whistles, it does almost everything you'll need it to do. I use it 99% of the time.
Hi all,
I've found the links for the tutorial but they're from isavelink and I don't have premium account. Is it ok if I paste them here?
Regards
Originally Posted by caurmen
Originally Posted by prateekdwivedi
@bitgamers you might want to check this out: http://www.quickandeasywebbuilder.com/ and this: http://www.wisebanner.com/
Right, one banner and one basic LP creation tutorial coming up in the next few weeks.
I'm interested in the Banners and LP creation tutorials. I being looking in the forum but can't find them.
Yea I would like some advice on how to make basic gif banners.
Layers, frames etc is pretty confusing at the start.
I was a graphic designer for 20 years and started using photoshop at version 2, when it was still Macromedia... when I started out in the late 80's we still used to draw stuff with real pencils. (I've been a copywriter for 6-7 years now - after I realised the only skill I had any more was knowing how Adobe liked us to design things.)
One source of instruction I've always found to be consistently high standard, and value for money, is Lynda.com - they always have a 7 day free trial, Google it if you can't find the link. In 7 days you can run through a couple of their courses and give yourself an in depth and highly usable skill. In my opinion, it's worth doing an extra couple of hours of training with good tutorials, and getting an understanding of the software so you can think through your problems, rather than using some of the quicker, shorter tutorials - of which there are many - and getting stuck each time you come across something they didn't mention.
Don't be scared. Photoshop is an immense application BUT it's actually about 5 or 6 (or more) applications all in one. It's a darkroom, it's an airbrush studio, it's a drawing board... Which means you don't have to learn the whole damn thing. Few people do these days.
So, yes, it looks like an airplane dashboard but half those buttons and dials are duplicated (there's about 3-4 ways to do just about everything) and at least 3/4 will not be of use to you doing whatever you are planning on doing. So don't be daunted. Truth is, us graphic designers were the last people who would ever have used a computer if we didn't have to, back in the day, and Photoshop was partially designed to make us! And we did - so you can!
Now, a couple of quick tips...
Graphic River comes to mind - there are a ton of these template sites available (and you can also pick up PLR) where for a few dollars you can buy just about any banner or other design done in Photoshop with all the layers editable. As a shortcut, get one of these - or better still a few - and use them as your tempalte for creating more of your own. Use and edit the layers they supply and create your own. The reason I suggest this is you can start out with what you know is a photoshop file with the correct format, sized and resolution - the most basic mistakes are the most common so why not get 'insurance'! If you start with a ready-to-go-template all you'll mess with is how it looks.
This is especially useful when importing images. If your file has been set up with the correct end resolution and dimensions - then if you import a new image and it's 100x bigger than your canvas, you know you've got yourself a high res image that's gonna need reducing. And if it sits there like a postage stamp in the middle of your canvas you know it's no good because you cannot (repeat canNOT) make a low res image bigger without turning it to crap. (Although Photoshop has a process for this which is getting better all the time, it'll never mean you can add more than 10-20%.)
Another tip, if you're not a designer, don't try and recreate the wheel. All Photoshops filters, bells and whistles have a habit of turning even good designers into crap ones because they get all impressed with the style and magic and forget the basics. There's plenty of tutorials out there on how to make text look like it's made out of metal or butter or just about anything, but personally if I'm gonna use an effect I don't usually use, I look for a template where someone else has already done the work, and made it work, than me sitting there for the next 12 hours twiddling with % trying to get things looking as uncrap as possible.
Or at least find a tutorial on how to do the exact thing you want to do. Exactly. No opinion needed. YouTube is full of them.
And finally - there are banner creator programs out there. If all you want to do is banners and buttons, go get one of them - you don't necessarily need to use Photoshop. At the end of it all, most banners and buttons are little more than some 3d and lighting effects thrown onto some text and maybe on the image too. Photoshop is good at that stuff, but there are easier ways of doing it - like getting one of those banner creator programs that lets you pick a background and pick a text style and 'voila'... then if you want to spruce it up take THAT into photoshop and you've saved yourself some headaches.
Ok, longer than I intended - but I hope there's some help in here for someone.
One final thing I thought I should mention is that designing a banner/lander/button, etc and doing it in Photoshop are actually two different things. And most of the tutorials will use Photoshop to design whatever it is. And the truth is a lot of the people creating these tutorials are not actually designers but Photoshop users - IE, they can't actually design much without Photoshop. You'll find life gets a lot easier if you try to think of design separately from Photoshop (or whatever program you are using). In the 'old days' we used to draw 'thumbnails' (2" x 1" sketches) of any design we were going to work on and the mark of an amateur was someone who didn't do thumbnails first. That way, any stylistic devices came secondary to the basic construction, layout and balance of forms. (Strange how things have worked out.) Basically, my point here is to make some design decisions before you get into your Photoshop file and things will go far smoother.
Originally Posted by caurmen
Originally Posted by bitgamers
http://design.tutsplus.com/courses/b...-banner-design
http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/course...n-in-photoshop
Landers: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...highlight=muse
Banners: Oops, my bad, I never actually created this one. I'll re-add it to the to-do list! I had a look for banner tutorials on the Web, but sadly they all appear to be terrible...
Originally Posted by caurmen
I can recommend this course for banners. Took me from knowing nothing about Photoshop to smashing out banners in a couple of days.
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