Photoshop is the Rolls Royce of image editing and it is used by almost all professional/amateur photographers, artists, graphic artists, print houses, studios and almost anyone who has a connection with image presentation. All these people and professionals have not decided to use Photoshop because of its super low price. In fact, Photoshop is a professional product and it supports a professional price tag to match. However, when we really understand what we are getting for our money, we may form the view that it isn't that expensive.

Photoshop is a complete darkroom and much more on a CD and when we consider the cost of setting up a darkroom, then the price of Photoshop appears quite reasonable. There is a fairly steep learning curve to get anywhere near the best from this software, but there are a wealth of tutorials available including our own. We produce tutorials on DVD, for download and then there are our seminars. We have been using Photoshop for some 14 years from some of the earliest versions and we have written tutorials for most of the UK press and a few Aussie ones too.

There is little you cannot do with Photoshop once you have mastered it and the version currently available is Photoshop CS-4. Like most modern software Photoshop is packed full of options and it is knowing which ones we want and which ones we don't that can make it difficult to learn. However, talk to anyone who has and they will tell you that it is well worth the effort.

One aspect of this software that is a must to know, is the layers system. Almost everything creative starts in layers, so it is going to be something that you just have to learn. We dedicate a DVD just to that subject, because of the importance of it.

So what do we offer in relation to this software. @ $79 per person

Photoshop Elements is Photoshop's little brother. It is a trimmed down version of Photoshop, but it does include all the real important tools. It is aimed more at amateurs and a great deal of emphasis has been placed on making the tools easy to use, even for those with little photographic experience. However, you do have the opportunity to delve a little deeper into the software and for the enthusiastic amateur photographer you will find a powerful software package at an affordable price.

For the real beginner you can go into Quick Fix and be guided through many of the processes to improve your pictures. For the more advanced you can bypass that and go straight into full edit to do almost the same as you can in Photoshop.

One of the real benefits of starting with Elements is that many of the palettes and options are in fact the same as Photoshop or very nearly. This means that any time spent learning Elements is not lost if and when you take the next step to Photoshop. You will find yourself 70% of the way there if you already know your way around Elements. The latest version as of April 2009 is Elements 7

One aspect of this software, just like Photoshop that is a must to know, is the layers system. Almost everything creative starts in layers, so it is going to be something that you just have to learn. We dedicate a DVD just to that subject, because of the importance of it.

So what do we offer in relation to this software. @ $79 per person