Photoshop: Fireworks Users Do Not Be Afraid!

I grew up using autocad as a drawing program and net fusion to build websites. Isn't that insane? And I SWEAR I'm not that old!! I eventually, in college, moved to using Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks. Some of you may have never heard of fireworks. BUT if you're a web designer before a graphic designer you know it well. I'm a web girl that eventually turned graphic. All of that being said I was TERRIFIED of photoshop. Layers freaked me out. I never learned how to properly use them in Fireworks so I always had everything in the same layer but you could choose what you wanted to work with. Not the case in photoshop but i'm here to tell you THAT IS OKAY! You will survive the transition! Layers are a beautiful thing. If you have any hint of OCD, like me, it will be your favorite photoshop feature! Looking back they are not terribly different, but driving the two programs is. The best thing I can tell you to do is either find a friend who is a Photoshop genius like my co-J or dig through adobe's tutorial videos! They are wonderful! They have an entire playlist on this page of how to get started but I love the layers video for newbies: http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-cs6/playlist/getting-started-with-photoshop-cs6/

If you're not new to photoshop but looking for a few tricks that you may or may not know here's one that i found today that was always something i couldn't figure out how to do so i would revert to fireworks for it! the source is linked to the pic!

another one that we use all the time so as not to reinvent the wheel is stealing layers from your other photoshop artwork. all you have to do is open your two psd's in two separate windows and drag and drop a layer from one to the other! depending on your file size you'll probably need to resize it but it can save you a ton of time if you're making numerous graphics for the same event in different sizes (ie advertising graphics). 

the other tool i LOVE to use that makes the proceeding ecard valid is a filter called liquify. there's no way to explain it other than to get in and use it. you can squeeze in and push out in all the right places. but be careful or you'll end up looking like this:

 but if you do it right this card can secretly hold true for you!!