How Do I Start?-Photoshop Elements

From my sister Abbie:

"Digital Scrapbooking in PSE (Photoshop Elements)

I started digiscraping about three years ago after a friend of a friend showed us both the very basics of making a digital layout. There are many things I have done since then to learn more. The most helpful have been tutorials on the internet. Shabby Princess has several tutorials, but I would especially recommend 'Creating Your First Layout Using Photoshop Elements' as a great place for a very beginner to start.

http://www.theshabbyshoppe.com/tutorials/software_tutorials.asp

By the way, Shabby Princess has the best free downloads out there. Check them out.

http://www.shabbyprincess.com/downloads.asp

Jessica Sprague also has really good free tutorials. Here is a link to the index (she also has great free stuff at the bottom of this index). I went through each tutorial and learned a ton.

http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/photoshop-friday-index/

Jessica also teaches great online classes if you want to learn even more. I have taken several and think they were well worth the cost.

http://www.jessicasprague.com

Jessica also has several books published by Creating Keepsakes called Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking. I have two and would like the third.

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/issues/Computer_Tricks

I used to subscribe to magazine called Digital Scrapbooking that had good information and layout ideas, but they no longer publish the magazine. I think you can browse past issues here:

http://www.digitalscrapbooking.com/issues/index.html

I also checked out a few books from my library system on PSE that helped me learn a few more things about Elements in general, especially the organizer. An organizer with tagged items is a must for a digital scrapbooker. My library didn't have any books on digital scrapbooking when I got started, but I just checked again and they now have a Dummies book and several others that might be useful.

Also, there are many galleries and other places out there where people show off their work. I think they are great places to get ideas.

And last but not least, just experiment and play around with the program. Check out all the options under each menu. Try out all the different kinds of adjustment layer and photo effects, etc. You can really learn a lot that way."