Learning How to Drive Photoshop CS4

I have got to figure out how to use Photoshop CS4! I was desperate to get it after years of using Photoshop Elements mostly because I wanted to have control over shadows, bevels and to have a pen tool...but now that I have it, I realize that I have no clue how to make it go. ACK!

It was a Christmas present and has been sitting there for 3 months waiting for me to do something with it. Every time I try it refuses to do what I want. (so I simply pull up Elements instead) Relearning something that looks familiar but is totally different is beyond frustrating!!

Like learning to drive in Ireland after driving in the states for 14 years. It took me two months to get the nerve up to try to drive, and that resulted in the three other people in the car constantly yelling to watch out for the wall. Most roads in Ireland are lined with old stone walls which is pretty, but it leaves no room for error. The thing I discovered is that you drive with a subconscious space around you, knowing the width of the car, and when that is suddenly reversed your mind refuses to care. Shifting with a different hand is fine (and fortunately the pedals are in the same order), but relearning that 'personal space' is fuckaking hard. I finally did it though.

[It also wouldn't have been as hard if the roads were even a foot wider, and were clearly marked, and people stayed on their own side of the road, and drove like they were sane, and there weren't so many tractors to get around -- and when I least expected it -- going around a corner to find a flock of sheep/herd of cows, or people throwing a lead ball down the road at clumps of grass. ...I hold onto the steering wheel with a death grip in Ireland even though you don't see the cows or sheep so often anymore.]

That is what I have to do with CS4...relearn what I have been doing for years. I *really* don't want to go through feeling so lost (ie: where the hell is the paint bucket?), but on the bright side, unlike with driving, I don't have to take an absurdly hard test when I am done.*

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*Note to the Irish government...your driving test is ridiculous. It has almost nothing to do with driving in real life conditions, so as soon as the test is passed [over half fail the first time as you know, and I would guess a quarter fail the second test as well] people go back to driving any way they feel comfortable, as did I. Unfortunately "comfort" for many people in Ireland seems to mean things like driving 35 mph [when you can go 50 mph] in the middle of the road [why why WHY?].

You need some sort of formal driver's education here, in school, or for free some other way to be sure that people understand the basics. Having terrible drivers teach their children how to drive is absurd, yet that is the way it is done here, and it shows.

I have to have a little rant, then maybe a little 'lie-down'

I am an American who married an Irish person, and though I had no intentions of ending up in Ireland until retirement (or just perhaps a nice cottage somewhere for summer vacations), I ended up living in Ireland 18 years ago quite suddenly. It has been 'interesting' -- often not in a good way. At any rate, about 5 years ago when economic times were better for everyone, I extorted a small house in the states (in Portland Oregon) out of my husband.

I needed a part of the states I could call home before I completely lost my mind and just left to save my sanity. Portland is where my mom lives and I love that city! I spend about 4 months through-out the year in Portland, but the rest of the time I am in Ireland.

One thing that drives me up the wall more than anything about Ireland: broadband is rare, and as I live about 5 miles from the nearest town, (17 miles from the nearest city), I don't have it. I can't get it. I have fantasies about torturing what ever politician is keeping Ireland a second world country this way (all of them probably). I am on dial-up most of the time. (can you tell I am now throwing things and screaming?)

In Portland, I have the fastest broadband outside of a commercial line, the internet is always on and it is cheaper than what I pay for my dial-up time on the internet in Ireland. (sigh) In Ireland, I give up on any website that takes too long to load if I don't know that it will be worth the wait (any page where the words aren't showing after 2 minutes and doesn't promise to be really "interesting"...bye-bye.) A 1 minute video takes 10 minutes to show the whole way through! I know I am whining and I don't care. When I say Ireland sucks, take this into consideration.

When I put up pictures or artwork, understand this is why the size or resolution isn't the best. 200 kb takes 5 minutes to attach to blogspot for some reason. On the plus side, my blog loads really quickly.

For now, that's about it. If I continue I might pop a vein or start drinking (might do the latter anyway...)