I think I am hooked on manuals

[Nevermore]

I have an embarassing plethora of them at this point. They are all outrageously expensive.

And I tell myself with every purchase that I am going to go through the new acquisition cover to cover in a thoughtful, disciplined way. It amazes me that I still tell myself stuff like that at my age because of course I do no such thing! I skim through them willy nilly, pick up one or two tips and shelve them. I just counted. I have 18 books on Photoshop.

I feel a New Year's resolution bubbling up from deep within but I think it is probably just procrastination as in I will go through some of them cover to cover in the New Year. Yes. Yes, you will dear. You can scrap the pigs flying over the blue moon picture you took in the New Year at the same time because both of these events are likely to occur simultaneously.

Sadly, when I do read, I learn some amazing stuff. Tonight I actually used the pen tool (ugh, phoooey, yicky poo) to draw a selection which was saved as an alpha channel. I then used lens blur with the saved alpha channel as the "depth map" which resulted in a wonderful blurred background with my selected object crisp and clear. I did it again and added some noise to the blur and this is fantastic stuff. So why don't I do the whole darn book? Do I have the attention span of a newt? I was going to make this my title (Do I have the attention span of a newt?) but didn't want to go up against Am I a Grinch?

[kygirl]

Kim, at my house we have my book room and my husband's book room. Yet, we still have books in every room in the house, including a stack in the bathroom (not mine!). Even worse, we've rented a storage building for the excess. A good deal of these are the manuals you love -- Photoshop, photography, Windows, Access, Explorer. I think it's a horrible malady -- one of those bizarre psychological problems that causes one to yearn for knowledge, but not necessarily enough to follow through. :D If you find a cure, be sure to let me know.

[Belles]

Oh boy you think you got a lotta books.

I'm an art teacher :S and when I see an art book I just gotta have it. Often I'm thinking of how I can use it or how my students can use it at school but then will still buy it for myself anyway. I would not have room for them all if I had to bring them home from school.

Thanks Nevermore for the laugh I needed that right now we coulda had a Grinch and a Newt together ;)

[webchyck]

This is why I must stay away from book stores. I am enamored with books. My first job was at a library. I used to read, read, read. I just love books. I love the covers of books. I love the hope and mystery of books. I want to read them all, I really do! I want to be the sort of person that sits at Borders drinking coffee and looking at books. Every book beckons when I go in to a book store. I am amazed that so many people can make their living writing books. I would like to write a book, though I feel I have nothing to say...but then probably most of the people who write books don't either...could there really be that many different things to say? My problem, though, is Kim's problem...I can't sit down and read straight through anymore. I skim. I guess that's why I'm surrounded by scrap magazines these days. They are skimmable. I can't sit and relax long enough to enjoy fiction...I feel I must be doing something (especially scrap/digi related!) all the time. Two things, really. It's hard to do two things and read...well, except maybe take a bath and read, which I do. I have had this one Nora Roberts book almost finished for weeks now...just haven't picked it back up to finish it. And yet, I keep buying books! Cuz someday I'm actually going to read them, I'm sure of it!

Now, manuals are not necessarily my addiction, but I understand it. I understand wanting every bit of knowledge about something. I have one PS manual and have only done a couple of the tuts because when we got to the pen tool I was befuddled. I can sometimes do it and sometimes not. I just don't get it when those straight lines come shooting out! Sigh.

[Nevermore]

I am so so so so with you re those straight shooting lines! They bug the c*** out of me. But I have just read way way way too many pros who claim that the pen is the only way to go for selections of the uber groovy kind. So I am going to keep going. I did do a selection and not so bad but need to keep on keeping on. I always used to try to make shapes with the pen and that was a DISASTER. Right now I am focussing only on selecting. I figure I might crack it if I keep it very narrow.

[webchyck]

I need to re-view Ronna's podcast about the pen tool (http://scrapadelic.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=95680)...and every other one of her podcasts, too!

http://scrapadelic.libsyn.com/

They're very helpful! In fact, I need to link those up in the tutorials forum here and at SBG! Off to do that (another rabbit hole I'm going down! supposed to be posting the Magic and Miracles layouts on the blog!)

[akissling]

Ok, here is my view on the whole too many books thing. First, there is no such thing! Books are good. Buy them, get them from the library, borrow them from friends!!! Books are tactile and full of knowledge and surprises. Second, manuals are made precisely for the use that you have Kim! No one really thinks that the consumer is going to read the whole thing cover to cover. You use the index (ok I index books too and here is a big plug for them), go to the section that you need and viola your issue is addressed! How-to-manuals are not like fiction or certain non-fiction titles (biographies etc.). You do not have to read the whole thing cover to cover. Go ahead, buy away, you have my permission! You didn't ask but you have it. Why? Because I do the same darn thing. I have bought books for one idea, not two or three but one!!!! I do the same thing with magazines too! It is no wonder that my "office" is a mess but I am surrounded by ideas and inspiration whenever I choose to open them. I also believe in learning by osmosis!!!
By the way, I really think Becky is a closet librarian! I am your atypical librarian (organized at work but NOT at home). Most of my weird librarian friends are complete neat freaks at home too. But I didn't mean you are weird Becky...

[Nevermore]

I think Becky is weird.

[webchyck]

I feel enabled! Heading to the bookstore RIGHT NOW!!!

I totally wanted to be a librarian, and I wish I had gone to school for it. I loved working in the library! One of the girls I worked at the library with me has one of the coolest jobs ever now (or she did the last I heard from her)...she gets to work with Civil War artifacts (or documents...not sure which...and Michelle is going to swat me for not getting it straight) in Texas somewhere--at a university museum, I think. Not exactly sure what all she does, but I was so glad to hear where she ended up. She had a baby while we were in high school (whose father ended up dying in a car accident WHILE she was pregnant!), so she had a rough go of it. Took her forever to finish college, but when she did, she got this amazing job. I think it's so cool!

[kygirl]

I worked in libraries all the way through junior high and high school. I even belonged to the library club, the Bookworms. I used to dream of alphabetizing library cards. LOL
But, while I could be neat as a pin at the library, I totally fail at home organization. That may be why I like computers. Everything is always just where I left it.

[Nevermore]

A few years ago, I actually made some moves to leave my career and go back to school for a post grad degree in information technology (or some such, I forget, but it sure wasn't called library science anymore!). I got so far as to get accepted to the program before real life (read: mortgages, new baby etc.) reclaimed me. My alternative dream was always to own a bookstore even in the face of Chapters and Amazon. But that was all pre-scrapping. Now if I won the lottery, I would sign up for some digital design courses and would teach (if I could). I am thinking that there must be a lot of people who are shut in for one reason or another who would probably get mega enjoyment from being able to do an artistic endeavour that doesn't require much physicality (no, I WOULD NOT be teaching real life stuff) and that opens up such a community of people to share and learn with. If I won the lottery I could fund the hardware / software but if I just retired, would have to use fund raising mode to do this. Not my favourite thing to do but can always push myself for a worthy cause. I am such a nut. I think of something (teaching shut ins photoshop or scrapping) and the next thing you know I am planning the fundraising. I really do only come in two speeds--stop and 190 miles an hour.

[Diginellie]

This is such an intriguing thread. I too have always loved books and bookstores and libraries. My problem is that I am always reading about 3 books at once - according to my mood and the time of day. This includes books I am re reading, library books and recent purchases and manuals. Then my library books get overdue. I also love being creative. I am totally right brained and what I really love about digital art is that it engages both sides of the brain. I guess this is why a lot of artists just don't `get' digital art, many are totally computer illiterate. And why many computer geeks just don't want to know about creating art digitally. I know a lot of guys who play with photoshop but not in an artistic way. I also think that digital art is perhaps better if its not `taught'. This way you just play and create like kids do.....so what if you don't know all the ins and out of PS as long as you are having fun.

Sorry about this `stream of consciousness' I'll come back to it later:)

[webchyck]

Great points, Helen! I see these things to be true, too.

[akissling]

Interesting info in this thread for sure. Weird that there is a library connection! Donna, you could work in my department!! Kim, I was the idiot who decided to go to school and have a baby right in the middle (how hard could it be I stupidly thought to myself!). Your idea sounds good to me! Sometimes I consider myself a shut in (maybe locked in is a better word!!) and would love to take classes!
Becky, your friend's job sounds fascinating (I ended up with a degree in history after leaving fashion design and imagined myself working in a museum or library working with diaries of women from the civil war because apparently the south is FULL of untouched ones)! Sad story!
Diginelle, my friends in our tech department are the same! They know all the bells and whistles but arent' interested in artistic side at all!

[Nevermore]

I just get off on them when they meander a bit but follow a theme in the background (there is probably some cool musical term for that but danged if I know it).

Diginellie, I agree with you in general but I have found that it is neat to learn some bizarre techie thing and twist it to artistic purposes (evil quirk laugh). It does involve a lot of play so I guess I am not really being techie per se. But I go on little ventures and just play play play. Tonight, for whatever reason, it was the adjust, colour replace dialogue box. I am learning this in conjunction with channels which I have sworn to master. It all comes together as a selection technique. I like having tons of ways of selecting since so much of what I do is extracting images. I have to admit I hardly ever just want to know some techie thing without having an ultimate purpose for it sooner or later! And some of my best "techie finds" were serendipity while noodling--I discovered something neat and then I read up about it to see if it could get pushed farther or harder.

But I do agree: the play is the thing!

Alison: bless your heart for blessing my book purchases! I feel so much better. In fact, so much better I can't wait until the CS3 books start hitting the shelves!

[Belles]

And then there are food books .... oh dear me.

I buy recipe books cause I like one recipe in them.
I had to put a bookshelf in my kitchen to hold them all and I would have .... hang on let me go count them ..... 63 on that shelf right now but I know I have another 5 at least at school cause of the artwork that was used to illustrate them. Thats another reason I will buy a recipe book .... if its illustrated well.

My husband is just as bad with books ... we have our favourite bookshop in the city and there is no way we can't go in there without coming out with at least one book each.

He is into movie making how to books and anything he can get his hands on about Peter Jackson .. at the moment anyway. His other passion is mountain climbing and anything to do with that sort of thing.

[graybonnie]

oh my....books in boxes under the beds, in the attic... over flowing book shelve and a few still in bags... and you know what I have probably only read a 100 pages in the past four months. Digital arts has sucked me and I'm enjoying it way to much. Instead of fiction I have been spending time with the O'Reilly Cookbooks - own 2 with a 3rd on the way. And, one issue of Photoshop Creative magazine ($14.00 per issue U.S.). LOL... my friends have stopped asking if I have read anything interesting lately.

Alison... we had matching college experiences and career goals... LOL... DH still jokes that I would leave high and dry if someone offered a museum job in D.C.... LOL