My graphic arts classes at my college had a pretty good basic and advanced Photoshop class. But I find that experimentation and reading the manual are good tools to help if you don't want to sit through/pay for college classes.

As for tutorials, Adobe made a tutorial book for Photoshop back when 7 was new.... That's actually a great idea, if you have the cash. Picking up one of Adobe's Photoshop tutorial books can teach you all sorts of stuff. My Graphic Arts classes at Job Corps used it for Photoshop, and it was a good book to work with. It was a really big book, filled with so much stuff to learn.

So yeah, if you can spare it, pop for the Adobe tutorial book on Photoshop of your version. It's a bit pricey depending on where you pick it up, but worth every penny!

=^___^=

I never really got into tutorials really, I'm more of a "screw with it until you figure it out" type XD

good luck with it though!

I taught myself mostly through experimentation. The only time I ever refer to tutorials is to get some ideas on how to get a certain look, and then I usually try something completely different. :/

I just dicked around till I figured it out :3
Click every button, flip every switch!

What my man^ here said.... you learn somethin new everyday you use it!

If you're gonna go the way of books, be sure to find a good used-book store.

That aside, it's gonna take a ton of practice... just like most anything related to art... so steel yourself to being n00b for a few months.
Try looking for help online for GIMP; anything Linux related tends to have every conceivable problem covered in excessive detail.

A very old and used 'Learning Photoshop v6.0' book found at a Half-Price Bookstore, and a similar book entirely based on working with special effects for Photoshop CS2.

Beyond that, just a ton of experimenting and practice with the occasional random google search for 'photoshop tutorial effects'

Photoshop for comics by Pat Duke is a good start.

https://radiocomixstore.com/product.....f92a480b8cd1fe

Pat Duke is an excellent teacher :)

I work without a lot of layers too. I start by just painting regular fill coloring, then I duplicate that layer and paint the shading and highlights on that, I save the fill coloring layer so I can select splotches of color to work on without disturbing the colors around it. On top of that is a layer for the outlines, and on top of that is a layer on which I paint colors that I want to bleed over the outlines, like the headlights on a car. I used to do the whole fifteen masking layers thing but it was sort of constrictive, especially when doing chrome, something of which I do a lot.

I never really used a tutorial, Gimp just kind of worked for me from the start.

watching people work via youtube + trial and error.
._.

I second what 1dimensional said, plus if you're every trying to find something in particular, putting "How to <blank> in Photoshop <version number>" in google will usually yield a plethora of tutorials. It's just a matter of looking for them.

http://www.planetphotoshop.com/category/tutorials?id=tutorials theses helped me greatly as well as playing around with photoshop

for books, I usually turn to peachpit press' publications for a quick reference.

If you want a more interactive approach I'd recommend lynda.com's tutorials. The interface is simple and easy and the tuturials are broken down by specific tool or technique. Not only that, but if you want to learn more about certain areas like photo editing or layers they have specific packages for those as well.

It's hard to recommend since I'm not sure you're specific level but start there. It may seem basic, but they're spoken in plain english and always explained really well.

not really program specific but everyone should have this bookmarked:
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm