Does anyone have a good tutorial on how to process digital pictures using photoshop in general. Nothing too crazy just some basic steps to make pics look better.

thanks

 

You should post this in the Picture Share sub-forum. But here's my advise.

Pick up a book. I have both of these and they are very good.

The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby
Adobe Photoshop CS for Phtographers by Martin Evening

 

Ok a quick tip...

Image -> Adjustments -> Curves...
Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation

Curves is really good for photos. It starts out as a straight line, but usually dragging it to a slight s curve with lower lows and higher highs works out well with digital photos. That can help exposure problems a lot. Then you can do minor hue/saturation adjustments with the slider. Some cameras oversaturate (especially Sony I think) and some under.

 

I'll add to the list Image > Adj > Levels

Levels are simpler to manipulate than curves. Just don't make any drastic adjustments.

Actually, the first thing you can do to a picture is try "auto levels" and/or "auto color"

If that makes the pic look good to you (sometimes yes, sometimes no) then you're done.

 

I'd take this question to a digital camera (preferably dSLR) forum, since members at such forums do this type of thing all the time (and are quite good at it). Are you PP'ing RAW files? There is a little curve to PP'ing those... and you'll want to calibrate your monitor colors if you're serious about getting accurate post processing.

I like photography-on-the.net if you're a Canon owner.