words Al Woods
In the world of the gig economy, having multiple skills and being able to monetize them is a huge asset. What’s more, being able to master some of the most popular platforms and services is as good as speaking another language.
Whether it’s coding, designing, or analytics, there’s a good chance a business somewhere is looking for someone to carry out freelance or outsourced work for them. Design is one of the best examples of this. Most smaller enterprises aren’t likely to have in-house design teams or massive budgets.
This quite quickly disqualifies the large consultancies and agencies from being able to work with them. Simply put, they look for someone who can offer work ad-hoc at reasonable rates. If you’re someone with a passing interest in photo and image design or editing, the gap between your passing interest and having a source of income could be purely educational. Of all those platforms, some stand out above others. Glassdoor, one of the US’ most trusted employment review sites lists some of the most valuable skills for entry-level jobs – among them is the image editing software, Photoshop.
Source: Unsplash
Getting to Grips
As mentioned, turning what might be a passion or interest into a marketable skill is a step up, but it’s a highly achievable one, from the comfort of your laptop at home. Your best bet is to look into understanding the basics with free guidance online. It’s a good base-level of understanding to have, although it might not do the trick for taking your Photoshop skills to the next level.
That is why we’d suggest you can get the most value from Photoshop with a private tutor. Rather than learning in a ‘bubble’ on your own, you can catch simple misunderstandings and obstacles as you go with the support of someone experienced. Although most of these tutors are modestly priced, this is where you are investing into yourself by putting capital into your skillset, so it’s important you feel confident this is something you want to commit to. If you’re happy, then it’s time to learn.
Source: Unsplash
Good to Go
So you’re a Photoshop whiz. Firstly, congrats! But it’s still only the start of your journey. There’s more to be done before you can start really making your new ability work for you. In the simplest sense, you need to decide what you’d like to do with your Photoshop skills. Luckily, you’re reading the right article.
- Teaching others | You can start making your own guidance tools on using Photoshop, perhaps posting via YouTube or building a full course based on your knowledge. The benefit of this is that your material, once published, doesn’t need to be returned too many times over like working on new projects. You can build a portfolio of content and hit sponsored ads – immediately beginning to raise your profile, and generate some income.
- Creating stock collateral | This is a great way of reaching the many SMEs who cry out for decent design material but either can’t make it themselves or can’t afford a large agency to do it for them. Whether you produce template website themes, stock imagery, icons, or stock illustrations, there is a range of sites where you can sell your wares, easily searchable, including Themeforest and Creative Market, among others.
- Create imagery on-demand | If you’re looking to work on a project basis, and with slightly more direction and variety in your Photoshop journey – consider working as an on-demand freelancer. The work might not be as regular, in that you’re relying on others asking you for work, however, it’s completely fine to mix and match the sort of things you use Photoshop for. Finding your niche set-up, picking the sort of work you like doing is all part of turning a passion or side-interest into a source of income. You call the shots on what work you do, and in turn, help out all sorts of independent businesses as you go. With half a million websites going live every day, you shouldn’t be waiting long to find your first customers.
There’s lots to think about if you’re hoping to make Photoshop the core aspect of a profession, but with these tips, you shouldn’t be more than a hop, step, and a jump away from accomplishing it.
