And by in-training, I mean that in my never-ending quest to find something that I can specialize in for my group of friends that not very many of us are good at yet, I'm teaching myself how to do this for fun. Just thought I'd share some of the stuff I've done with you all.
At first, I would do simple stuff, like making backgrounds black and white and simple birthday/graduation cards.
http://i.imgur.com/6zBBm.png
Birthday card for a friend (the friend in the picture, no doubt)
http://i.imgur.com/IlsNb.png
Simple grad-gift for a friend (the guy second from the left)
Then I started doing simple stuff for friends.
http://i.imgur.com/XEf7O.png
Profile pic for a friend for FB
http://i.imgur.com/sp6Fr.jpg
Quick combination of effects for the same guy
I later started doing slightly more complicated stuff more for myself:
http://i.imgur.com/oi0Jr.png
http://i.imgur.com/pe34d.png
And once I felt comfortable, I started doing a large scale running joke, FASA vs CAPCOM (FASA is an organization I'm a member of.)
http://i.imgur.com/HkmsX.png
http://i.imgur.com/Fh8S4.png
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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/ukealii50/kylo.jpg - Thanks uke!
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/829/07kyloforce.png - Thanks Diyosa!
The best thing you can probably do is start hanging out at some forum with a venerable old photoshop dickery presence, something like cracked (which has the advantage of real-money contests several times per week) or somethingawful (which has the advantage of really experienced editors who are super willing to give you in depth critiques).
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir