I Am a Photoshop Idiot

I'm not a read-the-manual type (am I being redundant?). Pull the device out of its packing, or load up the software, and let 'er rip. When I have a question, I Google the issue and proceed.

Photoshop, though, whew! When you hit a wall in Photoshop, the fix always depends on learning the basics. It's like trying to design a new circuit without having learned Ohm's Law.

My current Web Design class project requires designing a logo. I wanted two words to intersect, one vertical, one horizontal, on a common letter, with some drop-shadow and other text features. I wanted it all in a diamond-shaped enclosure with a subtle color background. I finally gave up and used GIMP because it has preloaded logo styles. Then I created each letter as a separate file and tried to copy and paste into a Word doc. The copy command wouldn't work until I discovered "right-click/edit/copy visible". Then I laboriously pasted each letter into Word and fixed my alignment and used the Snipping Tool to create an image I could reopen in GIMP so I could add a background color. Since I don't know how to do that, I created a layer and had to use the damned paintbrush. With the right opacity, the result was passable (for a sixth-grader).

Holy crap!