When I was quite a small child I had no notion of the concept of feeling stupid and useless. In fact, I remember that I once told my Dad that I was going to learn everything.

The statement may sound bombastic, but it didn’t come from arrogance. It came from a feeling that I was interested in everything, and nothing was beyond my grasp. I had no conception of things being too difficult, or my not being capable, or things being not interesting enough to be worth learning – I was going to learn about everything just because it was there.

Well, that was then – and this is now.

In my previous post you may remember I mentioned that the photo editor I had been using on my computer didn’t work any more and that I needed to find a replacement. So, I’ve since embarked on free trials of two other photo editors to see what they do, how they do it and whether it’s what I need them to do. So far, so sensible.

When I signed up I felt a bit like I did when I was a child. I had the enthusiasm to learn. I had confidence that my intellect, knowledge and previous experience gained over the past few years of making my photographs look good, would all stand me in good stead. I knew what layers were, and masks, and tools and vectors. Yes, I would need to watch some tutorials and figure a few things out. But none of that seemed beyond the grasp of any reasonably intelligent person.

Well, that was then – and this is now.

I tried Pixelmator Pro first. There were some similarities with the basic editor I had previously been using, but there were also a lot of differences. I did not get very far launching into exploring its capabilities under my own steam.

So I googled some tutorials. But I couldn’t find any that told me how to do exactly what I wanted to do. Which was no more than what I’d already been doing, quite successfully, for a good few years.

I managed to work out how to do some very basic edits, but my limited knowledge and skills meant that my results weren’t that good – certainly not as good as before.

Then my ten days of free trial ran out.

So I signed up for three months of Affinity Photo. “How generous!” I thought. Three whole months of top-notch photo editing for free!

However, I now realise that the reason they give you three months is that the app is so unfathomably complicated that as a beginner you would need at least that long just to get the hang of it. In my case, after a week’s worth of applying myself fully to the task, it feels like even if I studied 24/7 for the whole of that three months, I would still be utterly unable to use it.

I’ve tried searching for tutorials for beginners. The ones that the app itself provides are not exactly beginner-friendly and are definitely not aimed at the stupid and useless amongst us. I’ve got about as far as being able to open and save a file. That’s if I look it up beforehand each time, because it’s not obvious from looking at the thing and my brain does not seem to want to retain this information. I think it’s been traumatised.

I’ve tried taking “tours” of the app. But it seems that I am destined to always be that person in the anorak at the back of the group, who turns around only to find that the room is empty and they have been left all alone, utterly and completely lost.I’ve tried those tutorials that take you through how to do a particular editing thing step by step. Except that when they say “use the ‘whatever’ tool”, I don’t know how. They just assume that I do. And then there they are, merrily using the ‘whatever’ tool and making it do what they want it to, right before my very eyes. I’m rewinding and watching the same few seconds of the same tutorial over and over again and zooming in and trying to do the same as they do and STILL not being able to work out how to do it. And that’s if I can even find the blooming ‘whatever’ tool in the first place.

I can say categorically that not since my horrible managerial job ten years ago has anything else I’ve done made me feel quite so spectacularly stupid and useless.

There have been tears, I can tell you.

Is it just me? I’m not a technophobe. Have I got stupider and more useless as I’ve got older? Other people seem to manage to learn how to use these things. How do they do it? Can someone enlighten me please?

I’m off now to go and do something else. Something that I am good at. I am in need of reclaiming some of my self esteem.

Stupid and useless? A fitting description for those editing apps.

Not me. ♥

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