like ultra and rage said, www.teamphotoshop.com has good nifty tricks on texture effects as well as text letter effects. When i first tought myself photoshop i started with all those tutorials there, and from then on went to bigger better, and more advance things. I also recommend the books " photoshop 6, and photoshop 7 , Down and Dirty Tricks." they have step by step tutorials on neat tricks. A good reference to use when teaching yourself photoshop. Once you get the basics down, the rest is not so bad. go to google.com and type in photoshop tutorials, and i am sure you will get a boat load of hits. Regards, Andrew