Camera Bags, Taking Pictures, & Photoshop

You may not know this about me, but I took four years of photography in high school. On top of that, I took a community education class that was offered in our town, and I took my camera with me everywhere. Back then, I had a nice Minolta manual camera. I loved it. I also loved developing my own prints. The darkroom was a place I could go to relax, think, and create the only art I was ever even remotely good at. Sometimes I miss that camera and I definitely miss having a dark room. One day, I would love to create a dark room in my house.

I knew that Minolta inside and out and I wasn't afraid to use it or take any picture with it. I dreamed of being a photographer one day, maybe even professionally. Photography was a passion. It still is a passion.

Then entered the world of digital photography and I was confused. To be honest, I still am. I have a DSLR camera and I take it with me almost everywhere, but I find myself shooting in Auto when I SO want to shoot in manual, but I'm scared. It occured to me today that I need to ask for help. So I am. If you could teach me how to re-learn photography with a DSLR, what would you tell me?

I also thought I should ask for help with Photoshop. You see back in the Fall, I won a copy of Photoshop Elements on a blog, and was super excited to use it. Yet, I've barely touched it as it scares me. So again, I ask for help. How do I jump into learning Photoshop? What can I do that doesn't take a ton of time to do (as time is hard to find around here)?

Lastly, because I didn't want to leave you wondering if I got my Kelly Moore bag....I did! It came last week and wow is it a beauty! I'll be doing a full review on it soon, but let me just say for the record: this bag is gorgeous!!

So please if you can help me at all with re-learning photography or learning photoshop, I would appreciate it. I miss my passion and I really want it back.