I think tuts are useful for pulling yourself out of a slump. To get some confidence back if you haven't made anything good in a while. They're also good for adding special effects to your arsenal. I don't think that you can ever stop learning, and people who think they hit the top and are as good as they could possibly be are just stuck up. I think if you just use it to make a tag, and then say look at my hot tag that I made; that is misuse. I'd say run through it once, and then if you want, try to incorporate something you learned from it into your own techniques and creativity.
Tuts are for learning, when you learn enough you make tags without tuts, when you've been using the same effects over and over again you start to copy other people's effects, usually this leads to alternate solutions since you don't know how to make that effect. Enough of your "own" effects and you start developing your own style. This happens most of the time, of course there's people like GLORIOUS who just invent new ---- that owns. It's a circulation that happens to a lot of people, including me. So in conclusion, I've never been creative. Atleast that's how I see it >_>
Well, if you didn't have tuts, no matter how much creativity you have, its useless if you can't put it onto a canvas. As said before, tuts are just so you can learn how to use Photoshop, what all those little buttons mean. Once you know, people should move away from them and invent their own stuff.
I think it doesn't if you don't follow step by step. You just look occasionally if you need the next idea then more might keep flowing. Which actually builds creativity.
I usually go through a tut once and copy it exactly, just to make sure I get it, then use the techniques in other sigs. But yeah, if a person relies on tutorials to make sigs then it's bad.
In my case, tuts have thaught me some stuff. I was bitching tutorials for like a week, just reading and recreating. Next thing I did was to take some of all tuts and put it together. It might look weird, but then you really start to experiment. Idk, it helped me.
I think they trigger creativity, im not the most creative person in the world, but if i get an idea i will build on it and make it my own. So no i dont think they kill it at all, i think they inspire it in a way.
yeh i think thats true coz once u get use to it and start getting familir with the uses, then you jus add your own stufflike u guys hve said.
No, they show you how to do something and then you use your creativity and either do it differently or something.
If you use tutorials properly, just for knowledge and little experiance thats ok. I think every designer has a creative mind its when they get lazy and rely on tutorials to do the work . Personally myself tutorials help but i think when playing around myself i feel better inside and have more impact on my designs.