“Keeping up” through Teaching and Learning Media Software: “Introducing” Photoshop

<jats:p> Research on cultural industries suggests that the constant and rapid change to digital technologies used by creative practitioners requires that they continually upgrade their skills in order to remain relevant in their occupations. In this article, we present the results of an investigation into the mediation of Photoshop, focusing on how this digital imaging application software and its content are used to mediate access to cultural work. Teaching and learning Photoshop is presented as a key set of practices for digitally mediated cultural work, raising interesting paradoxes concerning Photoshop’s status as a digital imaging standard and how it is used by practitioners to negotiate access to occupations. The findings are drawn from two phases of an ongoing research project that includes interviews with practitioners in Canada and the United Kingdom and participant observation in a Greater Vancouver higher education institution. </jats:p>