adam wrote:
(…)
But asking for workshops is a lot of work for others when it sounds like maybe you haven’t spent as much time with the manual as you should.
Hi Adam,
thank you for this exhaustive feedback…
…i give you the point regarding ‘having the time spent as long as one should have’…but then: i am learning much easier by listening, communicating, touching and trying under supervision than by trying to translate a manual to self-imposed exercises…
…especially when the manual – sorry to say – is pretty difficult to read; in our example i was not able to deduct that ‘FLT-flatten’ means ‘copy, collect’. And let me assure you, that for many years now i earn my money within one of the worldst most technical jobs, reading, and ‘translating’ manuals from several manufacturers and many many different authors into workflows that i have to be able to use and recall instantly…
…i know what i am talking about here 
…i know the videos on YouTube, and i think they are pointing into the right direction already – but they are too few, too unorganised and simply too short…
Last thing: i have visited a couple of workshops – and one thing i learned is that every participant had gained much from participating – the teachers as well as the students.
Having seen something being done the right way once, and then having repeated it once with an instructor allows you to remember this when you get back and try to do something on your own – it is so much easier to exchange that little bit of information one is missing from person to person than to first even realise that one is acutally missing a piece of information…
So in short: i take the blame of not knowing the Octopusses manual by heart, but your deduction is still wrong and i’ll keep asking for a workshop…
Best wishes!