Trying to adjust a FD probably wasn't a good place to start your bike repair career. Its about the fiddliest job on a bike (and most bike adjustments are fiddly). You have to get the height and angle (yaw) EXACTLY right before setting the limit screws. Like someone else mentioned the instructions from Shimano are quite good.
You can take it to a bike shop but chances are good that they will do a half way (mono-buttocked as Sheldon would say) job of it. It can be adjusted it so it works perfectly on the stand but not well 100% of the time on the road. It has to be ridden and tweaked until its right and it appears to me that most shops are not willing to put the time in that is required. Dropping chains is commonplace on the group rides I go on and invariably when I ask the rider they've taken the bike to one or more high end shops who all swear the adjustment is perfect. I say, if the adjustment was perfect why did it just throw the chain at the bottom of the gnarliest hill in the area?