Tutorials: To pay or not to pay

[Khazaad]

Wondering if anyone has experience with Web sites that offer paid tutorials for photography/digital processing. Pricing can be extremely diverse depending on the site.

Personally, I have a sub for Lynda.com that runs me around $40 a month for full access (mobile and desktop platforms) and includes exercise files. Content is always being added and I've found it to be an absolutely invaluable resource of exceptional depth and diversity.

Other sites sell individual lessons for anywhere around $10-100/hour of content. Compared to lynda.com assuming "moderate" use these prices are exponentially more expensive. Wondering if anyone has feedback regarding payment structures. I'm thinking Lynda might just have this market pinned down because of their very clearly defined product structure and compensation though requirement. Unfortunately I don't have anything to compare it with, technically, as I haven't purchased other products. Wondering if anyone else has ?

[HaseebM]

I find "Learn Photoshop CC TV" to be a good source for free and if I remember and put to use the lessons I learn, that in itself will help me go further in my processing skills. Maybe then I would think of becoming a member of Lynda.com which to me seems to be the best option today for learning Photoshop.

[Donald]

From previous discussion on here, I get the sense that the 'big two' so far as comprehensive tutorial fee-based sites are concerned are lynda.com and Scott Kelby and enthusiasts of both resources have stated why they find each the best. I think it's a case of you pays your money and you decides which one best 'fits' with you. I have used neither, so can't comment.

[davidedric]

I have had subscriptions to both Lynda and Kelby. Personally, I find Lynda better, but as Donald says it's really a matter of personal preference. I find my use of Lynda a bit spasmodic, and it can feel quite expensive just to let the sub run. What I am now doing is to wait till I have a "project", then re-subscribe and immediately cancel. That way I get all the courses for a month (and it's quite easy to capture the video in a browser if you wish) and it seems more cost effective.

[Khazaad]

Kelby. Never heard of that. I'll have to look that up.

[rpcrowe]

I have mostly used YouTube videos. There are some wonderful videos available free of charge.

Regarding post processing; both NIK and PerfectPhoto have an excellent collection of free video tutorials on the Internet.

I also have a video tutorial on Photoshop which I purchased at a rather reasonable price that is quite good.

[Khazaad]

I have mostly used YouTube videos. There are some wonderful videos available free of charge.

Regarding post processing; both NIK and PerfectPhoto have an excellent collection of free video tutorials on the Internet.

I also have a video tutorial on Photoshop which I purchased at a rather reasonable price that is quite good.

Certainly a valid point. there are limitless resources available for free.

I think that production quality is really important as well. it really helps alleviate some potentially distracting elements like speech errors, and technically non relevant content. graphic overlays that can be added to tutorial after the fact are a helpful aspect of higher quality content.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll be looking into the.

[mrinmoyvk]

Never pay for online things...
I don't think there is anything famous online and not available on torrent.
kat.ph is the website where you get almost everything.

[tao2]

Never pay for online things...
I don't think there is anything famous online and not available on torrent.
kat.ph is the website where you get almost everything.

+1 . No need for torrents, everything's online in various shapes and forums . Scott Kelby does a free PS blog with much of the same stuff he charges for - Kelbyoneblog

[rpcrowe]

I personally don't view the supposedly instructional videos done by some jerk in his bedroom while his father is playing the television in the next room and his mother is calling him for supper.

I also don't like videos that make an attempt at humor but fall flat on their face. The YouTube series FroKnowsPhoto by the obnoxious (to me at least) Jared Polin are examples of decent information made totally unpalatable by the miserable delivery.

Here are a plethora of Free Photoshop Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/user/NewWorldOps

[Manfred M]

I think it really depends on your level of expertise.

There is some really good stuff and some real crap available for free. Nicely said, I would not use some of the recommended techniques as they are showing would not be the way I would recommend. If you are experienced enough, then by all means, go ahead and decide whether or not the technique makes sense for your specific application.

I have subscribed to both Lynda.com and KelbyOne. I find Lynda.com is probably better for beginner to intermediate level knowledge, and they cover a lot more ground than just photography. KelbyOne (formerly Kelby Taining) has tutorials by some of the leading photographers in the world, so while anyone can learn from them, much of the material that is presented is definitely at the intermediate to advanced levels.

As for the people suggesting that torrents are the way to go, I certainly hope you don't complain when some of your work is ripped off and distributed online...

As for free stuff, B&H photo has some excellent, professionally done work shot at workshops that they put on, often by leading experts on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/BHPhotoVideoProAudio

[rpcrowe]

The CD that I mentioned earlier is part of the www.SimonSezIT.com video training. I believe that they have a number of different training videos. The one that I have is for Photoshop CS6 and is quite decent. If memory serves me, the CD cost well under twenty U.S. dollars and is quite good...

I also have the advantage of several live training sessions here in the San Diego, CA area. I have attended a series of presentations by John Watts of Watts Digital Imaging http://www.wattsdigital.com/ and have learned quite a bit from his presentations which are dirt cheap at five U.S. Dollars per session.

John has done a really good book on Photoshop which he titled "Not Just Another Photoshop Book". The book is available as an eBook, as a PDF on a CD and as a hard copy through his website. I own the PDF copy. I have adopted John's system of master file creation and it has served me well.

BTW: I heartily second Manfred's suggestion of the B&H video tutorials. In addition, Adorama also has some free very good YouTube tutorials...

[chauncey]

Agree with everything that has been said but...heed the fact that Photoshop has a learning curve
that is measured in years. But what an enjoyable journey it is.

[lukaswerth]

In recent years, I have paid for one ebook about photography (it's not only the ebook, actually, the package comes with other things:

"Precision digital negatives" by Mark Nelson. This is also crucially about working with photoshop, and it describes techniques, partially patented by the author, or patent pending, which are extremely helpful for what I want to do.

Other than that, I have made two or three times extensive Youtube and other searches on photoshop techniques, downloaded, I think, more than 120 videos altogether, not including other descriptions, spent some time sorting out the worthwhile from the crap (sometimes immediately noticeable if someone begins a tutorial with the words "Hey guys, what's up...), going first though the basic stuff, practicing it, and then other stuff, searching for a few more keywords while going on. Worked well for me.

Lukas

[DonKofAK]

A few years after a major medical problem(s) forced my premature retirement at age 63, I chose to renew my photography endeavors in earnest by purchasing a video course offered by The National Geographic magazine through The Great Courses. I'm an old customer, so I entered their site through TheGreatCourses.com to purchase a pair of videotapes: Fundamentals of Photography & Art of Travel Photography then I read a copy of DAVID BUSCH'S MASTERING DIGITAL SLR PHOTOGRAPHY. Subsequent reading has reaffirmed or refined what I feel I need to know for the next 20,000 or so field photographs. Of course, I visit CambridgeInColour too.

[rpcrowe]

I found a great tutorial on the clone stamp. I have been using the clone stamp forever and ever but, have learned some new techniques in this PHLEARN YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BChwzIslDJg

I have not watched the other PHLEARN videos but, plan to do so!

Here are the free Photoshop video tutorials:

http://phlearn.com/category/photoshop

[KimC]

What is a torrent please? I looked it up and do not fully understand. Is Dropbox one?

[Inkanyezi]

What is a torrent please? I looked it up and do not fully understand. Is Dropbox one?

Torrent is hardly relevant to the forum. It is a suitable technique when you make huge downloads, as the torrent will connect via several feeders and receive bits and pieces from each one. That speeds up download and also decreases the load on the web somewhat, as various parts of downloaded files take different routes.

The technique is that several servers can supply the same content, and that each one only has to deliver part of it, while the torrent program puts all pieces together where it is received.

Torrent is not suitable for uploading personal images to the dropbox or downloading from it. The bottleneck at uploading mostly is at your own end, and there's no help for it other than compressing content before uploading. Torrent is suitable for downloading video or other large content, as operating systems and large programs. Torrent is suitable where several users have the same content and someone wants to download it. Even though each one may have little bandwidth for uploading, as they won't have to upload all of the content, the process will be much faster. The file is uploaded from several computers at the same time, each one of them uploading only a small part.

[Venser]

What is a torrent please? I looked it up and do not fully understand. Is Dropbox one?

It's a way to steal or infringe another persons work so they can't feed their family.

[EDIT] - I should add that torrents themselves aren't the culprit, but the majority of their use is to do my original statement. There is nothing inherently wrong with torrents when used legally.

[ajohnw]

Once some one knows what to search for - and that is a problem for beginners - there is plenty of free tutition about on the web including places like youtube. Ideas on how to do whatever vary. In some ways it's best to get several views and try them.

CinC tutorial off the home page are also very useful. Actually that is a very good place to start. A lot of ground is covered. This will not be a 5min job either and there may be a need to ask questions for clarification. Take it slowly. The concepts and terminology section is there for a reason. This has been one of the major aims of this forum as I understand it rather than a place just to display shots and there are always people about who are prepared to help or maybe confuse and over complicate at times.

John
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