Total Training's Photoshop CS3: Essentials

I recently got my hands on a copy of Photoshop CS3 and let me tell you, this program is incredible. Having only fiddled with earlier versions of Photoshop for only a few minutes at a time, I've been really attempting to learn some common methods of editing photos with this version. Along with Photoshop, I made my way over to TotalTraining.com and purchased their Photoshop CS3: Essentials dvd (link).

The instructor is Chad Perkins, who apparently works alot with Photoshop. He knows most of the features by heart and is a fan of Keyboard Shortcuts. If you plan on taking his course on a laptop, make sure that your keyboard has a numberpad on the side, along with a mouse that isnt the touchpad. Chad is a very enthusiastic instructor which is nice, because without some enthusiasm, it would be easy to lose interest in the subject. Once or Twice during each lesson, Chad will make a joke about himself and how he uses Photoshop to fix characteristics of himself in pictures.

The course moves at a pretty rapid pace, but you can always hit that nice pause button. If you need to exit the program, it will remember where you last were in the lesson so you dont have to try to remember the place. The course also includes many example files and .psd documents for you to follow along with, which is nice.

The only problem that Ive found with this training, is that the program that is used to view the video files is pretty RAM intensive. I just used my favorite media player VLC to browse to the videos folder and created a playlist and then watched it that way. Another problem with the training, or any video computer training, is screen size. You will want to have Photoshop maximized, but you will also want to be able to see the video that is playing. Unfortunately the text is small in the video so you have to have it pretty large. The best solution that I have found to remedy this is to have a dual monitor setup. If you dont want to disconnect your other monitor from your other pc, you can use a free program called Synergy, which uses your existing lan connection to remote control the other pc with one keyboard even if there are different operating systems involved (link).

Having almost completed the training series, I cant wait for the advanced series to come out, so I can learn more techniques. Until then, Ill just have to perfect the methods that were taught in the essentials series.