Software
Review: Total Training
PSCS3 - Advanced, Pg. 3
Before we leave the area of Reusability, we need to add in another section not typically found in Training reviews: Ease of Use. There’s a lot to install in this series and it uses a shell program to interact with the training, which makes sense for us to cover the ease of use right here.
On the plus side of the Ease of Use equation, the new versions of Total Training have an improved playback option for slower computers, which is slightly less high quality and takes up less bandwidth.
Unfortunately, on the negative side, just like previous incarnations of Total Training, you still can’t choose to keep the training always on top, which means you have to keep toggling between your training window and your actual work window. The possibility of seeing both screens at once is virtually impossible unless you have two monitors, as you have very limited resizability options with Total Training. Currently there’s Full size, 100%, and 50%, without any way to resize the screen manually; 50% is small enough to fit alongside a Photoshop window decently, but it’s too small to see easily; and 100% is too big to get a Photoshop screen alongside, even on my 21” monitor. Therefore, if they’re not going to allow manual resizing, I would hope future versions would give a 75% size option, as that should be big enough to be easily seen, yet small enough to fit a decent-sized photoshop screen beside it.
While the training for the video and multimedia areas of CS3 isn't terribly large, it does cover some cool effects, like advanced color adjustment of footage.
Value vs. Cost
For the number of subjects covered in this DVD series, $150 is not bad at all. Any sit down training that covered even half of these things would likely cost you $400 - $800 for a full day course, so that’s a good deal. Now, if you want a better overall value and you have a highspeed internet connection, you can get their All-Access Training subscription that runs $299.99 a year, but gives you access to all of their training courses. This can be a great way to go through and really polish up your skills on all of your new software! (If you only want training on Adobe products, their full year of online training is $249.99.)
Overall Comment
Total Training is one of the most established names in training video series on the market and they continue their excellent track record with this series. While it still suffers from some perennial technical issues, the quality of the training and the vigor with which Justin Seeley teaches makes this package well worth its cost. I hope that, in the future, Total Training and Seeley will add a series that specifically looks at Photoshop CS3 Extended or Photoshop CS4, as it relates to creating animated, video, and 3D projects.
Comprehension
9.0
Depth
of Information
9.0
Interest
Level
9.5
Reusability
9.0
Value
vs. Cost
9.0
Overall
Score
9.1
The
director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films,
Jeremy Hanke
founded Microfilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make
better films. His first book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) was released by MWP to very favorable reviews. He's curently working on the sci-fi film franchise, World of Depleted through Depleted: Day 419 and the feature film, Depleted.
