Others say...

"Adobe software and cultural imperoialism"
I have been asked to review this product. Unfortunately this is imposible because export of this item to other countries is prohibited. While this is perfectly legitimate, it is not acceptable that these products are at the same time protected by international copyright preventing rediscovery of the contents by our own researchers. The way copyright is being used in this instance is not to further legitimate American prosperity, but rather to keep other countires down - an example of oppression by intellectual imperialism which is not tolerable. Please remember the rights of other nations.

"Absolutely Brilliant"
The last Total Training video I watched was for Photoshop 7.... this video is no different from the high quality that could be found in the PS 7 videos.

Deke is a friendly, personal and smart guy if you ask me. He knows his program extremely well (He should, he's authored so many Photoshop books!!!).. I think this video is really worthwhile for those who prefer video training over books... the only downside is that sometimes it takes time to get some concepts in your brain, so I strongly suggest re-visitng these videos for a 2nd time after say around a month of practicing with photosohp.

"Mixed emotions......"
For starters I bought this TT CS2 as a medium level PS user. Never formal training, but have been using PS for years.

First, the good..... the image quality is excellent, Deke did not cut corners on the image quality. The interactive DVD method of demonstrating a paticular task is simply the best. You have the ability to watch what he is doing and do the same, of course, this is easier using a dual monitor set up.... or you can simply watch, then when he is finished, you can then do the same to use what you have just learned....all the while, watching, then hitting pause, doing some more, rewind a bit, do some more, etc. Compared to VHS tapes, well, there is no comaprison and Deke is very competent in talking fast, continueing to mention every detail he is doing. The amount of material covered is good, but more on that later. The layout of the 3 DVD's is superb, with the ability to switch to any subject, or subset, which are broken down in about 5 minute segements. Very useful for reviewing. The amount of material, at 20+ hours is quite impressive.

Now, the not so good, or things I would like to see different. I have read and watched other Deke videos. I would like to preface my statements by saying, the task of educating someone on a program as sophisticated, complex and involved as PS, well, its boggles the mind. Added to this is the fact the program changes every year, which requires a new series. This is unlike the good ol days whereas an author would write a book on a subject and it would stay in print for 30 years, maybe with a few upgrades throughout the years. Thanks to ever changing technology, this certainly is not the case here. This shortens the amount of time the author can recoup the R&D and production cost in making such a video.

The price I consider a bit high for a typical user, but certainly not high vs. attending a PS training seminar. So the value of the product is based on a users alternatives. A lower price would attact more buyers, and hopefully allow Deke to further his future verstion with more funding. Just my opinion. To this end, it seems to me, Deke spent a lot of time and money on props, costumes, gadgets, drawings, etc. that provided no educational benefit, but simply fulfilled his need to create more then an educational piece.... he tries hard to interject, history, humor, theatrics into this PS training. While everyone enjoys a laugh, this material is hard enough to grasp in that amount of time people have to dedicate towards the learning phase....with that in mind, I would much rather have seen the budget for theatrics, humor, and props, to be converted into more learning material. I am certainly not knocking his intent, its obvious, he likes to have fun, but considering the short life cycle of these products, I think the product would benefit from a lower price and less frills from all these sideshows. Nonetheless, he has quite an imagination, which is partly what makes him such a natural for PS.

6 months after its release, you still can't view the DVD in full screen mode, which his web site keeps saying, coming soon. For dual monitors this is a nice feature, as some of the icons are so small you can not even recognize them.


Now, the big issue..... This DVD is not clear about what previous knowledge one needs to learn these lessons.... most all educational material has pre requisites. To that end, I would suggest Deke have a PS basics DVD, which covers all the fundamentals of PS, what is a layer, what do all the tools do, in simplified forms, before and after images best suited to show the benefit of the tools, etc. These are basics that everyone needs to comprehend how to use the program..... then....

This would then allow for a set of DVD's that require very little updating for each new version of PS. Next, I would have like to see a set of "applications" DVD's after the pre requisities are understood. For example, photography and PS, line art with PS, graphics arts with PS. Maybe 3 or 4? Now, the benefit of this is, a user typically is in one field - rarely in all fields. Then, after watching one of these finely tuned training DVD's, the user is more oriented towards using real world examples of the most used features of PS in that field. Sometimes this involves creating art from scratch, or in the case of photography, simply modify existing files. This too would have the advantage of allowing only marginal upgrades to the future versions of PS. Had the cost been for $250 but the 20+ hours dedicated to photography, I would have felt the product had better value.

So I guess my biggest complaint is, for the money, you get a large mix of different uses of PS, some very obscure uses in overwhelming detail, some useful features in marginal detail, and of course many potential applications not covered, as its just not possible in 3 DVD's. I found the hours on certain subjects to be too be way to involved for mainstream users.

I gave this product 3 out of 5 stars, because I feel for the money, (more expensive then the upgrade of PS itself) the product is of good value for a "general PS" user. But for people who use PS for specific related fields, I feel its certainly useful, but a bit overpriced. For example, for $250, you can buy a lot of specific PS books on a given application of PS.

I think Deke has the right training concept here, but in my opinion, he should fine tune his market approach, and he will have a real winner....specially with "join the club" programs, whereas if you sign up for x dollars, you receive all the PS version upgrades for a small fee, similar to software vendors.

My other suggestion would be to sell download modules from his web site, or enable users to make custom DVD's that can be burned for us. This would enable Deke to make very detailed application specific modules that we can buy based on our needs and the applications we use PS for. PS is a very difficult "one size fits all" training program.

There is other DVD training videos available for PS, but I have never viewed them, so I can not comment on how they stack up against Deke's. My suggestion, if you are spending your PS education dollars prudently, then evaluate what your PS needs are, then possibly by books catering to those specific needs, of course, it may be required that you buy some PS basics books first. Of course, if money is not an issue, interactive DVD's such as Deke's is certainly an enjoyable and less stressful way of learning. But try hard to investigate if it covers the applications you plan to use the program for.

Update July 29 2006

With the advent of Adobes LightRoom program, the lines will now be more clearly defined between PS's role in Photo editing vs. LightRoom. Many people think Lightroom will become the image editor for photos only and PS will remain more of a graphics image editor. My suggestion is, if you plan to use PS for photographic image editing, it would probably pay to wait for LightRoom to become a more mature product, which should be by years end. It's my guess Lightroom will be the preferred image editing tool for photography.

Adobe PS has been a hodge podge of editing features built up through the years.... some of the features in PS are so outdated, they should be removed as they have been superceeded by other commands...but they remain, hence why sometimes there is 6 ways to accomplish the same task. Not a huge problem, unless you are a beginner, than the confusion can be rampant.

Its my guess the hard core photo editing to will be dedicated to LightRoom... which I totally support this separation, as its required since the advent of digital cameras. That being said, if you plan to use PS for either Photo editing or Graphics arts, but not both, than I would save your $250 on this tutorial till these new products become more mature, then it would make more sense to purchase your expensive educational material... as it won't be obsolete so fast...... a book for $15 is not so painful to toss!









"I love Deke"
I Love Deke. We can all take some thing from this designer, He knows what he is talking about. He also knows how to make you love him. The training is really GOOD and after watching twice, then the Photoshop Advanced twice, then reading his Book Adobe Photoshop CS2 One on One. I know ALLOT of what the pros do. I love the Total training BRAND the name of the game for them is quality.
If you watch the Training twice you will get so much more out of it. Since the first time around the information is just sinking in, after the second time, you will have a real good understanding. Then on to the Books and Advanced TOTAL training for Photoshop CS2. You will get so much out of this. I loved it so much I went out and GOT ALL THE TOTAL TRAING VIDEOS!! One by one. You will notice Deke uses his kids allot in the Video training, ask your why? He wants you to get to know him more, then you get to love him since he let you in so much of his life. He is personalizing him self so that he's not just another ROBOT. That Marketing genius!!

The Indesing TOTAL training and Illustrator CS2 TOTAL training ALos have a Nice Typography section.