Last week I finally started catching up with home automation and bought a “smart” thermostat for my house. When I unpacked it, I found that the installation instructions were pretty vague.
So I jumped into YouTube and searched for installation videos for this popular device. Tons (I mean TONS) of videos showed up in my search results.
The first guy seemed quite helpful, until he suggested to “jam the wires in with a screwdriver”, followed by “there may be an easier method but I haven’t found it”.
In the second video there was no narration – but there was semi-pleasant music.
Highlights of other videos I started watching included such poor lighting it was next to impossible to see what was happening, fast talkers and thick accents that were hard to follow, and someone who dropped the device 3 times during the first minute.
Frustrated (and after much too much time wasted), I went back to the manufacturer’s instruction booklet and found (to my embarrassment) that they had some videos on their site. (In my defense, the info about the videos was buried towards the end of the booklet.)
I went to their site, watched the videos and successfully completed the installation.
Their videos were professionally done, well lit, well narrated and clearly showed the steps I needed to follow. I should have started there.
This is not to suggest that you’ll never find good videos on YouTube. You can find some very good YouTube videos on Photoshop. But at what cost?
Yes, YouTube is free. But how valuable is your time?
Along with teaching you the essentials of Photoshop, one of my goals is to save you time (and frustration) through short, focussed tutorials that answer your questions.
As one of my members said, “The modular videos allow me to listen, watch, and practice each lesson and repeat until I reach the a ha! moment in my understanding. The modules are brief, concise, and highly focused on helping the viewer learn very specific skills.” [Dana Smith]
Member Jim Bellomo said “As a person who has to use Photoshop on a daily basis, it is like having my own private guru that I can ask questions of at any time.”
And Don Siefert said “Dave’s workshops are way more than your run-of-the-mill tutorials. He teaches methods that inspire creativity versus following a formula step-by-step. His lessons are concise and often introduce multiple methods to achieve an outcome. I can’t recommend his workshops enough to those who want to work at really learning Photoshop.”
If you’d like to spend less time searching through YouTube and get your answers more quickly, I encourage you to try LearningPhotoshop.CC