Features:  

Student files can be downloaded from the website to accompany each course offered by Video Professor. The website offers online access to the CS, CS2, and CS3 courses and free sample lessons for each are available. You will have to provide a name, email address, and zip code in order to access the sample lessons but they are worth checking out. The sample videos are full length lessons from the course and the content is great.

Quality:  

The content and topics covered by Video Professor Photoshop Tutorials are good, but the video quality isn’t that great. The viewing window is very small and the video doesn’t appear to be produced in high definition. To compensate for the small viewing window the “camera” pans around the screen in what appears to be a constant zoom mode which is distracting.

The video player includes a fast forward and rewind feature but only allows you to snap to preset points in the video. Luckily, the scroll bar at the bottom of the window lets you glide through the video in real time.

The instructor uses active voice well and constantly includes you in the lesson. Occasionally he uses an on-screen assistant, Suzanne, to perform tasks like opening files. After Suzanne performs a task the instructor reverts back to active voice and allows you to follow along with the lesson again. If Suzanne was never mentioned, nothing would be lost in the value of the tutorial so we really don’t see the point in including her.

These Photoshop Tutorials are well organized and follow a logical flow. Each lesson begins with a summary of what you will learn, and most conclude by demonstrating a before-and-after example. The result of each lesson is very clear.

Something we think is pretty cool is that the instructor sidesteps occasionally to explain the technical background of some features found in Photoshop. For instance, do you know how many colors are available on an 8 bit scale compared to a 16 bit scale? Or, do you know the difference between a vector and a bitmap? The instructor covers these minor details as a way to provide a more complete understanding of Photoshop.

We couldn’t find any information about the instructor so we won’t comment on his qualifications. However, because the course is obviously scripted, and the content is well presented, we can assume Video Professor did the homework necessary to create what we believe is an effective Photoshop Tutorial.

The Video Professor courses we reviewed meet our criteria for entertainment value. The instructor is constantly having you perform actions to follow along with the lesson and allows little time for boredom which keeps you on task.

Experience Level:  

Video Professor has a good variety of products covering essentials and intermediate Photoshop techniques, but we don’t see anything on the site that would suggest they have breached the advanced barrier just yet. The site doesn’t offer a detailed index of topics covered by each product. From what we can tell from the online lesson list, the advanced topics are actually intermediate according to our scale.

Versions:  

Video Professor has tutorials for Photoshop 7, Creative Suite, Creative Suite 2, and Creative Suite 3. The CS, CS2, and CS3 courses are available online. The scripts for many of the videos are similar but each product is demonstrated in its respective version which we believe offers greater accuracy.

Help/Support:  

The customer service department can be reached by email or telephone and there is a FAQ section on the website.

Video Professor doesn't yet have a Photoshop Tutorial for CS4 or Elements 7. The tutorials offered are for old versions of Photoshop so the $189.99 price tag is quite high.  

For a better value, check out our top three Photoshop Tutorials: lynda.com, VTC, and Total Training.