Disadvantages of learning from crash courses

Hi,
I would like to obtain your views on the disadvantages of taking crash courses when it comes to Adobe Photoshop especially for beginners who have never used the software before. The normal course is comprehensive of the 3 projects over a semester of 15 weeks. Will the learner be able to assimilate the same materials over 4 weeks only? I guess the quality of the projects won't be to the requisite level. Kindly advise.

Thanks
Uti

And note that a 45 hour course is only a beginners course in Photoshop. I could put together three different courses of that length, and the student would still learn more in the first year on a Photoshop intensive job than they do in the courses.

Well we all seem to be agreed on that!

It depends.
Versions ago I was mystified by Photoshop until I saw video tutorials to demonstrate the basics.
After that, and with incessant fiddling, you catch on pretty rapidly and it is easier to learn from printed material.
I would not want to sit through a 15 week course on Photoshop but that's just me. I can't imagine it taking that long to get basically proficient if you are motivated and have a good basic understanding of photographic concepts. If you have darkroom experience then the value and potential of Photoshop becomes instantly apparent with just a few demonstrations.

On Wed, 6 Jun 2007 00:46:23 -0700, wrote:

Hi,
I would like to obtain your views on the disadvantages of taking crash courses when it comes to Adobe Photoshop especially for beginners who have never used the software before. The normal course is comprehensive of the 3 projects over a semester of 15 weeks. Will the learner be able to assimilate the same materials over 4 weeks only? I guess the quality of the projects won't be to the requisite level. Kindly advise.

Thanks
Uti

It depends on the individual. Myself, not being the smartest person in the world, I would have trouble taking a crash course in anything, especially something like Photoshop. The reason I'd have trouble is because once you show me a tecnique, I need to use it on my own for a while, to get the hang of it. If I'm sitting in a classroom, and the instructor shows me 20 techniques in one day, I'll forget everything he showed me. I may remember one or two things, but I'd forget most of it.(old age might be a factor here <g>) I frequently get a flyer in the mail that offers a 2-3 day Photoshop class. You can sign up for either 2 days or 3 days, and each day is 8 hours of classes. There's no way I'd get much from classes like that. I need to have a one hour class, go home and play with what I learned in that class, then go back the next day to ask questions....kinda like they did when I was in college.
Heck, I'll even read about a new technique here in the group, try it out for a few days to get the hang of it, but two weeks from now, I'll forget how to do it. I'll always bookmark new techniques, or print them out, that way if I forget, I'll have a place to find it.

Talker