Computer classes, particularly when the subject is a deep, feature-rich program like Adobe’s Photoshop, can be rough.
The classes are technical, there is lots to remember, and you can only hope to recall the details when you get back to your computer.
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Plus, if the teacher is no good, your options are to suffer through the class hours or walk away, likely losing your investment.
All of which is why the computer-training videos on Lynda.com are such a strong alternative to sitting through instructor-led classes.
If you are trying to understand, or master, a certain software, or simply fumbling your way around a new operating system, there are few better investments.
Lynda.com, which I had not heard of until recently, provides online movies covering hundreds of software titles that you watch on a Web browser. There are a whopping 20,000 videos in more than 300 courses.
“We focus on everything that’s creative, and some pedestrian things like operating systems and productivity software,” said Lynda Weinman who runs the California-based company. “But we really specialize in tools for creative professionals.”
Which means, Lynda.com covers titles like Adobe’s Photoshop, Flash and DreamWeaver, as well as Microsoft Office and Mac OS X. Plus, online tools like Google’s Blogger and Picasa.
Courses range from 3 hours to 32 hours in length.
But because attention deficit rules on the Internet, each course is broken down into many small videos, most of which are less than five minutes long. This means you are almost never downloading videos larger than 20 megabytes.
So here’s the structure, using Photoshop CS3 as an example:
There are five CS3 courses on Lynda.com, including “The Essentials,” “Beyond the Basics” and “Advanced Techniques.”
Click on any of them, and a book-like table of contents appears, broken down by section and videos. In the Essentials course, for example, there’s a section called “Shadows, highlights and midtones.”
There are 17 videos in that section, none longer than eight minutes. They include titles like “Levels of luminance” and “Super useful curve-editing tricks.” And that’s the basics class.
“We service absolute beginners,” Weinman said, “but we’ll go very deep into a software.”
So much so that Adobe asked Lynda.com to create its in-the-box videos that are included with many of its titles.
Nearly all of the videos feature the instructor’s voice and computer screen. Which means, you are looking at the teacher’s screen while he or she clicks and explains what’s happening.
“It’s a much easier way to learn than from a book,” Weinman said. “It shows where the menu is, and shows what each option does.”
How do the videos look?
Surprisingly large, sharp and nearly crystal clear. The video took up more than half of my 19-inch monitor (Weinman said they’re about 760-by-880 pixels in size). The audio is also excellent.
“We have professional-quality recording booths in our offices, so our sound quality is better than what you’d get at home,” Weinman said.
As an aside, you can create the same kind of screen capture with voice-over on your own PC if you like. Lynda.com uses a program called Camtasia Studio Screen Recorder (about $40 at www.techsmith.com) on Windows computers and Snapz Pro for Macs (about $70 at www.ambrosiasw.com).
How does Lynda.com create such high-quality movies in such small video files?
“We really compress them,” said Weinman, explaining that while the original files take up terabytes of storage space, the 20,000 videos hosted online take up only about 400 gigabytes.
Another surprise: The instructors are quite engaging and interesting to listen to.
In the first introductory Photoshop CS3 video, for example, the instructor uses a photograph of Colorado’s Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for the scary hotel in the movie “The Shining.” Except this photo isn’t scary enough to the teacher, so he has built the course around making this snapshot look spookier.
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Lynda.com costs $25 per month, or $250 for a year, for unlimited access to the training programs. For $375 a year, you get the actual files used as examples in the videos.
Weinman said the company has “tens of thousands” of members, most of whom pay monthly. In addition, Lynda has many group customers, like “hundreds of colleges” as well as associations and churches, she said.
For students, “if teachers assign our video library as opposed to textbooks, we price the memberships at the same cost as the textbooks.”
How are these videos better than instructor-led classes?
“It’s on your time,” Weinman said. “You can get up at 2 a.m. and learn how to do something. You can stop, rewind, fast forward.”
And if the class isn’t working out, a simple click brings escape, minus the guilt.
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Alex L. Goldfayn is host of “The Technology Tailor Show” from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturdays on WGN-AM 720.