While I firmly believe that words and pictures are in most cases all you to need to explain a concept, assuming you know it well, I’ll admit that video tutorials do serve a certain purpose. Some ideas and techniques, like layers and use of the Clone Stamp, just make more sense when you see the action unfold on a screen.

The overall quality of most Photoshop video tutorials has improved dramatically over the years, and it’s now pretty easy to find a lesson that speaks to your specific needs. Below are a few tutorials that I found both interesting and useful. It should be enough to get you started.

ScreenFrog has videos about Photoshop as well as other imaging apps. Most of the programs focus on either interesting effects or often avoided tools. I really like this tutorial, which explains the Pen tool. The Pen tool scares a lot of people, but if you follow along and work with the floral download, you’ll quickly get the hang of it. And as an added bonus, you get to see the video’s creator work in the German Photoshop interface!

Master the Pen tool with help from this ScreenFrog video.

One should expect good things from a site called TutorialChamp, and thankfully, it delivers. Most of the site’s tutorials explain really useful techniques, like removing wrinkles or coloring comic art. You can even learn how to place someone’s head convincingly on someone else’s body. Personally, I love the tutorial about flyers, because unlike most Photoshop videos, it delves into design as well as technique.

TutorialChamp’s videos are captioned so you can read along rather than listen, which is great if you’re at work.

Not surprisingly, a search on YouTube for Photoshop videos returned loads of content, but most of it is, at least to my mind, best avoided. Still, there are some diamonds in the rough. For example, YouTube user tutvid has created a few videos that are definitely worth checking out. Some of his offerings are ideal for beginners but others tackle more advanced features, like Vanishing Point, that can be confusing. Web designers could learn a lot from the Web layout slicing and exporting episode.

Learn to slice and export a Web page using Photoshop in a video from YouTube user tutvid.

For high-gloss material, look to the larger outlets, like Layers Magazine–which offers a mix of standard and video tutorials–and of course the be all and end all, Adobe. WikiVid also has an extensive library of videos culled from other sites and organized by skill or technique.

And, of course, if you’re looking for something irreverent and NSFW, there’s the web phenomenon You Suck At Photoshop. These “tutorials” are not for the easily offended, but they are a welcome break from the all seriousness that comes with selections and layers!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Graphic Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.