Lynda.com recommendation

[Dan Seese]

Mike has mentioned Lynda.com several times in the past.

About a month ago I decided to look into it and discovered a storehouse of knowlege I've neglected for years. You can try it out for free for a week. There are over 1200 tutorials to which you have unlimited access for $25/month. I recommend doing the upgrade where for $37.50 you also download the exercise files that go along with the tutorials.
One of the courses I took is for Photoshop. I went through Dave Butler's class several years ago but never put it into practice and promptly forgot everything. I still have the original Creative Suite & haven't upgraded. I've used Photoshop primarily to do simple photo-manipulation and have just kind of learned by trial & error. Not very effective. The course opened up a whole vista of possibilities. One of the things I ended up doing in conjuction with it is to buy a Wacom tablet (another long-overdue investment.)

Last night I thought I'd play around with some of what I learned in the course, using the tablet. I just started sketching with no reference and kept going until I ended up with this painting. I meant it to be a native american but it looks more like an old hippie. Anyway, I was fairly pleased with my first attempt and wanted it to share it here. Maybe a bit off-topic for the handlettering forum, but a hearty recommendation from me to check out http://www.Lynda.com

[Mark Summers]

as in you did this from scratch Dan? I'm impressed!

Mark

[DAVE SMITH]

Thats hard to do from scratch. very good job Dan. I need to upgrade my tablet. possibilities are endless!
Dave

[Ron Berlier]

Whoa Dan, that is very impressive even if it wasn't done from 'scratch'. Well done!

Ron

[Mike Jackson]

Just to fill in a few more details, Lynda.com costs $25 per month and it is cheaper if you pay for a full year at a time. For that price, you can view any of their tutorials on any title from any Internet connected computer 24 hours a day. You don't just sign up for Photoshop or Illustrator. It is any of their huge array of tutorial titles. For around $10 per month more, you can subscribe as a Premium member and you get access to the tutorial files used in the videos. Some of the titles include Photoshop "brushes" and actions.

I usually pay for Lynda.com by the month for $25, then change the plan to the premium version for a month to grab all the freebies during the month. After they are downloaded to my hard drive, and before the monthly subscription kicks in again, I drop the plan back to the basic version. A subscription has no long term plan. It will renew each month until you tell them to stop, but you can buy it for one month, turn it off in the summer and pick it back up again at any time.

I think it is the best $25 I spend each month. I spend most of my time in the Photoshop tutorials, but also Corel Painter, and Illustrator. They also have tutorials on Facebook, iPhones, iTunes and so forth to go with tutorial on almost all commercial software like Dreamweaver, Excell, Word, Fireworks, and so many more.

Cheers,
Mike Jackson

[Leo Calleros]

I have used that site before and I was amazed at the amount of material available. Definitely worth the money.