Matt Kloskowski's recent video on using camera-specific profiles gave me reason to stop and think about several points.

Let me start by disclaiming that I've een a fan of Matt's tutorials for years. Matt has an engaging personality in his tutorials. He's very knowledgable about Photoshop and Lightroom.

That's not to say I equally enthisiastic about every video. The video I'm referring to in this blog entry and in my tip this weekend on using camera-specific profiles with Lightroom and ACR was, well, disappointing in a couple of ways.

Quality of Video Tutorials Has Been Improving

The quality of video tutorials over the last year or so has improved greatly. A couple of years ago, even the Adobe tutorials by Russell Brown and the NAPP tutorials by Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski used small windows and poor audio. It was hard sometimes to see what they were doing in Photoshop and the audio sounded like a cheap walkie-talkie.

All that was choices made by whoever was assembling the videos. If you've never asembled a video, you'll have to tust me on this point. But all those scratchy sounding videos with tiny windows were conscious choices to stream the videos with minimum bandwidth. They could have just as easily been produced with better quality. If you go back and look at my videos from three or four years ago, you'll see (and hear) that I have always opted for larger windows and high quality audio.

What's now typical for videos is much improved. I see a few videos that go with something like 800 x 600. Maybe even a little bigger. Most now have audio that's clean and not so compressed that it sounds like it's coming from a 9 volt transitor radio speaker.

I still see some videos out there, mostly early attempts or YouTube stuff that's been cut with a laptop mic or a cheap mic run through the audio connections on a PC or laptop and had little or no post-production editing. But, at least the professional stuff is now pretty much 100% using professional audio and video codecs.

Some People Should Not Appear On Camera

A recent trend is for the video instructor to appear on the camera. I'm guessing this is supposed to add to the viewer's interest.

Personally, I never cared much to know how the various Photoshop gurus look in front of a camera. There are a few, who really shouldn't appear on camera at all.

I've been tempted to buy Michael Reichmann's videos on Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom. I really like his site, www.luminous-landscape.com, and I respect his talent as a photographer and printmaker. What's deterred me is the short clips of his videos.

The audio and the video quality is excellent. No problem there. I find a lot of time is wasted with talking heads, however. The camera spends a lot of time looking from behind the computer monitors at Michael Reichmann and Jeff Schewe. At times, there are close-ups of Reichmann or Schewe. At times, there are video camera shots of the monitors. All of this is unnecessary and distracts. What is the value of watching Michael Reichmann nod his head as Jeff Schewe says something pedestrian. Worse, Jeff Schewe has a dreadful on-camera personality. Not a smile. Ever. Just scowling, sneering, and rolling of eyes. Leona Helmsley seemed downright warm and cuddly in comparison. And, why the video of the monitor at all when much of the video is a screencast. You're left to wonder if its just showing off the gear. I see the same schtick a lot on Peachpit TV videos. A talking head and an impressive-looking monitor. C'mon. Just get on with the tutorial.

Doing the buddy schtick or the come along and listen to us banter schtick is dangerous. It's like using humor in a video. It's easy to overdo. It's easy to do badly. If you can't equal the Photoshop Guys or Deke McClelland, then don't mug the camera.

We're Off to the Races

One of he big problems with Matt's recent video is that it's too rushed. It's a four-minute video and the topic really needs more than four minutes to properly explain. Part of that time is wasted by Matt telling the viewer that they're cutting the video out at Photoshop World.

Closely related to the video blitz is the Photoshop guru who believes they're making a music video or a cable TV program. I've recently showcased a video by Deke McClelland where he does a rap that blows through more than 100 tips in under five minutes. Honestly, I can't remember one of the tips! It was unusual, which is why I showcased it, but in terms of my Photoshop education, it was a complete waste of time. I saw a recent video by Scott Kelby where he's sparring in a gym and running around the streets like Rocky Balboa. Again, it was interesting to watch and it added nothing to my Photoshop knowledge. I remember laughing at Scott running his fat arse around town but I don't remember the Photoshop topic.

Which brings me to interminable lead-in clips. Bert Monroy's intro to PixelPerfect takes FOREVER! It is really annoying when the server is overworked and it takes several minutes for that flashy intro to stream. Wait until you land your cable network show for such excess.

I'm sure it's flattering to the egos of the Photoshop gurus to have companies like Peachpit and O'Reilly spring for production crews who then spend man-months assembling video montages. What I really care about is the Photoshop or Lightroom techique. Yes, I want a competent video. I don't want it done as a rap song. I don't need a minute long animated title clip.

Who Cares Where They Are And Who They're Hanging With

Back to Matt's video. Was it important to know that Matt was doing the video from the floor of Photoshop World? Apparently not, since all you see it the Peachpit Press backdrop. The only reason for telling us, beside letting us know he's a Photoshop World instructor, was all the background noise. So why not move the video production to a quiet hotel room? Why make the viewer suffer through distracting background noise?

Another recent trend is the five or ten minute interview with a big name in the digital photography industry. Honestly, I don't care who's hanging with John Nack. Nothing against him. I like his blog a lot. But most of these interviews are designed to either kiss butt with titans in the industry or as a video form of name dropping. (Look Ma! See who I was on video with!) I have yet to watch one where I thought the interview really made the technical point. If you want to do interviews, ask Terri Gross if you can sub for her on Fresh Air. 

Tutorials Sans Video

The HTML or .PDF tutorial is becoming an endangered species. That's unfortunate. I do both for a couple of reasons. First, some prefer videos and some prefer to read. Just as some like news soundbites and some like newspapers. More important, some topics are easier to explain with a video and other topics are better presented with text combined with photos and illustrations.

The topic of camera-specific profiles is one where a video tutorial is probably not a good choice. Especially if you want to produce a video that's just a few minutes long and then compress it for YouTube. I did not have a piece of paper and a pen at the ready while I watched Matt's video from my armchair. The view of the Web browser was so blurry from video compression, I only knew it was Adobe Labs from previous visits to the site. Matt did not use a quick video title to display the URL. Etc. He should have.

Yes, you could cover this topic with a video. The question is why? The topic is straight forward. Matt wasn't showing someone how to use a tool in Lightroom. Watching someone go to a Web site, download a setup utility, and then run that utility is a waste of video bandwidth, in my opinion. And that's a good one-half of this video. You'll find dozens of videos a minute or two long on NAPP's Adobe Photoshop Killer Tips site that can easily be done as a one paragraph quick tip.

These blitz videos tend to have little or no introduction and little or no summary at the end. Just jump right into two or three minutes of practiced monologue that's supposed to sound spontaneous and informal. When you need to give people directions for navigating Web sites, for example, some on-screen bullets help. Summaries help people remember what you've been teaching.

I find the educational value of blitz videos to be limited. Most of my videos are at least several minutes. For a quick tip, I prefer a classic tutorial. That way, I can print it off and quickly navigate to the point I need (like a Web site URL). I don't need to stream the video again and skip past a minute long animated title and then someone prattling on with delusions of hosting a cable TV show just to recall a little nugget of information. With an HTML or .PDF tutorial, I can quickly go to the informationI want to review.

OK, I've yacked enough. Time for some discussion. I look forward to reading comments on this blog entry.

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