Just last Thursday, lynda.com released the third in my series of four video crash courses on Adobe programs, Up and Running with Photoshop for Design. I’m so proud, I decided to provide you with a blow-by-blow description. It is, if I dare say, 3 hours, 36 minutes, and 31 movies and blissful goodness.

Here’s the skinny:

Chapter 1, Understanding the Image File. These first three movies bring you up-to-speed with Photoshop in the shortest amount of time possible. Which turns out to be 2 minutes and 27 seconds. You’ll learn how to start an image, get around Photoshop, and work with selections and layers.

Chapter 2, Selecting and Compositing. In this chapter, I introduce you to the marquee tool, the magic wand, the Color Range command, and Refine Edge. In other words, welcome to the world of selections and credible image blends.

Chapter 3, Working with Layers. This five-movie chapter takes you head-long into Photoshop’s most transformative feature: layers. Learn how to make layers, blend them (as below), scale and rotate layers, and move a layer into a new background. This chapter is unflinching in its content, and yet altogether easy to understand.

Chapter 4, Working with Type and Effects. I can’t think of a single program on Earth that doesn’t let you create and format type. Some offer you more features. But no program let’s you make type look as organic and absolutely "real" as Photoshop. I even show you how to make 3D type.

Chapter 5, Using the Paint and Pen Tools. Although widely regarded as a photography program, Photoshop is the world’s most popular graphic arts application. In this chapter, I show you not only how to paint inside Photoshop, but how to add fills and gradients, as well as draw with the pen tool. During which, we make the crazy fish-eye thing below.

Chapter 6, Working with Layer and Vector Masks. A mask allows you to isolate one portion of an image independently from another. And no other application lets you mask like Photoshop. You can assign practical and discrete edits, or divine altogether mythological environments. The choice is yours.

Chapter 7, Using Smart Objects and Filters. When I told my Content Manager that I wanted to cover smart objects and filters in a starter course, she thought I was insane. But for designers, these features are essential, not to mention indispensable. By which I mean, the absolute best of the best. Learn why in this chapter.

Chapter 8, Saving and Prepress. In this final chapter, I show you how (and why!) to save an image to Photoshop’s most common file formats—-PSD, TIFF, and JPEG. Plus, I show you how to convert an image to CMYK for commercial reproduction. I know, it sounds technical, but it’s straightforward and important stuff.

Once upon a time, I wrote a book called Photoshop for Dummies. It was very popular and it taught readers how to get up and running with Photoshop. Today’s featured video, Up and Running with Photoshop, is a lot like that book except in two regards: A) I never once call you a "dummy," and B) you can watch the entire thing in an afternoon.

Join lynda.com to view this course today. (Coincidentally, a month of lynda.com costs about as much as my old book. God bless technology.)

Enjoy, and let me know what you think.