Well the discs finally arrived just before 6 p.m. tonight. I immediately tore the package open like it was Christmas.

"Executive Summary":
- So far I've only watched the "Dream Skin" project.
- The series is not intended for those who work with Photoshop for their job or people very experienced with Photoshop. These vids are for the hobbyist like me who are just trying to learn some new techniques or get their chopping feet wet.
- There were a couple things I'd improve on in both the project's end result and the presentation itself.
- There's more than one PSC chopper who could probably do better job but he was trying to do several projects quickly in order to get the discs pressed and packaged in a short time.

If you want more detail keep reading. If not then go back to your life.

Detailed Review:
The booklet that comes with the order is decent. About the size of a magazine but thicker stock with a somewhat matte to semi-gloss finish on the paper. Looks really sharp and would be a good coffee table book.

I popped in disc 1 and was pleased to find out that these are not DVDs in the "must play from DVD drive/player" fashion. They're data DVDs! Each video is a fairly high-res Flash video embedded into a html page with Flash-based controls (play, pause, etc.).

Playing the video from my laptop drive was a bit choppy so I copied the entire disc to my new portable drive (just over 4GB if you're wondering) to see if it would still work or was programmed to only run from the disc. It runs just fine from a folder. Now I can make backups. I mean

The interface for the entire disc is decently organized as is the disc itself. All the project files (including the finished psd) are on the discs in an organized and uniform fashion.

I launched into the "Dream Skin" tut (http://www.photoshoptopsecret.com/salespage001/images/popup/dvd1/dreamskin.jpg). You can click on each item to go to just that section but each video segment is coded to launch the one right after it. It would have been nice to have the option to turn that off.

As other, more advanced, choppers worried about Mark does go through a "click on this menu and then click on this item" approach. These tuts seem to be geared toward newbs (slightly less familiar with PS than many people here). So keeping that in mind it's not something that I personally got hung up on. Although there were times when I wanted him to just say "CTRL-D to deselect" or just "deselect". I mainly wanted the discs to learn some new techniques.

Watching this first one I did learn a couple cool techniques that I probably wouldn't have figured out on my own (and wouldn't have known what term to use to search for if I'd specifically needed to learn the technique). He did some neat things with channels that I would never have thought of and can't wait to try. Thankfully techniques that were either too generic, or project-specific (like the nose highlight and shadow), he glossed over rather than going into detail. That was nice as it didn't waste time or bore.

I must say there were some nit-picky items and details in this first project that I noticed.
- The metallic facepiece is supposed to be against the skin but he didn't put it under the hair on her forehead.
- He hilighted the bridge of the nose and added a shadow but he left the nostrils looking flattened. This takes away from the textured skin (IMHO).
- The skin texture still looks a bit flat. I bet more work could be done to make it stand out better. I'd love to see ledrilo, claf or double-rey's techniques on this type of project (hint-hint )
- He started off with a walk-through where he showed the end-result and went briefly through each layer. He said he'd show all those techniques but he left out a few (albeit they were minor things like a hue adjustment layer for the eyes).
- Tangents. He went into WAY too much detail on how the henna shape came to exist and how he got the photo of the woman. These tidbits were trivia that really didn't apply much to a "how-to" video and I could have done without those items.
- Instead of saying "de-select" he keeps saying "diss-select". Got on my nerves.

All in all this first one was pretty cool and, for me, following a video is much easier than going along with a step-by-step tut on a webpage.

I want one...

....no money...



...searching [insert torrent site here]....

....nothing....

I looked at the intro.video, and it is not always easy to
evaluate how relevant or helpful its contents will be based
on a cursory video review,
Thanks, Tofu, for taking the time to offer feedback on this product.

Since these things are shipping only just recently it'll be a while before the torrents appear. Plus any torrents will have to be done from re-working the vids so they don't launch one-after-the-other and instead is just one long video. Could be done but it's a bit of work (I know I tried it last night).

Given time these tuts will probably appear all over the web anyway. That or someone else will copy the discs and resell them themselves.



Thanks Patre! I put this out in hopes that it might help someone else to determine whether or not to buy the series themselves.

If there's interest I'll give a review of each of the discs.

review time tofu , i want to hear more. any good inside secrets about the alignment of two photos like the tut that allows you to replace someone with closed eyes with the other....hmmmmm.that is all boggled........what i mean is if you have a posed photo such as a ball team. the photo was snapped twice-- the same pose-- same people. in one photo everyone but bob was looking at the camera and smileing but bob was yawning. in the next photo bob looks great but betty and jimmy are fighting. now ya take bobs head in on and transpose him on the other. creating a photo were everyone is proper.

edit: ever heard about iso files?

isos......scanning memory banks.....or the one cell......no what is it

Thanks Tofu for taking the time to write an very detailed review if you have the time I would be interested in hearing more.

Actually there is a face-swapping tut on these DVDs. But honestly face swaps aren't that hard to do. Especially if the faces come from two photos that were snapped one-after-the-other.

Select the face/head you want to keep, using your favorite selection method, and paste it in over the face to replace. Mask and/or adjust as needed to make it seamless. Flatten or save for the web. Done.

Each project tut video is broken down into multiple parts. So one project would consist of say 6 separate video segments. Each segment is coded so that it automatically starts the next segment. I want to reencode the vids so they don't auto-launch the next portion in the tut and then combine all the segments into one video file (this would get around any skipping and code errors). That's the part that would be a lot of work.

But still and ISO of each of these discs would still be a 4-to-5GB file. That would take a loooooonnnnngggggg time to download. Especially until there were enough seeders created.

Guys..i'm not try to be rude here..

Don't brag about how you found this on some tracker..or torrent, go out and buy it instead. It takes a lot of time and effort went into this. Someone deserves to get paid, and it's not you.

Who's bragging? I DID buy it. Paid my $198. Wanna see my receipt?

Read the whole thread.

hey newbee, calm down

Lynch Zaizen.g

hey you can't talk to tofu that way......can he........hell no he can't. dude do you realize that tofu has paid for and is allowing the readers of this forum to know what each contains, and the pros and cons of the set. he is'nt trying to get them copied,bootlegged, or hacked with a gen key by some damn torrent. tofu you need not show your reciept. some here do really appreciate the time and effert you have put in to this and we are glad to have such an oppertunity. zaizen g you my freind should learn to read the whole forum topic post before rambling out some random bullshit remark that not only is incorrect but is completely off base. what you may not realize is that many here have a great respect for tofu. his desire to not only help out the noobs like my self along with his willingness to contribute so much of his time to this web page, that he went out and paid money and is offering a REVIEW of each disk...A REVEIW.... thats not a illegal down oad. thats a person wanting you to know what you are getting and if you so desire you may purchase the disc with a little inside knowledge of what you can, or can't expect. beleive it or not some are here to learn....and help i'm sure thats a concept you are not accustomed to, so let me be the first here on behalf of the hole psc site to tell you to stfuac and if ya have the time learn to read. trust me life becomes a lot better once you can read where the hell your going. OR maybe the g stands for G.E.D.