AfterCapture is a magazine that is freely distributed to commercial photographers. This tends to generate an ad-centric magazine, and I frequently question the merit of their equipment/software reviews, but greatly enjoy the articles on other photographers, the educational material, and the lessons in advertising (marketing material directed at people in the advertising industry tends to be extremely well designed).

After discovering the AC Blog, it’s almost not worth my time to read the printed material anymore. For instance, check out this article on Learning Strategies for Video Tutorials.

A few weeks ago, I posted about the new study aids I’d found for the Adobe Certified Expert Exam in CS2. I didn’t want to take a course, which would spend 90% of the time covering the things I already new, and I didn’t want a book for the same reason.

The test-based preparatory software seemed like an ideal solution for me. I didn’t need a refresher course on everything I knew, I needed to isolate what parts of my knowledge were insufficient, and aggressively target that knowledge. What better way to do that then to practice with questions that cover the exam objectives with questions in the same style as the test?

Between the two study aids of this type that I’d found, I decided to go with uCertify for three reasons: ExamAids is listed in British pounds and I worried that there may be differences between the British and American versions of the test, uCertify offered a pre-purchase option on the CS3 exam (at a discount, no less), and then, to my delight, they also offered a “bulk” purchase discount when buying more than one program at once. End result? For less than half the price of one test, I could buy prep material for both the CS2 test and the CS3 recertification test. (note: the CS3 version has now shipped, so that discount is no longer available)

And here’s a bit of full disclosure: shortly after making my purchase decision, someone from the uCertify PR team found the above-mentioned blog post where I debated between those two options, and emailed me, offering to let me try the software for free in exchange for a review. As I’d already placed the order with them, I agreed, but warned them that I’d give an honest review — so while I am writing this with that in mind, I am trying to be unbiased, if not downright antagonistic.

And as I said, I’d already made the decision to buy their software before they offered.

The first thing I noticed was that the interface was very clean and mostly intuitive — I had a few seconds difficulty locating the Next Question button during the actual tests, but only because it’s slightly different from the actual exam, and I didn’t have any difficulty locating anything else in the interface.

Speaking of which, I should offer background information on my experience with the ACE Exam. When I first found out about it, I reviewed the Exam Objectives on the Adobe website and aced the practice test they offered, so I felt that I was familiar enough with the material that the cost of any of the study materials available simply wasn’t worth it. So, without any preparation, I took the test and failed by two questions. These were my initial results:

By my calculations, instead of failing by 2 questions, I should have passed by 10%, meaning there were questions which I’d answered wrong but thought were correct, in addition to the ones I knew I’d answered wrong. This is why I went looking for preparation aids which could let me explore my knowledge more fully.

I loaded up the uCertify program and took the Diagnostic Test, which tests basic knowledge of 8 of the 14 exam objectives in 30 minutes. These questions, and all of the questions that I’ve tested so far, are very similar to the actual exam questions, which really probe the extent of your knowledge. You need to know exactly where every menu item is, and fully grasp the nuances of the terminology used to define and describe everything you can do in Photoshop — while you’re safe if you’ve remapped the keyboard shortcuts (better, actually, because you’re familiar with that command), I found that my Wacom Intuos tablet keys negatively impacted my test results, because I’d forgotten which keys the tablet hotkeys are mapped to.

Also like the actual test, this means that using the uCertify software when you’re not 100% attentive will severely degrade your results. This might be useful if you’re interested in seeing how deeply ingrained your knowledge of Photoshop really is. To keep you on your toes, the uCertify test includes several subtle variants of the same basic question, and does not keep the answers in the same order — don’t just answer “D” because that was what it was the last time you answered this question. It might not be the same question, and the correct answer is definitely not in the same place it was before.

Either during or after the test, depending on the options selected, you can review your answers with notes that explain why each answer is correct or incorrect. This is particularly helpful, and there’s even a feedback option if you disagree. The only time I’ve tried using the feedback option, I realized that I’d missed the double-negative in the question — exactly the sort of dirty deviousness that I found in the actual exam. Therefore, I can’t guarantee how the Feedback system works exactly, but it’s simple enough to use.

The Adaptive Test and Custom test are particularly helpful. If you buy this product, I recommend you use them frequently.

The Readiness Report allows you to not only chart your progress, but take back points you lost by only testing you on your incorrect answers. While this makes a certain amount of sense in terms of completeness, if you’re not used to the Adobe exams, I don’t recommend using it — the ebb and flow of the practice exams are an important part of getting ready for the test.

In stark contrast to the extremely useful left side of the program, I was disappointed with some of the options on the right side: the Exam Objectives, Study notes, Articles, Study Tips and How Tos sections are incredibly generic, as if they’ve been copy/pasted from other resources. If you need any of that information, then you’re probably not prepared enough to even think about taking the ACE Exam (in my humble opinion). I suppose I should be a little more lenient about the Articles section, as I can imagine someone discovering entire sub-menus of Photoshop they previously didn’t know existed. In that case, the Articles section would be a good resource of canned material to jump off from. In fairness, I suppose I would complain if these items weren’t included for completeness.

On the other hand, the Interactive Quiz and Flash Cards are nicely implemented, although neither option was what I expected them to be. I thought Flash Cards would allow you to print out actual flash cards, whereas instead you can write out long-hand answers and then compare them to real answers. Two weeks after picking up the program, and I still haven’t used it, although I keep planning to. The Interactive Quiz, which for some reason I thought would involve web-surfing or some kind of help-menu exploration, is basically a different system to generate Custom Tests (again, one of the most useful aspects of the program). Instead of creating a pool of questions with a time limit, each question in the quiz has its own time limit.

Overall, I’m pleased with the software. The large pool of accurately rendered questions alone are worthwhile, and fully fit my own study habits and needs. The explanations for why each answer is correct or incorrect are verbose, complete, and useful. The summary reports and Readiness Reports graphically highlight your strong and weak points. Those aspects that I dislike might be valuable to someone with different study habits.

It’s funny, but since they asked me to do the review, there’s a strong temptation to over-emphasize the weak points of the software. The thing is, I can’t. It does exactly what I expected it to do, and does it well.

The uCertify software isn’t going to teach you the program unless you’re actually within reaching distance of the test, and it can’t be used as a reference after passing the test any better than the actual Adobe Help files can. But it isn’t meant to do either of those things, anyway. It will help you aggressively target the areas which you need to study in order to pass the test, and that was exactly what I was looking for.

I’ve been long-contemplating the Adobe Certified Expert exam as a way to stand out from the morass of entry-level photo assistants and so-called digital retouchers (many of whom don’t seem to know what a layer is).

I’ve been dawdling for a while, and Adobe has released the CS3 suite while I weighed pros and cons, giving rise to a new set of choices. Should I take the CS2 exam, which I feel I’m ready for, or gear up for the CS3 exam? I’m tempted to do the former, and then work to familiarize myself with CS3, and take their recertification test, particularly after my father bought me Photoshop CS3: Up To Speed.

I’ve found two websites that offer what appear to be useful exam aids for someone already familiar with the program. uCertify offers both a CS2 exam and a discount on pre-orders for the CS3 “Prep Kit.” While Exam Aids offers a very similar seeming product that also appears well-designed.

The uCertify program looks like it’ll be the winner for me, primarily because of the discount I could get on the CS3 aid, doubly important as I want to take both exams.

I just found the most amazing little chunk of code on my Mac. If you have a Mac it’s probably already on your system. It’s called Art Directors Toolkit.

From the Help description:

Art Directors Toolkit (ADT) is a time-saving tool that helps designers get the information they’re looking for quickly. ADT has evolved with the direction of designers and production artists alike. By combining a multitude of features, this program integrates well with today’s industry-standard applications.

What does this really mean? ADT is a compilation of all the conversion tools you’ll ever need: fraction-to-decimal, unit, page size, scaling, image file size and more. Plus, a host of color theory number-crunchers that graphic designers will love: RGB to Pantone references, a color mixer, and RGB to Hex-code (html) converter.

It also has some text-based tools: font preview, column layout, and a nifty little ruler which you can use to measure anything on your screen.

In other words, it’s an incredibly tiny little program which answers a lot of the questions designers, graphic artists, and digital imagers often have.

If you have a Mac, then I strongly encourage you to open this puppy and take a look. I know it’ll be saving me a lot of memory and time.

Two particular resources which I keep reminding myself to check out more thoroughly are the oft-discussed Inkjet Mall and Inkjet Art websites (unrelated) which offer a wide variety of papers, inks, and related material.

Inkjet Mall, for example, offers workshops, DVDs and books on high-end digital printing, as well as very reasonably priced Custom Printer Profiling. Just print out their targets according to the directions, and mail the results to them; they’ll email you the customized profiles for your printer/paper combo. Having just profiled my own printer in Verser’s Fashion Photography course, I can tell you from first hand experience just how valuable a custom profile is. My home prints went from completely unusable to better than the Epson 4800s at school, which use the profiles from the various companies.

Let me repeat that. A custom-profiled $400 all-in-one printer/scanner/fax will yield better photos than a $2500 printer using the profiles downloaded from the web.

Inkjet Art offers customized paper sample packages that have been thoughtfully categorized by the feel of the end visual product. Instead of buying a variety of sampler packs based on the company who produces each, I can buy the InkjetArt Canvas Sampler or compare all their Luster papers with one, reasonably priced order. Of particular interest to me is #11, Dual Sided Photo sampler. I’ve been hunting those puppies down with keen appeal lately. They also offer a wide variety of canvas photo papers.

I found this useful article describing how the various tablet options for photoshopping actually work.

freetimefoto.com : Brush » Photoshop: Brush Dynamic
stylus

These guys explain the difference between the various rendering intents far better than I ever could.

Color Management: Color Space Conversion

Chase Jarvis Blog: Photography Laptop Case aka Pimp Your Laptop Case is a quick video on creating a pro-quality, customized laptop case for your on-location shoots. The entire assembly, minus hardware, probably costs about $300 dollars.

One note on their equipment, I’ve heard mixed reviews regarding the quality of the Lacie All Terrain external drives they’re using. While most people seem extremely pleased with their ruggedness, the one photographer I know who has had to crack open that case was horrified by how minimally the equipment has been secured to the case.