Tech Friday – KelbyTraining.com App Review

First off, I’d like to give a brief overview of what Kelby Training Online is all about. Kelby Training Online is an online service by Kelby Media Group that offers hundreds of videos – 234 to be exact (at last count) – on Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Photography, Camera Gear, etc; the videos encompass pretty much anything that has to do with Photoshop, Photography, or Creative Design.

The videos include tutorials, interviews, tricks, tips for on-location photo shoots, and the list of topics goes on and on.  Rather than following along as someone shows you a screen capture; you get to see the person on camera and get to know him/her on a personal level while you learn.  Many of the courses are done by Scott Kelby himself, along with some of the well-known professionals such as Joe McNally, Jay Maisel, Dave Ziser, and Moose Peterson, just to name a few.  Watching famous photographers work, as well as learning about their personal philosophies and preferences is an incredible tool that is both inspiring and an incredible resource. Kelby Training also often allows you to download the working files to your computer so you can work along with the tutorials, a truly ground-breaking option.

Although Kelby Training is not a free service – nor should it be – it is easily affordable and well worth it. It’s $199 per year or $24.95 per month (even cheaper if you’re a NAPP member). With the amount of training and knowledge members will have access to, from some of the best professionals in the business, it’s a steal. If you want to try it free you can actually watch the first video (usually an introduction) of every course offered by Kelby Training to get a feel of what you get with your subscription. So there’s no reason not to try it. 

Ok, now on to the newly released App.

 

KelbyTraining.com App is Here!

Awesome! That’s all I really need to say, but I’ll give you the details too.  The KelbyTraining.com App is now available in the Apple App Store for FREE. Now you can watch all the Kelby Training videos on your iPad or iPad 2 (iPhone and iPod Touch).

 

Login and Layout

When you first launch the App it will ask you for your Login and Password.  After that, you are free to rome wherever you want.

 

The layout of the App is very simple; you can view it in landscape or portrait (I prefer landscape). You can browse by category, browse by instructor, or search for a course. When you browse by category you have New Courses, Photography, Creative, and All Courses. Photography and Creative are broken down even further at the next level.  When you browse by instructor it shows a list of every instructor in Kelby Training. The search is pretty nice too – although the only problem I noticed with search is that if you search for “HDR” or “hdr” it finds no results (kind of weird).

 

Playback

Once you choose a course, you can watch it in the layout mode or in full screen mode. As long as you have a decent internet connection, the quality is superb (Full 720p HD). When in layout mode, below the video player, it shows a brief description of that course and all the video chapters for the course (that’s how you switch between chapters manually). 

 

 

When you are in full screen mode you can scrub through the selected video; even control the scrub rate just like the normal video player built into your iPad. One option I would like to have is a working “next” button in full screen mode (you have to exit full screen mode to select the chapter you want then switch back).  Also when you are in full screen mode and the current chapter ends, the app automatically exits full screen mode to load the next chapter but does not bring you back to full screen mode (you have to manually switch back to full screen mode).

 

AirPlay

It also has the capability to wirelessly stream audio and video using AirPlay. You can wirelessly stream audio to your stereo using an AirPort Express device or wirelessly stream video to your TV using Apple TV.  Unfortunately I don’t own either so I cannot give my opinion on the use of these functions.  But I have read many reviews talking about how great it works and if I had either of these devices I would love to use the capability.

 

Some of my favorite courses (but definitely not the only ones worth checking out):

“10 Essential Studio Techniques Every Photographer Needs to Know” – Scott Kelby
“Lightroom 3 Power Session” – Matt Kloskowski
“A Day with Jay Maisel” – Jay Maisel
“Live Wedding Shoot, Start to Finish” – Dave Ziser
“Creative Lighting for Photographers” – Joe McNally
“Light it; Shoot it; Retouch it” – Scott Kelby
“Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it, Part 2:, Beauty Head Shots” – Scott Kelby
“Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it, Part 3” – Scott Kelby
“Editing Your DSLR Video on a Mac” – Richard Harrington
“Copyright Registration” – Jack Reznicki & Ed Greenberg

 

Conclusion:

Everything about the App is great. The fact that I can watch the videos on my iPad so I can free up my laptop to use Photoshop to following along with tutorials, is amazing.  If there would never be a single change to the App (besides bug fixes) I would still be completely happy.

That being said, there are a few changes and additions that I would love to see in the App. First, everything I’ve already said throughout the review. Second, the capability for the App to know where I left off when I reopen the program (I mean to the second). Third, with video it’s harder to quickly find a cool tip or section you want to reference over and over, so I would like the ability to bookmark (favorites) courses, and/or specific chapters of courses. And lastly I would like the ability to download either whole courses or specific chapters to my iPad so you can watch them even when you don’t have a connection to the internet.

But like I said the app is great and I want to thank Scott Kelby, Shawn Welch, and all of the Kelby Media Group Team who had a hand in it.

 

 

---