Teaching is all about good delivery. Some of the material may be pretty dry, but it's put across in an engaging and visual way that appeals to your common sense, it will be absorbed much quicker. I'm usually not too plagued by yawners!
I tend to teach the fundamentals before the fun. And I find that there is a certain sense of pleasure for most people in getting those basics sorted. Then comes the more instantly gratifying stuff, such as transforming an average image into something great, and turning your ideas into reality.
If you are already at an advanced level, we can usually work faster together, and part of the session will often be a blitz of questions from you, and answers & examples from me. Sometimes I may suggest an area to delve further into.
I always take the student's practice and experience as my starting point. The training is founded on what you know already, and checks that you actually have a good grasp of the basics. I am very happy to work on your own image-projects for individual Photoshop training, but I also have high-quality dedicated training images for you to work on. I tend to ask you a lot of (relevant) questions during a session, and I do this in order to engage you, make you question things yourself, and of course to find out about the way you think and work. In some situations, I challenge you to consider solutions before I give you the answer to a question.
Because I have a lot of teaching experience (10 yrs training hairdressers, 5 yrs photographers and 4-5 yrs Photoshop) I quickly pick up what you're like, and adapt to that. I respect that different people are more or less methodical, passive or active by nature, hands-on or intellectual, focused or squirrel-like in their approach... and I respond to each type of character in a different way. The session be very structured, or worked very loosely. It's up to you.
The tempo of the training is totally adjusted to your own pace. It's your time. If you want to throw challenges at me and get quick answers, that's fine. If you want to work slowly and take it from the basics, that's fine too. But I won't let you waste your own time, so I may encourage moving on if there's too much digression.
I mainly teach advanced Photoshop but often I quickly sense that the basics may need some improvement I will then suggest that we do a recap on the basics, to make sure that there are no bad habits, gaps, misunderstandings, etc. Many beginners' Photoshop courses tend to focus on the fun bits, and not the fundamentals, but it becomes futile to move on before the basics are covered. It's very common that people think they know Photoshop well, only to find that there's a lot more to it than they thought.
My teaching content adheres to common good practice. If I sometimes deviate from common practice, I'll make sure you know that I'm teaching my particular method, and also offer to teach the common way of doing it. If Photoshop defaults are changed, I'll make you aware of how it's done, and how you get them back.
I believe that teaching is not about showing off, or just showing you something I happen to know. It's about getting you engaged in the material, and working hands-on. I will accommodate people who just want to watch me retouch (and talk you through it) but you're much better off working hands-on.
All the training is supported by my written tutorials, written in a similar style to the verbal guidance during the session. This is for you to use as backup when you're at home, and to use just like you would use a Photoshop-book.
