Adobe Photoshop CC – Essentials Training Course vs Adobe InDesign CC – Essentials Training Course

The course covers the full beginner Photoshop toolkit — layers, selections, masking, retouching, blend modes, type, filters, smart objects and export across roughly 10–12 hours and around 88–93 lessons. Students consistently describe it as well-structured from easy to hard with no padding and "detailed explanations and really fun practical tasks." The ceiling is that the recordings predate Photoshop's newest AI features (Generative Fill, updated Select Subject) and some panels have moved, which is a recurrent minor frustration across reviews.

Daniel Walter Scott is an Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Certified Expert and an Adobe Max speaker with 15-plus years of teaching experience. He is the single most-cited reason students recommend this course — reviewers repeatedly call him clear, funny, patient and genuinely passionate. One reviewer who had taken over 50 Udemy courses called him "the best of best on my list," and Learnopoly names him "one of the best Photoshop tutors out there." The instructor dimension is the strongest asset of the course.

The effective Udemy sale price of roughly $15–19 (the list price of $100+ is rarely paid) gives learners 10-plus hours of video, around 20 guided projects, downloadable exercise files, lifetime access and free updates. At that price it is among the strongest value-per-hour beginner design courses on any platform. The same content is also available on Skillshare and CreativeLive under different pricing models, giving flexibility on cost.

Multiple reviewers note that Daniel Walter Scott responds to Q&A questions within a day and "obviously cares about what his students think." Students describe the Udemy Q&A section as active and useful for resolving confusion around panel changes between Photoshop versions. The main limitation is that support is asynchronous Q&A only — there is no live cohort, office hours or community forum beyond Udemy's native Q&A system.

The course teaches the everyday Photoshop workflow a junior designer or photo editor actually uses — non-destructive masking, layer discipline, retouching, export for web and print. Reviewers who came in with zero experience describe finishing with "a solid start to building a portfolio." The ceiling is scope: this is a foundations course, not advanced compositing, colour grading or production-pipeline depth, and newer generative AI tooling is absent.

Around 7 hours and ~78 lessons take a complete beginner from the InDesign interface through type, colour, master pages, frames, automatic tables of contents, data merge and professional print/PDF export. Reviewers call it well-paced and "straight-to-the-point" with no padding. Capped because it is essentials-only and the recordings predate the current CC interface in places.

Daniel Walter Scott is an Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Certified Expert, a multi-award winner and speaker at Adobe Max with 15+ years teaching. He is the single most-cited reason to take the course — students across Udemy, CourseDuck and CreativeLive consistently call him clear, patient, enthusiastic and never boring. The course's clearest strength.

Effective Udemy sale price of roughly $15-19 (full list ~$100+ is rarely paid) buys ~7 hours, five real publication projects, downloadable exercise files, lifetime access and free updates. One reviewer said it is "worth so much more than you pay on Udemy." The same content also lives on Skillshare and as InDesign Fundamentals on CreativeLive at different price models.

Project-driven throughout: learners build a flyer, a newsletter/brochure, a long annual-report-style document and conference name badges, leaving with five portfolio pieces. Outputs are competent beginner publications rather than client-grade deliverables, which is right for an essentials course. Real artwork-to-print workflow rather than isolated feature demos.

Teaches the genuine desktop-publishing workflow — master pages, styles, data merge, packaging and print/PDF export — that a junior designer or production artist actually uses. Skills transfer directly to print and layout work. Ceiling is that InDesign itself is a niche, print-leaning tool, so applicability depends heavily on the kind of design work you want.