What Is Software Cinema?

Software Cinema is an online storefront for downloadable photography, Photoshop, and digital-art courses. It sells individual video courses and ebooks rather than a subscription, and the catalog centers on lighting, retouching, compositing, drone shooting, and portrait work. It is aimed at photographers and digital artists who want to buy a specific course and keep it, and who are comfortable watching lessons on a computer, tablet, or phone.

What the site actually sells

The catalog is a set of standalone products, each with its own price and "Add to cart" button. Titles visible on the site include:

Prices run from about $19 to $99.99, with several titles showing a struck-through original price and a lower current price. The site does not present a subscription or membership tier in the material available, so the practical model is one purchase per course.

Who it is for

The topic list — Photoshop, Lightroom, photography, lighting, digital art, video, and design — points to working or hobbyist photographers who want technique instruction rather than a general creative-skills library. The drone courses and the artwork-photography course are narrower, aimed at people with those specific jobs to do. If you want a broad, continuously updated streaming library, this is a different shape of product: you buy the specific title you need and keep the download.

Instructors and credibility signals

The site names four instructors:

• Dean Collins — listed as Software Cinema founder and instructor. A testimonial on the page from David Hobby of strobist.com calls Collins "probably the best lighting instructor there ever was."
• Colin Smith — listed as PhotoshopCafe founder and instructor.
• Dave Montizambert — photographer and instructor.
• Kristina Sherk — retoucher and instructor.

The page also carries a customer quote describing growth in Photoshop skill after using the tutorials. These are the site's own testimonials, so treat them as marketing rather than independent review, but the named instructors are identifiable people with public profiles in the photography-training space.

Buying and viewing terms stated on the site

Three policies are stated directly:

• 30-day money-back guarantee — "Love it, or get a full refund."
• Mobile viewing — digital downloads can be copied to iPads, iPhones, and Android devices for watching anywhere.
• Instructor selection — the site describes its instructors as "world-class experts" who teach "clearly and in plain English."

What the page does not state: whether purchases require an account, what format the downloads are in, file sizes, download limits, or whether any streaming access is included. If any of those matter to you, confirm before buying.

How to decide

• Buy a single course if you have one specific gap — portrait lighting on location, skin retouching, drone flight and shooting — and you want to own the material rather than rent access.
• Compare the discounted titles first. Several courses are currently listed below their original price, so the same subject may be cheaper under a different title.
• Check the software version match. "Photoshop CS6 for Digital Photographers" targets an older release; if you are on a current Creative Cloud version, look for the CC-era titles instead.
• Use the guarantee as your trial. With a stated 30-day refund window, the practical way to evaluate a course is to buy it, work through the lessons, and decide within that period.