What Topics Do Software Cinema Courses Cover?

Updated

Software Cinema's catalog is organized around four practical skill areas: photography fundamentals, Photoshop and retouching, lighting and artistic technique, and video/drone work. If you already know which of those you want to improve, you can go straight to that group below. If you're deciding whether the site fits your goals at all, the range is broad but consistently aimed at photographers and digital artists rather than general software users.

Photography fundamentals

These courses cover the core craft decisions that affect every shoot:

  • Perfect Exposure for Digital Photography — exposure control
  • Perfect Composition for Digital Photography — framing and composition
  • Shooting and processing HDR panoramas — capture and post-processing of high-dynamic-range panoramas
  • Solutions for photographing artwork — a niche course for reproducing paintings and similar work

This group suits you if you want to fix basic capture problems before investing in retouching or lighting.

Photoshop and retouching

The largest cluster of titles sits here, and it splits into portrait work and broader compositing:

Course Focus
Portrait retouching for everyone General portrait cleanup
Photoshop Portrait retouching, advanced techniques Advanced portrait workflow
Photoshop Portrait retouching, skin techniques Skin-specific retouching
Compositing secrets in Photoshop the story art method Composite image construction
Shadow and Light how to dodge and burn Dodge-and-burn light shaping
Making Movies in Photoshop Building motion pieces inside Photoshop
Photoshop Destination CC live Photoshop CC instruction
Photoshop CS6 for Digital Photographers Older-version Photoshop for photographers

If your goal is retouching people, the three portrait titles form a natural progression from general to advanced to skin-specific. If your goal is creative image construction, the compositing and dodge-and-burn courses are the relevant ones.

Lighting and artistic technique

  • Portrait lighting on location — lighting outside a studio
  • Introduction to Cinematic Portraiture — a stylized portrait lighting approach
  • Art For Photographers — artistic development for photographers
  • The Finelight Series Volumes 1–5 — a multi-volume lighting series
  • Tinkertubes and Studio Sketchbook Ebook — an ebook rather than a video course

This group is the strongest fit if lighting is your bottleneck, or if you want to move your work toward a more deliberate visual style.

Video and drone

  • Making Movies in Photoshop — overlaps with the Photoshop group but targets video output
  • DJI phantom 3 and inspire 1 drones — flight and shooting for those two models
  • How to fly and shoot DJI Phantom 4 drones — Phantom 4 specific
  • Jaw Dropping Drone images — aerial image results

Note that the drone courses name specific, older DJI models. The flight and camera-control principles may still transfer, but don't expect coverage of current drone hardware.

How to choose

Pick by the problem you can name right now:

  • "My photos are badly exposed or badly framed" → the two Perfect courses, plus HDR panoramas if you shoot landscapes.
  • "My portraits look flat or fake" → portrait retouching series, then Portrait lighting on location.
  • "I want to build composite or story-driven images" → Compositing secrets, Shadow and Light, Art For Photographers.
  • "I want to shoot video or aerials" → Making Movies in Photoshop, then the drone titles matching your aircraft.

Two practical notes from the site itself: all digital downloads can be copied to iPads, iPhones, and Android devices for viewing anywhere, and purchases carry a 30-day money-back guarantee. Instructors listed include Dean Collins (Software Cinema founder), Colin Smith (PhotoshopCAFE founder), Dave Montizambert, and Kristina Sherk — so the lighting and retouching material comes from working photographers and retouchers rather than generalist presenters.