There are a few tutorial sites popping up as of late. While for the most part they are not new, they are frequently updated and well maintained. So I have decided to write a brief review and give my view of the sites.

The TUTS family of sites (psdtuts, nettuts, vectortuts) offers some tutorials across some popular fields and software packages. Read my review after the jump..

PSDTUTS - As the name of the site implies, the focus of the tutorials is on photoshop, but there are from time to time some great non PS related articles and inspiration. The sites title is “Spoonfed Photoshop”. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they feed it to you line for line, but they do provide enough instruction that the novice user would be equipped enough to complete the tutorial. They also have a “plus” area to the site that is membership based. The psd files to the tutorials are offered as well an “plus only” tutorials from time to time. This feature appears to be very useful to those who might need the additional breakdown of the layerd psd file to guide them. As for the additional tutorials, I have not seen anything to warrant an advanced users need to join.

The tutorials range in style and complexity. For the most part all of the tutorials will teach you something even if it is not related to the tutorial. There is a lot of great inspiration to be drawn from each of the tuts. All in all a great well rounded site for the beginning or advanced photoshop user.

NETTUTS - Once again easy to figure out whats going on here, web tutorials. This is by far my favorite of the sites. The range of topics discussed can leave some people out in the cold, and I would say that things are much less “spoonfed” here. However, the site has great tutorials, well written and thought out. There are really some gems on this site. The tuts here will have you inspired to make changes to your site or simply wanting to try them out.

Read the comments, there is wealth of information in the comments on this site. There are some really bright people using this site, and any help or additional info they have to offer is as free as the tutorial. And that’s not bad. The tutorials here take a little longer to orchestrate it would appear, but generally they are worth the wait.

VECTORTUTS - This is the newest of the family, but it is off to a great start. I have enjoyed the quality and variety of the tutorials. It would appear that the TUTS family has a grat method down and are on a roll with the sites. There are some great tutorials here already with less than a month or so of live time. This one is my fav a great tutorial and versatile effect in illustrator.

There is also a community of subscribers that overlap from site to site, it is a great group. You can also find some great inspiration through the flickr and news pools on each of the sites.

With news of a flash site on the way there seems to be a great well rounded community of tutorial sites shaping up for web developers, designers and illustrators. I suggest that you check them out, subscribe to the feeds and give some of the tuts a shot. Many of the PSDTUTS tutorials led me to the redesign of the site.

I would have to say overall the TUTS family of sites is one of the best in terms of quality and relevance. The tutorials are well written and will probably teach anyone a thing or two about any of the various areas covered. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Filed under: Inspiration, News by Dan