Anyone here an ACE?

alleepally

Adobe Certified Expert.

I'm using Photoshop for donkeys years and I'm thinking I should become a Certified Expert just for the challenge.

Has anyone done the exam and how did you find it. What worked best for you in studying for the exam?

Shrimp

Thats pretty interesting actually, i might think about doing tha too.

sterculelum

Heh what do you do you have to do?

Shrimp

If you are seriously interested i think you would have checked http://www.adobe.com/support/certification/ace.html

sterculelum

Well I'm not, I was just wondering.

dangerman

i studied for this exam but in the end never actually took it.

It's a completely pointless memory excercise. The questions are multiple choice from hell - as in designed to trick you. They ask obscure colour model questions and ask you what buttons and options inside dialog boxes that take 5 clicks to get to are.

It doesn't test your ability with photoshop in the slightest, it tests your ability to name photoshop features and is just a fiendish memory puzzle.

I've no doubt having ACE is an advantage in the market place, but as a professional working in said market place, adobe can go **** themselves until they come up with an exam that reflects the skills involved.

alleepally

dangerman wrote:

i studied for this exam but in the end never actually took it.

It's a completely pointless memory excercise. The questions are multiple choice from hell - as in designed to trick you. They ask obscure colour model questions and ask you what buttons and options inside dialog boxes that take 5 clicks to get to are.

It doesn't test your ability with photoshop in the slightest, it tests your ability to name photoshop features and is just a fiendish memory puzzle.

I've no doubt having ACE is an advantage in the market place, but as a professional working in said market place, adobe can go **** themselves until they come up with an exam that reflects the skills involved.

I agree with you to some extent but there are tons of features I don't use and I know I could be ten times more efficient using the program than I am at the moment. I think the exam would give me a reason to learn those features better. I could approach the exam as a memory game and learn by the numbers just to pass the exam. But I'm going to view it as a way to structure my goal to become a true expert. Getting the cert will be the little cherry on the cake for me.

Out of interest, have you communicated anything to Adobe about the exams and why you believe it doesn't reflect the skills involved?

dangerman

alleepally wrote:

I agree with you to some extent but there are tons of features I don't use and I know I could be ten times more efficient using the program than I am at the moment. I think the exam would give me a reason to learn those features better. I could approach the exam as a memory game and learn by the numbers just to pass the exam. But I'm going to view it as a way to structure my goal to become a true expert. Getting the cert will be the little cherry on the cake for me.

My employer at the time paid for this set of example questions for the illustrator ace exam for me:
http://www.examaids.com/prog_ai.html

(I've seen the photoshop ones, and they're in a similar vein obviously)

so i'm basing my assumptions on those. I have no doubt the exam will expose new areas of the program to you, so approaching it that way is a good way of looking at it. I would argue that doing hundreds of tutorials is a better method of achieving this, but you don't get a professional qualification from doing tutorials...

Out of interest, have you communicated anything to Adobe about the exams and why you believe it doesn't reflect the skills involved?

No I haven't, because I haven't got a better suggestion. A project to submit would probably be far too huge an administrative overhead (and far more open to abuse) but would be my preferred method. Multiple choice = computer corrected so it's obviously easy for adobe [i believe it's actually a third party company who handle it for them] to administer.

I dunno, I exagerated a lot when I said ACE was 'completely pointless' - that's far from the truth, as sticking that on your CV is an obvious benefit. I just think the exam itself has little to do with actual talent with the program - as in the graphic design/pixel pushing stuff it brings out in people and as I said above, much more to do with memory. - The fact that I'm bad at memory tests like this would have an obvious impact on my opinions. - It's just frustrating to be able to do good work with a program and then be stumped by a question like

How does knowing the answer to that question affect my ability with the program? And what really annoys me is experienced users would perform actions like that every day but if you asked them a good proportion of them won't be able to answer you.

And look at this one, for example:

How ridiculous is that? Note the 'select 2' - a power user of a program like this is going to always use the one method to do an action...what are we proving here if he gets only 1 out of the 2 correct? We're proving that he doesn't know everything about illustrators user interface, we're not proving anything about his ability as a graphic designer or whatever.

Though I guess you could just argue that i'm missing the point - if you look at ACE as just anally-detailed exams on the workings of these programs rather than where I'm coming from then you won't have a problem.

Good luck!

alleepally

Very good points dangerman. Photoshop is a different kettle of fish to the typical certification exams (eg. MCSE), so I think Adobe are doing it the only way they can see fit.