I've been a student with NYI for about 4 months now. The digital course has six units (I'm on unit 3 now), with 4 - 8 lessons per unit. I think 21 or 22 are on Photoshop alone. The first two units are quite basic, but very good "refresher". I think it's well worth the cost and I'm already MUCH better with Photoshop.
Those are some of the old threads on it. I'm currently taking it and its outdated, but thorough. Goes over all the basics, which no matter if you were working with film or digital, you SHOULD know and learn, so it being outdated doesn't hurt much. For the price, its not a bad investment, and the fact that you work at home, you can finish it in as early as 8 months, or take the whole 3 years that its slated to take to complete. They don't give you specific things to shoot (ie take a photo of a flower) but they give you objectives. For the first unit, the projects were 1 - Photograph something in motion. So if you're into cars, you could go shoot a moving car, if you're into nature you could shoot birds, if you're a people person, you could shoot someone running. 2nd project is DOF, and 3rd is landscape. So you'll be able to stick to what you're comfortable with, or enjoy and thus making the experience better for you. You'll learn about all the aspects and fields of photography, but you have the freedom to do what you enjoy, which is how it should be. For $1000 (or $45 a month if you do monthly) its worth it, unless you've already learned all the rules or studied under someone that taught you everything you needed to know.
You could learn everything here, or online, or in the library if you put the time into it, but different people learn differently. Not sure about the digital course ray is taking, but i'm taking the professional course. In unit 2, they give you a press pass, making you an official photographer for their online magazine, photoworld magazine(used to be a print magazine). Will it get you in anywhere? You still have to carry yourself and learn how each venue handles photographers. You won't just walk in anywhere, but it might open doors for you that might not have been possible before.
