MacMania IV Seminars

Mexican Riviera • February 4th to 11th, 2006

 
   
     

Use this form to familiarize yourself with the MacMania 4 offerings.

The conference fee is $795 and includes all courses, course materials, five evenings of MacMania entertainment, and the Bon Voyage Cocktail Party.

(Don't hesitate in filling out this form to help us tailor this and future MacMania programs; simply select those courses that might interest you — were you to come along on our cruise.)

 

There will be two three-day "MacMania tracks" going on at the same time ("New User" and "Power User"); there will also be two three-day "Photoshop Fling tracks" running as well ("Essentials & Effects" and "Photography & Workflow"). Attendees may freely switch, at any time, between them. Therefore, attendees may choose any combination of full-day, half-day, or quarter-day seminars, from either MacMania and/or Photoshop Fling, for a total of three (3) days' worth of sessions.

     
     
     
   
     
     
 
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Digital Photography Workshop
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – 5:00pm
Speaker: Jack Davis

 
 
 
    MACMANIA: NEW USER
The Ground Floor Guide to the Macintosh
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
The Dilettante's Guide To Tiger
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm
Mac OS X Troubleshooting
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon
Life is Good ... iLife Makes it Better!
Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 5pm
A Day of iLife '05 Exploration
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – 5pm
 
 
 
    MACMANIA: POWER USER
Power-User Productivity in OS X Tiger
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
Automator
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm
AppleScript Fundamentals
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon
Living the iLife
Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 3pm
Advanced iMovie: Beyond the Birthday Party Thursday the 9th, 3:30pm – 5pm
Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro:
A Step Up
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – Noon
GarageBand 101:
So You Want To Be a Rock 'n Roll Star

Friday the 10th, 1:30pm – 5pm
 
 
 
    PHOTOSHOP: ESSENTIALS & EFFECTS
Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
Filters and Masks
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm
The Bold and the New in Photoshop CS2
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon
The Wow Factor:
One-Click Solutions in Photoshop

Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 5pm
Creating Special Effects with Photoshop
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – 5pm
 
 
 
    PHOTOSHOP: PHOTOGRAPHY & WORKFLOW
Expert Color Management
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
Real World Camera Raw
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm
Essential Photo Optimizing — Getting it Right
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon
Editing Images in Photoshop
Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 5pm
 
 
 
    MACMANIA: NEW USER
   
The Ground Floor Guide to the Macintosh
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
Speaker: Andy Ihnatko
   

"Honestly, I don't know the first thing about Macs."

Oh, really? Sure, it's easy to brag about how little you know about these things, but so few people are willing to put their money with their mouth is. Attend this session and silence all the nay-sayers. How basic is this session? Turning the Mac on and off is lesson two. Sure, by the end, you'll no longer be a novice...but you'll be able to thrill and amaze people with your tales of compressing a whole month's worth of trial-and-error learning into one single class.

   
The Dilettante's Guide To Tiger
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm

Speaker: Andy Ihnatko
   

There are American History books that spend 500 pages covering the whole thing from start to finish, and then there are the ones that cover just one thing in obsessive detail. The latter leaves you with ready answer to the question "So: the quill that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence: what species of bird did it come from?" But the former approach leaves you with a broad understanding of absolutely everything, and the relationship between all of the various bits.

So the goal of this session is to make sure you know just exactly what Mac OS X is capable of, from user-level features that you'll use every day to aspects of Unix system administration that will make you glad that you're free to never ever ever touch that sort of stuff if you don't want to, not even with a ten-foot-pole strapped to a twelve-foot-pole.

   
Mac OS X Troubleshooting
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon

Speaker: Christopher Breen
    The Mac and its accompanying operating system are impressive accomplishments but even Macs sometimes get the blues. Join Chris Breen as he shows you how to keep your Mac and OS X on the straight and narrow and, should it stray from that path, how to get it back on its feet with the least amount of fuss. Along with preventive and troubleshooting strategies, Chris will offer tips for dealing with such common annoyances as spam, Mac/Windows interaction, and printing problems.
   
Life is Good ... iLife Makes it Better!
Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 5pm

Speaker: Janet Hill
   

If you are new to iLife, come see what happens when you take five best of breed multimedia applications — iTunes for managing music, iPhoto for digital photography, iMovie HD for editing digital video, GarageBand for creating your own music, and iDVD for creating your own DVDs — and integrate them so they work seamlessly. Suddenly it all connects!

Let your imagination soar: The iLife 05 software applications let you do fun, creative things with your pictures, music, and movies in ways that PC users can only dream about — then you share your joy with family and friends every which way from email and the internet to print and DVD. An you can do all these things and more, quite nicely, without thumbing through a manual.

   
A Day of iLife '05 Exploration
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – 5pm

Speaker: Janet Hill
   

Learn why this suite of tightly integrated applications continues to lead the digital media revolution.

You have been using iLife for a while but what can you really do with this program? With iLife '05, you can easily create stunning softcover books; import, organize, and edit RAW photos; and stun them with fully customizable slideshows using iPhoto 5. Edit high-definition 16:9 video from the newest camcorders and create movies automatically with iMovie HD's new Magic iMovie feature. Drag and drop video clips, pictures, and music into the new animated drop zones found in iDVD 5 templates. Or create multi-track recordings in GarageBand 2. Of course, iTunes seamlessly integrates with iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD and GarageBand and syncs with every member of the iPod family. Come spend a day exploring the many intermediate features of iLife 05.

 
 
 
    MACMANIA: POWER USER
   
Power-User Productivity in OS X Tiger
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
Speaker: Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus
   

What is a Power User? According to Dr. Mac's Really Abridged Dictionary: Power User (pou'er yoo'zer) n. 1. Someone who uses a Macintosh better, faster, or more elegantly than you do. 2. Someone who can answer Macintosh-related questions you can't.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to spend some quality time with "one of the world's leading (self-proclaimed) authorities on Mac OS X," and the author of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger For Dummies. The session will feature a myriad of tips, hints, tutorials, shortcuts, product demos, timesaving software recommendations, where to find what you need on the Web, and much more.

   
Automator
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm

Speaker: Sal Soghoian
   

Mac OS X version 10.4 "Tiger" introduces Automator, a new application that automates anything on your computer quickly and easily. Using the power of Mac OS X, Automator controls your applications and files, automating — in an instant — what you need done with them. Automator will change the way you use your Macintosh. There's no scripting or coding, it's drag-and-drop easy. It's truly "Automation for the rest of us!"

Automator Product Manager, Sal Soghoian, gives you a personalized tour of this innovative application and you'll learn when and how to use Automator to make automating complex or repetitive tasks a breeze!

   
AppleScript Fundamentals
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon

Speaker: Sal Soghoian
    Now that you can "automate" your tasks, are you ready to look under the hood? In this session, you will gain a thorough understanding of the fundamentals used to create real-world AppleScript scripts. Step-by-step, practical approaches and techniques are reviewed in detail with plenty of snippets to aid you in developing a solid foundation in script writing. Sal provides insight and examples gleaned from over a decade of scripting the Mac OS and its core applications. Special attention is paid to new AppleScript tools and abilities found in Mac OS X Tiger.
   
Living the iLife
Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 3pm

Speaker: Christopher Breen
    There's a lot of power hidden under the placid exterior of Apple's digital media suite, iLife 05. Chris Breen goes beyond the basics and reveals his favorite iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, GarageBand, and iTunes tricks. Among them, you'll learn how to use iMovie to add multiple playlists to your iPod shuffle, create an inescapable kiosk presentation with iDVD, manipulate iPhoto's expert sharing settings to make smaller (and better looking) slideshows, make GarageBand play the blues, and alter audio files in iTunes so they take up less space on your iPod.
   
Advanced iMovie: Beyond the Birthday Party
Thursday the 9th, 3:30pm – 5pm
Speaker: Christopher Breen
    We understand that with a minimum of effort you can import video from your digital camcorder into iMovie and string together enough scenes to make a darned fine home movie, but is iMovie nothing more than the means for making less-boring videos of your kid's 10th birthday bash? Hardly. In Advanced Movie: Beyond the Birthday Party, Chris Breen will show you how to bend iMovie to your will to make dynamic video vignettes that include blue screen effects, picture-in-picture tricks, and sound effects that add realism (and a heapin' helpin' of humor) to your work.
   
Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro: A Step Up
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – Noon

Speaker: Mark Swain
    There is no doubt about it, iMovie is a quick digital editing solution with loads of features. However, if you have out grown iMovie's feature set, this is a great session that will take you inside the world of Final Cut. This guided tour starts off with getting you comfortable with the Final Cut interface and work flow. Learn the basics of non-linear editing, how to handle footage, and the ins and outs of video footage. Explore advanced editing tools such as ripple, roll, and slip edits. Also, figure out which version of Final Cut is right for you when we examine the differences between Express, and Professional versions. This session will take you from raw footage to finished video with little or no previous Final Cut experience.
   
GarageBand 101:
So You Want To Be a Rock 'n Roll Star
Friday the 10th, 1:30pm – 5pm

Speaker: Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus
   

If you want to make music with GarageBand, this session is the perfect first step. The premise is to record, mix, and master a complete rock and roll song — using guitar, bass, drums, and vocals — in 3.5 hours or less.

Along the way you'll discover cost-effective hardware products that make using GarageBand better; how Apple Loops can save you time and effort; how to record vocals and acoustic instruments that sound awesome; using GarageBand's software instruments effectively; and lots of other cool stuff guaranteed to help you produce better sounding music with GarageBand.

 

 

 
 
Digital Photography Workshop
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – 5:00pm
Speaker: Jack Davis
   

Learn the secrets of digital photography on our Mexican cruise. In this full-day class you’ll quickly discover how to become a better photographer and tap the benefits of your digital camera. This Digital Photography workshop will give you the power to capture special moments and preserve precious memories—for snap shots to put in an album or oversized prints suitable for a gallery!

Learn how to:

• Tell beautiful, visual stories by capturing great digital photos

• Use natural light and flash the right way

• Use your camera’s menus and functions to optimize what your camera can do

• Tap the value of a digital camera’s features such as exposure compensation, scene modes, and when to shoot RAW


Part 1: Light, Camera, Action
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – Noon

Light is the primary subject of all of our photographs. In this illuminating, four-hour session we’ll discuss the properties of light (and how it relates to space, depth, and focus) and how to use an understanding of light plus the various camera controls and features to produce technically-proficient photographs from the subtle to the dynamic.

• Understanding the properties of light

• Effective use of traditional camera controls

• Metering and exposure

• F stop/depth of field

• Shutter speed/motion control

• ISO

• Understanding digital camera menus

• Resolution

• File formats—RAW and JPEG demystified

• White balance

• Tone control

• Sharpening

• Putting it all together when shooting pictures


Part 2: Making Better Photographs
Friday the 10th, 1:30pm – 5pm

How do you put a little bit of soul into your pictures? Having control of your equipment is necessary, but only the first step. In Part 2 of this Workshop we will discuss how to move beyond technically well-executed documentation photography to exciting images that allow us to share, in an artful and memorable way, the experience of the moment we chose to record.

• Human vs. camera vision

• Perspective and point of view

• Camera position and lens choice

• Understanding the frame

• Organizing the visual elements

• Keep it simple and the use of negative space

• Design tools for “drawing” the photograph

• Clues to three-dimensionality

• Exploring the subject

• Photographing people

• Travel photography techniques

• Close-up photography techniques

 
 
 
    PHOTOSHOP: ESSENTIALS & EFFECTS
   
Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
Speaker: Deke McClelland
   

Photoshop is a vast and complex program. It does certain things very, very well, and it does others very, very strangely. Using the program effectively is a matter of knowing which tools work best and when best to use them. Attend this introductory class and learn how to use the right features in the right order and save yourself a lot of heartache.

• What Photoshop can do

• Workspace and navigation

• Basic color management

• Highlights, shadows, and midtones

• Adjusting brightness levels

• Fixing a color cast

• Hue and saturation

• Colorizing a grayscale image

• Image size and resolution

• Rotate, crop, and perspective

   
Filters and Masks
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm
Speaker: Deke McClelland
   

Newly enhanced in CS2, corrective filters rank among the program’s oldest and finest capabilities. Besides permitting you to sharpen the contrast of an image, blur away the defects, and remove digital noise and JPEG artifacts, they can help you hone in on exactly those details that need help the most. Combined with Photoshop’s Masking function, filters make it possible to separate even the most complex foreground subject from its background and composite that image into a new setting. Sound amazing? You have no idea.

• Filtering basics

• The new filters in Photoshop CS2

• Unsharp Mask and High Pass

• Removing motion blur with Smart Sharpen

• The wonders of Remove Noise

• Gaussian Blur and Median

• Creating an Edge Mask

• Using the Color Range command

• Extracting image elements

• Blue screen and sky

• Full-on Masking

   
The Bold and the New in Photoshop CS2
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon
Speaker: Deke McClelland
   

Photoshop CS2 is the most ambitious, exciting, and downright seminal update to Adobe’s flagship image editor in the past five years. Vanishing Point, envelope-style image warping, floating-point exposure, and the stand-alone Bridge all qualify as flat-out great. Then there’s my favorite feature, smart objects, which let you do three things you could never do before: First, you can apply non-destructive transformations. Second, you can replicate a layer and edit all copies simultaneously. And third, you can adjust the composition of imported camera raw and Illustrator layers long after importing them. If flexibility and power appeal to you, join Deke and learn how to make them yours.

• The new Adobe Bridge

• The revolutionary Vanishing Point plug-in

• Combining multiple exposures into a
single HDR image

• Applying free-form distortions with
warp and envelope

• Making a smart object

• Non-destructive transformations

• Creating alias layers, all linked to a
single original

• Placing camera raw and Illustrator artwork

• Modifying placed layers well into the future

   
The Wow Factor:
One-Click Solutions in Photoshop
Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 5pm
Speaker: Jack Davis
   

Quick and easy ways to use Photoshop’s built-in presets (and hundreds of complimentary Wow presets that will be provided in class) to create special effects on-time and on-budget.

• The phenomenal power, flexibility, and speed of Layers Styles

• How to create dimensional effects like chrome, rock, and glass (and beyond) — instantly and without filters

• One-click framing and tinting techniques to tie disparate photographs together — separately or as a collage

• Quick template-based collaging for weddings, groups, or editorials

• Single image collages and ghosted backgrounds

   
Creating Special Effects with Photoshop
Friday the 10th, 8:30am – 5pm
Speaker: Bert Monroy
   

Creating realistic textures, the effects of lights and shadows, and the ability to make an image jump off the page will be covered in this session. Filters? There are many of them in Photoshop. What happens when you use them for other than their intended purpose? What happens when you put a few of them together? You will create images that are more realistic than a camera could ever achieve.

The ability to bend things on a curve has been one of the most asked-for features, yet it has always been there. Bert will demonstrate the use of the Displace Filter to make controlled, fluid distortions. The Liquify Filter will also be explored for distortion effects. Distorting with the Transform function will be explored for perspective matching and the creation of realistic reflections.

• Working with Filters

• Using the Liquify command

• Light and shadows

• Reflections

• Integrating Photoshop into other programs
- After Effects
- 3D software

 
 
 
    PHOTOSHOP: PHOTOGRAPHY & WORKFLOW
   
Expert Color Management
Sunday the 5th, 8:30am – Noon
Speaker: Bruce Fraser
   

Learn everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask about color management. We’ll start with a look at the basic science that underpins color management — don’t worry, the session is guaranteed equation-free — because doing so helps you understand not only how color management works, but also why it sometimes fails to do so.

Next, we’ll look at profiles, and their relationship to the devices they represent, with a view to developing sound troubleshooting skills.

Last but not least, we’ll delve deep into Photoshop’s color management features, mine the mysteries of working spaces, and look at what it takes to build and maintain a complete capture-to-output workflow.

   
Real World Camera Raw
Sunday the 5th, 1:30pm – 5pm
Speaker: Bruce Fraser
   

With the advent of Camera Raw 3.0, I look at Photoshop as a plug-in for Camera Raw, rather than the other way around. In this session, you’ll learn the many benefits of shooting raw. Then you’ll learn to exploit the vast amount of information raw files contain by making use of Adobe Camera Raw’s powerful features, so that when your images land in Photoshop, you’ll have very little to do to them except press Save and choose a file format.

Possibly the greatest challenge that digital shooters face is the sheer amount of data they generate. You’ll learn that the key to avoiding drowning in data is to master metadata and make it your friend. You’ll learn how to build a complete digital raw workflow using Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop using automation wherever possible so that you still have time to shoot, and to have a life.

   
Essential Photo Optimizing — Getting it Right
Thursday the 9th, 8:30am – Noon
Speaker: Jack Davis
   


The experienced user knows there are a million tools in Photoshop to adjust your images for maximum impact, but which ones work best, work fastest, and are most “photographer friendly”? In this session you will learn all sorts of workflow-enhancing techniques including: 101 uses for Auto Levels, how to create nondestructive dodge and burn layers, advanced gray-scale conversions, eyedropper color correcting, stained teeth whitening, red-eye neutralizing, blotchy skin unifying, and the only way to use Photoshop’s healing brush — all with an emphasis on quality, flexibility, and speed.

• Which editing tools are best to use when fixing images — and which ones to avoid

• Quick tone and color adjustments that leave your original image intact

• How to quickly fix under and over exposed images using Photoshop features like Shadow / Highlight

• Creating nondestructive, fast, and flexible repair layers for fixing, dodging and burning, and color correcting

• Simplified levels, curves, and sharpening techniques

• Advanced gray-scale conversions using Channel Mixer

   
Editing Images in Photoshop
Thursday the 9th, 1:30pm – 5pm
Speaker: Bruce Fraser
   

Photoshop has so many image editing options that it’s often hard to know where to start, and once you’ve mastered a few tools, you tend to use them for everything (when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail).

We’ll start with basic adjustments like Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Shadow/Highlight, possibly turning up some hidden goodies you may have overlooked. Then we’ll progress to how these basic adjustments can be modulated and controlled using layers, layer masks, and blending modes.

We’ll look at strategy as well as tactics. Do I build a monster layered file that lets me keep all my options open, or do I use History instead? Last but not least, we’ll delve into detail control-dustbusting, blemish removal, and sharpening.