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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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.

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.

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