Hong Kong Lightroom

I'm heading to Hong Kong Monday 9th July for a week. I'll be looking at getting a few copies of Lightroom if anyone is interested. I'll send a blog with the price when I get there. Best to put your hand up now to indicate interest!

Lightroom 1.1

Lightroom 1.1 adds improved noise reduction and sharpening and raw file support for a number of new digital cameras from manufacturers including Canon, Nikon, Olympus.

I've had a play with the new sharpening options, which include Amount, Radius, Detail and Masking.

Last Night for First Photoshop Course

Hello everyone, we are now in week ten which brings us to the end of the course. I want to thank everyone for participating and hope you will come along to more courses.

My promise on Monitor Calibration still holds, wish we had 48 hours in everyday! Anyway, anyone on this course is welcome to take my Spyder2Pro home and calibrate your monitors yourselves. Just email me and we can arrange a time for you to use it.

On Thursday we will be covering the following.

1. How to fix up a portrait
2. Panoramic stitching
3. New features in Photoshop CS3 that will blow your minds!

We may also cover a few other things as time permits.

I will email you all images required for fixing a portrait today or tomorrow. Notes will also be emailed.

Any comments or questions you have, please post them on the blog and we will attempt to cover them on Thursday.

See you then.

Week Ten Task Two - Raw Portrait

Shoot a portrait image in Raw mode. Make sure you shoot the image as bright as possible without blowing the highlights. The histogram should favour the right side in camera. If you use AP mode wind the EV up to move the histogram right if required.

We will look at how to make the most of the image. If you can shoot to get a reflection in the eyes, even better. Then we'll look at a way to bring out the detail in the image and still maintain good shadow detail where necessary.

Have a go, you'll learn a heap!

Week Ten Task One - Panoramas

In the final week of this course we will be looking at how to merge numerous photos together. YOUR TASK. Have a go at shooting 3 or 4 images by panning horizontally or vertically. Bring your images along on week ten.

Take note of the following tips.

Panorama Tips:

Tip #1: You want to take steady shots, so use a tripod or some other stabilizing element like your mate's shoulder, or rest your shooting elbow up against a building.

Tip #2: Include an overlapping element in each shot. Maybe 25%. That is, if you're taking a series of three shots, make sure you include a slice from the first shot in the second, and a slice of the second shot in the third. That way you have bits to align with. This will make more sense when we tackle the Photoshop part in week ten.

Tip #3: Try to ensure that the lighting (exposure) is similar. I suggest you shoot in manual mode and have your exposure set the same for each shot. That way you won't have brightness issues when merging your images.

If you need help on how to shoot in manual mode. let me know on Thursday night and we'll cover it.

Introduction

Hello everyone. This blog is dedicated to helping people on my Photoshop courses understand Photoshop CS2/CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom. I'll be starting a new course on Lightroom in the near future.

You can post questions and I'll answer within a reasonable period of time.

So if you need help with anything Photoshop or Lightroom, ask it here and I'll get back to you.

This blog is aimed at all users from Beginner to Intermediate to Advanced.