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Light Painting in Photoshop CS4

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:45:58 -0500

Light painting is a technique that photographers have been using for many years. In the 1980's, photographer Aaron Jones popularized the technique with the invention of the Hosemaster. This device allows the photographer to apply light to a subject with a fiber optic device in a manner similar to how an artist applies paint to a canvas using an airbrush. This technique lets photographers put light exactly where it is needed during a long time exposure. Combined with a split focus technique, product photography was suddenly given a boost of creativity and a problem solving solution. The down side was that it is a hit or miss operation, requiring many tests to get the exposure perfect with every image being unique. On the other hand, Photoshop's layer masking can achieve a similar effect along with providing problem solving abilities and results that are now editable and repeatable.

Step-1 The technique starts with an image exposure that is generally about 2 f-stops darker than a normal exposure. This serves as a base exposure for the brighter exposure to build upon. A second normal exposure is then created keeping in mind that only the highlight parts will be used. This exposure must be made so that the two are in perfect registration to each other, such that the camera must be on a sturdy tripod, preventing the subject or camera from moving between exposures. If working with one Raw file, two different versions of the image can be created from the single file. One normal exposure is opened and saved, and one adjusted exposure two f-stops darker is created. With both exposures open in Photoshop, select the Move tool by pressing the "V" key, and drag the brighter image over to the darker image holding the Shift key to perfectly register the two together. If you are working on a older existing photograph that wasn't shot as two exposures or doesn’t exists as a Raw file, start by Shift dragging the background layer into the new layer icon in the Layers Palette to create two identical layers in register with each other. Add a Levels Adjustment Layer and darken the bottom layer to simulate a 2 F-stop darker base. Click on the top layer to make it active. Add a black layer mask to the top layer which is the brighter exposure by pressing the new layer mask icon in the Layers Palette, simultaneously pressing the Option key (PC:Alt-key) to fill to black as it is created. This hides the brighter exposure completely from view.

Step-2 With the brighter layer selected, click on the black layer mask to make it active. Paint with a soft brush using white at about 20% opacity to paint in the highlight areas of the subject, remembering that painting with white reveals while painting with black conceals the image. If too much is applied, then switch to black by pressing the "X" key and paint with black to remove the highlight areas. Save the file as a layered PSD file such that  it can be edited again in the future.

For a more dramatic effect, blur the bottom layer by selecting Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, and add some noise by selecting Filter>Noise>Add Noise to give the bottom layer some grain to match the grain of the top layer. This give a selective focus effect to go along with the dramatic lighting.

 
With traditional light painting, almost every image is a compromise in lighting with a hit-or-miss approach to making it perfect. The goal is to create as much of a 3 dimensional feel as possible with the transitions of lights to darks. The image already has height and width, leaving it up to the photographer to create as much image depth as possible with lighting. The biggest advantages of using Photoshop for this procedure over traditional light painting is that there are no restrictions on how large or impracticable the subject matter is along with the fact that you can edit the image indefinitely. You can also take a ordinary scene and create beautiful moody lighting after the fact, no matter how  impossible the lighting restrictions are.

This will be the last Blog post of 2008 as Helene and I are getting ready to do a little traveling over the holiday season. I look forward to creating new tutorial Blog posts next year and I hope they can help you with your imaging workflow. My next hands-on digital imaging workshop will be in Houston in January with Steve Herzberg of Prairie Fire Productions right after Imaging USA conference in Phoenix. See the seminar schedule on my website for details on upcoming workshops.

Helene and I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday.

Helene and I are having another 3 day hands-on workshop April 20th-22nd in Atlanta. We would like to invite you to check out the details at - http://www.software-cinema.com/page/jdw

You can find links to become a fan of my blog on Facebook

After 9 months of work, I have a new 20-page portfolio/studio brochure of my photography and studio capabilities designed by Creative Director Michael Leidel of Steem. If you would like to view a hi-res PDF version, download it by clicking this link. Love to hear your feedback. PORTFOLIO-DOWNLOAD

Check out my new workflow and lighting DVD’s at
Software-Cinema

Click the link below to e-mail any comments or suggestions for topics at
jim@divitalephotography.com

Are you Hungry yet?

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:24:05 -0500

This has been another busy week in the studio. I would like to share some behind the scenes photos from a food shoot with Uncle Ed’s Gourmet Cookies. This time… no cookies…. We are creating a menu board for some new sandwiches and salads they are introducing.
First and most important rule of shooting food…. have a great food stylist. Many restaurant clients think they have a great chef and that is all they need to create the food images…. Nothing could be further from the truth. Preparing food to eat, and preparing food for photography are two different things. If any of you have been privileged to see photographer Joe Glyda do his presentation on Shooting Food Photography at Photoshop World, you already know all this. Joe has an incredible presentation showing the difference between not using a stylist, and having an expert on the set. Sure makes the photography part a lot easier and the retouching almost nonexistent.

Next part… pick the right background… Keep it simple … don’t let it interfere with the product. For this shoot we are using 4-foot cedar wood planks that have been custom sandblasted to enhance the grooves in the surface. Lighting consists of a 4 foot soft-box backlighting the product, a 1-foot soft-box to the left and behind the food to throw some shape into the product, and a single raw strobe head coming from the same direction with a spot grid focused right on the plate of food. This light is set a very low power, but gives the food an extra sparkle and snap. A white card on the right fills in to balance out the shadows.

Camera choice today is the Canon 1DS Mark III with the 90mm f2.8 Tilt/shift lens (my favorite lens for tabletop shooting with the Canon). The lens is tilted forward to increase the depth of field. A custom white balance is recorded to set the perfect color balance. The camera is tethered to the Mac computer via a USB2 cable and using the Canon Utility software to bring each image into the computer as it is exposed. The stylist and clients can view the composition of the images using the Live View function, which they really love. They don’t crowd around the camera this way and give me some space to work. They can all stand around the workstation and view the live image on a 24-inch monitor to see if they like the image before we fire the camera.

The images are transferred directly into Lightroom as each image comes in for any adjustments. For a more detailed explanation of the tethered process with Lightroom, see my upcoming article in the Lightroom section of the next issue of Photoshop User magazine.
Once the images are photographed, the Raw files are all adjusted as a group in Lightroom and exported as 16-bit tiff files into Photoshop. The files are slightly retouched doing a little clean-up and burning down the background some so they all look consistent with each other. They are then converted to final 8-bit files and burned to CD for client delivery along with a web Gallery site posted on line for everyone else on the photo shoot to view.

Check out my new workflow and lighting DVD’s at
Software-Cinema

Click the link below to e-mail me any comments or suggestions for topics at
jim@divitalephotography.com

realistic color blending for creating Prototype products

Sun, 7 Dec 2008 02:32:13 -0500

As with all things in Photoshop, there are several ways to approach assignments. One process I have been developing over the years is how to accurately change the color of a subject for prototype creations. In product photography, we are constantly asked to create a different version of a product due to it’s unavailability during the photo shoot. Now you might think that you could just make it easy on yourself and go into the Hue/Saturation slider and just slide away your problems. Sorry… That’s not always going to cut it when it must look proper in all areas of specular highlights, mid-tones, and shadows. Anything worth doing is worth doing correctly. This Layer Blend formula I want to share with you will give you just the right amount of realism in your color changes.

ASSIGNMENT: I have one catcher’s helmet and it comes in several colors that need to be used in a catalog now… The other colors will be ready in another month. Obviously we can’t wait for them to arrive. Deadlines don’t move. So, the other colors need to be created now and they have to look correct.

Step one: Separate all the areas that need to be changed by outlining them with the Pen tool. Sorry .... there’s no other way…. Yes, you need to learn how to use the Pen tool. My first Photoshop instructor, Photoshop Guru and Mentor, Atlanta photographer Eddie Tapp taught me in 1992 “the most powerful tool in Photoshop is the Pen Tool”. At the time, I laughed…. What the heck did I know? I’m not laughing any more…. He was right, as the tool is still the most powerful Photoshop tool to master for creating selections. For this image, the outer path was created first and the image dropped out of its background. Then all the areas that needed the color change were very carefully cut out from the rest with the pen tool.

Step two: With the helmet area on its own layer, the next step is to take all the color out of it by desaturating it with the Hue/Saturation adjustment. You don’t want any of the original color contaminating the incoming color. This layer will be kept as a backup layer in case it is needed later to brighten or darken the luminous value of the color change.

The layer is then duplicated and then clicking on the Lock Transparent Pixels Icon in the Layers Palette protects the pixels from the incoming color change. The foreground color in the tool bar is changed to the new color for the prototype product. The layer is then filled with the foreground color and it’s filled only in the pixel area while the transparent area remains untouched.

Step three. The Blend Mode is changed to Multiply and opacity changed to 50% to start with. The Layer is duplicated again. The Blend Mode of this next layer is changed to Overlay at 50% opacity. Duplicate the layer once more and change the layer to Color at 50%. The amounts of opacity will need to be adjusted somewhat for each color, but 50% is a good starting place.

The black and white layer is then adjusted in Levels to bring the values to their proper brightness for the final image before flattening the layers.

The beauty of this multi-Blend Mode technique is that it protects the specular highlights and gives a much more realistic color change than some of the other approaches to color change Photoshop has, such as Match or Replace color. I use this technique on so many different types of products with surprising realism that even the clients can’t tell the difference… Give it a try and I would love to hear how it works for you.

Helene and I are having another 3 day hands-on workshop April 20th-22nd in Atlanta. We would like to invite you to check out the details at - http://www.software-cinema.com/page/jdw

You can find links to become a fan of my blog on Facebook

After 9 months of work, I have a new 20-page portfolio/studio brochure of my photography and studio capabilities designed by Creative Director Michael Leidel of Steem. If you would like to view a hi-res PDF version, download it by clicking this link. Love to hear your feedback. PORTFOLIO-DOWNLOAD

Check out my new workflow and lighting DVD’s at
Software-Cinema

Click the link below to e-mail me any comments or suggestions for topics at
jim@divitalephotography.com

Creating the perfect exposure with Photomatix Pro

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:26:04 -0500

In the days of film, we had to compromise the end result when it came to the final pick from a bracket of exposures. When Photoshop first introduced Merge to HDR, we saw all of that change. We could now have the best parts of the bracket all in one image, but the control is still a bit limited. CS4 didn’t really bring any new controls to this as I might have hoped. If you’re going to be serious about HDR images, you will need Photomatix Pro from HDRsoft. This $99 software that can be a stand alone program, or a plug-in to Photoshop, can give us the extra controls we need to control the blending of the images to give us the dynamic range we are looking for to create the impossible exposure we are looking for.

I start by shooting a group of 3 to 5 exposures about 1 to 2 f-stops apart. Adjust the shutter speed for the bracket instead of the F-stop to keep a constant depth of field. In this example assignment image of an art center in Newnan, Georgia I used the auto bracket feature on my Canon 1DS Mark III set to Aperture Priority and 1 ½ stop bracket. This produces a bracket of images exposures: 1 normal, 1 bright and 1 dark.

In the Photomatix software, I open the images by clicking the Exposure Blending button in the dialog box and browse over to the group of files. In the process control panel, I click the Shadows & Highlight - Adjust button to access the controls and adjust the image to blend the highlights, mid-tones and shadows together until I have proper detail within all the area.

Using the Tone Mapping settings dialog box, I fine-tune the image to get the most realistic image possible. At this point you can make the image very surrealistic or realistic depending on the settings. If you decide to go for a creative surrealistic looking effect…. Warning! Be very careful… I am going to say this as nicely as I can. I have seen this approach make images look very cool, or very, very stupid. A little good taste can go a long way…. If you don’t have any good taste to start with, this software effect isn’t going to give you any. Be careful not to overdue the effect. I prefer the more realistic approach myself.

Next, you process the image into a 16-it file from the 32-bit HDR and open in up in Photoshop for any final edits. I am currently shooting an entire book of interiors of historic homes of Marietta Georgia this next year using this process. The future of imaging is shooting everything in elements for perfect control of every part of the composited photograph. Anything less is cheating yourself of a perfect image. Have a great week!.. Jimmy D......

Click the link below to e-mail me any comments or suggestions for topics at

jim@divitalephotography.com

Photomerge in Photoshop CS4

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:46:52 -0500

The panoramic format has always been a cool format to shoot in, and with Photoshop's Photomerge automation, anyone can shoot high-resolution panoramic photos. Getting it to work smoothly, however, takes practice. With a few simple procedures on the shooting end, the composited images will work seamlessly together.
The first challenge is to determine the correct exposure and white balance. Don 't use any automatic setting on your camera. If the focus, exposure, or white balance is set on auto, the camera will slightly shift the focal point, exposure, and color to reflect what it's pointing at. If you're photographing during the day, set the white balance to daylight or cloudy. For more critical color, do a custom white balance of the area you're shooting. You can hold the camera vertically for horizontal panoramas to capture more top-to-bottom height if needed. Remember, you can always make it as wide as you want by taking more photos from left to right. Each image needs to have about a one-third overlap of the scene with the next image. Overlapping too much or too little makes it harder to get seamless stitching. When shooting, try to keep the camera as level as possible.

The proper exposure should be a balance of the brightest and darkest areas in the full subject area. For example, if the area on the far left of the scene is showing a proper exposure reading of 1/125 at f:8, and the exposure on the right side is reading 1/125 at f:11, set the camera on manual exposure at 1/125 at f:8-1/2.If you're shooting several attempts of the same subject, shoot a blank image at the beginning and end of each run. This will make it easier to determine where to start and stop the process in Photoshop. Once the scenes are photographed, gather the images in a folder and view them in the Adobe Bridge.

Holding the Shift key, click on the first and then the last file in the sequence to select all of them. If they need to be rotated, do it now by clicking the appropriate rotate icon at the top right of the Bridge. This will make the stitching process easier to manage. From the Bridge menu bar, choose Tools>Photoshop>Photomerge.

Photomerge will automatically stitch the images together. In many cases, the tops and bottoms of the images may not line up perfectly so you'll have to crop those transparent areas for the final image. When you're finished cropping the image, flatten the layers adjust it just like any other image. But remember that panorama file sizes are much larger because you're using several images together. Many inkjet printers allow you to use a long sheet of paper in the manual tray to create longer prints. Next time you're out taking photos, try a few practice shots to get the feel of creating stitched panoramas, then you'll be ready when that special scene suddenly appears.........

This past Saturday I held my first Photoshop Tune-up clinic class at PPR in Atlanta. It was the first of the once a month 4 hour classes I will be teaching in Atlanta. We covered many of the new features in Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. I am looking forward to many more in the future. For information on the classes, check the website in December at www.PPRAtlanta.com. Helene and I are off today back to Santa Barbara for the Thanksgiving holiday. I will be writing all my new workbook notes for Photoshopworld East 2009 in Boston. I have all new classes this year, so I got lots of work ahead of me this month to get finished. Till next time.... Jimmy D..

Please e-mail me any comments or suggestions for topics at jim@divitalephotography.com
TH

It’s all about the transitions

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:04:05 -0500

Welcome to my first edition of “Tune-Up Clinic”. I am going to do my best to keep up with this on a very regular basis. Writing these tips and techniques will be good practice for me if I ever get started on writing a book. The techniques I want to share with you are about speeding up and organizing your imaging workflow from capture to final archiving. Your feedback will always be welcome.

Realistic Selections for Composting Images

There are so many ways to create selections in Photoshop. Whether you prefer the precision of the pen tool or the quick and easy magic wand, it’s what happens next that makes the composites look realistic. In the years of working in the darkroom, I would make composites with the use of Ruby-lith film. This red plastic film would block the exposure from reaching the film or photographic paper, and the clear film would let the light pass through. That’s the way the Quick Mask preferences are set by default on every version of Photoshop. The Quick Mask (activated by pressing the “Q” key) shows us a visual representation of what is selected. Double click the Quick Mask Icon in the tool bar to access the options for this tool. Changing this preference to “Color Indicates Selected Area” instead of “Color indicates Masked Area” and Opacity set to 100% instead of the default 50% will give you an added edge in you selection decisions.

I have found that seeing what “is” selected rather than what “is not” selected helps in determining the proper amount of feathering needed to add to the selection to make it look real…. Here’s the reason for this… Every selection (except type) needs to have some amount of feathering to look real. Three to Four tenths of a pixel feathering will make a very big difference in how real a composited image will look. If you look very closely to any digital photograph at the transitions between tones, you will notice that pixels don’t just jump form one tone to the next, there is a transition of three or four pixels from one tone to another that makes it look real. I see many composites that have edges that are too sharp and do not match the natural transitions of the tonal range in the image. The composited elements appear as if it was cut out with a razor and stuck on the new image instead of a natural transition of tones at the edges. To get this natural look you can use Refine Edge from the Select Menu. This Dialog Box uses whatever preference you have selected from the Quick Mask Options and translates it to this box as well.

When you click on the Quick Mask Option, the Color will represent the selected area. Zooming in very close to the edge lets you see the softness of the transition. You don’t want the element to look blurry; you just want a very natural transition. Files that are between 10 and 25 Megs in size, a .3 amount will work very nicely. Small files less than ten Megs would need .1 to .2 amounts added. Over 25 Megs might need more like .4 to .5 set in. This might seem at first like such a small detail, but it does make a difference in making the composited image look real and not cut in with an X-ACTO knife. Anything worth doing is worth doing the right way.
Now that the new element is in place, it’s time for resizing it to fit. Free-Transform bring up the boundary box around the selected element or layer. Pressing the Shift Key will constrain the proportions, but try adding the Option (PC Alt) Key along with the Shift key to constrain the element from all sides at once. This makes it much easer to keep the selected element in the original positions it gets bigger or smaller. These small steps will make the composites easier to do and more realistic in the end. It’s the little details that really count…

This week, Helene and I will be working in the Atlanta Studio. Finishing up a running shoe catalog and re-profiling the Canon 6100 Printer with the updated 16-bit print export module are on the list of things to do. This Saturday will be my first “Tune-up Clinic” class held at Professional Photo Resources in Atlanta. These will be regular classes held once a month to help keep Photoshop and Lightroom users ahead of the learning curve with new software training and digital captures techniques. You can find more info by clicking this link... www.PPRAtlanta.com.
I have posted a hi-res version of my new 20-page studio brochure for anyone who would like to see it. You can download it clicking on this address. www.divitalephotography.com/portfolio.zip

Watch for my guest blogger entry this Wednesday on NAPP President Scott Kelby’s blog... www.ScottKelby.com

Training DVD’s and Information about our Hands-On Atlanta Studio Workshops can be found at www.software-cinema.com

To send any comments or suggestions for topics, please e-mail me by clicking this link. jim@divitalephotography.com

Thanks.... Jimmy D.

greetings from the southwest

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:29:45 -0400

Having a very relaxing vacation for once without having to give a program… Can you believe it! Well… this week anyway… Giving a program in San Luis Obispo, California on Monday for the Gold Coast Professional Photographers Association. Back to the crazy schedule…. Anyway… Helene and I have been checking out the sites in Arizona. Had a nice morning at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. Shot lots of Cactus plants and played around with the IR camera. Wednesday and Thursday was spent in Sedona… I have always heard how beautiful it is, and now I know what they meant… WOW… This is some great place for landscape photography… This is more of a quick scouting trip, because you really need to spend some time here to get in all the photography that this place has to offer. We took a Jeep trip with a guide into the off road areas and had a great time. As usual, we lucked out to be a private trip with a really great guide that really knew his stuff. We are ready for another visit ASAP for more of this…
I am back to Atlanta on Wednesday for catching up with studio projects. Only back for the week as I get ready for another Canon Explorers of Light program for the LA chapter APA. Then off to Ohio for a two day Adobe/ASMP seminar before going back to Atlanta for my fist digital imaging program at a medical conference with photographer Mark Maio. Looking forward to some new directions with that. Here are some shots from the vacation….. Till next time.. Have a great week….

Click here to send any comments to jim@divitalephotography.com

On the road with Photoshop CS4

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:27:46 -0400

After a long delay, I am finally back to writing my Blog…. This week I will be in Santa Barbara and returning to Atlanta on the first of October. It has been a busy two weeks in Atlanta after Photoshopworld getting ready for the release of Photoshop CS4. Adobe has asked me to make presentations all across the US on their behalf to professional photography associations. 24 hours after the announcement of CS4, I was making my first presentation at The Creative Circus for the Atlanta Chapter of Advertising Photographers of America (APA). The program consisted of new features in both Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. In this fast paced 2-hour program, I reviewed new features like Content-Aware Scaling and Extended Depth of field for a room full of pro photographers from around the Atlanta area. 24 hours later I was doing the program again for the Los Angeles chapter of APA. Chicago will be one of the next as Adobe lines up other cities for me to go to speaking to both chapters of APA and ASMP. Thanks to photographer Hugo Carrion for the great behind the scenes photos from the Atlanta program.

Last week I was in South Carolina doing a program for ASMP at the BMW Zentrum Theater. Spent the rest of the weekend with Helene and our family in Spartanburg celebrating her mother’s 92nd birthday. You would think that most people would be retired and relaxing at this age…. Not my mother-in-law… She runs her clothing store 6 days a week and travels around the country having fun. I get tired just watching her go.
While we were there, Helene and I took a trip to Asheville, North Carolina to visit the Biltmore House. We spent the day taking the tour of the largest home in the USA and taking photos around the estate.

To leave a comment, please click on the address below to e-mail me at jim@divitalephotography.com

Back from Las Vegas

Mon, 8 Sep 2008 01:04:52 -0400

We came into town early to meet up with Fred to do some shooting. Helene got us set up to take a tour of the Neon Boneyard, An outdoor collection of neon signs from the hotels and casinos of Las Vegas past. We had an hour to shoot as much as we could on the walking tour. In the afternoon we drove over to Lake Las Vegas to have lunch a look around. Got lots of cool elements for some new montages.

Next day was a 4-hour pre-con session that was a live “In The Studio” shooting class. We covered color management, calibration, exposure, histograms, and shooting techniques that included different still life product shots like this golf club ad done as a live demonstration. Helene got to go on a live shoot pre-con to a nearby ghost town with Joe McNally and Moose Peterson.

That night we had our opening NAPP staff and instructor dinner at Maggiano's. Time to get caught up with our NAPP family and catch up on what everyone has been doing…

The next morning was the opening Keynote with Johnny L. and John Nack from Adobe giving us great info on upcoming technology and features of what Adobe has in store for us. My assistant Hugo was a finalist in the conference Guru awards in the commercial photography division.

My first class was “Creating The Fine Art Montage” where I did a step-by-step version of my hands of brick illustration. In the afternoon Helene ran the Portfolio review where she coordinated instructors and conference attendees in 15 min meetings.

That night, Helene talked our way into being let into the House of Blues private club on the top floor of the hotel for a tour of the club and a few minutes of shooting off their patio with the best view in town of the Las Vegas strip….

The NAPP party went on from there with lots of food, people, and music from Scott Kelby’s band Big Electric Cat.

Moose and Helene find a new way to use an I-Phone.

Friday is always the big day. At least I didn’t get stuck in the elevator for 45 minutes like the class last year. It starts early in the morning getting set up with all the lighting equipment sent in by my lighting sponsor Booth Photo. www.boothphoto.com. I teach a live still life class for an hour, followed by Helene teaching a live portrait shooting class. Joe Glyda then does his live food shoot, followed by Frank Cricchio’s advance portraits classes. We all work together to get the classes done, Big thanks to Hugo, Fred, Julie, Steve and J F for all the help with packing and moving equipment all day with us to get this done. At the end of the last shoot we have only 15 minutes to prepare the room for my Art of Digital Photography panel with pretty much the whole conference in attendance.

The Art of Digital Photography is a 2-hour panel I host with 6 other photographers where we each show 15 minutes of our newest and best work. Jay Maisel, Joe Glyda, Joe McNally, Julieanne Kost, John Paul Caponigro, and Moose Peterson joined me on stage in what is considered by many as one of the best programs at Photoshop World. It’s lots of fun and a big honor for me to host it. I did two slideshows showing both my commercial work and my artwork to start things off.

The last day is seeing the trade show floor and meeting with many of our sponsors. We all gather for one big end of the show get together for a wrap up of the three days done by the NAPP video crew…

Final party in Scott’s hotel suite as we all say goodbye till next time.

Click here to send any comments to jim@divitalephotography.com

Canadian tour finishes up in Montreal

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:37:44 -0400

Wow… What a fast packed two weeks…. Just back from my two-week Photoshop/Lightroom tour of Canada. Although I didn’t have much time to see each place, I got some good exposure to all the different areas of this beautiful country. My special thanks goes out to Gordon Scade, Professional Photographers Of Canada’s Education director who accompanied me throughout the tour. We had great weather, on-time flights, great hotels and food, and friendly faces everywhere we went. From Vancouver, British Colombia, all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia, we had great feedback on the tour. Our last stop in Montreal brought us to a very nice Château in the country side where I did a two day hands on class to French speaking pros…. They did a great job of keeping up with my English, but thing got a little strange for me when I discovered their French versions of Photoshop and French computers have totally different setups. All my keyboard shortcuts were a little out of place and we spent time working through the hands on projects. From removing a 5’oclock shadow from a portrait to complex displacement mapping montages, they keep right up with me and had a great time with all of it…. Their English was a lot better than my French, but everybody communicated together through the international language of digital photography and art.

Gordon keep me living the good life while I was on tour...

Took some time to get a little sightseeing in.......

Then back to classes... and then back to sightseeing......

Back in Santa Barbara, Helene taught a class on creativity and creating greeting cards, so we both got a good tune up for what’s next....
PHOTOSHOPWORLD 2008 - LAS VEGAS

PHOTOSH

Back in the studio to get caught up for a few days on shooting, then off again to another Las Vegas Photoshop World. I will be in Las Vegas for the week of Sept 1st and I am looking forward to another jam-packed week of both teaching and learning. For the first time I am changing my Pre-Conference 4-hour class to a live shooting session, so we have our work cut out for us. Have lots of help and support from Helene, Fred, Steve, Jean-Francois and Hugo to make these sessions run smoothly. Could not pull this off with out their help. Of course, Helene will have her hands full teaching digital portraiture, Marketing and running the Portfolio review for attendees wanting feedback on their photography work for the Photoshop World attendees. This is a job that takes weeks of work ahead of time coordinating the PSW attendees with the proper instructor for feedback that really counts. Planning a day of shooting with Fred and Helene before it all starts around Las Vegas, and hope to fit in a nice show before we leave.

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