Studio Workshop Wonderings

Workshops for this week

Note:  You do not have to sign up for these workshops.  Just drop in.
There are no fees and most workshops use Intermediate and Advanced
Adobe Photoshop CS or Elements. 

All workshops are in the Camera Club Studio Classroom.

Intermediate Digital Photography Workshop

Thursday, February 8, 9:30  to 11:00
"Painting on Pots and on Text" presented by Al Crawford
Al has presented a lesson on how to place an image on a pot.  In particular, you will learn how to place an image of the Tumacacori Mission on a clay pot photographed at the mission.  But this lesson will go even further.  We will us similar techniques to put a texture on written text and to create a drop shadow in Photoshop Elements.

Time will be given at the end of the session for questions and answers.

Advanced Digital Photography Workshop

Thursday, February 8, 1:30 to 3:00
"Moving From Levels to Curves" presented by Al Crawford
One of the first things we learn in Photoshop is how to correct the lightness of an image using levels.  Now let us turn our attention to moving up to curves.  The first thing we will cover is how to emulate levels using curves.  Then we will move on to using curves in very important but subtle ways to improve on what curves will allow.  This topic is for both CS and Elements users.  See below on how to get curves for Elements.

The handout for this presentation can by found online.  This handout contains links to a number of sites that provide tutorials.  And each of them has a tutorial on curves.
Click on this URL for the handout: http://www.crawfordenterprise.com/Photography/Classes/Tutorials/Al/Curves/Curves%20in%20Photoshop.html

Black & White Study Group

Friday, February 9, 9:30 to 11:00
"Ron Barry on Black and White Photography" a discussion lead by Ron Barry

Ron Barry is back from a trip to the Antarctic and it was stunning to say the least (his words.)  He will be sharing his thoughts and expertise with us for a few weeks.  He is considering using some of the material from the latest Rangefinder magazine which is devoted to Black & White photography.  And he probably will talk about Bob Johnson's light against dark and dark against light concepts.

Also bring some of your black and white photos to share with the rest of the group.  This will help you and everyone else to improve on their photography.

Curves for Photoshop Elements

Photoshop Elements (all versions) can do most of what Photoshop CS can do.  But one feature that many wish they had is curves.  Now you can have curves in Photoshop Elements (versions 3, 4, & 5) with SmartCurves.  SmartCurves has some features that even the Photoshop CS versions do not have.  The main drawback is that you do not have a curves adjustment layer.  But what the heck -- its free!  An Al Crawford will tell you how to use curves in the Advanced Digital Photography Workshop at 1:30 this Thursday.

SmartCurves, a freeware plugin that will allow you to use curves in Photoshop Elements, is available for download at http://www.crawfordenterprise.com/Photography/Classes/smartcurve.zip.   To use it copy "smartcurve.8bf" from "smartcurve.zip" to the folder  C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 4.0\Plug-Ins\Filters.  (note:  SmartCurves will also work on Elements 3 and 5).

After you have smartcurve..8bf in place restart Elements. 

Curves will then be found with the following menu combination:   "Filters -- easy filters -- smart curves"

Photoshop CS3 Tutorial

Want to kn ow more about the yet to be released Photoshop CS3.  Deke McClelland's free tutorial on Photoshop CS3 might just be the ticket..  He goes over all of the new features of CS3 in a total of 1.5 hours of video.  These are, however, broken up into topics and each topic is usually about 5 or 6 minutes each.  Access these videos at http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=327.

YouTube for Tutorials on Photoshop Elements

Believe it or not -- there is actually something useful on YouTube.  Go to http://www.youtube.com/ then in the search box at the upper right of your screen type in "photoshop elements".  You will get a large number of hits including many tutorials that are quite professional.  Give it a try.