The Digital Photo Guy

For the Summer 2009 session, Palomar is offering 3 classes taught by The Digital Photo Guy. On June 9th and 11th, you can register for Digital SLR for New dSLR Owners. This is a webcast class that runs from 7:30PM until 9:00PM each night. In those 3 hours, I will cover all the knobs, dials, switches and menus on your dSLR, explaing what, they do, how to adjust them and why you want to adjust them. All you need is a PC or Mac connected via high-speed Internet with a standard web browser (MS IE, FireFox, Safari) and speakers. The only thing you’ll miss are the drive to campus, parking challenges, ool white industrial restrooms and chairs designed for 19 year old butts. This class is a prerequisite for the next class.

On July 25th from 8AM until 11AM, we’ll put into action what we learned in the previous class with Digital SLR “Hands-On” Photoshoot. We’ll meet at a local park where we can photograph kids’ sports, critters, landscapes, statues and macros. This is where we practice using all the different knobs, dials, switches and menus so you can capture the correct exposure everytime. This is where we begin to understand composure. And, this is where we learn how to break the rules to make better photos.

We’ll wrap up the summer with Photo Editing for Digital Photographers on August 5th and 6th using Adobe Photoshop Elements to enhance and edit our photos. Half the fun, flexibility and power of digital photography is post-processing, using an editing program to improve photos. Webcast is particularly well suited to learning Photoshop Elements because you work on your own PC or Mac at home. You’re not using a strange computer at the school’s computer lab that’s set up differently from yours. This class runs from 7:30PM until 9:00PM each night and starts with basics that you can immediately apply to your photos and ends with more advanced techniques for photo repair and restoration. Photoshop Elements is the most widely used photo editing program for amateurs. At just $99 ($69 at Costco), it has about 80% of the capability of its big brother, Adobe Photoshop CS4 which retails for $650.

Palomar College is one of the premier community colleges in California. One characteristic that makes Palomar stand out is their willingness to be creative and innovative when other schools are still stuck in the 19th century. An example of this 21st century mindset is the webcast classes offered through Venture, a department of Palomar’s Workforce and Community Development program.

Palomar was the first San Diego county community college to offer The Digital Photo Guy webcasts as an alternative to 19th century classrooms. Using webcast technology, Lee Otsubo, The Digital Photo Guy, can teach literally anyone from anywhere a high-speed Internet connection is available. These are not your grandpa’s computer-based training sessions. These are live multimedia presentations with PowerPoint slides, video, audio and real-time interaction.

You do not have to live in or near San Diego County to register for a webcast class. All you need is a PC or Mac connected via high-speed Internet. Go to the Palomar Venture registration site today and sign up for a class with The Digital Photo Guy. (Summer 2009 classes not yet posted)

I’m back from Bosque del Apache and I have a pile of stuff on my desk so I thought I’d first goof off. Here’s a photo I took at BdA on Saturday, 2/21 before Artie Morris’ IPT started on Sunday. This is the quintessential BdA photo of a snow geese blast-off. Unfortunately, all those cars and people in the frame make it less than ideal.

Playing around a bit with Photoshop CS4, I created this photo.

Let me know what you think. BTW, this isn’t one of my masterpieces so I didn’t put a lot of effort into ehnancing the actual photo to remove all the reflected legs in the water. This is essentially a POC (proof of concept) as it were.

A reader asked how to remove the magazine from the following photo. Like all PS/PSE techniques, there are multiple ways to accomplish this so I whipped up a quick, easy fix for this problem. Here are the original and final photos. Click to see a larger image.

Remove the magazine

Magazine removed

First, I duplicated the background layer by pressing Control+J. Next, I selected the the magazine using the polygonal lasso tool. Remember, in the polygonal lasso tool, simply click the start point and move the mouse to the end point and a straight line will be drawn between the 2 points. The selection now protects the rest of the photo so you can make changes inside the selection but it won’t spill over into the area outside the selection.

Finally, I used the clone stamp tool to clone parts of the fabric over the magazine. When the magazine was completely filled, I pressed Control+D to remove the “marching ants”.  I could see the edge of the selection so, using the clone stamp tool, I blended the edges and ended up with the photo on the right.

I’ve been immersed in WordPress and WP plug-ins for the past week and my core compentecy, digital photography, has suffered. It’s time to get back to writing about what I know and enjoy best.

I’ve been teaching a webcast Photoshop Elements class for the past 5 weeks. This coming Wednesday is the last session but there’s so much in PSE that I’ve written a short MMT (Monday Morning Tip) which can be found on the Tips & News page. MMTs are password protected because they are a benefit for registered visitors. In the future, you’ll have to register to access the MMTs page. For the moment, contact me if you want the password. There are about 80 MMTs covering Photography Gear, Composition, Software and Misc but only about 5 are uploaded at this time. I’ll upload the remainder as time permits.

This week’s MMT (2/9/09) covers a use for Selections that wasn’t covered in the PSE class. As you recall, Selections are used to isolate an area so you can constrain your edit to just a specific area. In the webcast, I demonstrated using several tools to select a flower then move that flower to another photo where it was placed in a young lady’s hair. I also showed how the flower color can be changed by constraining color changes to the selected area.

Today’s MMT shows another application that is patently obvious once you see it but may be otherwise obtuse. I hope you enjoy it and, if it interests you, sign up for the next Photoshop Elements Webcast class starting March 25 at 7:30PM Pacific Time.