My photography students all know that I am a stickler about “photographs” being created with cameras - not computers, and we spend many weeks and months learning how to create great photographs with our cameras.

However, there are times when the best photographer cannot quite extract the best photograph from a scene - no matter how much expertise is brought to bear on the situation. There are just things in this physical world that can present impossible obstacles to getting the perfect light or angle, and yet, the subject itself is still worth shooting.

This is where computer magic comes into photography - to save the day. It is not ok to shoot crummy photos thinking you can always “PhotoShop” them later, but it is more than ok to use image editing software to do what could not be done in the field despite your best efforts.

Image editing is a very different thing than image manipulation. Editing, just as in the editing of good writing, should always be transparent in the end result. A photo after editing is *better*, but not *different* in its essence.

And this is what this workshop will teach you to do - to execute subtle corrections and alterations that can make a perfect photo look like you shot it that way in the first place!

Notes on Pots and Doors (right)
The two photos at the right demonstrate the differences that careful editing can make. The original was shot toward evening in low light. The scene was in a courtyard with a large fountain located just where you would have wanted to stand to get this framed in the right way. Though I had permission to shoot there, I did not have permission to remove price tags or move things around. So I did the very best I could to get the original.

The transition to the version above involved many different kinds of edits, but none of them changed the essence of the original photo. It is still what it was in subject and intent.
This is what you will learn to do in this workshop. Can you spot the differences?

The workshop is run in a private Yahoo Group just as my other workshops are. Two lessons are posted each week - on Monday and on Thursday. Sample photos are provided, but you can also choose to work on your own, of course.

The instructor will answer any questions posted to the Classroom messages, and the Photos section is available in case you need to show a photo in order to make your question more clear.

Studenta are also encourage, but not required, to share before-and-after shots with each other through their Album in the Photos section.

Lessons are downloadable PDFs that you can print and keep forever as a "textbook".

THE CURRICULUM:

Ten Lessons in Photo Editing:

The techniques you learn will be the same ones the pros use to perfect their best photos:

1. Reframing and Straightening

2. Reframing, Proper Cropping, Understanding the Full Range of the Crop Tool

3. Exposure Correction - Global (Correcting "Too Dark" or "Too Light" in the photo as a whole)

4. Exposure Correction - Specific (Correcting "Too Dark" or "Too Light" in just parts of the photo)

5. Color Correction

6. Removing Unwanted Elements

7. Sharpening the focus

8. Correcting Perspective

9. Selection, Part 1

10.Selecting, Part 2

Image Editing Software. Our preference is PhotoShop or Elements (any recent version), but PaintShop Pro can be substituted if you take it upon yourself to figure out where the same type of tools and operations are located.

All versions of Photoshop and Elements are the same as far as the tools and procedures we will use in this workshop. You do not need that latest version.

Adobe Reader.
This is necessary for downloading and printing the weekly Lessons - which will be delivered as a PDF document, posted in the Links section of our Yahoo Group Classroom.

Photographs
Although the photos being edited in the lessons will be offered for download in a low-res version so you can follow along, you should have a stash of your own photographs that need improving in one way or another, so you can practice the techniques.

Tuition. . .

Total cost for the 10 Lesson Workshop is $85.

Sign Up. . .

Click here to sign up for this workshop.