This is a 5-part series of Online Photoshop Classes. Each Class is $50. There is a package: All 5 Classes for $200. Here is the web site with the link to register. 

Class 5 – We will cover some very basic simple tips for both capture and editing of Portraits. We will take some time to review the submissions from the last 3 lessons, answer questions, and cover a wide array of resources for your continued fun! I will share what little I know about getting your images seen and getting started making money with images.

I never wanted to learn Photoshop. I was drawn into it rather reluctantly. But as a Nature – Landscape – Night Sky Photographer editing and prepping my images for printing is now an integral part of what I do. In this series of classes we will first cover how to enhance your images using Camera Raw.  This allows you to adjust the shadows and highlights, as well as many other options, and make your image look much closer to what your eye saw when you captured the image. There will be creative lessons about layers and for some lessons you will need to both capture images, and edit them. 

Students must have a current subscription to Photoshop, newest version/subscription. AND HAVE SOME familiarity with Photoshop. Please don’t download Photoshop for the first time and expect to be able to follow along!  The series of 5 classes can be purchased separately for $50 a class, or as a package for $200 for all 5 classes.  You will also need to have a camera or cell phone to capture images with as well as a simple tripod.

Why should you edit your images at all?

The Human Eye sees more than any camera can record. When you capture images of high contrast scenes, like sunrises or sunsets, the camera cannot capture BOTH the brightest AND darkest parts of the scene. So, sunset images you capture with your camera are either too bright in the sky or too dark in the foreground. But this is NOT how it looked to your eye!

You can use Photoshop to make the brightest parts of the image darker, and the darker parts of the image brighter. This is what Ansel Adams did with his black and white negatives, he “edited” them by dodging and burning (darkening and brightening) parts of the image.

In the world of Photoshop, this is easy to do. Of course Photoshop can do more than brighten and darken parts of the image, you can enhance colors, erase unwanted items in the image, and make the image look like the scene you saw with your own eye.

Photoshop can be used to create composites of several images in layers. In the Multiplicity and Levitation lessons (Lessons 3 and 4)  you will capture images and then use layers in Photoshop to blend your image.