Some News

CS4 For Photographer's Seminar with Ben Willmore

Ok. So I went to this seminar on Friday. I just have to say. What a fantastic wealth of information! I mean, I really learned a lot. And I love it. There were some interesting things with Photoshop that I just didn't know was possible. The retouching portion was my favorite. Here are the course topics given during the seminar:

Shooting For Photoshop (didn't attend)
High Dynamic Range Imaging (started attendance here)
Adjustment Essentials
Controlling the Viewer's Experience
Start to Finish

I had no idea what high dynamic range was. But now I have more than enough knowledge to understand what it is, and want to increase my knowledge on it. Fantastic information. The Adjustment Essentials portion and the Controlling the Viewer's Experience were awesome as well. I learned some things about some of the Photoshop tools I didn't realize I could do. Some keyboard shortcuts and icon definitions I didn't know about. And the Start to Finish pretty much walked us through the beginning of an image, after it's been taken off the camera, to the end product. Pretty cool. I was very impressed and satisfied with the seminar and will attend another one if they have it local again. It was THAT GOOD!!!

I'm reading over the workbook we received, which essentially covers everything the seminar covered. I only wish the workbooks had the images in color so you could see what you saw live any time. But I guess there are copyright issues involved which prevents such a thing. Oh well.

National Association of Photoshop Professionals (Click on title to go to site)

Oh my goodness! I love my membership!!!! The wealth of information alone is enough to pay for itself! I was like, WOW! I paid for a year of membership, which is normally $99, but since I'm a student I got it for $10 off. No big deal....unless you're a student! Then, on top of that, I got the current issue of Photoshop User Magazine and some other little bits of information. I get this subscription for the length of my membership. This is standard to the membership. Then there's the free gift I got. I got to pick any one of a dozen training DVD's to have for FREE!!! Wow! I was happy about that. For a 2 year subscription, you got to pick out a DVD and a book. I didn't have the dineros for that. Anyway. So I chose the Lightroom 2 In Depth DVD that sells for $150. FREE!!!! That's freakin' awesome! Since I have Lightroom, it'd be a great learning tool for me.

So if you haven't checked out NAPP, go check it out already! It's a MUST HAVE. And sometimes it's best to register for membershig AT AN EVENT/SEMINAR as you get the additional options that you don't get when you registar online, such as choosing from a dozen different books or training DVD's.

I WANT IT!!!

I saw a Nikon D5000 that I'm just DYING to own. Really. I should write up my equipment wish list one day. LOL. But this is just one cool camera. Click on Nikon D5000 to read more about it.

Eventually, I want to get a D3 or D300, but those are just a bit out of my price range. LOL. Maybe one day.

What The Heck!!!!!

So I purchased my textbook for my next class, which starts in July. And I just cracked it open today. I've had it for about a week. OMG! The smell was horrendious. I hate the smell of cigarettes. The previous owner I guess was a smoker because the smell of cigarette smoke is intense. Infused within the pages! I looked online for a solution to remove the smell. I came up with dryer sheets between the pages and placed in a bag for some time. Also, baking soda. So I asked Christian to pick up some dryer sheets for me and I've put baking sodak throught the pages and sealed up the book. I hope a couple days will fix this. I just can't deal with the smell. I would if I weren't planning on keeping this book. I will be asking future sellers on Amazon if they smoke when buying used books from now on. I've learned my lesson. Though I've purchased used books before on Amazon and never had this problem. Oh well.



Ok. So that's all the news I have for now. Thanks for reading!