October 26 Class Cancelled

The Bad News – The class on basic photography (II) has been cancelled. We just did not get a sufficient number of signups to make the class worth the use of the space at the library. Perhaps we will try again.

The Good News – The updated website and new portfolios have been published. The site is now tablet friendly and will even work on your phone if you are into that kind of pain.

Plans for a class in the spring include an intermediate to advanced Lightroom class and an intermediate to advanced Photoshop class. On the Learning Page at the bottom right is a red box for emailing me.  Please let me know if you think you might be interested in one of those classes. The library promotions go out well in advance.

A challenge to all is to learn to see like the camera sees. The camera does not respond to light the way the human eye does. Learning the limitations of the camera as well as the possibilities will help you move your photography to greater success.

While capture is one aspect of photography, post processing is another, and control over the final image is what you should strive for. Letting the camera decide how your pictures will look is not the road to good images.  You can’t buy great images, you need to learn how to see them, and then how to process them to get what you want from the capture.

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
― Robert Frank

Intermediate Digital Photography Seminar – Digital Photography II

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Saturday, October 26^th at 9:30 a.m. at the Hershey Library.

Something as simple as how you have your camera set (read: picture styles, picture control, creative style). While image style settings in the camera will produce a variety of modifications to your jpg files, they do not affect your raw files. This is why that crisp, punchy jpg on the back of the camera doesn’t appear when you open the raw file to process in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. If you use the camera makers proprietary software it may apply some settings to emulate the image style, and Adobe software can emulate some of that as well, but not to the same degree.

Digital Photography II – October 26th

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Upcoming seminar – basic to intermediate digital photography. Some from the first seminar have requested the conversation continue.

Understanding digital photography is a bit more complex than you might think. Among other things you may be in charge of your images in ways you never considered. Knowing how to use the camera settings and tools is a step in the right direction.

Primary among good digital capture is understanding the difference between raw and jpg capture. Do you know how the jpg style settings in your camera can influence how you expose a raw file? What does the histogram actually represent and how can you use it to get the best capture in terms of exposure?

Essentials – Photography and Processing

The Hershey Library program on Digital Photography and Processing Essentials is this coming Saturday, April 6th starting at 9:30 a.m. You can sign up at the library or simply come to the door.

Essentials includes setting up your camera for the best capture, setting up Lightroom and ACR for best processing, and more.

Digital Photography and Processing Essentials

If you are reading this in an email, please click on the title to read the full blog entry online.

Two weeks remain for you to sign up for the April 6^th program on “Digital Photography and Processing Essentials” at the Hershey Library. The program will start at 9:30 a.m. Please sign up at the library if you can, but you will be welcome at the door as well.

The program will take you through fundamental photography information such as camera settings and understanding how digital photography captures images. We will look at differences in shooting in raw vs jpg, Adobe vs sRGB color spaces, determining exposure, reading the histogram and other essential first steps to good captures.

F/11 magazine downloads

Starting in 2011 a New Zealand base photography magazine was published 11 times a year. That ended with issue 66 in 2017. Rather unfortunate as the magazine was well done and featured portfolios of excellent photographers.

Their site is still active at f11magazine and all 66 issues are archived. They are pdf files and can be downloaded for free. In addition to the photographs themselves there are a lot of articles on photography that are worth reading.

My suggestion is simple. Go get ’em. At some point they will simply cease to exist and a good resource will disappear forever.

Many good photography magazines appear on line every year, and most fail to get enough support to remain in existence for long. Such is the plus and minus of the internet. One place to search for photo magazines and portfolios is Issue, which allows self publishing as well as being an outlet for publishers. There you can search for any subject matter and find free resources.

 

 

Free Program on Adobe LR, PS, PSE

On Thursday evening February 28, 2019 I will present a program on Adobe Lightroom image processing with a follow up for processing in Photoshop or Elements. This program is free to the public.

The program will be held at the regular meeting of the Hershey Camera Club at Country Meadows Retirement Community, 451 Sand Hill Rd., Hershey, PA 17033 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Members have submitted raw files to me which I will use for examples and analysis of capture, raw processing options, and subsequent refinement in Photoshop or Elements. Lightroom has its strong points and its weak points and I will help you make a decision as to when to move on to a pixel based editor to refine your images. I will also be open to questions.