Lightroom 2.0 and Express

During our last meeting we spoke about Lightroom 2.0 and Photoshop Express.

It is clear that Lightroom is becoming an essential part of the photographer's toolkit and Igno mentioned that one of the better sites to visit for Lightroom training was Julianne Kost's website.



To demonstrate the power of Photoshop Express, Igno showed how the pictures he had taken of steamtrains a few weeks before could be uploaded to Express.

For those of you who still care about steam engines, please join http://www.steam-in-action.com
Show that you care!

The example of the steamtrains can be viewed at :
http://igno.photoshop.com/?trackingid=BTAGC&wf=share&galleryid=5bcf94f63b68429dabdd2411bb61d5ff

Photosafari feedback and some links

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The Photosafari was wonderful and I have asked some of the guys for their pics. Here is one of Charles'. One of these shots won him a gold award at the camera club last night.

I have found some great links. Have a look at:

http://www.daveblackphotography.com/

Well, chat later!

Photosafari in the Eastern Free State

Hi There

During the weekend of 15-17 February the BloemAdobe User Group and Dreamagineers will team up with our sponsors APPLE and ADOBE to bring you an incredible Photography/Photoshop/Lightroom workshop.

We will start on the Friday night and cover some elements of Photography as well as LIGHTROOM... If you have a laptop, feel free to bring it along...

This workshop is ideal for anyone with a photography/design interest and will be beneficial to anybody who wants to design better visuals whether it be with a camera or with Adobe Photoshop.

It is aimed at assisting designers, photographers and storytellers to tell a better story with photos and Photoshop! We will look at the power of batch processing in LIGHTROOM as well as PHOTOSHOP - in HOW TO WORK FAST - LIKE A PRO!

The presenter will be Igno van Niekerk who is an Adobe Certified Instructor, an APPLE Distinguished educator, as well as an Adobe Certified Expert on Photoshop.If you know of anyone who might be interested, it would be appreciated if you could forward this e-mail to them.

The preliminary programme includes the following:

Friday evening:

18:00 - 21:00

Getting into the right "Frame of Mind" to create great pictures

ADOBE Lightroom and the process from the moment-through the memory stick to the backup -

Saturday Morning:

06:00 - 10:00 Photo Safari (Taking Pictures)

Return for Brunch

Saturday late morning and noon: Photoshop skills

Saturday late afternoon:

Another Photo safari.

Saturday Night: Photoshopping the day's work - learning to create the final picture that really matters Creating actions, batch processes etc...

(Dinner included)

The Ultimate Photoshop evening

Finishing around 22:00

Sunday Morning:

Early Safari

Pulling it all together -the ultimate HOW TO WOW with PHOTOSHOP, LIGHTROOM and DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY.

Finishing around 13:00.

Anyone who is interested can call Igno van Niekerk on 083 376 1330 or register at www.dreamagineers.com

Kind Regards

Igno van Niekerk

On behalf of http://www.dreamagineers.com

Cost: R950.00 per person - This includes the meals as indicated but NOT ACCOMMODATION AND TRANSPORT . (Please note that each person is responsible for arranging their own accommodation and transport.)

Pictures to be repaired or restored

Here is one black and white picture - see what you can do to improve/restore it, and send the "after" shot to Igno before our next meeting (October 3 - 18:00 - 19:30)

You can also repair any other photo and send the before and after shots - I will then post them here for all the others to see!

See you then - it will be an open session of questions, answers, suggestions and fun - all with the aim of improving our skills in restoring old photographs!

Here are links to some free Photoshop stuff!

Free Brushes
http://getbrushes.com/

http://veredgf.fredfarm.com/vbrush/main.html

http://www.echoica.net/brushes.php

http://cloud-no9-downloads-brushes.blogspot.com/

http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psbrushes/

http://www.ancient-secret.de/brushmain.html

http://www.pixel2life.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5418

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/brushes.html#brushes-500ml

http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_brushes.html

http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/freephotoshopbrushes/

http://www.gamearena.com.au/messageboards/comps/thread.php/2964881

http://inobscuro.com/brushes/

http://www.alterform.com/content.php/Resources

http://www.yusuf-osman.com/tutorials/lightning/lightning.html(a cool lightning brush)
Free Plugins
http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_plugins2.html

http://thepluginsite.com/resources/freeps.htm

http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1981062,00.asp?=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photoshop-downloads/Free-Photoshop-plugins/Most-popular/1/

http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_plugins.html

http://www.outbackphoto.com/filters/filters.html#upsizing(DOP Upsizing plugin)
Free PSD's
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psd/

http://www.psdspy.com/http://www.psdprotocol.com/

http://www.freepsd.com/

http://www.alterform.com/content.php/Resources

http://www.aaronovadia.com/clients/photoshopit/freebies.htm

http://www.bindexed.com/tools/logos/

http://www.thefreelogomakers.com/personalLogos/default.asp

http://photoshopit.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/the-shiny-floor-effect-or-the-very-cool-reflection-effect/
Free Actions
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psactions/?order=9&alltime=yeshttp://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshopactions/

http://www.liknes.no/photoshop

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/photoshop-tools.htm
Free Custom Shapes
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/customshape/?order=9&alltime=yes

http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_shapes.html
Free Patterns
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/patterns/?order=9&alltime=yes

http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_patterns.html

http://squidfingers.com/patterns/
Free textures:
http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_textures.html

http://www.spectralogue.com/textures/index.php

http://www.imageafter.com/textures.php

http://www.textureking.com/
Free Gradients
http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_gradients.html
Free Styles
http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_styles.html
Free Frames
http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_frames.html
Free Displacement Maps
http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_displacement.html

Free Templates
http://www.48hourprint.com/templates_ps.html
Free Scripts
http://www.taunt.com/video_tutorials/index.html
Free Fonts
http://www.alterform.com/content.php/Resources
Meta Lists of more Free downloads
http://www.tutorialtomb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5438http://www.coverdude.com/pslist.htm

Lightroom Night

Hi All
First to all of those who attended the Lightroom evening - thanks so much! The neighbours thought their was a funeral at my house, as we had 22 attendees!
I hope that you are finding working with Ligthroom as inspiring as I am! It is really supercool.
With regards to the question we had on printing, (if you have created a really nice document in the print dialogue and you want to send it to someone who does not have Lightroom), I think the best option would be to go from the print dialogue, where you create your "output" file, and then, if possible print to a pdf file, which the person may be able to open. I will enquire some more as well!
I was also asked about photography courses on the web (Bianca). A very nice (AND FREE) one can be found at:
http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php
You will find 10 lessons, explaining some really timeless concepts!
Enjoy
Igno

Adobe Lightroom - The Experience

Hi all
On Tuesday 24th of July we will be looking at Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom. This is a killer!!
Initially I thought it would be aaahh wellll...somewhat helpful....Now I cannot live without it!!!
Just to whet your appetite, have a look at the following sites before we get together:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
Obviously - Adobe is the first place to start - there are some great ideas as to why, where and when you should be using Ligthroom.
Then, there is Matt Kloskowski's Ligthroom Killer Tips:
http://www.lightroomkillertips.com
On Matt's site, you find short video's on Lightroom - you can also subscribe to his free weekly podcast on Lightroom...
Matt is one of the NAPP guys - and, like always NAPP has some stunning tutorials!! Some of them are for free on the NAPP website (if you are a member, they are all for free!) Check out NAPP at
http://www.photoshopuser.com
Free Lightroom tutorials can also be found at:
www.photoshopsupport.com/lightroom/tutorials.html
As you can see - there is a host of great places to find the Light (room)!!! But next week - we'll be Lightrooming live in Bloem! See you there!!!

18 June: Phostoshop CS3

On 18 June we had our first meeting. We discussed everything that was new in Photoshop CS3. We also decided that we want the meetings to be in workshop format. A friendly sandbox environment where everybody can ask, share and show things that they learnt. Many ideas were discussed and Charles Whitehead mentioned a technique he had seen where, with one drag of the mouse, a picture could be altered. Well, Charles has done his research and here is what it was all about...(Thanks, Charles)...
You can go to: Images>Adjust>Black and White
Then you click anywhere on the photo.
A scrubby slider will appear
If you drag to the right, exposure will increase and if you drag to the left, it will decrease.
Well, have some fun! I have not played with it yet.
We will be having our next meeting on 24 July and there we will be doing a live shoot with Lightroom! I will announce the venue in a follow up e-mail!
The next view months, I am looking at covering the following:
August: Restoring old Photographs - I will be getting some old photographs from the War Museum and we will play with that.
I am also planning a photo-safari in Rosendal for the first weekend in August and will keep you posted!
September: We will be looking at Scrapbooking Ideas with Photoshop. We hope to get a lot of scrapbookers involved...
October: We will be looking at Scott Kelby's book on Photoshop CS3 for Digital Photographers - most of the evening will be spent on finetuning workflowprocesses...
November: The evening will be spent creating, sharing and mindstorming templates for christmas cards and calenders, using Photoshop
December: Early in December we will be celebrating the end of the year with a session on "How to be creative without anyone knowing - fine tuning with Photoshop!", as well as "Getting your pictures on the web!
I will be sharing the specific dates once the venues are finalized - but the great news is that we might soon be using a venue with computers so we can actually practise what we're learning! Watch this space...
For now, if you have not bought Lightroom yet - DO IT NOW - It's one of the greatest investments in your photography!
And lastly, here are some nice places to visit:
http://www.photoshopuser.com
http://www.photoshoptv.com
http://www.photoshopcafe.com

http://www.roscripts.com/The_best_Photoshop_resources_of_the_month-135.html
Have fun!
Igno