My South Bay Adult School Fall Classes

I now have my class schedule for the fall term. I’ll be teachinbg both the basic digital camera class and the advanced class for those of you who have a digital SLR camera. Or an advanced compact camera, which allows you to set the aperture and shutter speed manually will also work well. Remember, the word “advanced”  refers to your camera, not you. I will also be teaching the Digital Photo Editing Using Photoshop Elements class.

My web site has been updated to show the SBAS fall term. Those of you who are on my email distribution list should have gotten your email announcement by the time you read this.

My class schedule at the Griffith Adult Center in Torrance has not been finalized yet. I should have that information for you in a coulple of weeks or so.

I’m leaving Saturday for a week long road trip to Oregon. I expect to take a ton of pictures, some of which no doubt will end up being the “befores” in my photo editing class. Below are the times and descriptions for the classes I’ll be teaching at SBAS in the fall cpied from my web site.

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It’s now July and the weather is beginning to warm up. The fall term begins Monday, September 14^th. I hope you are enjoying your summer and are taking a lot of pictures.

 All of my classes include an extensive set of exercise notes. The notes are provided online on a restricted web page accessed from my blog. You will be given the password the first day of class.  The handouts are provided in PDF format which is compatible with virtually all computers. I also use the restricted web page to communicate with my students between class sessions.

Registration should begin via the South Bay Adult School web site soon.

 There are two levels of camera classes. One will be for those just starting out and/or using a compact digital camera that does not allow for manually selecting the shutter speed and lens aperture (F-Stop).

 The more advanced camera course will be geared towards students using a digital SLR or a more sophisticated compact digital camera, which does allow these manual settings.

 We will be using Photoshop Elements 6.0 in all of our classes. For those of you who are using older versions of Elements or the new Version 7, I will point out the differences during class, so you can use what you learn in class at home.

 I will be teaching both camera classes during the fall term, and the photo editing class. Remember, these camera classes fill up quickly since they are restricted to 12 students, so register early. Descriptions of other classes I will be teaching in future terms are also shown below.

 Getting to Know Your Point and Shoot Digital Camera

Do you find the manual that came with your new digital camera confusing?  Or maybe some of the pictures you have taken using its programmed or automatic mode did not turn out like you had hoped. Are you struggling a bit to understand or set all of those options you are presented with, let alone knowing how and when to use them? If so, then this may just be the class to help you get more from your digital camera. This is a hands-on course – your hands on your camera. Class size is purposely being kept small to maximize the benefit to you. For those of you who have DSLR cameras, you will probably find the advanced class better suited for your needs, especially if you have previously owned a simpler compact digital camera.

 Please note, there is an information sheet that lists what you should bring with you to class, and a couple of things you need to do prior to the first class meeting. You will be provided this information when you register in person. It is also available when you register online. Click here to view it now.

 Wednesdays 9:00-11:00 am, beginning Sept.16^th (5 Meetings)

 Getting to Know Your Advanced Digital Camera

This class is designed for those people who have a digital SLR or a more advanced compact digital camera that allows the shutter speed and lens aperture to be selected manually. The exercises we do will focus on those features that are available on these more advanced cameras. We will begin using the automatic and programmed modes, but will then move on to the manual modes for more creative control of the image. This is a hands-on course – your hands on your camera. Class size is purposely being kept small to maximize the benefit to you. If you are brand new to digital photography, you may want to take the beginning camera class described above first.

 Please note, there is an information sheet that lists what you should bring with you to class, and a couple of things you need to do prior to the first class meeting. You will be provided this information when you register in person. It is also available when you register online. Click here to view it now.

 Wednesdays 9:00-11:00 am, beginning Oct. 21^st (5 Meetings)

Until next time,

Don

 

Copying Captioned Pictures to CD

This post was prompted by a student’s question. She had a group of pictures she had added captions using Photoshop Elements. She wanted to make a CD for a friend that would contain the pictures and their captions. The problem was that using Share >  CD/DVD did copy the captions, but they were not visible using Windows XP Explorer.  The captions are there, but not easily seen by Windows Explorer. She knew she could make  a slide show that would display her captions and would even allow her to adjust their style and location. But she did not want to go to that trouble.

To be honest, after exchanging a couple of emails, I failed to give her a better way to do what she wanted than to make a slide show. Later it struck me that there was at least one alternative. Make an Online Album and save it to a CD. We generally do not cover this in my classes. Maybe we should, and I might include it in the future.

For now, I decided to make a video tutorial showing how to make the CD and then effectively play it back. The video runs for about 19 minutes. To watch the video, Click Here. After several seconds, it should begin to play. If you have trouble viewing it let me know by posting a comment below.

By the way, those of you reading this who are former students, both the South Bay Adult School and Torrance Adult Center are beginning formulate their plans for the fall term. I should have some news with regards to the classes I will be teaching at the two schools in a couple of weeks or so.  Stay tuned.

Until next time,

Don

Photoshop Elements Quick Reference Guide Plus

Surfing the net today, I rediscovered a site I believe I’ve been to before. Its address is www.customguide.com/quick_references.htm. What you have here is a pretty large list of quick reference guides for many popular programs. They are in PDF format. When printed they look similar to those plastic laminated guides you can buy in a book store. Here is the link to the one they have for Photoshop Elements 6. Even if you are using PSE 7, you should still find this guide quite useful. They also have one for PSE 5.

Check out the guides they have for other programs. I downloaded and printed the one they have for Microsoft’s One Note, a program I use extensively. This site is probably not the only site providing free quick reference guides and it may not be the best. If you know of similar sites providing concise reference guides for PSE or other programs, let us know about them in the Comments section of this post.

Until next time,

Don

Photoshop Elements Catalog File – The Critical Link

Are you backing up your pictures and your Photoshop Elements Catalog? Are you using the PSE Backup command, or some other software program to this? Some of my students, especially those that are new to PSE are doing little to protect their images from either a hard disk crash or some kind of virus. Both can strike without warning. If you have never experienced either one of these catastrophes, you will.

I personally use the PSE Backup command to do my backups. This command not only backs up all of my pictures, audio files, and videos, but also the Catalog file that is the heart of PSE’s Organizer. The number of pictures in my catalog is rapidly approaching 23,000. There are a lot of memories contained in those photos. My ability to find any given picture within 1-2 minutes using the Categories, Sub-Categories, and Tags I have assigned them over the years is critical to me. It’s the Catalog file that contains all of this information about my pictures, including the link as to where a given image is stored on my computer.

I have been using the built-in Background command since it became available in PSE 3. It has worked well for me, and on more than one occasion, its companion command Restore prevented an inconvenience from becoming a disaster. This command can also be used when moving your pictures and Catalog to a new computer. I wrote a couple of articles here about a year ago discussing the Backup and Restore commands. Click here.

Many of my students are backing up their pictures and other data using dedicated backup software that may run automatically. In general, this is a very good approach. However, when I ask them if they are backing up their Catalog file with their chosen program, they normally can’t tell me. The Catalog file is absolutely essential if you ever have to recover your pictures and get the Organizer working properly again. This file holds the pointers to the physical location of your pictures, all of the category, sub-category, and tag assignments, as well as all of the other information you or PSE has generated about your pictures.

Most of us, don’t even know where this file is stored. However, it is easy to find this out right from within the program. From the Organizer’s Menu, click on Help > System Info. A screen like the figure below will be displayed. You can print it or copy it to a document. As you can see, it contains a lot of useful information in addition to the location of the Catalog file.

 

 

The Catalog file is not a large file. It does not contain your pictures, just the critical information about them. In my case, my Catalog file is only 89 Mb. This is for my catalog that contains almost 23,000 images and takes about 115 Gb of storage space to back up.

So what does all this mean to you? Well, if you are not doing any backups now, you should do one immediately using the built-in Backup Command in PSE. If you are already backing up your computer with other software, verify that the Catalog file is included. If it is not add it to the list of folders/files being backed up, or at least routinely back it separately.

One final suggestion, if you are having trouble with your computer and have it repaired by technician, make sure they are aware of this important file. I have helped several people get PSE running properly again, after they had their PC worked on. Although all of their pictures were recovered, PSE could not find them, because the Catalog file itself was not properly restored.

Until next time,

Don

Microsoft’s Photo Collage Program

 

Those of you that just finished the photo editing class at Torrance Griffith Adult Center remember we made a very simple photo collage consisting of only two photos and a background image. The key technique we used to blend the photos together was to borrow the Layer Mask that is part of an Adjustment Layer and apply it to a normal layer. PSE does not have the capability to apply masks to normal image layers like Photoshop CS4.

Expanding the technique to more pictures and making a more interesting collage is possible, but it would take a fair amount of time. The process is only slightly shortened if you use a plug-in that directly gives PSE Layer Masks for normal image layers. By the way we do deal with such plug-ins in the Advanced Editing classes I teach.

But there is a much easier way thanks to Microsoft’s Research Labs. They have created a program called AutoCollage 2008, and it’s free to download. Here is the link to its home page.

            http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/autocollage/

There is a link there to download the program, which is Version 1.1 now. It is very easy to use. After you start the program, you basically just select your images and it does the rest. You do not have very much control of the placement, but you are done in a couple of minutes. One thing I did learn about using it is to avoid select portrait mode images. The program tends to rotate these, which normal you would not want to do.

I find this program to be very useful for making title slides for slide shows and videos. Using it for that, I just select a few of the pictures from the slide show. If you are using PSE, you can use the File > Export command to copy your chosen pictures to a temporary folder. Run AutoCollage using the pictures from that folder, and then delete them after you are done. Remember, since you used the Export command, they were copies that PSE disowned once they were copied. The originals are untouched. Below is an example from a recent slide show I made.

Download the program and try it out.  Let me and others know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Until next time,

Don

Photo Class Handout Pages Removed

Students, as you can see I have removed the password protected pages containing the class handouts for the classes I taught this spring. I will most likely add one or two public pages during the summer. Stay tuned.

Getting the Most From This Blog

Some of you reading this may not be that familiar with reading blogs, or at least the way mine is laid out. So I thought it might be a good idea to orient you a bit. To begin with, blogs show the latest post on the top and older posts in reverse order as you scroll down the page. This is similar to how forums on the internet are organized.

At the bottom of each post or article there is link you can click on to leave a comment or a question. I encourage you to do exactly that if you have a question or a comment. I get an email message any time someone adds a comment.

Blogs can be laid out in any number of ways. In my blog, you will see Page tabs at the top. Pages can be used for a variety of things. I tend to use Pages for those articles and information that I do not want to scroll off the screen in time. For the past several months, I have devoted most of the pages to providing student handouts for the classes I’m currently teaching. These are password protected and will be locked or removed shortly now that school is over for me until the fall.

The Blogroll in the right hand pane is simply a list of some interesting web sites. I will probably be adding to my Blogroll soon. Since a blog is just a long list of articles, you need a quick way to get to previous articles of interest. One way to do this is the Calendar in the right pane. For a given month, those dates that are blue are dates when a post was added. Clicking on a blue date takes you directly to the article.

At the top of the left pane are links to the Pages. It is important to look here for a complete list of Pages, because only so many page tabs can fit across the top.  Below that are the Categories and Sub-Categories which I have assigned to each post or article. It’s a good way to quickly get to a post on a particular subject. Below the Categories are the Archives showing links to previous months.

Blogs are intended to be updated frequently. Due to my teaching schedule, mine does not get updated nearly as much as it should. However, now that it is summer, I should be able to update it much more often. I encourage you to check back periodically. For my students, this will be one of the first places you will see what my teaching schedule will be for the fall at both the Torrance Griffith Adult Center and the South Bay Adult School.

The Entries RSS  and Comments RSS links near the top left of the page, can be used to set up an email reminder/link back to the blog whenever a post has been updated or a new one added. The RSS Comments link will send an email whenever a comment has been added to a post. To set up an RSS feed is different in each browser and/or email program. The figure at this link, http://tinyurl.com/RSS-Feed-IE shows what you should see if you click on the Entries RSS button from the Internet Explorer browser. I use Outlook as my email program. When I subscribe to a given web site using the RSS feature, I get notices sent to an RSS folder, not my Inbox whenever that site/blog is updated.  Each browser and email program may require different steps to set up an RSS feed for a given web site or blog.

In a day or so, I will add my first post for the summer, a very quick yet effective wa to make a photo collage.  Stay tuned.

Don

What Classes are You Interested in Taking?

As you probably know I will not be teaching at either the South Bay Adult School or the Torrance Griffith Adult Center this summer. However, school budgets permitting, I do plan to be back at both schools in the fall. Watch this blog for details as I learn later this summer.

I will be using the summer to improve my classes and their content with the goal for providing help and instruction in the topics of most interest to you. That’s where the above poll comes in. Please take a few minutes and reply to the poll.  I removed the poll. It was not working right. I may add a new one if I can figure out what went wrong.

Also, periodically come back and check out the blog. Since I will have more time, I will be updating it more often with tutorials (some in video format) and other news and comments relating to digital photography.

 

One way to make sure you do not miss any new posts is to click on the RSS feed button at the top of the blog and follow the on-screen instructions. Doing that will trigger an email to you with a link to the latest post. If you are not sure how to do that leave a comment below and I will provide additional help or even a tutorial on how to do it.

One more thing. If you are a current student and have access to the password protected pages above, please complete downloading all of your class handouts. These pages will not be accessible after  June 12th.

Please do not hesitate to ask  questions or leave your comments below. The questions often provide me the source for adding a tutorial, tip or a hint.

Don’t Turn Your Camera Off Too Fast

Yesterday I went to upload some recent pictures from my Canon XTi’s memory card into the Photoshop Elements 7’s Organizer. This is very routine for me having done it hundreds of times.  This time things did not go as expected.

To begin with, I had become lazy and had not emptied my card for some time, although I had previously uploaded all but the most recent batch of photos. In fact, my card had almost 600 images with about 2.5 Gb of its 4 Gb capacity was filed.

As I proceeded to upload the images using File > Get Photos and Videos > From Camera or Card Reader, things went smoothly at first. The memory card was quickly previewed but then I noticed that the actual preview thumbnails were not being generated at some point.  I had seen PSE slow down generating thumbnails in the past, especially if I had a lot of RAW files, but never this bad.

But, I proceeded to the next step, and clicked on the Get Photos button. Nothing happened. PSE 7 had stpped wotking. I had to exit PSE via the Task Manager. I tried multiple times using different card readers with the same results. I began to worry, and was thankful that I had previuosly uploaded the vast majority of the images. But I did not want to lose my recent batch.

At first I thought maybe I was trying to upload too many from the card. Since I had uploaded most of them already, I decided to erase a bunch of them manually from within my camera. I quickly abandoned that approach. I can only do one at a time, or erase them all  and it was going to take a lot of concentration and time to delete them without inadvertently clicking on the Erase All button in my camera.

I then used Windows Explorer to copy the pictures to a folder. I was able to do this. As I was randomly opening the images with Windows Explorer, I clicked on the last picture I had taken, and it had an error that prevented it from being opened. I also noticed, its file size was somewhat smaller.

I put the card back into my camera and deleted that image, the last one I had taken. I put the card back in the reader and proceeded to upload the images using the Get command of PSE 7’s Organizer without any problems. 

I then wondered why that last image was bad. It obviously brought PSE 7 to its knees. Then I remembered. I was shooting RAW,  and my camera takes a few seconds to transfer the RAW image to my memory card. I do not have a high speed memory card. I remember that after shooting the last image, I immediately turned my camera off. I suspect it was in the middle of closing the file and for whatever reason it did not properly complete that operation before shutting down.  

Just to be on the safe side, I reformatted my memory card in my camera rather than just erasing the images. Many people recommend doing this all of the time anyway,  rather than just erasing the images from the card.

So, don’t be in such a hurry to shut your camera off after taking that last shot. That may not have caused the problem, I am not going to take any chances in the future.

Great Shortcut

I have been reading one of my many Photoshop Elements books. This book is by Mark Galer and is called Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 – Maximum Performance. Unlike many books, this one seems to be aimed towards those readers who have been using Elements for awhile and are ready to take their work to the next level. The book comes with a DVD that includes some very useful plug-ins. Well, enough for my endorsement of the book, for whatever use that is.

One of the many things I’ve learned from the book is a very handy Keyboard shortcut that I’ve never seen before. Galer refers to the shortcut as “Stamp Visible”.

Here is how it works. Before learning this shortcut, after I would adjust the brightness, contrast and color of the overall image using Adjustment Layers and felt I was done with these types of corrections, I would flatten the image. I would then move on to other enhancements such as cloning, fixing blemishes etc.  I did this so that my layer stack would not get to complex. I also teach my beginning students this basic approach for the same reason.

This is where the Stamp Visible comes in. After and whenever you have applied several adjustment or other layers to an image and you are thinking of flattening it, create a layer that combines all of your layers to that point on a single layer instead. The shortcut to do this is Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E. This composite layer is then created that combines all of the layers onto a single layer. If the this new layer does not appear on the top of the stack (because you did not have the top layer highlighted), just drag it there. You now can begin working on that layer to do additional editing. If you want to delete it later for some reason, your adjustment layers are still available.

Here is a screen shot That shows the Stamp Visible layer on top of the layer stack.

 Note, I did rename the layer to Stamp Visible – Composite. When it was created it was named Layer 1.

Try this shortcut out. Getting to all of those keys is a good execise for testing the dexterity of your fingers.

Don