The introduction to digital photography class that I have written about the last couple of weeks is now ready to accept sign-ups. For a brief description of the class and to sign-up for it, click here. That will take you to the  PVNET Annex site. At the bottom of the page, you will see a link to the digital photography class. There you will see a brief description of the class and a link saying “Click Here to Register”. Clicking on the link opens up a form that you fill out to register/pay for the class. Just follow the instructions on the screen.

Please note: Currently there is a typo as to the start date. The class starts on Monday, November 16th, not November 15th as shown.  

After you register, you will be provided a pre-class general information sheet that tells you what to bring and what to do prior to attending the first class. You can click here to see a preview of the sheet.

One of the more interesting new features in the PSE 8 Editor is the Recompose Tool. Basically this new tool allows you to crop from the center of an image. Or in other words, remove the space or objects between two people/objects of your photo. Here is a short demonstration on how to use this new feature. For best results, right click on the link below and select Save as….

Download the MOV file to your desktop or some other folder and play it from there.

PSE 8 Recompose Tool Tutorial

While you are here, take a look at the new class I’ll be teaching this month for PVNET.

Hello Everyone,

I am excited to announce a new class that I will be teaching in about three weeks for the Palos Verdes on the Net  (PVNET) organization. Since this class will be a basic introduction to digital photography, it may not be of interest to those of you that regularly follow my blog. However, you may have friends that are just beginning the journey into digital photography. I would appreciate it if you would let them know about the class. On the other hand, you may also be interested yourself, as a brief review.  Below is a basic description of the class:

Are you new to digital photography? Did you just get your first digital camera and are wondering what comes next? This class may be just what you are looking for. In the course you will begin by taking a series of pictures of Point Vicente Park and the PV coastline. During the course, you will use Photoshop Elements 8 to upload your pictures to the computer, organize them so they can be quickly found, improve their color and brightness, make a simple slide show and other creations, and finally learn how to share them via email, ordering prints, or uploading them to photo sharing websites.

As you can tell by the description, we cover a lot of ground. However, we do not go nearly as deep into any of the topics as we do in my normal classes. The whole idea is give the student a clear idea of what digital photography is all about. The added nice feature is that those taking the class will use the pictures they take on the first day of class throughout the rest of the course. What’s really cool as that basically stepping outside the class room, there is a great view of Catalina, Point Vicente Park and the Palos Verdes coastline.

Here are some of the details.

Working Title: An Introduction to Digital Photography – The Basics
When: Mondays, beginning November 16th from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon for five weeks
Where: PVNET Annex Computer Technology Center, located at 30940 Hawthorne Blvd., Rancho Palos Verdes, 90275. The Computer Technology Center is located adjacent to the Palos Verdes City Hall.

The cost of the  five week, ten hour course is approximately $50. The computer center has sixteen computers (so the class will probably fill up quickly) and provides an excellent learning environment. One of the features I really am looking forward to using is a program called Insight. With this program, I can beam my computer screen directly to each one of the student’s computer monitors. This makes it much easier for the student to see what I am demonstrating. And as stated in the description above, we will be using PSE 8. However, if you or your friends have earlier versions, don’t worry; they will work fine.

As far as I know this is the first public announcement for this class. The PVNET web site should show it soon with instructions on how to register. Also, look for a flyer inside the Daily Breeze in the next couple of weeks.

To find out more about how to register for the class, as well as an aerial map showing the location of the Annex Computer Technology Center, click here.

This opportunity to teach the class came up unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago, which explains why you may not see any reference to it yet on the PVNET web site. That should change very soon. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me of comment below. I will keep you posted of any new developments.

Take care,

Don

Just a quick note about the availability of Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 8. It has been available for download for about three weeks or so. A student told me that Amazon was taking preorders for shipment on October 22nd or 23rd, I believe.

Today, in the Fry’s fold in the LA Times, Photoshop Elements 8 was shown. There was no mention regarding its availability, so I am assuming it’s available now at Fry’s. The street price seems to be $70 after a mail-in rebate. Its price is probably not going to go any lower in the near future.

Below is a link to a video that provides a brief tour of the Organizer in PSE 8. Actually it’s not so brief. The video runs about 20 minutes. Like all of my videos, it is certainly rough around the edges, but hopefully it gives you an idea what the main differences and enhancements are in PSE 8.

The video should begin to play after a few seconds once you click on the link. I did notice that for some reason, my laptop did not show the play/pause button. This means I had to watch it all of the way through. However, my desktop did diplay the play/pause controls. I think it’s a resolution problem with my laptop.

I plan to do something similar to show you the changes and new features in the Editor of PSE 8.

Click here to play the video.

Again, please comment on it’s usefulness, problems viewing it or lack thereof, and any ideas you have for future videos.

Until next time,

Don

Here are a few more video tutorials I made using Photo Shop Elements 6. I made them as backups for one of my lecture cruises just in case I had laptop computer problems and was unable to do the live demonstration. Fortunately, I did not need to use them. They are not very polished, but I think they are clear enough to be helpful. Even though the videos are using PSE 6, they very similar to what you see/do using PSE 7 or now PSE 8.

They do require Active X control (whatever that means), so you will will need to click on the little thin message that appears at the top of your browser after you click on the link to continue. Also, to best view the video press the F11 key, so it displays full screen.

Also, you may find it better to right click on the link and select Save Target as…. Then download the file to your desktop and play the tutorial from there.

1. General Introduction
2. Quick Fix Window
3. Guided Edit – Shadows and Highlights (a different picture than used in the video tutorial posted earlier)
4. Levels Command
5. Panorama – Part 1
6. Panorama – Part 2

I have a couple of more that I will include in a future post if it appears they are useful to anyone. So please comment, ya or nay. Also, let me know if you have trouble viewing them. I may be able to help you.

Here is another one of my cruise-backup videos that demonstrates how to remove red eye. The video was made using PSE 6, but it is essentially the same using later versions. The video is showing the Red Eye Removal tool be used from the Quick Fix window, but it works the same when you access the tool from the Full Editor.

Also, I would suggest that to watch the video, right click on the link below. Then from the pop-up menu, select Save Target As and download the file to your Desktop. Once it is there,  double click on its icon. When the window appears, click on the play button in the center.  Click or better yet right click here.

Please leave a comment and let me know how your viewing of the video went, and whether or not it was helpful.

Thanks,

Don

I put together a table some time ago comparing the basic features in more recent versions of Photoshop Elements.  Now that PSE 8 has been released, I decided to update the chart. Click here to see the table.

With Adobe announcing PSE 8 and PRE 8 a couple of days ago, a lot of my reference material and tutorials need to be updated. In going through my files I came across several video tutorials I had made describing PSE 6. I have never shared these for the most part, some for obvious reasons.  Most were put together as backup or to augment my cruise lectures I gave last year. However, there are a few that even though they were made using PSE 6, they are still useful. The tool or command has not changed in PSE 8.

I decided I better share these before they become totally obsolete. They may not be the best quality, but hey, you can’t beat the price. For the most part, they are in SWF format. This format opens up in your browser. However, depending upon your browser security level, you may have to click once or twice through a warning screen. The first one may be a thin yellow bar at the top of your screen.

I am not going to put them all in this post. I want to see how it goes. Please leave comment and let me know if you were able to view the video and whether or not you found it helpful, Ok?   

The first covers using the Shadows and Highlights command from the Guided Edit panel. It may take many seconds before the video frame loads. When it does, click on the play button in the center of the thumbnail.

    Here is the link.

Let me know what you think.

As you may know, I have been a beta tester for Adobe’s Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements for the past few years. For several months now we have been testing both Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8. Because of the non-disclosure agreements, I have not been able to discuss what the new versions contain. All that has ended.

Yesterday, Adobe announced both products for Windows and Mac. The Windows version is available for download now from Adobe. The Mac version should be available shortly. On their web site, there was no mention of availability in stores. My guess is the programs will be in stores in a matter of a couple of weeks or so.

I will have more to say about the program in future posts. But for now, if you are interested in seeing what it includes, click here. This will take you to Adobe’s page describing the programs.

More later.