Final Using Your Camera Classes for the Spring Starting Soon

The second section of the camera classes I teach will be starting in a couple of weeks. Registration is ongoing at both schools, with enrollment kept to a minimum.

South Bay Adult School: “Using Your Digital Camera”, May 10th. (5 weeks)

Torrance Adult Center: “Your Digital Camera”, May 5th (5 Weeks)

Both classes are structured to accommodate users of the sometimes (but definitely not always) less powerful compact cameras, as well as those users with the more feature-rich system cameras and digital SLRs.

These will be the last classes I will be teaching this spring. As usual, I am taking the summer off to recharge my batteries for the fall term and do some travelling. I will be active here on the blog throughout the summer, however.

Check back periodically, and better yet, subscribe to the blog by clicking on the RSS feed. That way when I post a new entry, you get notice of it in your email.

Digital Scrapbooking Course at PV NET

PV NET is offering a digital scrapbooking course beginning Monday, May 9th. The class meets twice a week and will run through June 8th. Fortunately for those who attend the course, I am not the teacher – I’m not very creative.  

However, this class will allow you to apply what you’ve learned in my classes to share your images in a creative way.

To find out more information about the course, click here – http://www.palosverdes.com/edu/scrapbook.html

To access the registration form for the class, click here –  http://www.palosverdes.com/edu/Registration-scrapbook/index.cfm

If you need any additional information, you can call Emily Chen at PV NET at (310) 544-5395,

Removing Color Casts

There are several ways to remove a color cast in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. The technique I describe below uses the Levels Command, but it cannot be done using an Adjustment Layer. This is is probably classified as destructive editing. However, it is easy and often is faster and better than other approaches. Here are the basic Steps:

1. Open the image in the Full Editor.
2. Duplicate the Background.
3. With the duplicated layer active click on Filter > Blur > Average. The image now is a solid color that is the overall color cast of the image.
4. Sample this with the Eyedropper Tool to set the Foreground color.
5. Delete the solid color layer or turn off its visibility.
6. With the Background Layer active, click on Enhancements > Adjust Lighting > Levels from the Menu bar.
7. Click on the gray Eyedropper in the Levels dialog. Then click on the foreground Color square at the bottom of the Tool Box.
8. Click Ok to exit the Levels Command.

The color cast is magically removed.

Here’s an example.

Before

After