Lightroom 5 Class Coming to PVNET

 

PVNET Annex

 If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that I teach classes for PVNET, a non-profit organization in Palos Verdes. I’ve been teaching classes there for about three years or so. Beginning in March, and going through May, I will be teaching a series of six different classes.

One of them will be Lightroom 5. I’ve been wanting to teach a beginning class in Lightroom for some time, so I am really excited about finally getting a chance to do this. Many of you have asked if I was going to teach a Lightroom class sometime. In fact, I excited about the entire series of classes.

We are still finalizing the details, but here is what we know so far. To begin with, all of the classes will be either Friday afternoon or Friday night. They will each be four weeks and meet for two hours per session. One of the unique features of the classes is that there will be an open one-hour lab between the afternoon and evening class where students of either class can drop in for some extra help or to work on individual projects using the skills they learned in their particular class.  Afternoon classes will start at 3:00 pm and the evening classes will start at 6:30 pm, with the joint lab session running from 5:00-6:00 pm.

Also, for most of the classes you will be using your Windows or Mac laptop and working with your own pictures.

Here are the classes.

March

3:00-5:00 pm              iPad/iPhone Photography

6:30-8:30 pm              Lightroom Level 1

April

3:00-5:00 pm              Introduction to Digital Photography

6:30-8:30 pm              Photoshop Level 1

May

3:00-5:00 pm              Movie Maker Level 1

6:30-8:30 pm              Lightroom Level 2

Look for more information, including how to register for these classes in the coming weeks. Shortly, information on how to register for these classes will be posted on the PVNET website.

For those of you who have taken classes at PVNET, you know that it is a great facility. Space is limited, however, so you will need to sign up as soon as registration opens to secure your spot.

Let me know what you think about these classes by leaving a comment.

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Photoshop Elements Editing Class This Spring

Yes I know the Winter term has barely started. But since I know what I will be teaching in the spring for the South Bay Adult School, I figured I might as well pass it on now.

Check out the page on my website at the link below to see the description and schedule for the classes I will be teaching at SBAS this spring.

My Spring Classes at SBAS

 

 

South Bay Camera Club Meeting Announcement

The South Bay Camera Club is a very active group of photographers. The club routinely goes on photo shots, holds regular meetings with guest speakers and photo evaluations. It is a very friendly group that possesses a wealth of knowledge in its membership.

Below is an announcement on the upcoming meeting that also includes a link to the club website.

Bob King, SBCC publicity chair
compubob.king@gmail.com

Monday

January 27, 7:00 PM

CLOSE UP / MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY Presentation:  Mark Comon, local professional photographer and vice-president of Paul’s Photography in Torrance, will give attendees hints and suggestions for taking outstanding close up photos using Macro lenses.  All who are interested in photography are invited to attend this meeting.  Come and see what the SBCC has to offer photographers, from beginner to pro.

 

Where: Torrance Airport Administration Building meeting room, 3301 Airport Drive, Torrance.

When: 7:00 PM, Monday, January 27.

Further Information can be obtained by phoning Bob King at (310) 701-7644 or by logging onto the club website at www.sbccphoto.org.

 

Use Adobe Camera RAW to Edit Video

I have been shooting RAW images with my camera for over four years now. Thus, I am very comfortable using the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) editor in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

I also take a fair amount of videos with my digital camera, which always need some sort of editing. I generally use Adobe’s Premiere Elements of Microsoft’s Movie Maker as my video editor.

For a while now, Photoshop has been able to edit video clips, but I have not really made much use of it. However, Photoshop CC has taken its video editing capability to a new level that is quite intriguing to me. In Photoshop CC, if you import a video clip and then turn it into a Smart Object, you then can edit the clip using the Adobe Camera Raw as a filter. Doing this I can use the same tools and sliders that I routinely use on my still images to edit my video clips. By converting the clip to a Smart Object, every frame is corrected rather than just the first frame of the video.

Below the before and after example of my first attempt at correcting a video clip in this way. The original was shot in lighting that resulted in the video having low contrast and no real snap. I corrected it as described above.  I only made a subtle change using the ACR, but it did improve the video.

Original Video Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2d2zjszGJo

Edited With Adobe Camera RAW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSem6stGEfU

This certainly warrants more investigation on my part. Also, can I get the same or better results using Premiere Elements or Movie Maker?

Have of you tried this approach? What did you think of the results?

Carbonite Has Completed!

Sometime around midnight of December 31st, my initial backup using Carbonite was completed. I actually started the initial backup in mid-November as I commented on in this post.

https://don26812.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/carbonite-slow-but-steady/

As the initial backup was being done, I really did not notice any performance hits in using my computer. I did leave my computer on for the most part, which is my usual practice.

So as of right now, I am backing up 148,940 files that consume about 486 Gb of cloud storage. The bulk of those files and the storage space they consume are due to photo images.

Now that I have completed the initial backup, I will find out a bit more about Carbonite itself. For example, my video files, which also take up a lot of local space were not part of the initial backup, but I understand  that I can back them up manually using Carbonite.

As I said earlier, Carbonite is kind of my doomsday backup. I will continue to back up my data files and photos/videos in my normal manner. But it is nice to know that Carbonite has my back.

I am interested in your experience with Carbonite, especially how it worked out for you for recovering destroyed local files. Please share your experience and thoughts in the Comments below.