About the Course

Whether you are a seasoned film photographer transitioning to digital or a new digital photography enthusiast looking to maximize the impact of your images, Photoshop CS3 Fundamentals for Photographers is an excellent starting point for learning the powerful tools and techniques available for expressing your unique vision through photography. This three-day workshop is an introduction to the tools and features of Adobe Photoshop CS3, the world’s most popular imaging software. Participants will be taught the basic skills and techniques required to harness the awesome power of Photoshop CS3 when creating and enhancing their photographs. This is not a class in basic computer skills and participants are expected to have a good level of proficiency using the Windows operating system, including a familiarly with downloading, finding and opening files using the Windows explorer.

What You’ll Learn

The Photoshop Fundamentals course will cover:

• Cameras and resolution.
• An explanation of the Histogram and how to gain control over it in your camera.
• JPEG vs. RAW for image capture
• Fine tuning Color Settings and Preferences to maximize performance.
• The need for Monitor Calibration and suggested calibration utilities.
• Setting up and saving a customized workspace.
• Keyboard shortcuts.
• Menu bar and Tool Option bar contents.
• Toolbar tutorial explaining every tool’s function.
• Using the Adobe Bridge to find and open your images.
• Working with RAW images.
• An introduction to layers, adjustment layers and layer masks to enhance images.
• Basic selection techniques.
• Proper image resizing etiquette.
• Image sharpening techniques.
• Adding type to an image.
• Printing procedure and workflow.
• Automated functions of Photoshop.
• Black & White conversions.
• Highlight recovery using camera RAW.
• Saving files as .JPEG, .PSD or .TIFF.
• An introduction to Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Who should attend?

This class is the first step towards learning and mastering Adobe Photoshop CS3 and is designed for people with limited or no knowledge of the program.

What Should I Bring With Me?

We recommend that you come prepared with the following items for this course:

• Jonathan will be teaching this course with the aid of “Photoshop CS3 for Nature Photographers: A Workshop in a Book” by Tim Grey.  It is highly recommended that you purchase this book and bring it with you.  He will be referring to the book extensively and feels it would be beneficial for you to come with your own copy. It is not absolutely necessary that you do, however it would be greatly beneficial for you in both the short and long run.
  
• Yourself, ready to learn and work in a digital darkroom!
  
• Your digital SLR camera. All of the class time will be spent in the digital darkroom, however the Lepp Institute is located on California’s beautiful central coast and there is time before and after class to create images.
  
• About ten to twenty of you’re own images (preferably digital files - make sure c.d.'s, flash drives or portable hard drives can be read by Windows machines) to work with during the course.
  
• If you need them, a good pair of both reading & regular glasses.

Schedule-At-A-Glance

Here is an outline of the topics to be covered so you'll have an idea of what to expect: