Photo Optimization and Repair Techniques: September - October 2010:
This hands-on course is designed for photographers who are not satisfied
that they get the best final images from their camera shots and wish to
improve them using computer techniques.
Adobe's Camera Raw (ACR) processor - which is part of Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements(via plug-in) -
provides easy adjustment of photograph characteristics. In many cases it's just a matter of sliding
a graphic marker right or left or up and down with a mouse pointer to increase or decrease each parameter.
Some adjustments can be made by clicking and holding on the image itself and simply sliding the mouse pointer
up or down to increase or decrease the improvement you have in mind. These facilities allow the editing
to concentrate on what adjustment is needed rather than the complexities of more difficult adjustment tools.
ACR adjustments are also non-destructive to the image master! This reduces the amount of image saving you
have to do and saves computer file space as well. The first part of this course will focus on helping you
learn ACR techniques to "Fine tune" your photographs. See the illustration of Adobe Camera Raw6.1 below
and note the slider adjustments-for examples: Exposure, Fill light and Clarity.
While the simple adjustment tools of the Adobe Camera Raw processor will handle most situations,
there still will be times when recourse to more full featured editing - especially of discrete parts of
an image - will be necessary. Also, repair of defective images (missing parts, scratches, spots and
the like) requires a more powerful editor. In general, the most effective of this type of editing
will involve "Layers", and layer masking to select the specific areas of the images to be adjusted.
Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements as well as other full featured editors like Paint Shop Pro
provide editing using layers. The second part of this course will introduce using layers for
additional optimization and repair of your images. See the illustration of Layers_appearance below
and note the example layers for Brightness, Saturation and text addition.
Students will be encouraged to supply their own photographs to be used in the course.
This course will cover image optimization using both Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop Layers.
The environment will be "Hands On" using 1 PC per student. Since PC's will be used, a basic fluency
with PC techniques is required of students taking the course. Fluency with the Mac alone is not sufficient.
For questions contact me at dpcourse@naples.net.
Kind Regards,
Bill Coakley, Instructor
Illustration of Adobe Camera Raw6.1:
Illustration of Layers (using Photoshop CS5):
