Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. For me, the entire past week has not been all that exciting. It has, however, been very productive. We are still parked in the Portland area, and I’ve been spending the past several days working on the handbook for my upcoming seminar tour, Photographic Artistry with Photoshop CS6. The handbook is nothing short of a small book, so needless to say, I’ve had my hands full! It’s going to be a good one though, and I hope you’ll come out to see me if I’m headed to a city near you. Click HERE to learn more about the tour.
I’ve also been getting ready for some upcoming travel. This week, I’ll be heading to Iceland to teach a Photoshop class in the country’s capital, Reykjavik. Iceland has always been one of my absolute favorite places to shoot, and because of that, I have been there several times and will even return again later this year. The landscape is something out of a fairy tale. From waterfalls, to story book horses, to mountains & volcanoes, to quaint chapels by the sea, it’s a photographer’s paradise. If you’re interested in visiting Iceland (and I HIGHLY recommend it) we still have some seats available in my upcoming workshop this August. I’d love to have you join me and experience the magic of the place… and of course learn tons about Photoshop and digital photography. Click HERE to learn more about that trip.
Finally, in just two weeks, I’ll be teaching at Photoshop Week, which is creativeLIVE’s first ever online, live conference. It’s 6 days, 12 instructors, over 40 classes, and best of all… it’s FREE while it’s live. If, however, you would like to be present in the studio audience in Seattle, creativeLIVE is now accepting submissions and you can learn how to do that HERE.
While this week was 99% work, we did manage to sneak out of the bus once and we were glad we did because we found one of our new favorite restaurants! It’s a crepe place called Le Happy in downtown Portland, and it was just excellent. I’m not a huge fan of crepes, and I’m not a vegan, but the demi-vegan peanut tofu crepe was one of the best meals I’ve had… ever. Many of the other crepes on the menu sounded excellent too, so we’ll definitely be making a return visit. The place is located in a tiny old building and the atmosphere is quite charming, both inside and out.
Well, that’s it for this week folks. I’m sorry this wasn’t as exciting a post as some, but productivity is good! More to come!
Hi everyone! Having spent several weeks in Eugene, Oregon, we just moved a few hours north to Portland. I’ve been mostly focused on some work projects, and the vintage bus project. The big news this week is that we just announced Photoshop Week! Photoshop Week is the first conference-style event to be held at creativeLIVE, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. This is a live, online event, going on from Feb. 25th through March 2nd. With 12 instructors and over 40 classes, it’s going to be a great experience for all Photoshop users, whether you’re a photographer, graphic designer, or both.
Here are the sessions I’ll be teaching at Photoshop Week:
Photoshop Efficiency Boosters
Learn how to fly through Photoshop features with the utmost efficiency by taking advantage of all of Photoshop’s shortcuts, presets, customization and automation features. In this session you’ll see how to access the majority of Photoshop’s features using your keyboard and how to customize the features you use the most for greater efficiency. You’ll also find out about many hidden features that can increase you efficiency in Photoshop.
Getting Started with Actions
Learn how to automate repetitive or complex tasks by recording them as actions in Photoshop. You’ll learn everything needed to get started using Actions today as well as learning the most common issues that prevent them from being effectively implemented. You’ll learn how to troubleshoot and optimize any action as well as modify existing actions to customize them to your personal needs.
Intermediate and Advanced Actions
Learn how you can push actions to automate overly complex or difficult tasks. Use subroutines to make customization of complex actions easy. Learn how to implement the new conditional actions feature that Adobe introduced in late 2012. Also, get a glimpse of how you can overcome the limitations of actions with scripting.
Mastering Blending Modes
You’ve seen that menu… the one that includes choices like Multiply, Screen, Overlay and Hue. It’s found in many areas of Photoshop including at the top of the Layers panel. Learn how that single feature can open a new world of possibilities in your photo-editing tasks and design projects. Once you understand how each mode works and how they all relate to each other, you will see that blending modes are one of the single most useful features in all of Photoshop!
… my vintage bus project has been seeing consistent progress. The vent fans in the ceiling have been installed, all the engine-to-dash wiring has been cleaned up and mounted to the side wall to keep it out of the way, and the overly large rub rails that run down the length of the bus have been removed. They don’t go with the paint scheme I have planned, but might be replaced by small rub rails that are more similar to those found on Flxible Clippers and Visicoaches. The refrigerator that will be used in the bus also arrived this past week. I’ve been posting constant updates on the Creative Cruiser’s facebook page, and you can follow those HERE.
The new fridge for the vintage bus just arrived. It’s an Italian model from Vitrifrigo that features one drawer for freezer and one for fridge, as well as the upper fridge area. It offered the largest storage volume within the limited height/depth of the vintage bus.
And finally, I wrapped up the week in a very festive way… by attending the birthday party of my friend Kirsten, who happens to live in Portland. Kirsten works at Lensbaby, so I always see her at photography events and tradeshows, but hardly ever get to hang out with her outside the work arena. She had a great little shindig, where we got to catch up and celebrate.
Me and Kirsten at her birthday party in Portland. Kirsten shares my love for IPA-style beer, and she had some on tap at her party!
After spending a week up in Seattle teaching creativeLIVE classes, we returned to Eugene, Oregon, where there was lots of progress being made on my vintage bus project. If you’re not familiar with the project, I am restoring a 1963 Flxible Starliner that we’ll eventually call home. It already has a new engine and transmission but the interior has been completely gutted. The shop in Eugene has just begun the process of installing the new, custom interior.
This past week, I spent a lot of time working with the gang at Paradise Coach, nailing down some of the details. We figured out where the roof airs, vent fans and tank vents will go as well as how I might be able to fit 700watts of solar on the roof. We also spent a good amount of time refining the interior layout.
This is my 3D rendering of the bus’ roof. It shows where the roof airs, vent fans and tank vents will go.
One of the trickiest parts of the interior layout has been configuring workstations for myself and Karen. We both spend a lot of time at our desks, and we need pretty serious setups for what we do. What we ended up coming up with is a dinette-like setup with two 27″ displays mounted above a riser above the table.
This is an iPhone panorama shot of the workstation mockup that Larry, of Paradise Coach, made.
As we’re working out the layout details, a plywood mockup is being put together inside the bus. This is just so we get a visual idea of where things will be and how much space they’ll take up. Once we get to a point where we’re happy with the general plan, everything will be ripped out, and they’ll start building the true interior.
If you’d like to follow the progress of the vintage bus, check out CreativeCruiser.com or follow the more frequent facebook updates HERE.
Ben: I'm a traveling Photoshop guru who loves to explore everything unique and extraordinary. I'm a photographer, former graphic designer and world traveler. Back on March 14th of 2006, I got sick of sitting still and waiting for my next vacation, so I sold 98% of my material possessions and started living on a tour bus ...for more visit my blog, photo site, or photoshop training site.
Karen: I’m a photographer and graphic designer with an aptitude for anything involving pixels. I love being on the move, exploring the world and capturing it all with my camera. I joined Ben living on the road January 24th, 2010. For more on my work and play, visit my blog or photo site.
