by Ben Willmore | Dec 24, 2007
My new HDR Mastery class is now available on DVD! I know, it’s just in time for the holiday season 🙂 You can thank Jeremy at xTrain for all the delays (I’m more pissed off about the situation than you can possibly imagine and it’s the only reason I don’t have plans for any future classes with xTrain).
The DVD covers the techniques I use to create many of the images I post on this site. If you’ve ever seen an image that resembles an illustration more than a photograph, then you were looking at an HDR image. It’s also possible an image that looks more like a straight photograph as well. This DVD would be useful for images where:
- Shadow detail is overly important
- The scene contains a wide brightness range (beyond what can be captured in a single shot)
- You’d like to exaggerate textures and other fine details
- A scene looks overly busy and you’d to produce a unique look to the image
There are 4 sections to this DVD course:
- Shooting for HDR
- Merging Exposures
- Processing HDR Files
- Enhancement in Photoshop!
I’m sure the question will come up, so I thought I’d answer it here: I do not offer any special discounts for people who have taken the on-line version of this class. Why? Because I don’t have a list of those people and don’t care to maintain a system of keeping track of them since it would distract me from spending time developing new techniques and going out shooting. You could check with xTrain… they might have such a program set up, but I haven’t heard anything to indicate that they do.
by Ben Willmore | Dec 14, 2007
I’ve received my author copy of Photoshop CS3 Studio Techniques today. That means it should start shipping to anyone who has ordered it online and it should start appearing in bookstores soon.
I’ve decided to no longer participate in updating this book (I want to spend more time shooting and having fun and less time slaving over a keyboard). That means this is the first version of the book where someone else has done all the updating for the newest version of Photoshop. I want to thank Ben Long for taking on that task. Regina in my office worked on the revision as well and was nice enough to create the new cover image.
by Ben Willmore | Dec 12, 2007
Here’s a list of the events I’ll be speaking at during January (I’m not speaking at any events this month):
Jan. 11-13: Mastering High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography-Delray Beach, FL
In this small hands-on class, you’ll learn to capture a scene and process it so that it more closely resembles how your eye would interpret the scene. That means capturing full detail in the shadows and highlights in the image instead of allowing them to become under or over exposed. You can even transform your images into something that more resembles a drawing than a photograph since the image will contain an amazing amount of detail in the deepest shadows. In this class I will reveal the exact techniques I’ve been using to create the HDR shots you’ve been seeing on this site (the image above is an early example).
Jan. 15-19: FotoFusion Conference-Delray Beach, FL
I’ll be speaking once a day at this event on various topics relating to Photography and Photoshop.
Jan. 25th: Photoshop for Photographers-Tampa, FL
This is my standard one-day lecture-style event. It’s not yet listed on the KelbyTrianing.com web site, but should be soon.
Jan. 1: PMA– Las Vegas, NV
I’ll be attending the show and teaching a Photoshop seminar during the event.
by Ben Willmore | Nov 30, 2007
Well, I ran out of Route 66 images to process on this trip, so you’ll have to wait until I get back to the bus on Saturday before I can post more.
The photograph above was created by Carolyn Bremer who is a student in my Advanced Photoshop for Photographers class at the LEPP Institute. This image may look a little odd… that’s because it’s a self portrait where the only light source is a flashlight. The light was painted around the edges of the subject and then multiple exposures were combined. She laid her clothes on a chair, light painted them and then came back and held her head in the proper position and painted that in a separate exposure. She then put the shirt on and hugged the chair so her arms where on the arms of the chair while her body was behind the chair and painted them with light one at a time and then composited all the exposures in Photoshop. This was part of some optional "homework" I assigned for my class. I thought it was a fun and unexpected image since the homework was simply to do some light painting of anything (a chair, your car, etc.) and she decided to do a creative self portrait.
by Ben Willmore | Oct 10, 2007
Here are two more images that students created during my three-day Creative Explorations class on Maui. The first day of the class was all about removing the backgrounds on images and a few students took it to an extreme. The image above was created by Mark Middleton which incorporates at least twelve images (and probably a lot more). The image below was created on the first day of the class by Mark’s wife Shayla. They were a great couple and even joined us at a friend’s birthday party later in the week.
Today, I hung out at my friend Kathleen Carr‘s place where I helped to harvest fresh magos & papayas and also cut down a banana tree.
by Ben Willmore | Sep 26, 2007
It’s a little late to be listing seminars for this month:
- October 1-6, Maui, HI: Photoshop: Creative Explorations- This hands-on, week-long workshop is at the Institute of Visual Arts in Maui, HI
- October 8-9, Hilo, HI: Shooting for Photoshop- This two-day, hands-on workshop shows you how to change the way you approach shooting so you can take full advantage of Photoshop to produce exceptional images (including the HDR technique I use for many of the images I post on this site).
- October 17-21, Smoky Mountains, TN: Photoshop for Nature Photographers I’ll be presenting this shooting/Photoshop workshop with Charlie Borland.
- October 25th, Denver, CO: Photoshop for Photographers. This is my normal one-day lecture style seminar that I’ve been presenting for years.
