by Ben Willmore | Aug 27, 2013
Hi gang! This past week, we flew from Minneapolis to Seattle for some fun creativeLIVE training events. We just wrapped up Creative Cloud Design Week, which was five days of classes on Adobe’s Creative Suite. There were classes on InDesign, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Premiere and of course, Photoshop. One of the really great things about this week was that most of the other instructors were friends of ours, so it was like a mini reunion! I taught classes on panorama stitching, Photoshop Variables, retouching and plug-ins. If you missed them, you can get them HERE.
Some of the awesome instructors at Design Week! From left, Trish Witkowski, Erica Gamet, Jack Davis, me, Janine Warner, Lesa Snider and Jay Nelson. I couldn’t have asked for better company in Seattle!
During my time off, I went to see a pretty fun documentary called “Sign Painters,” about that seemingly lost art. It was only showing in select theaters for a few days, and I was lucky to find one in Seattle. It was really interesting to learn about the craft and to see how it’s changed, and shrunk, over the years. I’m a sucker for great lettering so I REALLY enjoyed this film. I’d highly recommend it if you’re either interested in the art of sign painting or if you’re one of those people that likes learning about unique topics.
This week, I’ll be teaching the last segment of my Photoshop Mastery series at creativeLIVE. I’ve been teaching one two-day class about once a month for the last several months, all covering different Photoshop subjects. There was fundamentals, retouching & collage, color & tone, creative explorations and masking. For this last class, I’ll be teaching “Ultimate Mastery,” which includes some of the more advanced (but not difficult!) features of Photoshop.
If you’re not familiar with creativeLIVE, you should be! They offer multiple online classes every single day and while they’re live, they’re free to watch. If you end up liking the class, you can purchase it so that you’ll have access to the videos at any time and the bonus/supplemental material as well. For example, when you buy my courses, you get the pdf handbook and practice files that go along with them. My Photoshop Ultimate Mastery class is Aug. 28-29, 9-4 PST. I hope you’ll be able to tune in! Enroll for free HERE.
Another gas station!
Before flying out to Seattle, I photographed yet another vintage service station. I’ve been checking off a lot of these lately! This one was just 2o minutes north of my home town, Minneapolis, and was so tiny!
An iPhone shot of the tiny service station I photographed north of Minneapolis.
by Ben Willmore | Jan 22, 2013
Many thanks to the creativeLIVE team for snapping this photo of me on set.
Hi gang! I just got back from Seattle, where I had an excellent time teaching two online courses at creativeLIVE. I taught a 3-day course on Lightroom Mastery and a 1-day class on Photoshop Mastery: Advanced Masking. If you’re not familiar with creativeLIVE, I highly recommend checking them out. They broadcast live training almost every day, and while its live, it’s completely free to watch. If you decide you like the class, you can purchase it to either stream or download the videos to watch at your convenience. You also must purchase the class in order to get all the course materials. Folks who purchase my Lightroom and Masking classes actually receive a special bonus, because as I was teaching, Karen was following along, creating comprehensive handbooks to go with each class. The Masking handbook is 18 pages long and the Lightroom handbook is 50 pages long!
For more information on the classes or to purchases a course, check out the links below:
Lightroom Mastery
Photoshop Mastery: Advanced Masking
While we were up in Seattle, we got to meet up with my friend Erica Gamet, who also happened to be in town teaching classes at creativeLIVE! Her iBooks Author and InDesign classes were broadcast on the days following my courses. It was nice to be able to catch up with her in such a fun environment.
Me, Karen and Erica hang out after my creativeLIVE classes wrap up.
New Seminar Tour!
And now for some more training news. I’m happy to announce the launch of my new seminar tour, Photographic Artistry with Adobe Photoshop! This will be a full day seminar packed with Photoshop techniques designed to give your photos a creative edge. You’ll learn how to transform a collection of ordinary photographs into seamless, stunning composites. Learn how to remove difficult objects from complex backgrounds, add dimension and depth to your 2D images, master 3D photographic effects, discover the power of Photoshop’s Blending modes, and so much more.
The first two tour dates are March 19 in New York, NY and March 20 in Washington DC. For more information check out the seminar page HERE.
Mastering HDR & Lightpainting
Finally, while we’re on the training topic, there’s still room in my 5-day workshop on HDR & Lightpainting, coming up March 11-15. This will be an intense double feature of a workshop, covering two of my favorite photographic techniques. Once you feel comfortable with those two specialties, then you’ll be able to expand your shooting range beyond the standard golden hour and capture idealized images regardless of what time of day you encounter an interesting subject. This event is being held by the Light Workshops in Los Osos, CA. The gang at Light is great to work with, and students always receive hands-on, one-on-one instruction during these training events. For more information or to register, click HERE.
That’s it for now, everyone. During the next week, we’ll be hanging out in the Eugene, OR area nailing down the layout for the interior of my vintage bus. The shop that’s working on it is making progress every day now. If you’d like to follow the updates, check out the Creative Cruiser Facebook page HERE. More to come…
