by Ben Willmore | Aug 20, 2015
Hi gang! I just wanted to post a mini update on where I’ve been, and what’s coming up. The annual Photoshop World Conference & Expo just wrapped up in Las Vegas. As usual, it was a great event, loaded with lectures, workshops, demos and other fun stuff related to photography, Photoshop and other photo-related software. I was really excited to be able to teach two classes on Adobe Lightroom this time around. I just love Lightroom! It’s so powerful and is where I spend most of my photo-processing time, by far. The classes I taught were “Up to Speed with Lightroom 6/CC” and “Organizing Photos with Lightroom.”
If you love photography and have never been to Photoshop World, I highly recommend it. It’s not only full of educational events but the KelbyOne team really puts together a fun learning environment, hosting parties and other after-hours shenanigans.
The entrance to the conference & expo at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
My image, featured in the Epson booth at the trade show.
Upcoming training events
I’ve got two classes coming up at the end of the month, and the great news is that they are both online classes, and they are free to watch during the live broadcast! As with all CreativeLive classes, they are free to watch during the live event, and then you can purchase the course to download or stream at your leisure and get access to the class handbooks and other bonus materials. The two classes are one-day each and cover photo restoration and the latest Creative Cloud updates to Photoshop and Lightroom.
Here are the details:
Photoshop Mastery: Retouch & Restore | Aug. 27, 9 am-4pm PST
Class Description:
Photographs are among our most treasured possessions, but not every photo was shot under optimal conditions or preserved in an ideal way – making photo restoration a big business opportunity for skilled photographers and retouchers.
If you want to answer every, “can you fix it?” with a resounding “yes,” Photoshop Mastery: Retouch and Restore with Ben Willmore is the class for you. You’ll learn:
- Advanced color correction and enhancement techniques
- Retouching and scratch removal strategies
- Detail enhancements
- Folds, scratch, mildew, ink and water stain repairs
- Reconstruction of missing pieces such as torn corners and rips
- How to make fix faded images and make skin tones more lifelike
You’ll learn what actions to take, the optimal order to perform them, and which tools are right for the job. Ben will share time-saving tips and offer insights on the corrections that create the biggest impact.
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Photoshop & Lightroom Creative Cloud Additions in 2015 | Aug. 28, 9 am – 4 pm PST
Class Description:
Technology is always evolving – make sure you keep pace with it. Join Ben Willmore for Photoshop and Lightroom Creative Cloud Additions and get up to speed on 2015 updates from Adobe.
In this comprehensive class, you’ll learn about all of the changes Adobe made in 2015 and how to integrate them into your daily workflow. You’ll learn about:
- Raw high dynamic range
- HDR + raw panoramas
- Dehaze Adjustments
- Retouching tool changes
- Face Detection and Recognition
- Blur Gallery changes
- Rendering trees and flames
- Local adjustment additions
- Radial and gradient brushes
- Hidden and hard to find additions
If you’ve watched any of Ben’s previous courses, this will be a great way to update your knowledge and ensure you know about all the latest features.
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More to come!
by Ben Willmore | Jun 8, 2015
Hi everyone! Here is a little update on what has been going on here in Ben land. We’ve been working on getting caught up and back into the swing of things after our long international trip, and we’re enjoying being land-based again. On May 29, I presented my first event of the new seminar tour, the Lightroom & Photoshop Creative Integration Tour, in San Francisco. There was a little scare with delayed flights, but I got there on time and the event went really well! We’ve got several more cities lined up, and you can see those HERE. Next up is Seattle on June 19th.
Here is the seminar description:
Ben Willmore is back with a brand new tour for 2015 that shows how best to integrate Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. He’ll show you how to take best advantage of the new features in Lightroom 6 as well as how to move beyond its limitations by taking advantage of Photoshop’s advanced image processing features. You’ll learn how to get the most out of Lightroom by utilizing many hidden features that require the intimate knowledge that only an expert can provide. He’ll share the best methods for organizing your images, show you how to push your image optimization abilities beyond what you thought was possible and then show how to best integrate Photoshop into your workflow. Ben has been using both programs since they were introduced and is known for pushing them beyond what they were originally designed for to get more out of them than what anyone else can teach you. Don’t miss your chance to learn from a digital imaging legend… you’ll be amazed at what you can learn in just one day!
The welcoming crowd at my San Francisco event on May 29.
Back in Florida, where we’ve been hanging out these days, we’ve been doing a little exploring and shooting some more images in my yoga photography series. After seeing how popular the images have become, I’m constantly keeping my eyes open for new and unique locations to shoot more photos. One of the locations we visited was the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. This place is more that just a museum, and you could easily spend an entire day there. The grounds alone are beautiful and expansive. We really enjoyed the museum and the house tour, but the architecture was where it was at, photographically. I found lots of great locations to place Karen and ended up with seven or eight strong images from here. Here are a couple (The header image for this post was also shot there.):
We also drove out to Bok Tower and Gardens in Lake Wales, FL. This is a historic landmark featuring a large and ornate tower that houses a set of carillon bells. The grounds are also very extensive and include gardens, trails, a beautiful estate, cafe and visitor center. We took a tour of the estate and spent a good amount of time wandering the grounds. It’s a nice place to visit if you’re ever in the area. We shot the following yoga image here:
Finally, we did a little shooting at the beach. The sunsets over Florida’s gulf coast are especially spectacular this time of year, and lend themselves to some nice silhouette images. Here is one I shot at Indian Rocks Beach:
I’ve been posting all the images in this yoga series in an album on my Facebook page, and you can see those HERE. More to come!
by Ben Willmore | May 7, 2015
Hi gang! I know I’ve been away from the blog world for a while, and that’s because I’ve been on an extended international trip with VERY limited internet (more on that later). I did, however, want to pop in to share a bit of news.
I’m excited to announce the launch of a brand new seminar tour that will be kicking off later this month. It’s called the
Photoshop and Lightroom Creative Integration Tour, hosted by the fine folks at KelbyOne. This will be a full-day seminar that teaches you how to best integrate Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.
Here’s the official description:
Ben Willmore is back with a brand new tour for 2015 that shows how best to integrate Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. He’ll show you how to take best advantage of the new features in Lightroom 6 as well as how to move beyond its limitations by taking advantage of Photoshop’s advanced image processing features. You’ll learn how to get the most out of Lightroom by utilizing many hidden features that require the intimate knowledge that only an expert can provide. He’ll share the best methods for organizing your images, show you how to push your image optimization abilities beyond what you thought was possible and then show how to best integrate Photoshop into your workflow. Ben has been using both programs since they were introduced and is known for pushing them beyond what they were originally designed for to get more out of them than what anyone else can teach you. Don’t miss your chance to learn from a digital imaging legend… you’ll be amazed at what you can learn in just one day!
So far, here are the cities we currently have on the schedule:
- May 29 – South San Francisco, CA
- June 19 – Seattle, WA
- August 4 – Kansas City, MO
- August 6 – St Louis, MO
- October 19 – Houston, TX
- October 21 – Colorado Springs, CO
- October 26 – Los Angeles, CA
- December 9 – Fort Lauderdale, FL
- December 14 – San Diego, CA
I’m really excited to get back on the road again with KelbyOne, and am even more excited to bring you this fun and exciting new content! I hope to see many of you at one of the upcoming shows.
Click here to learn more and find out where to register.
More to come!
by Ben Willmore | Jun 2, 2014
Hi gang! I just wanted to give you the weekly update on where I’ve been and what I’ve been teaching, as well as a heads up on an upcoming event (that anyone can attend online, for free!). I started out the week with a flight to Sacramento to teach my one-day Photoshop Creativity Seminar. This seminar covers things like compositing, adding dimension to your images, masking, blending modes and more. We’ll be adding more dates and cities to this seminar tour soon, and you can learn more about it HERE. Flying into Sacramento, I also got an extra treat because I was picked up at the airport by my good friend and fellow photographer Lewis Kemper. It had been a long time since I had run into Lewis at an event we were both teaching at, so it was nice to be able to catch up!
My Sacramento Photoshop Creativity Seminar.
Me and my good pal and fellow photographer Lewis Kemper
My stay in Sacramento was very brief, and from there I flew to Eugene, Oregon, where my vintage bus is getting its custom interior installed. If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I’ve been making lots of periodic visits to work on this ongoing project. The interior is really coming along though, so it’s nice to have an end in sight! I was recently able to acquire the rubber fittings that will go around the windows. This might not seem too exciting, but considering the bus is older than I am, things like that aren’t always the easiest thing to find! The Epson printer that we’ll use on the bus also arrived, and I was happy to see that it fit perfectly into the drawer that was designed for it. This drawer is underneath my workstation seat, so whenever I need to print something I’ll just be able to open the drawer, load it with paper and be good to go.
The new Epson printer fitting perfectly into the drawer that was specially designed for it.
The rubber fittings that will go around the windows on my vintage bus.
After leaving Eugene, I flew back to Tampa, FL, where Karen and I will be hanging out for most of the summer. I did want to give you a heads up on another one-day event I’ve got coming up, and this one is easy for anyone in the world to attend, because it’s online. And when it’s live, it’s free! The class is called Photoshop CC Fundamentals and I’ll be teaching it at creativeLIVE. In this course, I’ll demonstrate essential tools and concepts that will get you successfully using the program. You’ll learn about everything from selections and masking to layers, filters and adjustments. I’ll will also point you to the best options for the crucial technical settings such as resolution, color spaces and file formats. Click here to learn more about this class or to register for free.
More to come!
by Ben Willmore | May 5, 2014
Hi everyone! Lately, I’ve been dedicating the blog posts to our recent international travel images, but I wanted to take a little break from that to tell you what’s been going on here in the States, and what’s coming up. After being abroad for a few months, I arrived back in the U.S. and literally hit the ground running, diving head-first into lots of fun Photoshop training and photography events.
The Photoshop Creativity Tour
I basically had time to unpack and repack to fly out to my Photoshop Creativity seminar in Chicago. This is part of an ongoing tour with KelbyOne that hits cities all over the country. At this event, I teach you how to get a little more creative with Photoshop with techniques like compositing, complex masking, 2D and 3D and creating special effects with blending modes. It’s a fun full-day event and I’ve got a few more cities coming up, so if you happen to be in any of these areas, I’d love to see you there! Click HERE for more information
- Philadelphia: May 7
- San Francisco: May 9
- Sacramento: May 28
* We’ll be adding more cities soon, so stay tuned!
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Photoshop for Photographers: Beyond the Basics
I spent an awesome three days at creativeLIVE in Seattle last week presenting by 3-day course called “Photoshop for Photographers: Beyond the Basics.” Not only do I love working and hanging out with the amazing team at creativeLIVE, but the class turned out fantastic! This course is a follow-up to my earlier “Photoshop for Photographers: The Essentials” class, which was also very popular. Where as the “Essentials” class covered all of the basic, must-know techniques for photographers using Photoshop, the “Beyond the Basics” class teaches photographers how to take their work to the next level, covering more of the advanced techniques and tools. Over the three days of training, we cover things like compositing, textures, retouching, hard-to-find Photoshop features and more. If you missed the course while it was live online, you can buy the course (and get all the bonus materials that come along with it)
HERE.
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Vintage Bus Visit
As many of you probably know, I have been restoring my next home on wheels, which is a 1963 Flxible Starliner bus. For the past year or so, it has been in Eugene, Oregon getting its interior fabricated. I have been making periodic visits to collaborate with the team at Paradise Coach, and that’s where I went after Seattle. The bus has been making exciting progress, with all of the wood walls and cabinets being installed and stained, lighting and air conditioning ducts put in, etc. After working on this project for over four years, It’s great to see everything finally coming together. I post a lot of bus updates on the Creative Cruiser facebook page, and you can find that
HERE.
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The Palm Springs Photo Festival
This is an annual event that I love to attend and teach at. It’s geared toward professional and serious advanced amateur photographers and includes seminars, symposiums, workshops, portfolio reviews with key industry figures and lots of great networking events. This is the kind of event where I enjoy being an attendee just as much as I enjoy being a speaker. I love the mix of inspiring talks, lectures designed to help photographers make it in the business world and high quality feedback from industry professionals. This year, I taught two classes on advanced Photoshop ideas and attended many talks as well. It’s also a great event to reconnect with fellow teachers and photographers that I’ve become friends with over the years. Here are a few shots from this year’s event:
Philadelphia & San Francisco
As I mentioned above, I am bringing my Photoshop Creativity Tour to Philadelphia this week and I flew in a few days early to spend the time with Karen’s family in New Jersey (Karen has been in NJ for family-related things during the time I’ve been at the events mentioned here). Then, I will be presenting the same seminar in San Francisco before heading back to Florida, where we are currently based.
I hope that gives you a good idea of what I’ve been up to and what new Photoshop and photography training I’ve got going on! More to come!
The entrance to the conference & expo at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
My image, featured in the Epson booth at the trade show.
