ON-LINE PHOTO INSTRUCTION-- with critiques of your work
My 4- week on-line courses begin again on Wednesday, January 7. I have a new 4 week course in Stock Photography that might interest you. As a professional photographer, the best thing I ever did was join a stock photo agency.
Betterphoto.com, the company for whom I teach these on-line courses, is going back to a quarterly schedule. Starting this year, the 8-week courses will repeat every quarter, not every month. After January, the next series of 8-week courses therefore will start on Wednesday, April 1st.
Do you want to make money in photography? Want to feel more confident in exposure? Interested in learning more about Photoshop (like putting fireworks in the sky or removing lens flare). Are you insecure about your compositional skills?
Trucks -- a great stock shot
I teach several 8-week and 4-week courses on-line for Betterphoto.com
The way the courses work is this. Every Wednesday, you receive a lesson that consists of text and photos, explaining various principles in photography, marketing your work, digital manipulation, or whatever subject you are studying. At the end of each lesson there is an assignment, and you have plenty of time to take pictures and upload them for my critique. You can use photos you did specifically for the assignment or images that you have taken previously.
On-line photo courses are like virtual classrooms but not in real time. Other students can see your pictures, read my critiques, and comment on your work. Similarly, you can comment on the pictures of other students. It is a unique and wonderful learning experience.
One of the great things about these on-line courses is that students participate from all over the world. In a single lesson's uploads, you may see pictures from Bryce Canyon or Brazil, or from Singapore or South Carolina. It's a very stimulating environment, and it will help you become the photographer or digital artist that you would like to be.
On the Betterphoto.com website, you can read the lesson outline of each course and see sample photos. In addition, you can also access the courses I teach drectly by going to my website, jimzuckerman.com, and clicking on the link 'On-line Photo Courses'. at the top of the home page.
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GETTING RID OF CHROMATIC ABERRATION
Wide angle lenses have a problem. At the periphery of the image, and especially in the corners, you can see color fringing that is very unattractive. This is chromatic aberration, and it's an inherent problem in the field of optics. This can be seen at low magnification if you are looking for it, but if you enlarge the images to 100% or more, it hits you in the face.
Here is a shot I took in the Great Smokies in Tennessee. It was taken with my 16-35mm Canon lens set to the widest focal length, 16mm.
Below is an enlarged section of the upper right corner at 300% magnification in Photoshop. The purple fringing can be seen clearly. If you make a small print, you won't see this, but if you make a larger print -- say 16x20 inches or larger -- it will become obvious.
Not all fringing is purple. Some of it is red, cyan-green, blue, and yellow. The image below is another section from the upper right corner at the same magnification, and you can see the red and cyan-green fringing along the tree trunk.
The question is how to get rid of this. In Photoshop, there is a pull down menu command: Filter > distort > lens correction. This can help a little, but in my experience it is always disappointing. It never eliminates it to my satisfaction. Instead, I use the tools in ACR (Adobe Camera RAW).
If you shoot in RAW, as you should be doing, you can eliminate this problem completely. When you open Bridge, you see thumbnails of your RAW files. When you click on one of those images, ACR opens up. This is where you can manipulate color, contrast, exposure, color temperature, etc. In the new CS4's version of Bridge, there are some sensational tools to use. I want to draw your attention to the icon that the red arrow is pointing to in the image below. When you hold the cursor over the icon, after a second or two you'll see the words 'lens correction'.
Click on it, and you will see a new dialog box open up which I've reproduced below. The two slider bars do a phenomenal job in removing the chromatic aberration. Make sure that you've enlarged the image a lot in ACR (using the magnifier tool) so you can see clearly that the color fringing has been removed. Below the sliders for chromatic abberation, you can see that you can also eliminate vignetting at the edges of the frame if there is any. This is a darkening at the corners that is typical of wide angle lenses.
If you shoot in jpeg mode, this kind of control is denied to you. This is only one reason why RAW files are so good.
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LIGHTING IS CRUCIAL WHEN COMBINING IMAGES IN PHOTOSHOP
Assuming realism is your goal when you combine two or more photos, you must match the lighting. The subject and the background must be illuminated from the same direction as well as with the same quality and color of light. You can see in the photos below of the Samburu girl I shot in Kenya that the diffused lighting on her face in the original shot (the brown background) was the same as the lighting on the landscape. Therefore, I knew that when I pasted her into the new background, it would look correct and believable.
 
Now study both of the dinosaur composites below. The reason these look believable is because of the lighting. In the case of the stegosaurus, I photographed the model of the dinosaur in sunset lighting that was striking the animal from the side. The landscape that I used for the background, the Valley of Fire State Park near Las Vegas, was photographed in the exact same kind of lighting. I chose the background first and then photographed the model to match it. With the photo of the amargasaurus, I had photographed it in the shade but in Photoshop I made it a semi-silhouette (with Image > adjustments > levels) as if it had been shot in front of a light background. This is exactly how a camera's meter would interpret the scene.
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A VERY COOL PHOTOSHOP SHORTCUT
I just learned a very cool short cut in Photoshop for Mac users that I thought I'd share with you. You probably know that you can make the size of a tool (like the clone tool, healing brush, paint brush, etc.) larger or smaller using the bracket keys (next to the 'P' on the keyboard). The left bracket makes it smaller and the right bracket key makes it larger.
A faster shortcut is to press the Control and Option keys simultaneously and then drag the cursor over an opened photo in Photoshop. The brush gets larger and smaller instantly!
If you are a PC user, and you know how to do this shortcut on your keyboard, I'd love to know it. None of the key combinations I tried worked.
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MAY 2,3 PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP IN MY HOME
Both the February 7, 8 and March 28,29 Photoshop workshops in my home have been sold out, so I am offering it again on Saturday and Sunday, May 2, 3. Photographers have never had such a remarkably creative tool to manipulate imagery, and knowing how to use Photoshop is one of the most exciting things you could ever learn in photography. I love working in Photoshop, and it's exciting for me to teach it. I know that learning this program can be intimidating, but it's not hard. Really. There is a lot to remember, but going over each action two or three times is what you need to imprint the information in your brain. I will walk you through many of the most important parts of Photoshop, and you won't believe what you'll be able to do with your pictures.
The fee of $450 will include instruction from 9 to 5 on both days, two lunches and one wonderful dinner provided by my wife (who is an amazing cook). I will provide a list of nearby hotels where you can stay. I will shuttle you back and forth to my home as well as pick you up from the airport if you fly in.
This workshop is for beginners who know nothing (or very little) about Photoshop, but it very quickly gets into intermediate and even advanced techniques. Photoshop can't be taught in a linear fashion, like math. It doesn't work like that. For example, you don't have to know how to use the clone tool -- a basic function of Photoshop -- to do layer masks. Similarly, you can learn how to add what looks like a studio background light using the gradient tool, but not understand how to set up short cuts in the Actions palette.
In the workshop, I will begin with the tools palette and explain how the most important tools can be used to make incredibly creative images. Even if you know what these tools do, you will learn ways of applying them to various photographic situations that will amaze you. I will then go into layers and layer masks, selections, replacing the sky, adding lighting effects, adding reflections, making silhouettes, an impressive list of awesome plug-ins (you can download many demo versions of plug-ins using your wireless capability because I have Wi Fi), the relationship between the cloning tool and the healing brush, cloning from one photo to another, and much more. By doing each of the techniques I discuss as I explain them, you will be able to remember the steps and then this wonderful knowledge will be incorporated into your work flow.
 You will need to bring your own laptop computer, and this will make it easier for you to concentrate on the techniques rather than fiddling with someone else's computer. I will demonstrate more creative ideas in these two days than you can imagine.
If you are interested, contact me at photos@jimzuckerman.com. The airport that you will fly into is Nashville, Tennessee (BNA).
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2009 PHOTO TOURS
Carnival in Venice -- Sold out
Poland in July -- spaces available
Namibia in Sept. -- one space available
Turkey in Oct. -- spaces available
2010 PHOTO TOURS
Carnival in Venice
Bodrun, Turkey
For other photo tours, speaking engagements, and seminars that I will be giving, please visit my website: jimzuckerman.com and click on the Blue Mosque photo you see on the home page of the website.
Capadoccia, Turkey
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Missed a newsletter? You can see all of my past newsletters (starting with the February, 2008 issue) if you paste this link into your browser:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs031/1101654139463/archive/1102299763866.html
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INTERNET RADIO INTERVIEW
I was interviewed Ibarionex Perello last month, an excellent photographer and instructor at Betterphoto.com. He manages the website www. thecandidframe.com. He asked me about my career, how I got started, how I handle a down economy, and many other relevant questions that photographers want answers to. I think you will enjoy hearing it. Here is a link to the interview:
http://cdn2.libsyn.com/thecandidframe/The_Candid_Frame_62_-_Jim_Zuckerman.mp3?nvb=20090103221558&nva=20090104222558&t=0d1839c2129408af1eced
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I want to tell about a great new book called The BetterPhoto Guide to Digital Photography by Jim Miotke (published by Amphoto). Jim is the president of Betterphoto.com -- the on-line company for whom I teach. He has written a wonderful book full of stunning images that I think you'll really enjoy.
Instead of feeling at the mercy of your camera, you'll be fully in control after reading this book. In a down-to-earth, easy-going style, Jim gives you everything you need to feel confident about when it comes to using your camera.
 http://www.betterphoto.com/offer-jz.asp
Jim de-mystifies technical topics with clear, simple lessons - without using all the jargon and acronyms that makes your head spin. Jim's explanations make it easy for you to start making better photos right away. Even the photo captions are filled with the details you need to know.
Recently Jim approached me about helping him to "get the word out" about his book. I eagerly agreed to help, especially when I heard about the special one-day promotion he has put together.
If you order Jim's book on Tuesday, January 6th, you can get a bunch of extra goodies. Jim has partnered with several of the top photography companies and individuals in the world to put together a special promotion that will knock your lens cap off.
ON THAT DAY ONLY, when you buy a copy of The BetterPhoto Guide to Digital Photography from Amazon.com, you'll get a wide array of fantastic special bonus extras. Click the link below to learn more about this special event:
http://www.betterphoto.com/offer-jz.asp
Buying this book will be one of the best investments you ever make with your photography. Bottom line, the book will save you years of trial and error, allowing you get to a place of photographic confidence in no time at all.
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