Digital Portrait Retouching

Description: This is a class for people who want to learn how to retouch photographic portraits using Photoshop.

Advisories: Students must be comfortable with computers and possess a basic familiarity with Photoshop or similar software, and its basic image retouching tools, such as the lasso, the burning & dodging tools, the cloning tool & the healing brush.

Course Content: This class will cover wrinkle and blemish removal; skin smoothing and skin tone control; brightening of the eyes; the use of the Liquify tool for altering the shape and size of facial features; techniques for making people appear younger and more vibrant; techniques for overall tone balancing for pro-looking results.

Competencies: This class will provide attendees with a basic understanding of the tools available in Photoshop and the techniques most commonly used for retouching a digital photographic portrait. Upon completion, attendees should be able to enhance a portrait in ways that cause its subject to feel pleased with the finished image.

Materials: Laptop computer equipped with a mouse and mouse pad, external track pad or drawing tablet, such as a Wacom Tablet.

Studio Product & Still Life Photography

Audience: e-bayers, small biz owners selling products on websites, young photogs interested in careers as studio photogs.

Description: This is a basic-to-intermediate, two-session class on still life photography in a studio, using basic studio lighting. Lighting philosophy and techniques will be covered, along with essential camera controls and image finishing. Upon completion, students will have a strong understanding of how to take pictures of various objects using artificial lighting.

Required equipment and skills: DSLR camera, tripod, familiarity with camera in manual mode. Fully automatic point-and-shoot cameras not recommended
 

Topics / Session #1

Explanation of lighting equipment, principles of lighting for various subjects..

Demonstration of traditional lighting techniques using one light, two lights & three lights; highlight & shadow control. Proper lens selection, camera position, camera settings

Demonstration of basic image processing techniques using Photoshop: color and contrast; burning and dodging.