One onOne with Mike Wong

I just got an email from Vincent (as did anyone else on his email list) about an upcoming week-long class that he is co-teaching that is a little out of the ordinary so I thought I'd blog about it.

It's called "Photography Under Fire". Here's the description verbatim from the email.

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Pixel Boot Camp takes digital photography to the next level.

Too often, the process of making something faster and more efficient means sacrificing creativity and aesthetics — if you have to get the job done and get it out the door, creativity takes a back seat to functionality. Digital photography master Vincent Versace says otherwise.

Versace's Pixel Boot Camp, being offered at The Workshops September 23, offers experienced photographers a new set of tools for maximizing efficiency and creative content under less-than-favorable circumstances.

Co-taught with Chief Mickey Strand, Leading Chief of the U.S. Navy Combat Camera Group Pacific, the course offers students new techniques for producing quality images in stressful situations. From packing a gear bag to homing in on the most compelling images in a volatile environment, Pixel Boot Camp is an opportunity to learn from the same team that trains military personnel how to take photos under fire.

"The beauty of Pixel Boot Camp is that it’s an opportunity to learn how to work under fire, getting in and out quickly and following tight rules of engagement while still functioning in a creative sense," said Versace, who is widely recognized as one of the digital world’s leading photographers and teachers. "The course teaches how to be quick, fast and efficient while being creative at the same time."

The intensive, one-week workshop will include shooting exercises aimed at training the eye and focusing on the critical elements of any shooting situation, as well as a offering techniques for handling digital images and improving work flow. This is the first time that this training has been offered outside a military facility, and Versace is looking forward to bringing the course to The Workshops.

"Of all the workshops and educational facilities I have been involved with, the most target-rich, most beautiful place is definitely in Maine at The Workshops. It took my breath away," said Versace. "The school’s location, combined with its incredible dedication to the art of photography is just outstanding."

Pixel Boot Camp is the first in a series of exciting new digital courses being offered at The Workshops this fall. To find out more about this and other Maine Media Workshops programs, call (877) 577-7700 or go online at theworkshops.com

Posted by Mike Wong at 10:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just got off the phone with Jim DiVitale and he has graciously offered to provide two of his fine art prints for us to give away to two lucky winners at Photoshop World next week. The prints are going to be 16x20 inches and though I haven't seen them yet, I'm sure they'll be amazing like the rest of Jim's work.

Be sure to stop by our booth (#515) on Thursday next week to see how you can win one of these prints.

Posted by Mike Wong at 2:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just read over at Photoshop News the Business Wire press release from NAPP announcing the 2007 Photoshop Hall of Fame Inductees. And the winners are...

Andrew Rodney and Kevin Conner.

Congrats gentlemen!

You can read the press release here.

Curious to know who was nominated?

Finally, you can read more about the Photoshop Hall of Fame here.

Posted by Mike Wong at 2:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As some of you might know, there was a full lunar eclipse earlier this morning and since I've never seen one before and the next one isn't until next year, I figured I might as well set my alarm for 1:30 am, get up and take a look for myself. Of course, I took out my Canon 20D along with my 70-200 f4/L IS (which I was wishing was a 600 f4/L IS) along with my trusty (but aging) Manfrotto tripod and my favorite ball head ever, the Really Right Stuff BH-55 with quick release clamp.

After many shots at a variety of f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO settings, here's my best shot of the bunch. It's my first real attempt at night photography and shooting the moon so if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears and would love the feedback. I've got 6 months for the next one.

8/28/07, 3:01:52 AM PST, 1.0 sec at f / 4.5, 192mm, -2/3 EV, ISO 800, Canon EOS 20D, 70-200 f/4 L IS

Image copyright 2007 Mike Wong

Posted by Mike Wong at 1:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Every now and then you get a nice surprise. Maybe you find a few bucks in your pants pocket after it goes through the wash. Maybe you get your cell phone bill and see that they actually owe YOU money. Maybe you go home and the kids are playing nicely together and dinner is on the table. :-)

This morning, I had a different kind of surprise. I have a bunch of Google Alerts set up to help keep me updated on a variety of things related to photography, Photoshop, what people are saying about onOne products, etc. And as often happens when I get one of these Google Alerts, I click on it to see the full context of the keyword that is being searched faithfully by Google. Sometimes you find what you're looking for sometimes you don't. Anyway, I went to one of the alerts I had this morning and it led me to a Flickr group that I hadn't seen before and discovered some amazing photography and some amazing Photoshop work.

The photographer's name is Rebekka (and I don't know all of the correct html codes to spell her last name correctly - sorry). Here's a link to her Flickr site. Absolutely stunning work. It makes me want to leave right now and go shoot. Thanks for the inspiration Rebekka.

Posted by Mike Wong at 9:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Stan Sholik with AfterCapture Magazine recently wrote a review of Genuine Fractals 5. One of the nice things that AfterCapture does is they post a nice quality PDF of their reviews so you can download it and read it at your convenience.

If you're interested in reading Stan's review, here's the link to the PDF.

Posted by Mike Wong at 9:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Heads up all you Canon shooters out there looking to upgrade your DSLR bodies...Canon's finally announced (as anticipated by many) that the 40D is on it's way. Check out the release on the Digital Photography Review website.

I was thinking I'd save my money for the 5D, but at a list of $1299 (and I would think the street would be less than $1000 to compete with the D80), this could very well be my next camera.

Hmmm....now if only I can convince my wife that I need to buy a new camera. :-)

Posted by Mike Wong at 12:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I posted earlier about sessions at Photoshop World Fall 2007 that you don't want to miss on Day 1 of the conference and now here are my Day 2 selections for sessions you won't want to miss.

If you enjoy still life photography or if you make a living at it, you won't want to miss Jim DiVitale's session at 9:30 in the Digital Photography Live Studio Track. The session is called "Still Life Photography Shoot Live" and I can guarantee you that Jim will teach and show you something you didn't know before. I was in Atlanta once last year and stopped by Jim's studio and he gave me an improptu Photoshop class and taught me a ton...but I digress.

If Still Life isn't your thing, go over to the Creativity Track and catch Joe McNally's session on "Shooting for Major Magazines". Joe has a resume second to none and the portfolio to back it up so I'm sure he'll be showing a bunch of his work so this will be a hard one to miss.

At the 11:00 am session block, I would do anything I could to be in Helene Glassman's "Lighting for Digital Portraiture" class. Few things will improve your photography like proper lighting and Helene is one of the best on the subject. To prove it, Helene has been living minutes away from The Brooks Institute of Photography for over 20 years since she graduated from there and has maintained a successful studio even with hundreds of new graduates to compete with each year.

You get a 2 hour break for lunch, so if I were you - here comes a shameless plug, sorry - I'd stop by the onOne Software booth (#515) at 1:00 after you eat. We're giving away an iPhone to one lucky attendee. Stop by our booth on day 1 for details on how to win.

At 2:30pm, I'd make my way over to a new session this year called "Lightroom Power Session" with Chris Orwig. Chris is a new Photoshop World instructor this year and is an amazing photographer - so you'll get to see some great stuff in his demo I'm sure - and a wonderful teacher, not to mention a great guy. Be sure to see him there if you can. If you miss him there, he's got several sessions on the Tech Expo theatre and in the Peach Pit booth.

In the 4pm session, you'll have to choose between Jay Maisel's new "Light, Gesture and Color" and Rick Sammon's "Working Hard at Having Fun in Digital Photography". Jay and Rick have opposite teaching styles so you'll most likely want to pick the session that you think you'll enjoy the most. I suspect Rick will be full of energy and will get the class invovled while Jay tends to be a little more subdued and presents in more of a lecture style. Both sessions will be great I'm sure, just pick the one you think you'll like best.

At 5:15 I'd either go back to the Lightroom track and see Tim Grey's session on "Photographic Workflow in Lightroom" - though if you saw Matt Kloskowski's session at 9:00 on workflow you might be covered. I think I might have to go see Joe Glyda's session on "How to Light for Shooting Food". I'm not a food photographer and I don't plan on becoming one, but Joe is an amazing presenter who is hilarious as well so I would go to this for the sheer entertainment value. Joe has been the top guy at Kraft foods in the creative department for something like 15 years (or more) so you know he's had to figure out some cool and creative ways to stay fresh there.

At 7:00 pm, you will not, I repeat, will not want to miss the "The Art of Digital Photography" presentation. There's no instruction, just a bunch of great slideshows by Jay Maisel, Vincent Versace, John Paul Caponigro, Jim DiVitale, Joe McNally, Moose Peterson and Joe Glyda. Don't miss it.

That's a very busy day 2 but well worth it. I'll post my day 3 recommendations next.

Posted by Mike Wong at 6:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Like many of you, I've been to quite a few Photoshop World conferences and have had a chance to see some great instructors and learn an incredible amount in a very short period of time (have you ever wanted a one hour session to keep on going? I have. Anyway...)

Here's my list of sessions that I've seen before (some of them under different names) that I would highly recommend you go to. For a full class schedule, visit the Photoshop World site.

Day 1 - September 6, 2007
First go see "The Art of Photoshop" with Bert Monroy at 10:45 am. Bert is truly a master and has no equal. He'll show you things you never knew were possible in Photoshop.

Now if re-creating reality with Photoshop isn't your thing (which is what Bert will show you how to do), I highly recommend Jim DiVitale's session on "Creating Photographic Fine Art Montages". Jim will take photos that you might think would never work well together and through a series of selection techniques and blend mode changes, he'll create a piece of fine art that is nothing short of stunning. Get there early if you go to this one as it typically fills up and is standing room only. This session is also at 10:45 am.

Next, go see Dave Cross in his session "Photoshop Finishing Touches". Dave will show you some great ways to manually add border and edge effects to your photos.

You'll have to choose between Dave Cross and Scott Kelby for the 12:00 to 1:00 pm slot. Scott has his "Photoshop Killer Tips for Photographers" which is always a crowd-pleaser and filled with great tips and tricks delivered like only Scott can. This is a tough one for me, but I'd suggest you go to Scott's class if you're newer to Photoshop and looking to learn more of the "make your photos look better" and I'd say go to Dave's session if you've already got a handle on that and are looking for ways to better show off your work.

I'll talk about my Day 2 picks in my next post.

Posted by Mike Wong at 7:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Photoshop World 2007 Las Vegas is coming up very quickly and we're finalizing our plans for our new and improved booth. We're also firming up some schedules to have some wonderful and truly amazing Photoshop instructors speak in the onOne Software booth (#515). This is going to be a great opportunity to see some of the Photoshop World Dream Team instructors in a small and intimate setting as opposed to sitting in the back of a room with 2,000 other attendees. So be sure to check back here and stop by our booth to get the final schedule.

For now, here's a list of Photoshop Gurus who are scheduled to appear in the onOne Software booth at Photoshop World 2007 Las Vegas.

Jack Davis
Jim DiVitale
Laurie Excell
Helene Glassman
Vincent Versace

Posted by Mike Wong at 12:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I've always liked the idea of creating panorama photographs. About 10 years ago, I bought a small travel (film) camera that had a "panorama" feature that essentially was a switch that you would slide to one side or the other and when you looked through the viewfinder, voila! You had a pano shot. Well, not really, two pieces of black plastic just came in and cropped your viewfinder and then the developer at the foto-mat would just cut the film differently as it rolled down through the processor.

Well, things have changed significantly in the past 10 years and we no longer need to resort to trying to fake a pano shot. While there are a wide variety of hardware-based accessories you can buy including specialized ball heads and slide rails for a tripod setup there are also some great software solutions as well including two new and improved ways to stitch together photos to create a panorama from within Photoshop CS3.

The Photomerge (found under File > Automate > Photomerge) feature was a great addition in Photoshop CS2 (I think it first came in CS2) but the problem I had (at least with my photos) was that I could never get it to blend the sky very well even with the Advanced Blending options. It was a dead give away that it had been stitched (poorly) together. The new Photomerge in CS3 now does a tremendous job of blending images together even if they had different exposure, shutter or aperture settings (which is what usually throws it off in the first place).

There's also another way to do this (isn't there always ANOTHER way to do something in Photoshop?) without using Photomerge. You can use the Auto-Align Layers and Auto-Blend Layers features in Photoshop CS3 and get great results (probably identical but I'll get to that in a moment).

You can download my demo file if you want to follow along (Manhattan-COMBO.psd.zip - 2.7 MB). This file has 5 layers that we'll align together using the Edit > Auto Align Layers feature. You can separate them out later if you want to use the Photomerge method. Here we go...

Step 1: Open the demo file and select all of the layers in the Layers palette by selecting the layer on the top and then hold the Shift key and then click on the layer on the bottom of the stack.

Step 2: In Photoshop CS3, go to the Edit Menu and choose Auto-Align Layers...

In the next dialog box, the default is set to Auto. You can try it but I've already played with this image and to me, I think the Cylindrical option works the best on this sample photo. Your mileage may vary depending on your photos including the lens you used, the subject matter, the distance and angle you were compared to the subject matter etc).

Click OK and Photoshop CS3 will do it's Auto-Align magic. The result will be something that looks like this.

Notice that you'll need to blend the image so the sky doesn't have those bad overlaps and the individual layers look like this in the layers palette:

Step 4: Make sure you have all of the layers selected and then choose Edit > Auto-Blend Layers.

There are no options here so just choose it and be prepared to be amazed at what Photoshop CS3 does. The engineers on this performed some pretty cool math. When it's all done, first, look at your image. Chances are, it looks great and the cool thing is that you didn't have to create any layer masks or do anything tricky to make it happen. However, Photoshop CS3 (and their engineers) did! Take a look at the layers palette and the layer masks it created. I'm stunned every time I see this on a different pano I create.

I created the pano using Photomerge and got an almost identical image. The layer masks were different because of the order in which Photomerge stacked the layers, but the end result was nearly, if not identical to the method above. So depending on which way you prefer, you have choices on how you want to make your pano.

Finally, I cropped my image and then added an effect or two to give the buildings a glow and then a Curves adjustment layer with a layer mask to darken the clouds a bit to make them a little more dramatic.

Click on the photo above to see a larger version.

Again, try this method as well as the Photomerge method. Photomerge is more automated and doesn't require you to have all of the desired images as their own layer in a single document to start (though it ends up doing that). The method outlined above is fun to do because you get to see it all come together easier. So maybe after you learn and see what's happening you can go for the faster more automated method. Either way, I hope you enjoy the new/improved feature in Photoshop CS3 and create some cool panoramas!

Posted by Mike Wong at 9:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The podcast for the interview I did on Photo Talk Radio last weekend is now live. If you're interested, please visit their site and have a listen.

Posted by Mike Wong at 12:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you plan on attending Photoshop World in Las Vegas next month, be sure to register by this Friday, August 3. You'll save $100 so be sure to sign up now.

Online registration at www.photoshopworld.com or call toll-free at 800-738-8513, Monday-Friday, 8:30am-7:00pm EST.

Posted by Mike Wong at 12:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I got an email earlier today from Jay Nelson about a new site he is contributing to. It's called Planet Quark and as you might have guessed, is about all things related to QuarkXPress 7.

If you are a QuarkXPress 7 user, you should definitely check the site out.

Posted by Mike Wong at 12:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)