Quick Hit Monday: My Shootout In Central Park; Lots Of Photoshop CS6; Loads Of Lightroom 4; and More!

Good Morning Everybody,

We arrived safe and sound in Dallas, TX around noon on Saturday and are looking forward to a great week at Texas School.  Last year we really enjoyed our experience.  This is like the largest week long photography school in the world with nearly 40 instructors and just slightly less than 1,000 students!  It IS the happening place to be for the next 5 days. 

We just wrapped the opening sessions last night at 10:00p.m. – you’re right, if you’ve never been here you soon find out that nobody gets much sleep around here ;~)  Still we’ve got a great class and LaDawn and I are looking forward to our visit and the week.   I'll plan to keep you filled in day-by-day with images and commentary.

Extreme Digital Design Webcast a Hit!

First off, I want to thank Michael Sheasby, Co-founder and CEO of LumaPix software for being my guest last Thursday on our DigitalProTalk - Extreme Digital Design webcast.  Once again we had attendees from around the country and around the world on hand for our lively discussion and Michael's impressive demonstrations. From the audience comments, the crowd was “blown away” by Michael’s demo of LumaPix V5’s new feature set.  If you missed it, no problem.  I'm going to post it tomorrow for Technique Tuesday.  Be sure to check it out – it is not to be missed!

My Shoot-Out at Central Park – Thursday, May 17, 2012. 

That's right gang, I’ll be in Central Park, New York City,  on Thursday, May 17 for a shoot out in the nations most famous park.  My thanks for B&H for getting all the permits and  making all the arrangements - its going to be a great time. 

I'll be there along with 5 other photographers and several models working the park for a good part of the day.  This is a terrific way to get some great images for your portfolio, learn my  lighting techniques, make new friends, and enjoy the fresh air. 

You can get all the info and register right here or by clicking on the Central Park image above.  B&H expects this event to fill up fast - so don't delay.  I hope to see everyone there!

Sarah Petty's New Book; Worth Every Penny – and It Is!

Allow me to tell you about my friend Sarah Petty's new book “Worth Every Penny”.  Here's a quick overview of the book from Sarah.  “Worth Every Penny” contends that here’s a radically different way to run a small business, one in which the owners focus on offering specialized products and over-the-top customer service—not on matching the prices of their competition. Worth Every Penny encourages business owners to use a different business model, one that is designed to maximize their advantages over the big-box stores and other discounting competitors. Here is the link for all the book info right here.

Sarah was one of our speakers at PhotoProExpo earlier this year and rocked the house!  Sarah comes from a marketing background with Coca-Cola but decided, instead to venture into the field of photography a number of years ago and never looked back.

She runs a very successful photography studio in Springfield, Illinois.  She has been helping photographers get their business in high gear.  Her Joy of Marketing website offers some tremendous content, lots of it free, for the new and aspiring pro photographer.

After nearly a year in preparation and writing, her book has just been released!  Here is the link for all the information. Sarah really packs one giant marketing wallop with her Joy of Marketing concept.

Getting Up To Speed With Adobe CS6

If you haven't downloaded and tried Adobe's new CS6, you've got to do it right away.  I've been playing with it for a short while and I’m loving it.  First of, it just feels snappier than any previous version.  The interface is more stylized with a mid to dark gray color scheme that’s really nice to work in.  But most importantly are all the new features that come with this latest release.

I'm particularly amazed at the Content Aware Move Tool, the new cropping tool, the Field Blur Tool, and the fact that Photoshop can now do a basic video edit - pretty cool.  I spent several hours last week checking out many of the new features.  I also spent probably too much time on the new video features.  In fact tomorrow's Technique Tuesday video was put together completely within Photoshop CS6!

As with any new software version, how do you get up to speed quickly?  The Internet, of course.  Already cyberspace is filling up with lots of tutorials on CS 6's new features.  My favorite link is right here at Digital-Photography-School.com showcasing 23 new cool CS6 features. 

The folks at DPS pulled together several links from the top Photoshop gurus around the world.  Each of the five gurus put together 5-6 videos spotlighting their favorite features.  There is some overlap, but that's OK.  Where there was some overlap, each presenter put a new spin on that same feature - adding even more in- depth information, each hi-lighting tips and techniques of that special feature.  I spent nearly an hour watching the numerous short videos and then headed over to CS6 to give them a try - way cool.

All The Latest On Lightroom 4 – The Mother Load!

Adobe just kicked out their latest release candidate - Lightroom 4.1 RC2.  They tweaked many of the features and added a few more.  Fixing Chromatic Aberration is now much easier and more thorough than before, plus LR4 now supports even more cameras. But wait….there’s lots more than just that!

We arrived at Texas School on Saturday just in time to catch Julieanne Kost’s – Adobe resident LR4 guru – showcase the latest greatest features of this great piece of software.  Her blog is chocked full of tutorials showcasing all these new features.  She has a video on how to do just about everything in Lightroom 4 and10 pages of LR keyboard shortcuts! 

Let’s not just stop there.  Let me point you towards my other favorite resources for all things Lightroom:

1. Matt Kloskowski's Lightroom's Killer Tips right here.  Matt has always been my go to guy when ever I need to know anything about Lightroom.

2. Another favorite is Victoria Brampton, the Lightroom Queen - here's her link.  Her blogs and her books are all at the top of my reference list when it comes to Lightroom.

3. And lastly, check out Laura Shoe - she is a wonderful resource for all the latest, greatest features of Lightroom and even does FREE webcasts.  Check out her resources right here.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today.  Class starts in about an hour so I've got to run.  Be sure to check back tomorrow for our re-broadcast of Extreme Digital Design. On that note, I'm out of here.

See ya' tomorrow everybody,

David