Need suggestions

[gnurf]

Hi,

I'm going to teach Photoshop in a four day course (and my part will about 3 hours per day). The course is for hobby and amateur photographers who want to learn more.

The topic will be nature and landscapes. I have taught Photoshop before but never with focus solely on nature & landscape and I don't see myself as an photographer.

First day I would of course go through the very basics which includes base tools, tonal correction, color correction and contrast.

So I thought I'd ask you for suggestions: What would you like to learn to do with Photoshop when editing your own nature photos?

Except the included stuff above, I thought about black&white and duo-tone images, RAW photos and perhaps HDR images.

Do you have any suggestions?

[Big Frank]

Masking of foreground objects and using progressive blur to achieve greater depth of field. That way people with inexpensive lenses can pretend they have expensive ones

[GroWeb]

Hello Paul;

Not considering yourself a photographer, it is brave of you to step in to teach Photoshop in this context. I hope you have at least a pretty good working knowledge of digital photography in general, and DSLR photography in particular.

Your ideas about teaching the use of Camera RAW, HDR and Duotone images are very appropriate, I think. Creating panoramas would also be a fitting topic. If your students are fairly new to Photoshop, they might also need basics about sharpening, levels, curves, adjustment layers, masking, colour correction, and so on. Finally, the processes of outputting to print and web would probably be useful.

It might also be a good idea to ask students ahead of the workshop what they would specifically like to learn. Asking for such input will engage your students before they even show up. Responding to their requests will garner excellent feedback, and great word-of-mouth advertising for your next workshop.

Good luck.

Glen

[gnurf]

Hello Paul;
Not considering yourself a photographer, it is brave of you to step in to teach Photoshop in this context. I hope you have at least a pretty good working knowledge of digital photography in general, and DSLR photography in particular.

I should of course have said "professional photographer"... I have worked with digital photo editing/retouching professionally for over 10 years, and I have been teaching Photoshop for almost the same, but I have never had the time to take my own photographing experience past the hobby level (OK, this is my self critique speaking, but still I would say I'm far from professional).

And the idea is that another person is teaching photographing and then we use the photos taken during his class in my photoshop class (as the photo guy doesn't consider himself a Photoshopper) - the idea is that our classes complete each other.

I always start my courses by asking if the students have any specific things they would like to learn.

Levels, curves and adjustment layers will be included in the base tools and basic techniques part. Usually on my course most are fairly new to Photoshop and a couple that are more experienced, probably this time too.

Creating panoramas is a good idea!

Another idea I got from a friend in the photo printing business is cropping and resolution for print (eg. making a copy of the original and adjust the resolution for the size you expect to print your artwork). The printer pointed out that with todays cameras clients too often send a way too big photo to the printer.

[masque]

I use photoshop a fair amount and wouldn’t like to be asked to teach either the basics or more advanced uses, you are much braver, or more likely knowledgeable, than me.
One thing I would like to see instruction on is the selective use of the dodge and burn tools, as along with levels on adjustment layers they are the best ways of bringing an otherwise ordinary (flat) looking image to life whether its in colour or b&w, particularly with landscapes. With landscapes how to replace flat featureless skys with something a little more interesting can also be an invaluable lesson
Everyone will have a different opinion as to what is most useful to them but surely the best way is to use a tried and tested instruction book and work from that as a guide to the structure, content and order of various lessons even if you are not directly quoting from it.
Derek

[Albacore]

I agree with Derek keep it simple. Other thing I would add is using the Crop Tool. Just imagine your using Xara and the photo tools that we use and teach those tools. Have a short time in the class where your students bring in a picture or negative which they want to repair but only pick one thing and keep it short.

[AntonM]

I look at my photos and at Photoshop (Elements) with a sense of despair bordering on desperation. When other people show (in magazines) what can be done to photos to make them look better, it all looks so easy and simple. My problem is having no idea what I should be doing to any particular photos to improve it -- i.e., what are this particular image's shortcomings, such as not quite enough contrast, a bit too dark, a bit too light, a bit too dull, etc. I can't see in my mind what the photo could look like if it were improved, so I don't know what tools to apply to get there.

Am I a lost cause?

[pauland]

Pick some landscape photos and use them as a way of introducing the tools. Colour corrections, levels, layers, etc. It's always best when the audience directly sees the relevance of the tools to what they want to do.