Once again I spent an amazing weekend at Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging in Los Osos, California. Many of my peers are aware that I am not currently a Photoshop user. While I do use Photo Mechanic to cull, rename and inject IPTC data into my images and LightRoom to do RAW conversion and catalog, I am a fan and user of Ulead's PhotoImpact product. But this must change as I really need to be "Industry Standard" and that is Photoshop. I've known this for a long time and have had installed versions of Adobe Creative Studio since their first version. I just haven't used it, sigh.
So, in my quest forward, I have read several Photoshop CS3 books. I really like Martin Evening's book. I didn't care for Scott Kelby's book. I am currently reading Blatner, Chavez and Fraser and like it so far. And I really like the ever prolific Tim Grey's "Photoshop CS3 Workflow" book. But I was very surprised to discover that Hal Schmitt's Photoshop 1 course really smacks down the books! :-) Really, no kidding. From making great sense about the organization of menus and panels and their flow in your workflow, navigating about the images, how to approach each tool and where to look for options, to the ever popular 'learn those damn keyboard shortcuts' drumbeat [although I must take off one point for Hal's failure to include the shortcuts in his handout!] Hal has good image material on which to demonstrate and practice what is taught. The whole weekend had a super flow and Hal used the inevitable student errors in navigation and option selection to bring home his experiences on these same paths and reinforce his teachings.
A word about Hal: besides photographer/Photoshopper, he is a winemaker. Oh, wait, while that's true it is not where I want to go. Hal is an Instructor. He knows how to instruct people. I am sure he would be great teaching enology. He spent quite a while instructing aircraft fighting for the Navy at Top Gun and while his vast experience in this area goes almost unmentioned (although there are several pertinent photographs that keep popping up), it is clear why the brass would have selected him for such a job ... he really is a "Natural" at instructing. In my 30 plus years as a computer person I have taken many classes. And I have given many seminars, lectures and presentations to both handfuls and auditoriums of people on fairly esoteric computer topics ... my specialty was Operating System modifications in machine language for one of IBM's two mainframe Operating Systems, VM. I understand about teaching arcane and unintuitive topics. So does Hal. Plus he is much more personable than I am. :-)
So, I finished Photoshop 1, a weekend course, this past weekend. I will take Hal's Photoshop 2 next weekend. I won't bore you with how he divides topics or what specific tools/techniques are in each segment. I will mention that I am signed up for Hal's LightRoom 2.0 weekend next month even though I will have to miss a significant portion of it to go shoot at the Santa Barbara County Harvest Festival at Rancho Sisquoc for my both of my corporate clients ... but Hal, the winemaker, will understand. And so you know that it's not just Hal that I like at Lepp, I'm also signed up for Andy Katz's winery and vineyard photography workshop the first weekend in November and Kevin Ames photographing women week long seminar also in November. Lepp really has something for everyone! I am already reviewing their 2009 courses and have found two for which I am budgeting ... but that's another story!
I need to include a couple of other things. First, my wife and I have a truck camper and she likes to come up to Los Osos, well actually Morro Bay, with my daughter and camp out while I go to Lepp. There are numerous RV parks, public and private in the area that make attending classes into a vacation with extensive photo-ops. Second, I am not affiliated with Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging, it's employees or owners or sponsors in any way and am not compensated for sharing my thoughts about them. I have just found that every experience with Hal and Victoria (his much more of an artist wife) has been much more rewarding than I expected and plunged me forward into areas that I have resisted. This is a place you need to check out if you want to be one of those "Advanced Amateurs" who all seem to have the best of all possible worlds in photography. In fact, I think there are still slots open in all the courses for which I am signed up ... although there are some 2008 courses that are full. So, check out the courses as well as this lovely little coastal town.
Be safe!
Dwight
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