Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I’ve been swamped with new projects and going through my Mom’s things. Also, I moved over the weekend, so the last week I had to add the prep into the mix. Moving forward, I’ll no longer be doing separate posts for each class, but rather one weekly wrap up that covers all three. I’ll try to post them on Fridays, since I teach Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Next semester, I’ll be teaching a brand new class called Photoshop Essentials – Quick Fixes for Common Problems. I believe it’s going to be on Thursday evenings, but don’t quote me on that just yet. Still time for you to sign up on Faded & Blurred before our next photo walk this weekend in Pasadena. We’re working on some really big things for the 2.0 version of F&B. The response to our little experiment has been phenomenal so far and we believe that some of the things we have in the works for 2.0 are going to be super cool. Stay tuned…

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The World of Digital is becoming a really amazing class. I was brought in last minute for this class, so I really didn’t know what to expect. But the class has found a rhythm that is really wonderful. It feels like more of a discussion group than a class, which I hope you all are enjoying as much as I am. One of the questions last week had to do with monitor brightness. I wasn’t able to answer it on the spot, but I did some looking and here’s what I found. The question was regarding cd/m2 and what that means. Well, cd/m2 is a measurement of the amount of light the LCD monitor produces. It is given in “nits” or one candelas per square meter (cd/m2). One nit is equal to on cd/m2. Typical brightness ratings range from 250 to 350 cd/m2 for monitors that perform general-purpose tasks. For displaying movies, a brighter luminance rating such as 500 cd/m2 is desirable. Hope that helps.

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Apparently, much of the Art of Compositing class read my previous post about knowing your limits. I’m glad we still had a full house. I really do want you all to be there and to get it, so thanks for sticking it out and continuing on the journey. We continued on with masking, even completing the lesson introducing the concept of Channel Masks. If you’d like to go over it again, be sure to watch the video tutorials. Part one is HERE and part two is HERE.

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Thank you! Thank you to all of you in The Web for Photographers who came back for more CSS abuse. Give yourselves a hand…it seems like things really are starting to click with how these things work. We were able to do some basic (but still really cool) formatting with CSS. I apologize for the errors in viewing the CSS cheat sheet on some of the PC’s. You can grab one for yourself HERE, and I’ll also bring it in for the next session. Next time, we’ll be looking at theming Wordpress and we’ll build a simple page layout building on the CSS we introduced and add in some images.

Thank you to all of you for coming out to these classes each week. I know you are all busy with “real life”, so I appreciate you taking the time…now just do the work!

Great week in The Web for Photographers. We started out by looking at Chase Jarvis‘ new project, The Best Camera. If you don’t know Chase’s work, be sure to check it out. He’s amazing and he’s a fantastic advocate for the community aspect of photography. From there we moved into the importance of wire framing your site design. It’s much easier to tweak a pencil drawing or a bunch of grey boxes than it is a fully realized Photoshop comp. The class project of linking HTML and CSS files when well, for the most part. A few people struggled a bit, mostly from incorrectly naming or referencing their files. For those of you who got stuck and for those of you who want a refresher, I’ve created a quick screencast demonstrating the steps involved in linking your HTML and CSS. Please take a look at it so you understand this step. We’ll be building on this next week when we complete several different CSS layouts. Now, just do the work!

No getting around it…this week’s edition of The Art of Compositing was rough. In a nutshell, there are a small number of students who simply should not be in the class. It’s beyond your current level and you know it. At least you should. As I have stated several times before, this is not a beginning class. Although there are no prerequisites to any of the classes at Tri, you should know when you’re in over your head. I had to continually stop for the same few people, which really affected how much we were able to get through. Now, let me be clear, it’s not the stopping to answer questions that I’m at odds with. I want to teach you guys and want you to get as excited about Photoshop as I am. It’s the constant stopping for the same few people, while the remaining 50 plus students sit and wait. It’s simply not fair and I can tell you it won’t happen again. If the majority are cool with a step or process, we’re moving on. Period. So, if you are reading this and feel as though I’m talking to you, I’m going to make a request. I love that you want to learn and appreciate you taking the time to come out each week. However, I’m going to ask that you give up your computer to one of the other students who may be better able to keep up and ultimately get more out of the class. This is not to say that I don’t want you there trying to learn and better your skills, far from it. Keep coming, but I believe that you would be better served to sit along the aisles and take notes on what I’m doing on the big screen, rather than trying to simultaneously listen and follow along in Photoshop. The concepts are going to get more intricate and if you find yourself lost in week three, it’s only going to get more difficult for you as we continue. Just a thought…

LINKS
Layer Masks in CS4
Clipping Masks in CS4
Upgrade to CS4 from $199.00

For week 2 in The Web for Photographers, we started looking at how to deconstruct a website into components or containers to help streamline the build process. We also started discussing the connection between the design of a site and the overall user experience. From the high-design all-Flash, esoteric approach of clothing company Reserved to the minimalist approach of Ugmonk, user experience runs the gamut and should be tailored to your potential audience. Next week, we’re going to start writing some code and we’ll be taking a look at how Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) work.

Also, Geo asked about 3D with code, versus using Flash. There’s a JQuery solution that’s close, but I think for something like 3D, Flash is still the better solution. JQuery Flip!