Last night we had a real treat when Pete (as he is known to his friends) gave us a really entertaining talk about Photoshop. He is one of Chichester CC's top photographers and we have seen his work over many years at Chichester's annual exhibition at South Mundham village hall. This is an event not to be missed as Chichester have a large number of very talented photographers including Mike Davison who we trained at Storrington!!
I met Pete when we jointly won the Regnum print competition with Chichester a few years back and he was Chairman. We shared having the shield for 6 months each. Bearing in mind my last report, you see we did it then and with our new talent in the club we could win it again!?
Pete's opening remark was about the women taking over winning everything photographic; so over to you girls. He then asked 'who shoots in RAW?' And if not why not? Everyone should shoot in RAW except when taking family snaps!
Pete used a couple of pictures taken in bad conditions and showed us with the use of the RAW converter how to rescue and improve pictures. His first example was of a Chinese girl taken in a very confined space with very bad lighting. There was a very over-exposed area which was a window but which had detail of the buildings outside the flat which gave it context of the location. The girl herself was very dark in the picture and sadly had several blemishes on her face. By going through a series of corrections starting with the recovery tool he was able to get the exposure corrected for the different parts of the image and deal with noise and sharpenimng in a most amazing fashion. Then we were shown a landscape where the sky was bland and the whole image fairly flat and uninteresting. By applying the various tools and sliders again we ended up with an interesting sky and a landscape which had come to life.
Pete kept us chuckling throughout his presentation with his remarks and asides which were very amusing indeed.
During the break we were able to admire some of his work which he had laid out for us. He really is a most talented worker and in the second half he showed us the care and attention he gives to every detail throughout the picture which really pays off. I for one have not got either the patience required or the talent to know what to do.
After the break he told us about his cameras (Canon), his lenses, his printer (Epson 3800), and the papers and software for the printer (he does not use Epson paper). He has researched every stage of his production of his masterful printing.
Finally he showed us a print of an old Canadian barn which was lovely. He showed us how the picture looked After it had been processed with the RAW converter and the sky was still rather too bland. In the normal Photoshop workspace he showed us how he 'beefed up' the sky still further and improved and brought to life the foliage in the foreground. This amongst other things invoved masking everything except the sky and including a tree and bits of the barn where ths sky was showing through. It must have taken ages of painstaking work. he showed us how it is best to use adjustment layers which can be saved and changed at a later stage if thought necessary.
We really had a very absorbing and interesting evening, so 'thank you Pete' and we would love to have you back again one day.