Thursday , March 28 2024
Photoshop CS3 For Photographers is the perfect training program for the photographer who wants to perfect their Photoshop skills.

Video Training Review – Photoshop CS3 For Photographers With Chris Orwig From Lynda.com

Photoshop CS3 For Photographers is a video that presents Photoshop CS3, not from a Photoshop perspective, rather from a photographer’s perspective. In this case it is from the vantage point of Chris Orwig, a faculty member at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara California. He is also a freelance photographer.

Since there are 32 lessons in this course, and, in an effort to not bore you to tears, I have broken the lessons down into my own groupings and I will handle my discussion in this manner. I have also provided my own title to the groupings, but have listed each of the lessons along with their run times.

Lessons 1-5 “Getting Started”, handles all of the introduction information which includes Orwig’s six Strategies for success. I must say that these are well thought out. Also included is information on the new CS3, custom settings, images and an intro to color management.

Lessons 6-9, “Adobe Bridge” is all about working with Adobe Bridge. Here he explains what Bridge is, how to get around in it, how to use the Metadata and the other Bridge tools such as the image processor, actions, and batch processing.

Lessons 10-14 “Camera Raw” now moves you from managing your files to processing your files. I really like the way Orwig takes you through all of the Camera Raw features beginning with the introduction, and then walks you through all of the different things that you can do with an image.

Lessons 15-21 “Basic Photoshop” covers what I would call basic Photoshop. You will work with Layers, Masking, Selections, Levels, and Curves. You will learn to create and organize layers. You will learn to mask your images, create custom borders, and work with the various selection tools. You will also learn about working with Curves to modify contrasts, tones, hue and saturation as well as for use with masking. You will learn of the Blending modes as well.

Lessons 22-25 “Image Correction” examines how to manipulate your photos for the best appearance. You begin with color correction to get the best skin tones. You will advance to working with portraits, landscapes and filters. You will learn about traditional methods such as burning and dodging as well as Black and White conversion.

Lessons 26-30 “Final Touches” covers what I look at as image clean-up. This covers use of filters, reducing the noise in an image and cleaning up any spots, scratches, and things like red-eye. It also covers basic retouching items such as whitening teeth, reducing wrinkles, removing unwanted objects, and cleaning up backgrounds. It also covers sharpening, and the various sharpening methods available to you.

Lessons 31-32 “Output” covers the topics of both the web and printing. Here topics covered include both the web and email, creating web galleries and working with photo-sharing sites. It also covers printing contact sheets, multi-page web PDFs, ordering prints, and print preparation as well as covering the new CS3 print dialog.

While many Photoshop tutorials teach you Photoshop, Photoshop CS3 For Photographers really takes the perspective of a photographer. Chris Orwig shows a passion and exuberance in this video that makes you want to learn.

You can get Photoshop CS3 For Photographers two ways. One is as a DVD training package Photoshop CS3 For Photographers with Chris Orwig and the other is part of the online training experience at Lynda.com. The DVD Training Package is $149 USD and contains everything you need.

The online training Photoshop CS3 For Photographers comes in three flavors. Monthly at $25 USD/month gets you all of the videos that are available online (approximately 21,811 videos on 318 topics at this time). Annually at $250 USD per year or Premium at $375 USD per year which get all the videos as well as all of the exercise files. Take note that the exercise files are not included with the monthly or annual subscriptions. They are included on the DVD and Premium subscriptions.

I can highly recommend Photoshop CS3 For Photographers as the perfect training program for the individual student, as well as the college or vocational teacher looking to supplement their educational materials. It would be of tremendous benefit to the professional looking to upgrade their skills. You can also try out the first four lessons for free at Lynda.com.

1. Welcome (16:47)
2. Getting Started (18:27)
3. Custom Settings (20:42)
4. The Digital Image (26:18)
5. Foundations of Color Management (12:41)
6. Introducing Adobe Bridge (20:07)
7. Getting Started with Bridge (42:45)
8. Using Metadata in Bridge (10:16)
9. Bridge Tools (10:04)
10. Introducing Camera Raw (10:35)
11. Camera Raw Workflow (63:57)
12. RAW and the DNG (7:09)
13. Raw Black-and-White Conversion (12:41)
14. Raw Creativity (28:22)
15. Layers (36:44)
16. Masking (31:08)
17. Custom Borders (8:48)
18. Selections (36:49)
19. Levels (13:15)
20. Curves (40:53)
21. Blend Modes (16:10)
22. Color Correction (39:59)
23. Modifying Color and Tone (22:58)
24. Burning and Dodging (22:56)
25. Black-and-White Conversion (19:22)
26. Filters (8:35)
27. Removing Noise (16:07)
28. Image Cleanup (27:42)
29. Retouching Essentials (57:00)
30. Sharpening (27:40)
31. Getting Your Images Online (23:29)
32. Printing (40:12)
Conclusion (0:37)

About T. Michael Testi

Photographer, writer, software engineer, educator, and maker of fine images.

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