Jim Zuckerman’s
PH OTO I N S I G HTS August 2015
• Macro flash • Autofocus failure • How to make a white vignette • Online photo courses • Correcting keystoning • Student showcase • Photo tours
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4. Macro flash 11. Autofocus failure 27. How to make a white vignette 22. What’s wrong with this picture? 24. Short and sweet 26. Correcting keystoning 28. Ask Jim 31. Student showcase 35. Back issues 22
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ast lenses are becoming less and less important as the ability to raise the ISO settings becomes more and more feasible. Maximum lens apertures such as f/2.8 and f/4 for telephotos mean that you have to spend a fortune on a lens plus carry a very heavy piece of equipment with you. Photo backpacks have to be huge, and hand holding these lenses is only possible if you can bench press at least three hundred pounds! Because we can now use ISO settings that were impossible just a short time ago, we can get away with less expensive, lighter, and smaller lenses. On my recent trip to Africa, for example, I didn’t bring my 500mm f/4 Canon telephoto. This was the first time in 20 safari trips that I didn’t bring the monster. Instead, I used the Canon new 100-400mm lens plus a 1.4x teleconter and a cropped sensor camera. The maximum apertures for this new lens are f/4.5 to 5.6. This means that at the 100mm focal length, the aperture is f/4.5, and at the 400mm focal length it is f/5.6. This is not considered a super fast lens. But the difference in one f/stop -- say from f/4 to f/5.6 -- doubles the ISO, say from 400 to 800 ISO. With today’s modern digital cameras that produce images with less and less noise, this difference is minimal or even negligable. At the higher ISO settings (above 1600) noise does start to creep into our images, but with software like Nik’s Dfine 2.0, it is manageable. All this is to say that your strategy in traveling and shooting can be modified to make it easier on yourself as well as your bank account. Plus, having a zoom range adds tremendous flexibility in your ability to get the perfect composition. Jim Zuckerman www.jimzuckerman.com 3
Macro Flash Strategies
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o, it was a normal Tuesday morning in my home office. I was sitting calmly at my desk working on the computer, and my wife, Dia, who shares the same large desk with me, was on the phone chatting with her mother. Suddenly, without warning, she screamed at the top of her lungs in extreme panic mode. And I mean extreme. Most caring husbands would be instantly alarmed and concerned and would rush to see if they could help, but not I. In fact, I
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rolled my eyes and groaned. By the tenor and sustained volume of Dia’s utter hysteria, I knew this could mean only one thing. She had seen a caterpillar. Hey, for Indiana Jones it was snakes. For me, spiders. And for my wife, it’s caterpillars. Go figure. Given the volume of her histrionics that virtually cracked the walls of my office, shattered glass, and caused my two dogs to howl, you might think that the caterpillar was at least six feet long and had attacked my wife with some agonizing and
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deadly venom. Nope. Not even close. Or that it had crawled out of her hair and was slithering down her face, numbing her skin and causing instant blindness. No, that didn’t happen, either. In fact, the beautiful yellow caterpillar was outdoors on the bricks of the house and we could see it through the closed glass window.
then turned my attention to the best way to photograph this beautiful and intriguing creature. I figured that with a brick wall between the caterpillar and Dia, she would probably be safe for the time being . . .
When it comes to caterpillars and my wife, hysteria knows no bounds, and she screamed and demanded that I kill it, which of course I wasn’t going to do. It occurred to me that I might have to choose between a great macro shot and a divorce, so I quickly ran to get my ring flash, 50mm macro lens, Canon 5D Mark III, and an out of focus print background and hurried outside to get the picture.
It is usually best to disect a challenging situation and analyze it in sections to accomplish your goal. For example, let’s think about what would make the best picture of this American daggermoth caterpillar.
The only time in my married life that I’ve lied to my wife is when I’ve solemnly promised to kill the caterpillars that have wandered onto our property. So, I unabashedly lied again and
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The Strategy
1. Depth of field is critical in macro work because the greater the magnification -- i.e. the more you fill the frame with a small subject -- the more depth of field you lose. The only way to get that back, short of focus stacking (which you can’t do with a live, moving subject) is to use the smallest lens aperture available to you. Therefore, in my case, f/32 was
shadow. That’s not what I wanted. Off-camera flash using one of these flash units would work, but I feel that usually with very small subjects diffused light is better than directional light because too many shadows interferes with our appreciation of the incredible detail that we see in tiny creatures. Therefore, a ring flash is the best choice. It simulates the soft and diffused light from an overcast sky, which is great for macro work, and it envelopes the entire subject from top to bottom. I use the Canon ring flash, the MR - 14EX, but there are many ring flash units available that are considerably less expensive that you can find online. Some are even less than $100.
2. In order to use such a small opening as f/32, I would have to raise the ISO quite high or use a flash. I opted to use a flash in order to have a picture with no noise.
4. The next consideration is the background. Compare the photo of the capterpillar on the previous page with the two shots on this page. Which one do you like best? In my opinion, the image on page 6 is the ideal. The out of focus green background looks natural and it is completely unobtrusive. It doesn’t detract at all from the subject. Our attention has nowhere to go but on the caterpillar. It is also the most artistic shot.
3. Now the question is, what kind of flash is best? Normal portable flash units such as the SB-900 Nikon and the 600EX Canon aren’t ideal because they sit high on top of the camera in the hotshoe. Thus, the light passes across the top of the small subject illuminating the dorsal portion but usually leaving the underside in
Showing a natural background in focus as I did in the picture at the top of this page introduces a lot of distractions. I don’t like this version if we are talking about fine art imagery. The picture with the black background is my second choice. I like it, but not as much as the picture on page 6.
what I needed.
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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Carnival in Venice, Italy Two tour dates, Feb. 2016
Outrageous costumes in a medieval environment! Venice is beautiful any time, but during carnival it’s beyond amazing.
Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles in St. Louis, MO.
Nov. 14 - 15, 2015
Home Photoshop workshop Learn amazing techniques to help you be more creative in photography.
October 16-17, 2015
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In order to make this happen, I used a 13 x 19 inch print of a photo of out of focus foliage. The matte surface of the print minimized glare from the paper. For rigidity and to keep the print from being damaged over time, it should be mounted on a piece of foam core, but that’s not essential. I placed the print about 12 inches behind the caterpillar so the spill from the flash illuminated it. I varied the exposure on the print by the distance between it and the caterpillar. Moving the print even 3 or 4 inches further away was enough to see a difference. The blurred foliage print got darker by about 2/3 f/stop. Deriving the correct exposure There are four choices you have to make when shooting macro subjects with flash: 1. Exposure mode. Set the camera on manual exposure mode.
2. Flash mode. Set the flash to ETTL. This is the automatic meter setting, and it is this that allows the camera and flash to communicate so the exposure is correct. 3. ISO. Choose a low ISO, such as 100 or 200, to minimize digital noise. Ring flashes are designed specifically to be used very close to the subject, like inches away, and that means you’ll have plenty of light. Thus, a low ISO is the best choice. 4. Lens aperture. As I’ve already mentioned, I use f/32 for my macro work. Using manual exposure mode in combination with ETTL means that you’ll get a good exposure at any lens aperture. If there is a situation where you purposely want shallow depth of field, you could choose f/5.6 or f/8, for example, and the exposure would still be correct because the flash is set to ETTL.
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Depending on the reflectivity of the subject, there might be slight over- or underexposure in your macro shots. For example, if the subject has a lot of white in it like the mineral, below, the reflection of the flash back into the lens makes the meter ‘think’ there is too much light in the picture. The meter tries to compensate and the result is underexposure.
lenses are very useful for shooting subjects that don’t allow a close approach, such as butterflies. The working distance is several feet; in other words, the distance from the subject to the lens is greater than when using a short focal length lens. With a 50mm or 60mm lens, the working distance is measured in inches.
Lens choice
When using a ring flash, it’s important to be close to the subject because that allows the light to envelope the subject. As the flash moves further away -- even six to twelve inches -- it becomes more of a point source of light and therefore more harsh. At two to three feet from the subject, the light from a ring flash is not soft any more.
There are several lens focal lengths made for macro photography. The common ones, both Canon and Nikon, are 50mm, 60mm, 100mm, 180mm, and 200mm. The telephoto macro
In the Canon lineup of lenses, my choice for macro flash photography is the 50mm. For Nikon users, the equivalent is the 60mm lens. These consistently give the best results. §
By using the flash exposure compensation feature built into the ring flash unit, you can tweak the exposure in 1/3 f/stop increments. You can’t use the exposure compensation in the camera because it is set to manual mode.
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AUTOFOCUS FAILURE A
utofocus mechanisms radically changed photography. They gave photographers the ability to capture subjects and scenes that change quickly, like wildlife and sports, because they could focus much faster than human hands on a focusing ring. AF is not perfect, however. It can make mistakes. It can be deceived by various factors that photographers commonly encounter. If you are aware of the problems that autofocus can’t overcome, you can save a lot of pictures from
the trash can. It is terribly frustrating and disappointing when you would have had a great picture but for poor focus. Here are the problems for autofocus mechanisms. 1. Multiple planes of focus. Study the photo below and you can see that the grasses in front of the leopard are sharp. The AF mechanism didn’t know what the subject was because there were several planes of focus. There was no way for the camera to know that my subject was be-
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hind that bunch of foreground grasses. The solution? The only way to insure the leopard is sharp is to take the camera off autofocus and focus the old fashioned way . . . manually.
that wasn’t enough for the camera to lock onto the sky and focus.
2. Solid colors. When there is a large expanse of a monochromatic color in the composition, and this color is mostly in the center of the frame, the AF mechanism doesn’t have enough contrast to focus. Autofocus technology works on the basis of contrast to determine the distance from the camera to the subject. This contrast can be tones of light or shades of color, or both.
In the picture from Spain, you’d have to point the camera downward and focus on the hills, then recompose and shoot. For the picture of the snowy owl flying against a wintry sky in Canada, there are two choices: Either you
In the landscape below of the Cadiz region of Spain, the large expanse of sky prevents the AF from functioning. Even though there are slight gradations of tone from the horizon just above the mountains to the top of the picture,
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What’s the solution?
have to center the bird in the composition to provide enough contrast so the AF will lock onto that, or you have to focus manually. Using manual focus on a fast flying bird is possible but very difficult. The chances of missing the shot are high. Therefore, the only way to handle this is to center the bird in the frame. 3. Low light environments. When you shoot dark subjects, the problem of little or no contrast makes autofocusing impossible. For example, shooting the night sky with a wide angle lens doesn’t work. Even if the moon is out, with a 24mm wide angle or wider, the illuminated lunar surface is too small in the frame to provide the contrast needed for AF to work. In the picture below, twilight was almost over and it was very close to dark. I took this shot with flash, but there was no way I could focus
on this cat using autofocus. Even with a spotlight from my land rover, I had to focus manually due to the low contrast. 4. Extreme macro. When shooting very small subjects, focus is very critical. Insects, poison dart frogs, the insides of flowers, and other similar subjects have many planes of focus. If you are hand holding the camera, it is very difficult and even frustrating to use autofocus because the camera can’t know where you want the main point of focus. For example, the exotic tulip at the bottom of the next page has multiple structures that make up the interior of the flower. Using autofocus would be difficult because the mechanism wouldn’t know exactly where to focus. It would choose one of those structures, but that may not be the precise point that you wanted.
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The best way to deal with this is to use manual focus and move the camera back and forth until the exact point in the composiiton is in focus and then shoot. This applies to both hand holding the camera as well as using a tripod. The greater the magnification, the more critical the focus becomes. The face of a luna moth, right, gives you an indication of how it can be challenging to determine where the central focus point should be. We usually focus on the eyes, but those antennae protrude forward quite a bit. To maintain complete control, you can’t rely on AF in this situation. With extreme macro, you’ll need a focusing rail on a tripod. This allows the camera to move back and forth in very tiny increments. 5. Fast moving subjects. When a subject is
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moving toward the camera at a very fast rate, it is impossible for the autofocus tracking (i.e. AI servo) to keep up with it. Running horses and kids riding bikes are no problem, but flying birds are a different matter. If the birds are coming right at the camera, the chances are very high that the camera can’t focus and constantly refocus as the bird gets closer and closer. You have a chance with slow flying birds like many raptors (osprey, eagles, herons, cranes, etc.), but faster birds are impossible to get sharp with autofocus. Macaws are in the category of fast flying birds, and the way I captured the blue and gold macaw, right, was to use manual focus. I saw the bird perched on a branch and anticipated a flight path. I prefocused on a point in that path about halfway between myself and the macaw. When the bird finally flew along the vector I was waiting for, I started shooting on high speed continuous just before it reached the critical point. It took me three hours to get this. It was in a very large aviary, but still -- it wasn’t easy at all. I did the same thing with a Harris hawk, right. I prefocused ahead of the bird and then hit the motor drive when it got close. § 15
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How to make a white vignette A
white vignette is very easy to make if you have Nik Color Efex 4. It is one of the filter choices: Vignette filter. If you don’t have that suite of filters, you can still create the same effect using Photoshop. Here is the step by step procedure:
choose ‘background color.’ 4. Choose the gradient tool. When this tool is chosen, five small icons appear at the top left of the tool bar, below. Choose the second icon from
1. Open the photo. 2. Make a duplicate layer (Cmd or Ctrl J). 3. Fill the layer with white (Select > all; and then Edit > fill). Make sure white is in the background color box at the bottom of the tools palette, and in the Fill dialogue box,
the left (red arrow). This is the circular gradient tool. 5. Make a layer mask (Layer > layer mask > reveal all), or you can use the shortcut and click the small layer mask icon just to the right of the
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fx icon at the bottom of the layers palette. 6. Make sure the foreground/background color boxes at the bottom of the tools palette are black/white, respectively. 7. Drag the cursor from the position of the subject (you can’t see the subject at this point because the entire image is white) to the periphery of the frame. You will now see the white vignette. 8. You can make the area in which the subject shows through larger or smaller by how you drag the cursor. The shorter the distance the cursor is dragged, the smaller the opening will be. The longer the cursor is dragged, say to the outside of the frame, the opening will be larger. with a soft edge. 9. If there is some hazy white color over the subject, click on the brush tool and brush it away. You can vary the opacity of the brush tool in doing this so you have maximum control.
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The portrait above shows a young woman in Mongolia modeling a queen’s outfit from the 13th century. I photographed the white horse on the next page my White Horses of the Camarge photo tour in France. §
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LEARNING TO SEE
online course
by Jim Zuckerman
The ability to ‘see photographically’, to really grasp how your camera and lenses capture a subject or scene (which is different than how we see with our eyes) underlies successful picture taking. It is the bottom line that you’ve been looking for to take that quantum leap forward in your photography. The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK THIS PAGE to read more about this course.
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INDONESIA WILDLIFE & CULTURAL TOUR June 8 - 22, 2015
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What’s wrong with this picture?
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this is a closeup of chipped and peeling paint on a large metal box housing a generator. I was drawn to the colors, textures, and graphic design, and my initial shot, above, was done quickly while hand holding the camera. That was a mistake. The problem is that the protruding white structure is not sharp. In a picture like this, you need depth of field from edge to edge. Everything has to be sharp. There is no room for selective focus -- i.e. shallow depth of field -- because when people look at macro work, they want to see and appreciate all of the intriguing and artistic detail that attracted you to the subject in the fist place. If it’s not sharp, the image is disappointing to see. What I liked at the time was the soft light from the overcast sky because that meant there were no harsh or distracting shadows. However, that meant there wasn’t a lot of light. Therefore, I couldn’t hand hold the camera and get a sharp
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picture unless (1) I raised the ISO, and/or (2) opened the lens aperture, thus sacrificing focus on all parts of the subject. Because this wasn’t flat, I realized there was only one way to shoot this: Use a tripod and do it right So, annoyed with myself for not doing it right in the first place, I opened up the tripod and mounted the camera and then set the lens aperture to f/13 with a shutter of 1/60th of a second and 200 ISO. The protruding white structure was perhaps an inch closer to the lens than the red and blue painted surface, and I figured that f/13 would be enough to get everything is focus. This isn’t a spectacular subject and therefore it’s not a spectacular picture, but if it appealed to me enough to shoot it, then I owed it to myself to shoot it correctly. Don’t be lazy (and I’m talking to myself as well). For macro work, use a tripod.§ 23
SHORT AND SWEET 1. You can add digital spotlights to your pictures. The
Photoshop command is Filter > render > lighting effects. You can’t change the angle of the light in the original picture, but you can add intriguing and artistic lighting effects.
3.
When you travel to a large city, do a search for rooftop restaurants, bars, cafes, and observation decks from which you can gain an aerial view. Most cities have these places, and you can get some incredible shots like this wonderful view of Chicago from the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building.
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2.
Dark eyes in animals often blend in with surrounding brown or black hair on their faces. When this happens, the eyes get lost. It’s a simple matter to use the dodge tool in Photoshop to lighten them just enough like I did with this vervet monkey.
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Mannequin heads offer a lot of creative possibilities. You can see them everywhere in malls, in shop windows, and in department stores. Photograph them and then apply Photoshop techniques to turn them into works of art. This mannequin head is one I purchased so I could use studio lighting. §
Photography Tours 2015 - 2016 VIETNAM, CAMBODIA, LAOS BURMA (MYANMAR) Sept, 2015 Sept, 2015
CARNIVAL IN VENICE Feb, 2016
WHITE HORSES, FRANCE April, 2016
SNOWY OWLS Feb. 2016
GALAPAGOS ISLANDS Mar, 2016
CROATIA, SLOVENIA, MONT. May, 2016
GREECE May, 2016
ARMENIA & GEORGIA June 2016
INDONESIA July 2016
KENYA migration Aug. 2016
CHINA Sept. 2016
For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim conducts, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.
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Correcting Keystoning
otice in the large picture below how vertical the lamp posts are. I took this shot in Lucerne, Switzerland with a Canon 16-35mm lens, and the camera was pointed upward. You would expect, then, that the lamps would be angled inward -- like they are in the inset original. This is keystoning, and it is easily correctable.
I was able to correct the problem.
One whe way to do address this issue is to use the pulldown menu command in Photoshop Select > all and then Edit > transform > distort. This puts a box around the picture with handles, and you can grab any of the corners with the cursor and pull the picture to distort it. By pulling the upper left corner up and to the left and the upper right corner up and to the right,
You are essentially stretching the picture outward, and in the process of doing this some of the detail at the left and right edges of the frame is cropped out. This is unavoidable.
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This same technique can also be used to correct slanted horizons, highrise buildings, and even trees that lean inward due to the use of wide angle lenses. If these subjects are leaning inward at a severe angle, then you can only correct the picture to a certain degree.
While you can straighten vertical lines, the horizontal lines that are slanted inward are not corrected with this technique. ยง
PHOTO TOUR TO BURMA Sept. 29 to Oct. 13, 2015
• Amazing culture • Great people photography • Ancient temples • Landscapes • Long necked women • Intricately carved monasteries • Exotic art
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ASK JIM
Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.
Q: Jim . . .When I’m shooting a high contrast picture, I usually try to look at my histogram in Live View
and then use exposure compensation to reduce blown out highlights. Sometimes this gets ugly in terms of how dark I need to make the photo to totally eliminate the blinkies. However, since I’m shooting in RAW I know that I can recover some of the highlights in post processing. Therefore I try to increase the exposure slightly but not too much with the hope that I can recover them later. Lately I’ve been thinking there must be some kind of formula that will allow my highlights to be overexposed just enough that I can be fairly certain of being able to recover them in my RAW conversion. Do you have any thoughts on this? Larry Dickerson, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
A:
My formula is to underexpose my pictures by 2/3 f/stop. If that doesn’t tone down the highlights enough, I’m not going to underexpose more because lightening very dark shadows in ACR or Lightroom translates into too much noise. I never look at the histogram because if minus 2/3 f/stop doesn’t prevent spiking on the right, nothing will except HDR. For non-moving subjects like landscapes, architecture, etc., I deal with the problem by using HDR. For wildlife, people, etc., I use the highlight and shadows slider in the RAW conversion, and that’s the limit of the technology.
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Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos photo tour
September 13 - 28, 2015 Exotic cultures • Ancient ruins • Great people photography • Temples
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SNOWY OWLS WORKSHOP February 14-17, 2016
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Student Showcase
Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one or more of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same place. Everyone gets great images on my trips.
Nancy Patrick, Casper, Wyoming Holland/Belgium, Frog/reptile workshop, Carnival in Venice
Š 2015 Nancy Patrick
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Student Showcase, continued
Š 2015 Nancy Patrick
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Student Showcase, continued
Š 2015 Nancy Patrick
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home
Sat. & Sun., Oct. 17 - 18, 2015
Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, replacing backgrounds, using layer masks, blend modes, adding a moon, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it. Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you
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creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken. I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest or with a GPS. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel. Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §
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PHOTO INSIGHTS® published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2015 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014
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