PDN Photo Expo

The Most Important Event in Photography: October 23-25, 2008.
Located at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City the show boasts a huge expo floor, hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of new products and a conference with over 100 seminars.

Sign up for FREE!!
http://www.photoplusexpo.com/ppe/5300/expo/index.jsp

Wacom Tablets

Adobe Photoshop is specifically designed to be used with a Wacom pen tablet. Pen pressure, pen tilt, and even the airbrush's finger-wheel can control attributes like opacity, size, color, and exposure. With a Wacom pen, you have the power to dynamically control Photoshop's tools in the most natural and intuitive way possible.

Photoshop has more than 20 customizable tools that perform at their best with a Wacom pen. Simply press a little harder or softer with your pen for more or less effect. Photoshop feels every slight adjustment that you make with your Wacom pen.

Photographers, designers, and artists choose to work with Wacom pen tablets because Photoshop Quick Masks and Layer Masks are designed to be used with a Wacom pressure-sensitive pen. Color temperature, exposure, blur, and any other Photoshop effect can be applied with pressure-sensitive pen control. To selectively undo the effect, simply turn your pen over and use the pressure-sensitive eraser. Whether making selections, retouching, or applying effects, working with a Wacom pen is clearly the fastest way to work to achieve a smoother, more natural look.

For more info go to: http://www.wacom.com/tips/photoshop.cfm

For tips & a tutorial on how to use the wacom pen plus pen tool to do a composite, go to http://www.wacom.com/tips/tip.cfm?ID=91&STEP=5&category=Photoshop

To buy one, click here.

Homework Due 9/23

Reading: Martin Evening Text pp. 334-347: Retouching Portraits.

Retouch one portrait you've shot in RAW. Pay close attention to the skin and use the techniques we went over in class. For the Skin Finishing steps, refer to the handout that was given in class, or download this sheet:

Emerging Artists 2009: Competition

Emerging Artists 2009 presents the seventeenth annual competition for gallery exhibition and awards. The exhibition will be held in March 2009 at the Limner Gallery. Open to all artists working in any media. There will be a $1,000 cash award and $2,600 in publication awards. For the prospectus e-mail slowart@aol.com, Visit website or mail SASE to: SlowArt Productions, 123 Warren St, Hudson NY 12534.
Deadlines: November 30

Art Scholarship Competition

MyArtSpace is accepting artwork online for their scholarship competition. Artists must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate art program and be a member of myartspace.com, an online community for the contemporary art world. First place in the competition is a $5,000 cash scholarship; Second place is $2,000, and third place is $1,000. Visit My Art Space for more information.
Deadline: November 31

Shots Magazine Portfolio Contest

Photographers chosen for publication will be interviewed and featured on at least 4 pages in this annual issue. (Note: Photographers previously featured in Shots’ interviews and past Portfolio Issues are not eligible for this issue.)

Send up to 20 images (prints or files on a CD) for consideration.

An established independent photography journal in its 22nd year of publication, Shots Magazine reaches an international audience of photographers, collectors, galleries, museums, educators and other fine art photography enthusiasts. Don't miss this chance to have your work seen!

All submissions must be received by November 3, 2008
For more info, visit:
http://shotsmag.com/guidelines.htm

Week 4: Image Retouching

This week are going over image retouching. We will be looking at different images to assess what can be done to improve them. We will also talk about the different audiences for photography and what degree of retouching suits each. Fashion and beauty retouching is much more in depth than the retouching that goes into a private portrait session. You must always ask what the needs of your client are. Also, a photographer must be aware of the rules that govern photojournalism. Look at the articles below to get an idea of what is technically allowed (NPR) and what is actually done:

Articles for reference:
Pixel Perfect
Pascal Dangin’s virtual reality.
by Lauren Collins
New Yorker, May 2008

3 Magazines Are Accused of Retouching Celebrity Photos to Excess
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN
NYT May 2007

L'Oréal Denies Lightening Beyoncé's Skin for New Ads
NY Mag blog, The Cut

One Gap Ad’s Tragic Photoshop Error
NY Mag blog, The Cut


Do you care if the photographs you see in your newspapers and magazines, or on the Internet, have been changed? If only slightly? If so, why? Click here to hear a radio show on NPR's Talk of the Nation on this topic.

In class, we will go over all the steps of retouching one portrait together.
Here is the before and after of an image we'll work on. It was taken by my friend, photographer Kelly Neal.



After all your basic retouching (cloning, healing, cropping, levels etc.) is done, follow these steps for skin finishing to achieve a airbrushed magazine finish. Click on this image to see the instructions: