Printmaking for Nature Photographers – From RAW to Finished Print
Program by Nye Simmons
Limited to 8 Participants
Hosted by F/32 Photo
Have you started printing your images or thinking about starting? Do you print yourself or send the file to a shop such as F/32 to be printed? Do you make all the final adjustments yourself or trust someone else to do it? Are the results predictable? Does the final print reflect what you felt about the image and what you intended? Whether you are just testing the water, or have hours of experience, this course is for you. Learn how to take control of your image.
YouTube and other on-line resources are great, but nothing takes the place of in-person learning. Rather than try to cover the entire breadth of Lightroom and Photoshop, I will take you through a targeted learning approach specific to the images you bring. Learn how to recognize problems in the image and fix them, on an image that is personal to you. Just watching the instructor go through an image doesn’t stick very well, so we will take all the steps together.
There are common threads to image processing, whether intended for the web, social media, offset printing (i.e. books and magazines) or for a printer, be it inkjet or Lightjet. Though applicable to electronic media, there are further steps and pitfalls along the way to a fine print for your wall. That will be our focus, starting with RAW processing ending up in Photoshop.
I am going to take a slightly different tack with this from what you may have read or seen. We will do one of your images that you would like to see printed and progress to that end through the sessions. The goal is to have each of you make a print by the end of the course. We will learn from each image, one at a time, paying particular attention to problems that need to be fixed and where appropriate, exploring alternate solutions. It is rare to find an image with unique needs, so what is learned from one, will be applicable to another. There is, in fact, usually more than one way to skin a cat in Photoshop; often one is not superior to the other.
The course begins Saturday, August 14th at 2 PM and will meet on August 21st and 28th, and finally on September 11th. This frees up early August for family vacations as well as the Labor Day weekend. There will be four sessions, three hours each, with a make-up session following the last for anyone who’s schedule requires, to be scheduled at a mutually convenient time. Those three hours will be punctuated by frequent breaks as well as Q&A. About 45 minutes is all I can take at a time without a break before my brain is scrambled; if we need to break sooner, we can. Spreading the sessions out allows time for practicing what you have learned before returning to build on that foundation. Repetition is key to retaining what you learn in Photoshop. F/32 Photo is hosting the workshop at their facility and will provide printing support for final output of your image.
What to Bring
Participants will need a computer and monitor. For practical purposes this means a laptop. That makes for a cramped desktop, so if you have an auxiliary monitor, bring it. You will do best with a recent Photoshop version and Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, although older versions are still functional. If you are currently using Capture One as your RAW processor, that’s perfectly fine.
Who am I to teach you?
I have been using Photoshop for professional image editing since 2003 and accumulated 10,000 or more hours of image processing time doing so. I have taken instruction from some of the leading photoshop and printmaking instructors in our country. I have done all the image processing as well as digital prepress for my following books:
Blue Ridge Parkway Celebration (a 214-page large format book)
The Greater Smoky Mountains Photographer’s Guide
Best of the Blue Ridge Parkway
Tennessee Wonder and Light
I have done the same for my portion of the books that I co-authored or contributed to:
Blue Ridge Parkway, An Extraordinary Journey Among the World’s Oldest Mountains (with Jerry Greer)
the Smoky Mountains Photographer’s Guide (with Bill Campbell)
Great Smoky Mountains Wonder and Light (with Jerry Greer and Bill Lea)
the Ultimate Guide to Digital Nature Photography – contributing photographer / writer.
Let me leverage what I have learned from my experience to help you advance your knowledge and skills to solve the problems presented by challenging images. or simply get started making your own prints. If you do not own a printer, optimizing your image for the service bureau of your choice insures you get what you expect.
Workshop cost is $599.00 inclusive of instruction, facility usage, and print lab. Price of a 16x24 or similar ratio print and print lab is included in the course price. Deposit of $200.00 due at registration. Balance due 2 weeks prior to start date.
F/32 Photo
7933 Ray Mears Blvd, Knoxville, TN 37919
865-934-0909
We will be in a closed room, spread out per social distancing guidelines. Unvaccinated attendees are requested to mask while in the conference room.