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| Photoshop
class in focus |
| Class
will teach you how to erase wrinkles |
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Rod Martinez shows his Photoshop Elements class
how to dodge and
burn a photo of an elk.
(MARIJA B. VADER | FREE PRESS) |
Spend
five minutes in the hallways of Western Colorado Community
College, and you’ll come to the same conclusion I did:
Rod Martinez takes and makes beautiful photos.
So when it came time to learn how to manipulate photography like
a pro, I eagerly signed up for his Adobe Photoshop Elements class.
The class lasted a mere four mornings, held at the former UTEC
campus in a classroom filled with computers pre-loaded with Photoshop.
Along with the class material, Martinez distributed a CD packed
with photos he took.The photos were to be used by the class
to play with — his photos he has taken over years and years
of watching wildlife and weather and people of Colorado. It
was nice to use his photos too, knowing if I messed up, I
wouldn’t be ruining one of my own masterpieces;
I’d be ruining a mere copy of one of his.
The class started out in a very basic fashion, designed to
teach someone who had little if any computer experience.
One problem in our class was the lack of computers that quickly
responded. Several froze up. In the four sessions, I sat at five different computers. |
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I
was impressed at the 27- page notebook packed with hints,
commands and shortcuts compiled by Martinez. I prefer to use
keyboard commands; I don’t like using my mouse. I
can move faster without using the mouse, so every
chance I get, I will use keyboard commands.
I was quite pleased to see Martinez’ notebook starts
with keyboard command shortcuts users can do without
needing to be mouse-dependent.
He gave us many, many hints:
• If you want to send a photo on the Internet, use a jpeg low or
medium quality so it doesn’t take up too much room.
• I want resolution of 300 or more if I want a nice photo to enlarge to an eight-by-ten.
• When brushing the photos to get rid of flaws in a photo, use
a hard brush on things like rocks and a soft brush on things
like faces and skies.
• Take vertical photos and merge them together for a good panorama photo.
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If I layer the photo’s improvements, I can go back later
and enhance the layers without affecting the original photo.
• Photoshop Elements can eliminate the wrinkles in a face.
• It can also take the red eye out of a photo. |
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| Contact
Rod to learn more about classes, fieldtrips/workshops
and tutorials customized just so you can take “winning” photographs
of the Colorado Plateau, Colorado’s Mountains and wildflowers. |
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