Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

Learn Lightroom 3 from Photographer Chris Orwig

Published by Jim Heid | Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

lightroom

The computer industry is usually a secretive place. Companies keep their product plans to themselves, and all product discussions take place under the Cone of Silence from TV’s Get Smart.

That’s one reason why Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is a breath of fresh air. Adobe has made a prerelease version of its popular photo-management and photo-enhancement software available for free downloading. Curious to see what’s new? Grab the beta preview and try it.

But how do you learn it? By diving into Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta Preview, a new lynda.com course from Chris Orwig, photographer and instructor at the Brooks Institute. It’s more than two hours of detailed instruction on all the new features in Lightroom 3’s beta version, and it includes comparisons that illustrate what has changed from Lightroom 2.

Chris will also be doing courses on the final version of Lightroom 3 next year. But why wait? Download the free public beta and dive into the next version of Lightroom right now.

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Posted in Photography, Published Courses, Upcoming titles | No Comments »

New photo assignment: Using backlighting to your photographic advantage

Published by Megan O. Read | Monday, October 26th, 2009
backlit

Derrick Story and his model, Denise Crosby, show us how to best use backlight, reflection, spot metering, and fill flash for stunning professional-quality photographs.

Derrick Story is at it again! He is bound and determined to make us better photographers, and his new series of Photo Assignment courses really do give us all an opportunity to strut our stuff.

The latest in his series is the new course, Photo Assignment: Backlit Portraits, Derrick show us how to achieve really interesting effects in a typically unintuitive shooting style—backlit. Check out his new courses, and then join me in posting pictures to his latest Flickr group, where we can all learn from each other.

Have fun shooting and see you all on Flickr.

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Posted in Photography, Published Courses, Trainers | No Comments »

Your next photo assignment: Fill Flash Portraits with Derrick Story

Published by Megan O. Read | Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

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Derrick Story has just released another photo-assignment course on lynda.com with a show-and-tell Flickr component. This course, Photo Assignment: Fill Flash Portraits, explains the benefits of using flash photography outdoors in bright light in order to achieve great looking portraits in otherwise tricky bright light.

This technique will help you build off of what you learned in Derrick’s first Photo Assignment course, but is also a terrific stand-alone course to help you brush up on your photography when you are at daytime, outdoor events.

There is also a new Flickr group set up and ready for you. So get outside, grab your camera, and take some fill flash photography with us. Looking forward to seeing your work on the Fill Flash Portrait Photo Assignment Flickr group.

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Posted in Photography, Published Courses | 2 Comments »

New Photo Assignment series teaches technique and urges collaboration

Published by Megan O. Read | Thursday, October 8th, 2009
lynda.com producer Samara Iodice with instructor/photographer Derrick Story.

lynda.com producer Samara Iodice with instructor/photographer Derrick Story.

As Jim wrote yesterday, lynda.com has plans for a number of new photography related courses — and just by chance, we’ve just released the first course in a new series for aspiring photographers this week. Photo Assignment: Natural Light Portraits with author and photographer Derrick Story is a really cool new lynda.com course that shows us valuable techniques for shooting portraits in natural (i.e. unpredictable and sometimes unflattering) lighting. These tips are sure to bring your outdoor portrait photography to the next level.

But wait, there’s more…

Derrick has created a Flickr group dedicated to showcasing lynda.com members’ natural light portraits, too. So after you watch the course and pick up some new tips, grab your kid sister, neighbor, or better half, and start snapping shots. Then upload your pix to the public Natural Light Portrait Photo Assignment Flickr group for feedback and to see the photos other members have shot and uploaded.

Derrick shows you how to join the Flickr group within this course, but if you would like more training on Flickr, check out Derrick’s other lynda.com course entirely devoted to the photo-sharing website, Flickr Essential Training.

I’ll be uploading my own photos to Derrick’s Flickr group soon and hope you will join me.

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Posted in Behind the scenes, Photography, Published Courses | 1 Comment »

Hello from the new Content Manager for Photography: Jim Heid

Published by Jim Heid | Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Meet Jim Heid, lynda.com's Content Manager for Photography

Meet Jim Heid, lynda.com's Content Manager for Photography

Smile, everybody! I’m Jim Heid, the new Content Manager for photography here at lynda.com.

Some of you may recognize my name from the pages of Macworld magazine, where I’ve been writing since the dawn of time. Or you might know me from my The Macintosh iLife series of books on Apple’s iLife suite. A handful of you might even be familiar with my photos on Flickr.

At lynda.com, my job is to help plan our photography-related courses. And we’ll be offering a lot more in the future. Of course, you’ll see new courses on Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, and other essential digital imaging tools. But you’ll also see courses on photographic technique: Lighting, composition, lenses, and more.

For anyone who loves photography, this is a great time to be alive. Cameras, lenses, and imaging software have never been better. But at least as important, the Internet has given each of us a global audience, a way to inspire and be inspired. At lynda.com, we’ll be taking advantage of this revolution in imaging, too.

You’ll be hearing from me frequently here on the lynda.com blog. In the meantime, I’d love your comments containing suggestions on the types of photography courses you’d like to see.

In 1944, Popular Photography magazine ran an article containing predictions for the future of photography. Among them:

  • “It is possible to perfect the camera to the point where it will become an automatic instrument which will focus, expose, and process the film by the mere push of a button.”
  • “I should like to see [the camera] develop until it takes its place with the pencil and the typewriter as an instrument of our everyday language.”
  • “Networks will make it possible for everyone in the world to see pictures of news events at the same time.”

Welcome to the future.

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Posted in Behind the scenes, Photography | 8 Comments »