Webinar - Why Photoshop? - www.guygowan.com

Why Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop is and always has been the best desktop application for image manipulation. In recent years there has been a huge shift toward using RAW Converters for not only the initial conversion, but, the image editing as well.

I use RAW converters for RAW conversion and nothing else. The reason for this is that the ‘Wang Bar” approach within RAW converters is designed to make the applications simple and easy to use. This is what makes them popular.

On face value it is easy to conclude that RAW converters are the same as Adobe Photoshop. This is only true when your knowledge of Photoshop is a basic one, or what I call ‘2D’

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This webinar is designed to give you an enhanced ‘3D’ perspective on Photoshop. This new perspective of the use of Photoshop will increase the quality of your images, but, it will change the way you feel when manipulating images.

I for nearly half of my career manipulating images without seeing them on a computer screen. worked on images but manipulating them in separated mode, visualising the composite.

This is the secret to knowing what to do rather than simply trying multiple tricks until one of them works.

Raw converters have developed a lot in the recent years and it is possible to do the conversion and to edit your images within these tools. But, just because it is possible does not make it the best way to edit your images.

In this Webinar, I will be teaching what I call FUSION… The Lithographic techniques and principles from my past, performed in Adobe Photoshop.

There are many tools within Adobe Photoshop that I use every day and I will teach you why these five unique features make image editing in Photoshop a must.

Express Interest

Channels

An image is made of fundamentally three channels, Red, Green and Blue. For most of us, we make our assessments on the image while looking at the image with all three channels present at the same time, this is composite viewing.

Learning to understand that the image is actually three individual elements enables imaging to be understood at a higher level.

For me, it is the fundamental ingredient in most if not all of my techniques. Range extension, Contrast, Sharpening, Beauty techniques, etc…

There is another dimension to the world of Photoshop, that dimension requires coming to the world of Photoshop with knowledge, and using Photoshop to communicate that knowledge. The use of channels is my foundation point for everything I do in the world of image manipulation.

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Calculations

Now I have you zoned in on just how powerful channels can be, I show you how to take it further by using “Calculations”.

Calculations enhance the image channels as if they are on steroids. It is incredible what can be achieved using this tool. The interface is not that easy to understand to begin with but it will not take long before you can use it intuitively as a part of your image manipulation toolset.

Blend If

Blend If was not invented by Adobe or the original makers of Photoshop. I first used this concept of creating transparency within an image at least ten years before Photoshop was conceived. In the initial versions of Photoshop it was effectively hidden, so it was rarely used by anyone.

It is an important part of why I use Photoshop to manipulate images and once you see what I can do with it, Blend If will be important to you to.

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Selective Colour

HSB is by far the most common method used by software developers to give us a tool to manipulating the colours of our images. It is exclusively used in all RAW converters and widely used within Photoshop.

I have used Photoshop since version 1 and hated the experience of the initial early versions. HSB or Hue, Saturation and Brightness is a crude imprecise tool.

Selective Colour was added very quickly to Photoshop and ever since then, I have never touched HSB since. Using selective colour is the most precise method of changing or enhancing the colour within an image. The problem is that to use it you need to understand what colour actually is. Again, once learned, you will never go back.

Channel Mixer

When you switch colours using HSB details are lost in the process because of compression, this is unavoidable. HSB controls and tools are easy to use but sadly are not high in quality.

Channel Mixing is the most effective method of colour switching because it bypasses compression. You can change virtually any colour to any colour and the result is perfect.

Channel mixer is another one of the unique features of Photoshop that makes it impossible for me to use anything else.

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