Creating Dramatic Images			Tweet

Creating Dramatic Images, one of David's most popular workshops, will provide you with the skills you need to dramatically improve your photography and post-production.

It will focus on:

• How to optimise your initial exposures.
• How to visualise a scene in terms of its postproduction.
• How to think through the changes that are needed to create a dramatic image.
• Which post-production tools and techniques you need to use to realise your creative vision.

During this two-day intensive workshop we will explore each of these topics in turn, concentrating on developing the skills you need in order to create stunning and dramatic images of your own.

	“	The two day 'Creating Dramatic Images' class opened up brand new areas of Photoshop to me (I've been using it for 15 years) & taught me many techniques that I have found incredibly useful since & am now using very regularly in my post-processing workflow.”
	Dave Wilson

There are just sixteen places available on this workshop!

Examples of the kind of images you will be able to create by the end of the workshop are included below: just hover your mouse over each image (or the 'show the original' link beneath them) to see the original. Alternatively, take a look at Dave's blog or galleries for some further examples. As with the images below, hover your mouse over the 'show the original' link beneath each one to compare the original and post-processed version.

show the original		show the original		show the original

show the original		show the original		show the original

Course description

Every situation presents a photographic opportunity, but not every situation can be photographed well, at least not in terms of simply pressing the shutter and nailing the shot. In these circumstances we often have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that no better shot was available. We can then either trash the shot or attempt to 'fix' it with Photoshop (or other image-editing software).

But this isn't the only way to think about postproduction. Instead of thinking of it as something to 'fix' bad photographs after they are taken, it should be seen as integral to the entire photographic process: from visualising the initial capture; through determining the exposure and pressing the shutter; to editing your image to reveal its creative potential.

In this intensive two-day hands-on workshop we will take a look at what this means in practice, in terms of why and how you should optimise your initial exposures; how to visualise a scene from the point of view of its postproduction; and how to think through the various changes that are needed to create a dramatic image.

To do this we will work through a range of topics, tools and techniques that you can use to enhance your images, including:

• The nature of dramatic images.
• Planning an optimised workflow (from capture to output).
• Optimising your initial exposures.
• Converting your RAW files to maximise their potential (using Adobe's Camera Raw plugin or other RAW conversion tools).
• How to evaluate the changes that should be made to an image.
• Mastering key tools and techniques such as adjustment layers, masks, and the Curves tool.
• Exploring a range of techniques you can use to create effective and visually compelling black and white images.
• Working through a variety of tools and techniques you can use to tone your colour or black and white images (e.g. the Curves tool, Selective Color tool, and so on).
• Developing an understanding of a range of advanced editing techniques, including blend modes and working in Lab Color mode (a powerful alternative to working in RGB).

What to bring
Your laptop, Photoshop CS or above (and a basic familiarity with how to use it), a range of RAW files (including at least one landscape image and one portrait), your DSLR, a range of lenses if you have them, and a tripod. It's also a good idea to bring your camera manual along!

Venue & Accommodation

This workshop will take place in the conference facilities at the Savoy, a three star hotel located on Blackpool's North Shore, close to the town's many attractions. For further details regarding the hotel please take a look at this page.

Schedule

The Chromasia Team

Dave will be running the workshop and Libby will ensure that the event runs smoothly. You can find out more about both of them on the about page.

Additionally, Dave will be assisted by Craig Judd (right).

Craig, a freelance photographer based in Poole (Dorset), taught City and Guilds Photography for the De-Havilland College in Welwyn Garden City, and was Head Photographic Technician for the University of Hertfordshire and the St Albans College of Art and Design. He studied PQE photography at Plymouth and gained a Distinction in 1991. He subsequently went on to Assist Bill Morton in London, and then freelanced for Finnemore and Field in Edgeware.

Since then he has continued to pursue a variety of photographic techniques and topics, all of which are expressed on his popular website id7.co.uk and blog id7.co.uk/iblog.

Further information

If you have any questions about this workshop please contact Libby for further information on this or any of our other training events. Alternatively, if you can't make it over to Blackpool on these dates, you may be interested in our online Photoshop tutorials, our one-to-one training, or some of the other training events we have planned for the future.

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