Go Shoot With Digital

I have been back from Photoshop World for a couple of days now, and some of the items are starting to sink in for me. Of course I will probably need to go back and review my notes, the notes in the textbook, and of course download all the goodies that the instructors were able to share. Then I might have a real chance to understand some of what I learned, and possibly learn from the notes of the sessions that I was not able to attend.

I think that is one of the biggest benefits of PSW, the book of all the instructors notes that you get. And this year, by attending the first ever attendee orientation session on Tuesday, I think that I learned one of the most helpful tips – Leave the big book in your hotel room, and go to the sessions with just a notebook for your own notes. Not only did this save me from lugging around a telephone book with me, it allowed me to focus on what the instructor was saying and not trying to follow along with the notes provided.

Another thing that I found to be a lot better this time around was the Expo. More of the booths were doing short little presentations, and they were well publicized, so that you knew where to be and when. There were some very interesting new products displayed, like lenticular products from Snapily. Of course gallery wraps, and canvas printing were big from Mpix and APC. However, one thing that really wowed me was the printing on metal. I saw 2 companies that were providing this process Metal Mural and AluminArte. I had heard the AluminArte prints described before as being like High Definition Printing, and seeing them for myself, in person, I have to agree. The Metal Mural product is also very good looking, but the main interest in that is the use of the various squares to create your mural the way you want it.

There was also some talk about the new version of Photoshop during the Keynote, however no “details” or “dates” were given. Of course the Art of Digital Photography session on Thursday night was inspiring as usual. As for the training sessions, this time I was focused more on taking better pictures. So I was attending more sessions in the Photography tracks, as opposed to the Photoshop tracks. Although, as was the case last time, the sessions really didn’t seem to cover what I was expecting. I mean there was a session that was supposed to be about still life photography, and it was mostly about a new product that was on the market for color correction and creating a custom camera color profile. And then there was a session on creating fantasy portraits, and it was about turning a portrait into a fantasy image (think elves & aliens). And of course there was always the issue of not being able to make it to some sessions because of scheduling conflicts. I missed one session on working with, and lighting, seamless backgrounds, but I missed that one because of a Photoshop Beta Tester session.

Yes, overall it is a good conference to attend. And every time I attend I learn about what I should do for the next one. For instance one change that I made was to NOT attend the Midnight Madness event. And hopefully it won’t be two years before I get to attend another Photoshop World Conference.

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