Working With a Pro

[chrisc]

Did you ever wonder how some people always seem to get more out of a photo than you do? I know Steve and I do and though we get better every day, we still find ourselves wondering how certain effects are achieved.

To assist in taking the wonder out of really great images, we've enlisted the assistance of David Byrne (Cannockwolf) in a new forum called, "Working with a Pro." Dave's pedigree speaks for itself as he has won nearly every Salon event in the UK and many others in Europe.

In this thread, members will be asked to submit an image to Dave and over the course of several days he will pick one and begin a closed dialogue with that member. It is closed in that only those two can converse and work back and forth, though all members will be able to see how Dave takes the member through a series of Post Production explorations until said member comes to a professional end. At the end of the edit, member will be able to ask Dave specific questions as to the how and why.

For the first image, we want to stay close to Dave's best area of expertise and ask only Landscape images be submitted. If you shoot in RAW, keep your original file and we'll provide a mediafire link to transfer the RAW data to Dave. If not, he can also work with a good jpeg.

This is a work in progress and as it develops, we'll try to overcome any glitches as they occur. We think this is going to be a fun thread and hope everyone participates.

[Stevewebb]

I really hope everyone gets involved with this as I think we can all learn a lot and maybe expand this idea in the future to include many more areas of expertise.

All we need to get started really is some guinnea pigs, volunteers to offer an image and some of their time to work with Dave over a period of a couple of weeks to develop ideas and the process around that image.

If you wish to take part then you can simply reply in this thread maybe even posting a couple of images that you think you would like help with for Dave to choose his first participant from.

[janis]

I would love to participate, but am wondering if there are any specific software requirements. I am limited to Aperture 3 and the Nik suite of plug-ins (complete collection).

[chrisc]

I think Dave is astute enough to walk you through any software limitations or programs. The way this is supposed to work is he will make suggestions as to luminosity or color balanace, etc and you will apply your software to match his suggestions.

Go ahead, make our day - post one.

[Stevewebb]

Go Janis

[Stevewebb]

Looks good to me Rie, thanks for volunteering

[mariehass]

I dunno, Steve. Landscapes are not my strong suit because I have no idea what to do with them. That is one thing I would like to learn from Dave. Is it ok to post a few other options in case he does not like this one?

'Rie

[Stevewebb]

Go ahead Rie, the more the better as It will help all of us to understand the thought process of a specialist like Dave in selecting which images are the great ones.

I am very much the same as you I think in that I "see" a landscape with my eyes and in my head, but always struggle to transfer that onto the screen.

[chrisc]

A quick note: Dave does his photography shooting on Wed, Thur and Friday so we wil not heard from him until Saturday or Sunday.

[Stevewebb]

OK folks, so Dave is about ready to make his selection so this thread will be locked and the posts volunteering images for selection will be moved into the "Working With A Pro" board in the Cafe Bar.

That board is locked so that only Dave and his volunteer can post in it while the development process is under way just to avoid any confusion or contradiction taking place. However, once the process is complete, the thread will be completely unlocked so that we can all comment and discuss the outcome.

Thanks to the volunteers for giving this new concept a try and to everyone else for your support.