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Two DVDs in a series of Photoshop help tutorials from Photoshop Café

Perfect Composition
Author: Tim Cooper
Publisher: Photoshop Café
ISBN: 978-0-9816029-2-9
Run Time: 2.5 hours of video
Price: USA - $49.99

Perfect Exposure
Author: Tim Cooper
Publisher: Photoshop Café
ISBN: 978-0-9816029-2-5
Run Time: 1.5 hours of video
Price: USA - $49.99

These two DVDs, available from Photoshop Café, both have great, insightful information for the beginner or advanced photographer. Both videos (by Tim Cooper) are presented with bullets, text and many sample images. Tim is excellent in that he talks to you as a friend, explaining the nuances of photography. His voice is direct and calm, and it sounds like he wants to help you become a better photographer, not show off what he knows. All in all, these are informative and a pleasure to work with.

Videos can be an excellent choice for leaning since you can always stop, back up, have the teacher "show you that again," stop for lunch or phone calls, and get right back to where you were, before the interruption. As mentioned, these two videos are sort of in a presentation format where Tim tells you what he's about to explain, then he explains it, and then tells you what he just explained to you. This is classic presentation format and watching this shows you why it's classic.

Now I have to say that as one who HATES PowerPoint presentations where the presenter reads the text on the screen to those unable to escape from the audience, I have to admit that this approach actually worked for me on this video. In this case it did help to emphasize what he was emphasizing and what he was covering and in what order. Perhaps because it wasn't a video of him giving a presentation, whatever the reason, both video are good.

The DVDs are both self-contained both in content and the application (Flash player) required to view them. . What I mean by "self-contained" is that the Flash player plays from the DVD. I am a bit mixed on the functioning dynamics of the DVDs for several reasons. My biggest complaint is that there is no information anywhere on how long each section/chapter is and/or how much time remains in any given section. Other than watching the relative progression of the index maker as it slides across the screen, you have no idea if there is 5, 10, or 20 minutes left in any given section. If your significant other calls you for dinner, there's no honest way to tell them, "just a couple of minutes please." At a minimum, it would have been helpful if the packaging told you how long each section was but alas, that information is not to be found. In fact the only place to learn how long the total time for the DVDs can be found is from the Photoshop Cafe's website (or this review). The other issue is that fast-forwarding fast-rewinding is profoundly hampered. I'll get back to this a bit later.

When you first open the DVD, a sheet will open from the left displaying a photo from that section along with a brief description of that section. If you mouse-over each chapter, the image will change along with the information on that different section. This sheet can be closed by clicking on the vertical text "Click" along the blue strip. There is a curious glitch in the system in that if you are "in" a chapter and have the Sheet open, you can mouse-over all the chapters but the one you are in meaning you can't see the information of the chapter you are looking at once you left viewing that section. Along the very top of the window in the middle is a check box to select "Play all." If that is checked, all the chapters will play consecutively. To the right of the Play All option is a place to click on "More Videos." This will take you to the Photoshop Cafe "store" to see what other videos are available. To the right of that is an option to click on to "discuss and ask questions." This takes you to the Photoshop Cafe Forums where you can talk, discuss, and ask questions about the videos or other Photoshop/photography questions.

Along the bottom left are a series of button, one for each chapter that you can click on to move to any other chapter. These are available at at time whether a video is playing or not.

There is an interesting side issue when playing the DVDs in that accessing the content from a DVD (any DVD) on a computer is an intensive process. If you have a noisy DVD player (and apparently I do), the roar of the DVD accessing data can be loud. Just a comment/warning. This has nothing to do with these DVDs, it's just a fact of DVD-life.

Once you click on a chapter to play, the view changes to what you see below with the name of the chapter, it's subject, and the video controls across the bottom. From the Flash video's menus, there is an option for full screen. If you select this, your screen up with a charcoal fill across the whole screen except the video which is the same size as before. The only advantage of going "full screen" is to cut off any distraction from any other application running on your computer. There is no option to view the content at a larger size.

One of the values of video is the ability to stop, rewind, and play again. If you limit yourself to small adjustments by dragging the placement marker by your mouse, you'll be OK. Using the fast-forward, fast-rewind is no end in frustration. If you drag the placement marker a long distance, again you will be faced with some level of frustration as the video seems to lock up until all is resolved. Thus, one of the main advantages of video tutoring is somewhat limited. Fortunately, pausing and restarting work just fine.

Overall, I'd give the performance of the players a skinny 3 out of 5. The players work but they are not as good as the content on the videos. The good news is that they do not detract from the content, only make the content a little less accessible as one may wish.

Be aware that these DVDs are also available in sets that let you save some money and as such they are worth considering. More video reviews will be coming in upcoming days.

So, now onto the content...

Perfect Composition for Digital Photography

I loved this video. I've been taking photos for about 35 years and I love learning formally what I've hacked my way through by myself. I found that I was learning the "why's" of what I've been doing and/or the "how's" to do it better.

Each section is filled with examples to explain and block out why an image is either better or worse and why. Tim does an excellent job at explaining what are the rules and how can you best break the rules to get an even better photo.

Being a trifle lazy here, let me detail each chapter as they are written within the DVD for his eight chapters:

1. An introduction to composition and an overview of how or vision perceives art.
2. This section shows you how to guide your viewers eye through a photograph
3. An overview of the elements of composition and how they apply to photography
4. This segment shows you how to place subjects within the frame
5. An in-depth look at wide, normal, and long lenses, and how they affect our composition
6. F-stops and shutter speeds and how you can use them to produce more creative compositions.
7. This segment explores the importance of positioning camera location and perspective.
8. Tips and hints on portraiture and landscape photography plus some easy to avoid pitfalls.

From the very beginning, Tim first explores what composition means. He provides several dictionary definitions and mulls on each before revealing his favorite definition and elaborating on why this is the one that best focuses on composition for the photographer. The root of his favorite definition is "A Unified, Harmonious Whole." In other words, if the items in the image are unified and harmonious to each other, than we have good composition. If the main and secondary subjects are working together, than we can tell a story with that image. Of course there's more to it than this, but at that point I'd be simply repeating his video and that's for you to see. But what Tim stresses in the first section is that when you are moved to take a photograph, you have to ask why? What does that view say to you and can you capture within the frame all that makes the image speak and can that voice speak to others?

In essence, across the whole video, Tim explains how our eyes see things, than he points out that as photographers we need to apply these "seeing dynamics" to our photographs. Then he identifies all of the things that can help in this endeavor in photographs, and finally he points out what kinds of problems we might get ourselves into and how to avoid them.

Tim does an excellent job at describing how a photo should tell a story and how you need to lead the viewer to what that story is. But Tim also points out that a good photo means that you know what that story is as well. So, part of the video is explaining how to look at a scene and see what the story might be. Then, to help you, as the photographer figure out how to frame that photo so the potential viewer will see what you thought was so interesting. Light, dark, in focus, not in focus, shapes, angles, contrasts all are part of the visual mechanics to tell a story.

Using a variety of images, Tim displays how changing the shutter speed effects movement, aperture changes depth of field, and ISO changes how much control you have on the previous two controls. What's also important is how the lens changes the composition. Consider the distortion caused by using a wide-angle lens up to someone face and how their nose will now appear blown all out of proportion. Similarly, a wide angle lens causes things that are close to appear much closer making the objects in the background appear less significant (back to that nose).

As shown below, you can see his presentation approach to the subject of wide-angled lenses and how he goes through each concept slowly with lots of images to make his case. There is a comparable screen for long lenses.

After discussing the wide and telephoto lenses, Tim then discusses the dynamics of a "normal" lens. Unfortunately he never really defines either what a normal lens is or what constitutes a normal lens. I add the latter part of that comment because for film, a 50mm lens is considered normal but with digital cameras, what's considered normal is a relationship based on the size of the sensor and the size of the lens. He implies that if the lens is not doing what a wide angle lens is doing or what a telephoto lens does, than that is a normal lens. Not a very strong delineator and I do feel that that could have been fleshed out a bit more.

If I had one complaint with this video is that when he talks about light/dark issues, all he points out in his examples are light/dark issues. The same with focus/not in focus, lines, angles, etc. What I would have enjoyed is if he had one more chapter where he brought in a variety of examples and pointed out ALL of the dynamics present on each image. Certainly not every image will use all of the dynamics, but without question none of them relied solely on one dynamic. It would have been fun and educational to have him detail all that he can point out in his images.

Applelinks Rating:

Buy Perfect Composition for Digital Photography

Perfect Exposure for Digital Photography

Anyone can get proper exposure. That's what you get when you take your camera, point it at a subject, let the internal sensor capture what it needs to capture and let the shutter click all via TTL metering (Through The Lens). But as you watch this video, you quickly learn than proper exposure is not always the correct exposure. The purpose of this video is to explain how the camera senses the amount of exposure it thinks it needs and how you can control what the camera thinks it needs into what you know it should have.

Simply, the self-sensors within the camera always try to average the amount of light it senses to set the proper f-stop and shutter speed. If what you are aiming your camera at is in fact an average lighted subject, there's no problem. However, if you've ever tried to take a photo of something very light (like the side of building painted white) or very dark (the side of an old train engine), your camera will try to average that light making it mid grey. Thus, your building will come out darker than it should while the train will come out lighter than it should. This video is all about how to override what the camera wants to do so that the result is a correct exposed image.

To obtain the correct exposure, one needs to view an image and the levels of contrast within that image. To do this, one needs to have a basic knowledge of the zone system. In addition, understanding of how the camera senses how much light is within an image and how that camera wants to deal with that amount of light is not really hard or complicated, but essential for getting correct exposure. What's interesting is that the first time I watched this relatively short (1.5 hours) video, I felt some information had been left out. However, as I watched it a second time, I realized that the information was there, but there's so much information that I had missed it the first time around.

Tim does a good job explaining the zone system, developed jointly by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer, but (even after several subsequent viewings) I feel that he didn't spend enough time on the subject that measured light and perceived light are two completely different things. More specifically I do not feel he does as good a job as he could have in explaining how film and the human eye see light differently (non-linear) than the sensor in a digital camera (linear). The information is there, but not as well developed as I think it could have been. Despite that, Tim does do an excellent job of showing how with film the adage is to "Expose for your shadows and develop for your highlights," but now with digital, one must "Meter on the mid-tones and check the highlights."

Like the previous video, Tim's excellent images and other visual support help display the issues confronting the digital photographer. For example, below is a screenshot from the video showing how changing the shutter speed (or aperture in another series of images), changes the exposure compensation stops that darken or lighten the image.

This is then developed to show how changes in exposure can affect color within an image as shown below.

Another area where Tim spends a lot of time is discussing the various meterings that one might have available with their camera and the advantages and disadvantages of each. His explanations and examples are all excellent. What was an interesting omission was that he didn't display the (essentially) universal camera icons for these metering approaches. I've placed a screenshot from my Canon's manual below (displaying the icons on the left side) to show both what I'm talking about and how such a simple inclusion would not have been easy to add and provided information that might have helped the beginning photographer. And even if you are not a beginning photographer and want a wonderful explanation of what those various metering modes do and why you might want one or the other, this video is fantastic.

Simply put, correct exposure is a very important subject that is nowadays is often glossed over because of the automatic metering done within the modern camera. Tim does a good/great job in explaining both metering and the zone system. Finally, using your camera's built-in metering, understanding what it's doing and why, you can capture better images through better exposures. You might find, as I did, that this video warrants viewing multiple times. The good news is that if you purchase it, you can view it as many times as you want or need.

Applelinks Rating:

Buy Perfect Exposure for Digital Photography

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.