Adobe Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory in Photoshop Training Course

This is a demanding and sharply-focused seminar for those who are serious about improving the way their color images appear on the printed page. The class is image enhancement/color correction only. There is no coverage of special effects. The emphasis is on the use of input-output curves to improve quality. THIS IS THE CLASS THAT MANY PROFESSIONAL PHOTOSHOP INSTRUCTORS TAKE.

The majority of students are not from the geographic locale of the classes but fly in from out-of-state or from other countries. Classes normally run from Thursday through Saturday. Sessions begin early (9 a.m. on the first day only, earlier thereafter) and continue well into the evening. The goal is to pack a week's worth of content into three long days.

Each student is assigned a fully-equipped Macintosh. Lecture/discussions are followed by sessions in which each member of the class works on improving the same images. The results are compared against one another and critiqued. The images--around 20 in all, depending upon class speed--are typical of those encountered in professional work and represent a variety of requirements. In addition to professional retouchers, this class appeals to photographers, art directors, and anyone involved with image manipulation.

Familiarity with Photoshop is a prerequisite, but, as this is a concept-based course, expertise in the program is not. The class is not version-specific. For those who are looking for more foundational Photoshop training, it is recommended that you attend some of the other Photoshop training at Sterling Ledet & Associates first.

The class was overhauled at the start of 2008 to accommodate the new "Picture Postcard Workflow" introduced by Dan Margulis at Photoshop World in 2007. Those having previously taken the course would find substantial new content.

Dan Margulis, a veteran prepress manager, is author of Professional Photoshop Fifth Edition, (Peachpit Press, 2006) the leading book on professional color correction. His book Photoshop LAB Color (Peachpit Press, 2005) is an international bestseller. His column, "Makeready," focusing on production issues, appeared in both Electronic Publishing and Photoshop User magazines, the only such column ever to appear regularly in two publications simultaneously. In 2001, he was one of the first three persons, and the only writer, inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame created by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. In its citation, the NAPP said, "Dan's ability to reduce complicated concepts to words that users can understand and his insistence on dealing with real-world relevance have made him today's most influential voice in professional color reproduction."

We have several of Dan's articles and chapters from his books available on-line as PDF files, including a complete listing of all the Makeready titles with links to several of them. We have also archived a large number of edited threads from the Colortheory newsgroup list on various color production-related topics.

• Chicago - September 29-October 1, 2010
• Washington - October 25-27, 2010

• Objectives of color correction
• How humans perceive color
• Differences between human perception and that of a camera

• The importance of choosing proper endpoints (highlights and shadows)
• Enhancing contrast in local areas
• Finding areas of colorspace that are not used efficiently
• Influence of curve shape on reproduction
• Using LAB to evaluate color defects, even when working in RGB or CMYK
• The known colors: skies, greenery, fleshtones
• Evaluating neutrals and near-neutrals.
• The close relation between RGB and CMY channels Color "by the numbers"

• Photoshop method of unsharp masking and its variables
• Application of USM in selected channels, or locally
• Three models of USM: conventional, hiraloam, and Shadow/Highlight