RetouchPRO LIVE: "Wacom Tablet for Photographers"

[Doug Nelson]

Something a little different this time, but I think it will prove useful to a large cross-section of viewers.

RetouchPRO LIVE - "Wacom Tablet for Photographers" with Stephen Burns
Watch live via your browser as professional instructor and author Stephen Burns demonstrates everything you've ever needed or wanted to know about working with a Wacom Tablet in Photoshop CS4.

He'll begin at the beginning with a basic introduction to the Wacom Tablet (specifically the Intuos 4, but most of this information will be useful for older models). He'll then progress through many of the most common tasks for your tablet, then on to increasingly more advanced topics of tablet usage.

And, of course, he'll answer audience questions about anything and everything pertaining to Wacom Tablet usage.

Saturday, September 5, 4pm CDT (see link below for other time zones)

Click the link below for details and ticket sales:
http://www.retouchpro.com/index.php?page=burns

[photogryl]

This is just the course for which I have longed. As noted in the promo, content is also applicable to Intuous 3? In this economy, the next best thing may have to wait! In other words, just how helpful will this be for those with I-3?
Thanks for this promising program.

[Doug Nelson]

As stated, most everything will also apply to older tablets (and we'll specify what doesn't).

[ShogunSho]

Wow!! Thank you very very much Doug for this LIVE Session. It's all what I have been awaiting for. Currently, I owned an Intuos 4 as well.


I would like to suggest if Stephen could provide some images for participants to download that are the same ones in which Stephen will be using during the presentation.

In this way, we could follow along with the procedure that Stephen goes through and would make it clear what we will discover along the way as well. I strongly believe it is a better way to learn instead of simply watching and listening then take notes which if we do it on our own later on we will struggle at some stage. Meanwhile, if we are to prepare our own image, the source may cause some limitation in which we would not realize what was our mistake. However, if we work on the same thing, we would discover our own weakness and mistakes.

[photogryl]

This will be an amazing Webinar; thanks again, Doug.
Here's a question I hope you can ask Stephen (feel free to edit or rephrase for brevity):
When using the lasso tool, is there is a way to avoid closing a selection before you are finished making it (when what you wish to do is to lift the pen off the tablet and then put it back down and take up where you left off)? I may not be saying that correctly, but I hope you know what I mean. I know you can go point by point with the polygonal selection feature, but it is too angular for more organic or curving subjects. In the case of similarly-colored selections, the magic wand could be used and you could adjust the tolerance, but I would still like the ease of being able to trace around something as you would an analog pencil. Wouldn't being able to do that help to make better and quicker selections? Thanks!

[Suttolas]

Just purchased the I4 a couple of weeks ago and was thinking to myself I wish there was a some kind of course, webinar to get acquainted with the tablet. Very much look forward the the webinar this afternoon!!! Thks.

[Doug Nelson]

The ticket sales link will close in 2 hours.

[bfeely]

Hi Doug

Thank you for the interesting webinars to date.

A couple of suggestions for future webinars that I would like to see are automotive retouching, particularly when bringing images of cars created in a 3D application such as Hypershot and how Photoshop is used to enhance the 3D models to make them look photorealistic and blend in with the background plate.

Unfortunately, I missed Steve Caplins Perspective webinar. Would find it very useful to have another opportunity to see a webinar on perspective, particulary when compositing different photographs into the same Photoshop file.

Thank you

Bernadette

[Doug Nelson]

The ticket sales link will close in 1 hour.

[Doug Nelson]

The ticket sales link is now closed.

Here's a helpful page if you have audio problems (scroll 2/3 down)

If you haven't received your confirmation email, check your spam folder.

Come back to this thread after the show and tell us your thoughts about it. Also, give us your requests for future shows with Stephen Burns.

[SDUNN]

Ah-h-h- I missed the Paypal payment option by 30 minutes because I could not "re-find" the link to the webinar. Please let me know if this is scheduled for another date and time - I could really use this instruction. I recently purchased the Intuos 4 but I've only been using it to select picture areas (instead of a cumbersome mouse) -

Thanks
Sdunn
Utah

[qksilver]

Can we purchase a screengrab video of this?

[elboertjie]

Where is the feedback thread for this broadcast?

I wish to leave some comments.

[JasonRS]

I was looking for the feedback thread too.

It's usually opened immediately after the webinar.

[Doug Nelson]

Trying something new, too many people were getting confused, so use this thread for feedback this time.

[elboertjie]

Criticism:

- I feel that more time could have been spent focussing on the Wacom tablet and how it interacts with brushes and different tools in Photoshop.
- The showing of how to create the Alpha Channel mask was not necessary as it took time away from using the tablet. For masking, there can be another workshop.
- Not enough time was spent on relaying people's questions to the presenter, as he was clearly interested in hearing what the audience had to say. Thank you for relaying my question though, I appreciate that, but I am sure that many other folk had many questions still.
- Delays in presentation. I understand that this is not under your control, but now that it happened, I think it good to find out exactly what happened with the service provider of this software and ask them to debug this so that this can be avoided, or minimised in the future.

Applause:
- The presenter was very informed of what he presented, and he could answer all questions and situations that was presented to him, well done.
- You could here that the presenter was very patient and calm, and this helped a LOT to transfer this to us the audience.
- Thank you for letting the presenter finish his train of thoughts before asking him a question or interrupting him, that helped a lot.

Seeing that the presenter was focussing so much on how important selections/masks are, perhaps he would be a good candidate for presenting masks, especially focussing on human hair extraction.

[CJ Swartz]

I think Mr. Burns did a very good job of showing what can be done with the tablet, which is the point of having a tablet. I have an older model, the Graphure, so I was worried during the explanation of the buttons etc. for the newer models, but once he started actually showing how to make use of the tool, I was quite satisfied.

I believe that his choice of emphasizing selections and masks was a teaching choice - they are a major part of using Photoshop and show off what the tablet can do -- which is simply to be a more intuitive connection to the image than the mouse can be.

Mr. Burns is a good presenter, has a nice personal style, is very knowledgeable of Photoshop and the Wacom tablets (thanks for explaining the name), and did a nice job of compositing - (was that a "flying tiger").

[ShogunSho]

I agree with the point that more time should be spent on the tablet and the tutorial/technique should somehow be Wacom specific type of tutorial.


Stephen did a good job on explaining the set up of the wacom which I have discovered something I have never known before. The buttons and shortcut keys set up were very beneficial and would definitely make using the tablet easier to work with.

However, there are certain times being wasted with some irrelevant points. The technique used with regards to selection and mask were practical but in my opinion it can be done without having to rely on Wacom tablet only in which this tutorial could be introduced else where.

Alot of people including myself were expecting to learn what can be done with having the tablet and how to use it in full potential. Somehow, this area has not been covered enough in which it may not be possible to cover everything in just 2 hours. What was listed in the details seemed promising but when during the actual presentation, just one area is being covered too long that there is no longer time to carry on with some other information.


I do believe Stephen has lots more to demonstrate but the LIVE presentation has limited alot of his ability due to time and the problem with the software broadcast.


Lastly, from most of the LIVE Presentation I've attended, I realize the presenter is very much prepared with the materials to demonstrate but when times come, he/she seemed unprepared in terms of presenting and with unexpected encountering of problems such as Audio/Visual lag.


Anyway, thank you Doug for ongoing LIVE workshop that are very beneficial to all of us. Thank you Stephen for the presentation you have put effort into.

[chrome]

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for your comments. This is very helpful to me.

I will strive to meet your expectations as I work with you more. And I will be happy to share as much as I can.

You are correct that 2 hours is not enough time to learn everything and focusing on a small part of the pie is more productive. I will remember this.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me at chrome@ucsd.edu .

Thank You,
Stephen Burns
www.chromeallusion.com

[Liz]

Doug, I missed this one. Do you have any plans to rebroadcast it?

[Doug Nelson]

Not at this time.

[shamrock2008]

Doug, I really want to see this one or any on the Wacom.....

Brian

[Liz]

Aw! Rats! I missed it!