Seminar Schedule/Info

Beginning in Fall 2006, we will be offering informational seminars in Winston-Salem. If you are interested in receiving more information as it becomes available, please join our mailing list. Since the number of attendees is limited, we may put on additional sessions.

Here is a sample of seminars we have offered in the past and which may be on the agenda again along with some newly developed offerings...

Painter from Corel Corp (Fractal's successor)
Photoshop is great but as the name implies it's a program aimed at Photographers and uses tools similar to those used in the darkroom. Painter is designed for Artists. It's a remarkable program--imagine having every painting and drawing tool you can imagine, a palette of 16 million colors, paint that never dries and a textured surface that can be changed at will--That's Painter.
The biggest problem with the program is that there are just too many choices. Install Painter with a WACOM tablet and you have the closest thing to paint, pencil, charcoal (whatever) and paper on the computer. It assumes the typical interactions that you might anticipate between different media - oil and water do not mix readily!
This session reviews the main tools and demonstrates their use.

Color Management
Your screen does not match your scanner input and your printer output (you don't say). You, and just about everyone else on the planet!
This session examines the steps to calibrate your computer system and examines the choices you should make during this process.

Photoshop Alternatives
Photoshop currently costs about five hundred dollars for the full version but there are programs that offer most, or all, of the features of Photoshop for a fraction of the price. This session reviews some programs which offer similar features while costing considerably less. A number of programs are briefly reviewed and their capabilities are examined within the framework of the industry leader.

Fractals, Masking and Sizing software
Bryce allows you to create realistic 3D landscapes and animations using fractals. You can create amazingly realistic landscapes, skies, trees, rocks, spheres and much more.
Knockout 2 is an automated way of masking complex objects like hair, smoke or water while preserving image detail. A mist for the serious image editor.
Genuine Fractals enables you to create resolution-independent images from any size file. It also allows you to print superior quality enlargements theoretically without any degradation in image quality. Genuine Fractals is designed to make the most of small files.
This session examines the programs, their limitations, and explains how and when they can be useful to you.

Wacom Tablets
A Wacom tablets gives an artist a creative edge, instead of using a mouse you use a cordless pen which has a pressure sensitive tip. Press harder and the line is thicker, flip the pen and you have an eraser. The pen greatly enhances tools in Photoshop, Painter and many other programs. This seminar demonstrates the main features and provides a brief opportunity for a test drive.

Digital Cameras
Their features and benefits. The digital camera market is exploding. This session de-mystifies the technology and gives you a check list of features for your own application. Size of image will be discussed in order to make successful large format digital prints.

Color Management
Your screen does not match your scanner input and your printer output (you don't say). You, and just about everyone else on the planet!
This session examines the steps to calibrate your computer system and examines the choices you should make during this process.