The Guy Gowan Experience

[jjhtt]

I’d like to begin by thanking AP for providing me with such an informative and inspiring forum. The knowledge base that AP provides is truly one of the greatest assets any aspiring photographer could hope for and the constructive critique offered by the members, whilst daunting at first is one of the greatest tools I’ve come across.

I had the pleasure of attending a prize offered up by the site, the choice of workshops at one of four Guy Gowan seminars held in Perth. After being put in touch with Guy’s associate here in Australia, I was offered the chance to actually attend all of them as long as I wrote a little about each. Given I’m not the most prolific of journalists, I decided not to bite off more than I could chew and chose the this is photoshop and landscape workshops, unfortunately I was struck down with some mystery virus that prevented me from attending the landscapes workshop, the one I really wanted attend.

So, this is photoshop, this was a workshop aimed at giving you an insight to Guy’s workflow, a workflow designed to minimise the amount of time spent processing your images.
The speed at which Guy took a RAW capture from camera, to presentable image was remarkable, and the results were staggering. There were no fancy de-noise, sharpening or colour enhancing plug-ins to be seen, every aspect of the editing was done within Photoshop paying particular attention to the colour channel palette.
Now my knowledge of photoshop is minimal at best, all of it self-taught, with a very, very basic concept of what it is I’m doing, and here I am sitting with printers, professional photographers, graphics students and lab techs, like a stunned mullet, feverishly scribbling away on my notepad. Although Guy prefers to think of himself as the anti-Christ, someone with experience in photoshop, such as those mentioned, would have thought they had met God himself, they were left dumbfounded (as was I) by how effortlessly he moved through his workflow producing professional quality images that were sharper than tack, true in colour and void of any noise.
It was a fairly fast paced seminar, and the participant would want to be fairly comfortable in their understanding of the software, but having said that, I came away with a lot of new found knowledge, albeit yet to be deciphered from the chicken scratchings in my notepad. The seminars were something I wouldn’t normally have considered attending at this point in my venture into photography, but as they say, knowledge is power, and I definitely have been empowered by Guy's seminar. So I will be treating myself to a membership and access to his website tutorials and process actions.
If anyone has ever had the want to better understand photoshop and take control of their editing, then one of these workshops are a must. Unfortunately they are not held here in Australia on a regular basis, so the logical thing to do would be to sign up to Guy's website and get those tutorials delivered directly to your desktop. At the very least, do yourselves a favour and have a look at what you can expect from a membership http://www.guygowan.com/members/

To give you a brief idea, check out the sample video at the bottom of this page http://www.guygowan.com/tour/

So thanks again AP and thanks Guy...

[I @ M]

It's good to hear that you were impressed, and you certainly did well as a journalist in this post.

[ricktas]

Thanks for the report.. Interesting read from someone who has been to one. Sounds like the experience was a great one for you. I am sure we will hear when Guy is back again and might just be able to offer some more prizes of places at his courses, here on AP.

[Mark L]

I could have clicked on the Thanks icon thingy.
But I'd rather say well done for taking the time to post what you did. And to quote Andrew ".... you certainly did well as a journalist in this post. "

[dbax]

yep ^ agree good job