New Advanced Photoshop Lab Color Class from Dan Margulis Now Online
Jan. 11
7:51 am
Photoshop Hall of Famer (and the father of modern color and color correction in Photoshop), Dan Margulis, has just released a new online class at KelbyTraining.com on Advanced Photoshop LAB Color techniques, called “The LAB Color Frontier.” Dan is guy who started the “Lab Color Revolution” that’s been taking place in the Photoshop community and I have to tell you; I’m blown away by the some of the stuff Dan’s teaching.
Here’s the link to Dan’s class, but I’m going to see if on Monday I can post a short video here of Dan describing the class in his own words, so make sure you check back then.
I have taken Dan’s previous LAB course, which was excellent. I took a quick look at some of the modules in this one and they continue the trend. Simply seeing how to correct images using only channels and blend modes is very eye opening. This is the best content I have seen that teaches digital image processing from a scientific perspective rather than a creative perspective. I did see that after about session 10, the course names do not match the content – feedback has been sent !
Dan is amazing
WE NEED MORE DAN… PLEASE
Scott, I purchased your book, “The Digital Photography Book” and have found a lot of god information in it. On page 127 you advocate the use of collapsible light reflectors. My question is how do you hold the reflector (in order to reflect the light….as you are doing in the illustration) and take the picture at the same time? Use a remote?
Brian,
Not sure how your question relates to the post subject, but the answer would be to hand hold the flash in one hand and shoot with the camera in the other hand. Many photojournalists shoot in this fashion with a high enough shutter speed (and flash) to stop the action.
More on topic to the post, Dan is widely respected as an authority on LAB color and I am willing to gamble and say this would be a hugely valuable class for those wishing to learn about color theory. I’ve done quite a bit of reading myself on the subject, including texts and online research through photo forums and communities and consulting with others who are experienced in the area. It may be helpful to note that Dan is even mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for LAB color:
“Additionally, many of the “colors†within Lab space fall outside the gamut of human vision, and are therefore purely imaginary; these “colors†cannot be reproduced in the physical world. Though color management software, such as that built in to image editing applications, will pick the closest in-gamut approximation, changing lightness, colorfulness, and sometimes hue in the process, author Dan Margulis claims that this access to imaginary colors is useful going between several steps in the manipulation of a picture.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAB_color
Scott,
Love your site and books with the exception of one thing. Your use of bad microstock photography in your books and site. Using it is a slap in the face to working pros and it’s beneath you in every way. With so many friends who are photographers, you could afford(20 million sales????) to hire them to shoot your own library and raise the quality of your brand. I very much admire what you have done but at some point, be fair to the very people that have been so generous to you.
t.
PS Who lists Kenny Logins as number one on favorite musicians lists. Where you drunk or was it a dare?
I’ve been looking at joining the site for a while so I signed up this evening. I’m a NAPP member and it took me some time to figure out how to get the discount. I basically did not know I could sign in with my NAPP membership details.
I signed up for a new account and couldn’t manage to get any discount. I clicked on the Online Help section – found a section fro NAPP Discounts and Membership. It says “Click here to go to the NAPP Member Store” – but the “here” has no hyperlink. So, I logged into NAPP site and Found a link to NAPP Store (it’s easy to miss by the way and not clear that this is where I can link to get my discount on Kelbytraining).
It was only through clicking on that link and hitting the Napp Landing page that I figured out I could login with my napp membership.
This is just a heads up that the process isn’t very clear. I’m not a dopey user who can’t follow instructions – I guess if I clicked on “Sign In” initially, it might have clicked a lot quicker but from the homepage of Kelby Training I clicked on Napp and Photoshop User.
I would suggest a simple modification of the Napp and Photoshop User page. It brings up a Username and Password field on the right hand side. If you just put something like “Already a NAPP member? Just sign in with your NAPP username and Password below”
Alan
I am watching your videos on on line training. I have a question on Dan Margulis technique of changing a color. ex. a red car to a green car. I was able to do it ,but other colors changed. How do you just change the color of the car?
I will be waiting for the new post…
But maybe you can help!!!
I edit my pictures mainly in my laptop, but I am not happy with the color on the monitor. The prints look fine!
Do you have some sugestion? Not expensive if possible!!!
Thanks
Paulo
http://www.paulopics.com
Hey Scott,
Well I said I had a feeling 2008 was gonna be one heck of a year and so far my predictions have been correct – new books, on line training etc… and it’s still only the second week of January
)
My copy of your new Digital Photography Book Volume 2 arrived the other day and I gotta say, it’s awesome! I’ve got Amazon UK open in another tab as we speak so I can flip straight over there once I’ve posted this message and add my own review and 5 Star Rating.
All the best to you and yours,
Glyn
>ps My D3 hasn’t arrived just yet … hope it does soon, cos I’m fast running out of nails in anticipation and this receeding hairline has gone up a gear
)
Thanks Scott. Outstanding that you’ve added Dan to the already awesome repertoire of on-line classes. Looking forward to taking the class.
The Wikipedia info is incorrect! Lab defines the gamut of human vision based on the standard observer. In actuality, Lab is based on CIE XYZ 1931, the color model the CIE used to define human vision back in 1931 but “tweaked.” The CIELAB color space is a synthetic, theoretical color space derived from XYZ. Unlike the original, CIELAB has the advantage of being perceptually uniform (sort of…). That simply means that a move of equal value in any direction at any point within the color space produces a similar perceived change to the standard observer.
Now someone may be color blind and keep in mind that Lab (and CIE XYZ) are based on experiments done in the 1930’s with a limited number of test subjects. But to say that Lab contains colors we can’t see is pretty far off the mark considering these color spaces are based on human vision.
Also, there’s no such thing as an imagery color! Color, is a perceptual property. So if you can’t see it it’s not a color. Color is not a particular wavelength of light. It is a cognitive perception that is the end result of the excitation of photoreceptors followed by retinal processing and ending in the visual cortex. We define colors based on perceptual experiments.
A coordinate in a “colorspace” outside the spectrum locus is not a color. We often refer to these as “imaginary colors” but this is by and large also erroneous (you can’t map an imaginary color from one colorspace to another as the math (and experimental data) for each colorspace breaks down outside the spectrum locus.
I have been trying to watch the video’s on Kelbytraining.com and find the server response to very slow. Yesterday, it required 20 minutes to watch an eight minute lesson. Tonight the response is better, but the lesson I viewed was interrrupted at least 20-25 times due to slow server response. Since the streaming video doesn’t allow any video to download ahead of the cursor, you cannot even pause it and wait for some video to load ahead of where you currently viewing.
I also agree with Dan regarding difficulty of watching flash videos on this website. I much prefer downloading quicktime like from from PhotoshopTV. You can speedup, slowdown, and jump to sections, and increase size. But even when I compare flash on ScottKelby.com to other flash sites. It seems much worse here. I have faster DSL than most, and I find most videos on ScottKelby.com are just not watchable. Too bad, I really wanted to see Dan Margulis videos. This seems like a unique opportunity.
Please Scott, I hope you will take this seriously!
I’m also having the same problems with watching the training. I have a fast connection but the player keeps stopping and reloading!
I’m also finding it painfully frustrating to watch the training movies. Why not use Quicktime like Lynda,com? It’s nicer to let the video load ahead of the play head for uninterrupted viewing.
I’ve got 20mbit broadband but I’m still only getting about 10secs of video playing at a time before I get the spinning ‘please wait’ symbol.
Scott? Any comment?
Thanks
Nas
Dear Scott,
I too signed up for a year of training but cannot even see the videos, they do not load at all. I get in to the online training and press the view video but it says loading but never gets above 0%. I have ADSL 2+ (I’m in Australia) which is very high speed broadband. I have no trouble viewing the flash videos on the NAPP site, nor anyone else’s. I loaded the latest Flash player, rebooted tried everything…so was hoping you might have an idea or two. Also tried on my laptop but no go there either.