I’m teaching myself Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.  Slowly.  In the past I just dabbled with the sophisticated software – I am kind of intimidated by it. It makes me nervous.  Photography is not my strong suit.  Never was. Yet I love images, and I love the idea of manipulating images. I’m at the beginning of a long learning curve and looking for a workshop or private instruction.  Any recommendations?

Here is a picture my daughter recently sent to my mom.  My mother loves this picture of Jess.  She loves the look on her face, the soft expression, but it was so dark I couldn’t really enjoy it.

I popped it into Photoshop and played around with it using filters and adjusting levels.

I like this – not bad for a beginner – but I  wasn’t done playing.

Sweet, right?  It was the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep so…

This was fun, but I would like someone to teach me how to do more than beginner-luck stuff.  Anybody know where I can get hands-on instruction in the New York area?

If you are a Photoshop whiz-kid, I invite you to take the original image of Jess and make some more magic – I would love to see what you come up with!

Oh, and Jess?  Thanks for being a good sport and letting me play with your pictures in public – as always, you continue to inspire and teach me every day!