Photoshop 3D Level 2 Online Class

August 23rd, 2010 lvs

In the introductory class, we started exploring the 3D world from within Photoshop. A little at a time you were introduced into this wonderful arena using the Photoshop interface and all its wonderful tool. Only so much could be accomplished in that 5 week class.

This Photoshop 3D Level 2 online class is a follow-on class to Photoshop 3D Introduction class. It continues where the first class left off as we continue to explore all the wonderful features Photoshop has brought to the world of 3D.

Lesson 1

  • Paint Falloff
  • Merging Textures onto 3D Objects
  • Directly Editing Textures
  • Ambient Lighting
  • Moving and Rotating Lights
Lesson 2

  • More on Materials – UV Overlays
  • Adjusting UV
  • Reparameterizing Textures
Lesson 3

  • Rendering
  • Rendering Presets
  • Render Settings Customization
Lesson 4

  • Rendering Refraction
  • Render for Final Output
  • Using Layer Masks with 3D Objects
  • Adding Layer Styles to 3D Layers

Lesson 5

  • Making a New Mesh from Grayscale Revisited
  • Seamless Objects from Grayscale
  • Smooth Grayscale Gradients
Lesson 6

  • Modeling with Curves
  • Texturing our Model

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Photoshop CS5 Special FX: Tips, Tricks, and Pizazz!

August 22nd, 2010 lvs

Join Sara Froehlich for tricks and special effects using Adobe Photoshop CS 5! In this online class, will talk about layer styles and how to create and save your own styles, and adding Actions to automate the program, as well as how to create your own actions, save them and share them with others. We’ll also learn about the new features in CS5: Puppet Warp, Content Aware Fill, and all about the new brush engine with Mixer Brushes and new bristle tips! This intermediate class is for Photoshop CS 5 only, and many exercises, tips, and tricks will not work with earlier versions of Photoshop or any version of Photoshop Elements.

The Photoshop CS5 Special FX: Tips, Tricks, and Pizazz! is an intermediate class is for both Mac and Windows users. You must have Photoshop CS 5 installed on your Mac or PC, and you must have a good working knowledge of Photoshop and how to use layers and text.

Lesson 1

  • What is covered in this class?
  • Tips and Tricks
  • Layer Styles: Use, Edit, Save, and Share!

Lesson 2

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Automating Photoshop Effects: Actions!
  • Using, Saving, and Sharing Actions

Lesson 3

  • Tips and Tricks
  • A Word about Graphics Tablets
  • Brushes: New Bristle Tips
  • Brushes: New Mixer Brushes
  • Photos into Paintings

Lesson 4

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Working with Layer Masks
  • So You Think You Know the Crop Tool…

Lesson 5

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Smart Objects
  • Smart Filters
  • New Puppet Warp!

Lesson 6

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Working with Vectors in Photoshop
  • The Pen Tool
  • Vector Shapes
  • Vector Masks

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Corel Painter: PhotoPainting & Portraiture III Online Class

August 21st, 2010 lvs

PhotoPainting & Portraiture III is the final of this three-part course. This class introduces human photo painting. You learn fascinating Pop Art, painting children, composite images and a beautiful bridal portrait. Lastly, embellishing a painting can be both challenging and rewarding to see a flat painted print come to life when texture is applied.

PhotoPainting & Portraiture Online Class
Lesson 1

  • Serigraphy
  • Pop Art
  • Distress
  • Woodcut

Lesson 2

  • Painting Children
  • Skin, Hair, Eyes, Lips & Nose

Lesson 3

  • Bridal Portrait
  • How to paint a fine veil, flowers and remove background

Lesson 4

  • Amazing Faces!
  • A Portrait of an Aged Man with Video Help

Lesson 5

  • Composite Image Painting
  • An interesting concept of applying several images to create a painterly painting

Lesson 6

  • Paint Like The Old Masters – with a twist!
  • Embellishing

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Corel Painter: Explorations: Adventures in Scrap-collage

August 19th, 2010 lvs

Painter Scap Collage

This online class is all about creativity, and fun! It consists of five lessons in which you will learn to incorporate a combination of collage, montage, and digital scrap techniques to assemble five different images. Each lesson will have a separate theme, and the instructor will show you how to create some beautiful backgrounds, and various collage/scrapbook elements from scratch as well as how to “glue” various components together to produce the finished image. In the process, the instructor hopes to teach you a few new tricks about using Painter. Your completed projects will be suitable for printing, either to hang on your walls or to use for greeting cards (the instructor’s favorite use of computer graphics).

A collage may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas. It may be either a flat image or a three-dimensional image.

A Montage, or Photomontage, is a composite image made from various photographs.

An assemblage is basically the same as a collage, except that an assemblage is always a three-dimensional piece of art.

A scrapbook is usually a collection of photographs and mementos pasted into a book for the purpose of preserving family history and/or memories of various occasions and highlights.

What all of these things have in common is the idea of collecting and assembling images from various items.

Join us in the Corel Painter: Explorations: Adventures in Scrap-collage online class at LVS Online Classes.

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Blogging Studio Online Class

August 17th, 2010 lvs

WordPress Blog

First, this isn’t a traditional online course. It is a blogging studio where we gather together to learn and support each other in creating interesting, entertaining and/or effective blogs. One of the students explained the Blogging Studio online class as…

"Bring your blog(s), a sack lunch and refillable coffee mug and a list of questions and/or issues you want cussed and discussed until solved, and settle in for five weeks of work. It is helping and learning from each other as well as from our instructor Bean and her sidekick, Anita."

You can bring your blogging questions but how do you ask questions about blogging topics that you don’t about yet? Each session we will start off with at least one tradition lesson, where Bean will provide instruction and exercises related to a relevant blogging topic that may be new to you. The rest of the session will be driven by student questions. Participation and practice will be the focus of this class. Part of the student’s learning process will include assisting other students via feedback and interaction. The instructor and assistant will provide instruction and assistance via:

  • the class message board
  • reading list
  • sharing of resources
  • short exercises
  • interaction on student blog
  • participation in relevant social networks

Blogging questions are limited only by your imagination, here are some possibilities:

Theme Customization Social Media Integration Monetization
Building Your Audience Writer’s Block Establishing Authority
Multi-user blogs Defining Your Niche Advertising Issues
Images Widgets Guest Posts

Learn more about blogging and see what past students are doing at the Blogging Class Blog

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Photoshop Elements 8 Beyond the Basics: High Seas

April 24th, 2010 lvs

Photoshop Elements 8

We have Set Sail, we’ve had Clear Sailing, and now I will take you on the High Seas in this third online class of the series of courses specifically for Photoshop Elements 8 software.! This class will cover more advanced features of Photoshop Elements 8, such as installing and using layer styles, actions, and third party plug-ins. We will learn to replace a bad sky with a good one, work with patterns, and cover some more advanced photo correction techniques, such as using Camera Raw. We will learn to make a studio portrait from a snapshot, do a bit of digital alchemy and turn silver into gold, and much more!

Lesson 1

  • First Class Info
  • What is Covered in this Class?
  • Photomerge Features
  • Working with Patterns

Lesson 2

  • Layer Styles
  • Editing Layer Styles
  • Downloading and Installing Layer Styles
  • Using Third-Party Plug-ins and Filters

Lesson 3

  • Using Actions in Elements 8
  • Downloading
  • Installing
  • Using the Action Player
  • REAL Layer Masks? Yes, you can!

Lesson 4

  • What are DNG files?
  • What is a Sidecar?
  • Working in Camera RAW

Lesson 5

  • Fixing Skies Using the Smart Brush
  • Replacing a Bad Sky with a Good One
  • Sunrise, Sunset: Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is?
  • Transformations: More than Meets the Eye

Lesson 6

  • From Snapshot to Studio Portrait
  • Digital Alchemy: Turning Silver to Gold!
  • Fun Special Effects and Tricks

This online course is not linear like the basics classes. It takes you above and beyond so you can use Elements to its potential. You will draw on skills learned in the basics classes to go further and become more creative than before. You will expand your knowledge of Elements with layer styles, actions, and plugins, and real layer masks! You will also learn to use camera raw to edit photos – even jpgs!

Sara Froehlich is the instructor of the Photoshop Elements classes. Sara is the co-author of Microsoft Expression Design Step by Step. She started in computers in the mid-80′s but she didn’t start teaching until 2001 when she discovered that was what she really loved to do: write and teach! Things have come a long way since then, and her abilities have grown along with the computers and programs she uses. She has probably tried almost every graphics program out there and have written classes for most of them. Since 2001 she has written over 40 courses for Photoshop Elements, Photoshop, Illustrator, Xara, Corel Photo Paint, Dreamweaver, Expression, Acrobat, Freehand, and Fireworks.

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Corel Painter: PhotoPainting & Portraiture II Online Class

April 21st, 2010 lvs

Further enhance your PhotoPainting & Portraiture skills by learning how to paint beautiful skies and embellish your painting with textures; pastels, snow scene paintings and animal portraiture ; paint hair, fur and feathers – paint your own favorite pet. All this from photographs!

PhotoPainting & Portraiture Painting

The PhotoPainting & Portraiture II online class covers more landscape painting but introduces painting of animals and birds. You will have the opportunity of painting your very own favorite pooch or kitty, or other favorite animal.

Each week you are given an image as you did in PhotoPainting & Portraiture I and step by step instruction is given on how to transform a photograph into a lovely painterly image. You are then requested to paint your own.

Create your own hairy brush; learn what brushes are great for feather painting and make a nice brush for snow, although I have provided brushes for this. In the PhotoPainting & Portraiture II online course there are some video demonstrations, so look out for that information in the lesson.

Lesson 1

  • From a basic Sunset Photograph create A Stunning Painting
  • Applying Texture and Embellishments

Lesson 2

  • Paint a unique Pastel Painting
  • Change a basic photograph into a Painterly
  • Painting by using the lovely medium of Pastel

Lesson 3

  • Painting Snow
  • Make a beautiful snow scene from a basic photograph
  • Brushes for snow and trees

Lesson 4

  • Paint a lovely image of a Scottie Dog
  • Learn how to make a brush for Dog Hair
  • Paint your own favorite doggy portrait

Lesson 5

  • How to Paint Feathers
  • Paint a Parrot
  • Learn how to make application of various brushes to paint feathers

Lesson 6

  • Cats – large or small they are always a favorite to paint.
  • Painting your own favorite cat and also one of the Big Cats – Tiger
  • This is an interesting and fun project in a variety of Digital Watercolour.

PhotoPainting and Portraiture Online Class Instructor

Maureen Eves-Lavis is the instructor of the PhotoPainting & Portraiture II Online Class. Maureen has always been interested in art and drawing, arts and crafts such as dressmaking from her early school days through to attending Art College. Dabbling in real media art, particularly in sketching and drawing, then oils and acrylics … then…. her interest turned to graphic arts software. In the 1990s she obtained a copy of PhotoImpact, which she played around with for a while. It wasn’t until 2004 when she became more serious in arts and graphics, but more in Digital Art. In 2005 Maureen attended Digital Art Classes that opened a whole new and exciting world to her.

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Would You Like To Learn…

April 20th, 2010 lvs

Would you like to learn about Painter’s Brushes?
Would you like to learn Digital Collage in Painter?
Would you like to learn how to paint – even though you may think you can’t?

Painting with Corel Painter

Painting with Corel Painter

These three questions are directed to you, for you to give some thought to what ‘YOU CAN DO’! I say this in a positive sense because I know you can. How? By learning the techniques using Corel Painter’s fabulous software. Open your eyes to a wonderful world of creativity. Believe me, once you have mastered Painter you will be well on your way to painting your own creative art.

Painter’s brushes are not just a tools to pick a color and paint across the canvas. No, by adjusting, applying and making use of Painter’s Brush Creator or Brush Controls you can make just about any brush display great paint strokes with many variations. You not only learn about Painter’s brushes but all aspects of Painter surrounding the brushes and tools, the palettes, layers and much, much more. There is step by step instruction with numerous graphical examples. Once you learn Painter’s brushes you are well on your way to advance your knowledge in Painter, like taking the following classes.

What about Collage, do you know what Collage is? Well, to me it has a similarity to scrapbooking; something I learned many years ago. You may or may not like scrapbooking, but Collage in Painter is a whole new concept. Digital Collaging is a very interesting and a rewarding experience. Create beautiful art pieces from a variety of images and apply Painter’s many avenues of blending these images together with embellishments, textures and paint to form a Collage. Digital Collage is only limited by your imagination!

Photo Painting…… wow, this is fabulous to learn with Painter. Painter has all the tools for you to create great paintings. Turn a simple photograph into a beautiful work of art, worthy of display on your wall. Start at the beginning with simple cloning and advancing to painting and changing photographs. Portraits of your children, grandchildren and pets. Learn how to paint realistic eyes, lips, hair and the softness of a child’s skin, amazing faces of the aged and how the Old Masters painted. Embellishing your images ‘from before to after print’ giving them a sense of depth and reality, just like an original oil painting. I will be delighted to teach you all aspects of Corel Painter in my classes.

If you would like to view previous Students’ work, click on the link below. Believe me, you will be very pleasantly surprised at the high standard of their artwork. Painter Artz Blog

So, what are you waiting for? Come and sign up for a class to learn more about the lessons provided and registration plus costs for each class. The fees for LVS Online classes are extremely affordable to all.

I hope to see you there. Where? in my classes of course! Corel Painter Art Classes – Brushes, Collage and PhotoPainting & Portraiture

Maureen Eves-Lavis
Corel Painter Instructor at LVS Online Classes

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Computer Graphics Starting with GIMP Online Class

April 19th, 2010 lvs

Gimp Online ClassThe Gimp online class is all about images that you see, create and use in various ways on your computer. Whether you are retouching photos for the family, creating artwork for the web, or doing fine art professionally, the Gimp online course will be a good starting point to working with images on the computer. We’ll start out with some very simple exercises and grow from there. By the end of the class, you should be able to create simple images in the GIMP program (and maybe not so simple!). You should also be able to import images into the program. You will also be able to manipulate images to be able to use them in various ways and you’ll know why certain manipulations are needed for various tasks. Along the way, you’ll try out some of the cool things you can do with the GIMP.

Lesson 1

  • Explore some basic differences between images on paper and images on the computer.
  • Install the GIMP.
  • Create and save a simple drawing file.
  • Learn to do a simple PNG export.

Lesson 2

  • Begin to work with:
    • layers
    • selections
    • uniform and gradient fills
    • stroke
    • erase
  • More PNG options for exporting your work.
  • Learn to export to the GIF format.

Lesson 3

  • Open a photograph and do simple editing:
    • crop
    • rotate
    • resize
    • Learn to export to the JPG file format.
  • Compare the capabilities and uses of different file formats.

Lesson 4

  • Adjusting photos- the bare basics:
    • color
    • contrast
    • lighting
    • saturation
    • sharpness
    • red-eye

Lesson 5

  • Add text to images
  • Use some of the many brushes included in the GIMP

Lesson 6

  • Putting it all together.
  • Customizing the GIMP to work for you.

Val Perkins is the instructor of the Computer Graphics Starting with GIMP Online Class. Val is a teacher, musician, author, illustrator, and nurse. She has actively taught for 20+ years and has authored and illustrated her own Sunday School curriculum for preschoolers. Val communicates across a broad audience range.

Over the years, Val P. has taught music, sailing, canoeing, Spanish, English as a second language, introductory nursing skills, and several other strange things. She took her first computer course in 1974 when she also did her first computer graphics project- printing dragonflies and butterflies in x’s and o’s on a teletype machine. After that, she thought she was done with computers until in 1980 she married a computer engineer. Their first major purchase as a couple was a home computer and the rest, as they say, is history.

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Drupal Themes Online Class

April 16th, 2010 lvs

Drupal Themes Drupal is a free and open source Content Management System written in PHP. With Drupal you can create a simple personal homepage, a company website, a blog, an ecommerce site, etc. Themes play a key role in the Drupal system. The theme is the most significant piece of your Drupal installation. It is responsible for your visitor’s first impression of the site.

The Drupal Themes Online Class is designed to take you through the development of your own Drupal themes. You will be setting up your own design environment on your personal computers. We will examine the Drupal System and the files that make up a Drupal theme. In this online class you will learn how to make a subtheme of an original theme, use a starter theme and style it to suit your needs, and build your own theme from scratch.

When you finish this online course you will be able to use your design environment for future projects and have a few new themes that you have designed for use on your website.

Lesson 1

  • What is a Theme?
  • The Drupal System
  • The Drupal Theme Engine

Lesson 2

  • Setting up the Design Environment
  • Installing Themes
  • Using the Administration Area

Lesson 3

  • The PHP Template Engine
  • Theme Files
  • Placeholders and Regions

Lesson 4

  • All About Sub-themes
  • Building Sub-themes

Lesson 5

  • All About Starter Themes
  • Styling Starter Themes

Lesson 6

  • Building your own Themes

The Drupal Themes Online Class is instructed by Yvonne Zaborac. Yvonne loves web design and creating graphics. She is currently working as an Application Programmer at a minor university in Illinois. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems with a major in Computer Science. She also has an Associate’s degree in Computer Networking, a Web Developer certificate, and a Web Administrator certificate.

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