That works and I get a link to download the videos. A 540 megabyte file. It only takes about a minute for me to download (a zip file). I create a directory and unzip into it. There are a couple of PDF files, two practice images in their own directory, and 11 videos as mp4 files. I use "vlc" on my linux machine and "bam" I am viewing the first video, and with working sound also.
Having watched the first video, all I can say is that he doesn't have any unfortunate speech impediment and he seems to explain things clearly.
My windows machine mounts /u1/share as a Z: drive and this is how I get the two practice images over to where I can play with them in photoshop. I create a directory /u1/share/Bagshaw and put the DNG files in there. Then I can use photoshop "open" to navigate to Z:\Bagshaw and I see the two DNG files.
I am surprised and pleased to find that photoshop opens up ACR on the one I select. Clicking the "open" button at the bottom of the ACR window is what you want to do, this converts the raw file and loads it into photoshop.
At the absolute upper right is a button that brings up a workspace selector. It comes up with "Essentials" selected, but you want to select "Photography" instead. This is big because the whole photoshop layout depends on what "workspace" it is set up in. He notes that he creates a variety of personal workspaces and they become available in this menu.
The left side has the "toolbar", which is a column of icons for various tools.
The top of the image has the "tool property bar" which changes for each tool selected.
He starts by a demo of the "hand tool". You have image tabs (with the image name) and each image displayed in the center of the screen.
The right side has a series of panels, each with a different purpose. They can be expanded or collapsed by clicking on icons in a column to the left of the panels.
I can choose to "delete cropped pixels" if I am sure I never want stuff back. Also I can select "content aware crop" to just have it automatically get rid of junk on the edges due to the leveling operating. Click on the check mark icon to do it.
The upper left of the tool properties has stuff for aspect ratio control. He selects 2x3 to match what his camera does. Then there is an icon to rotate the aspect ration to 3x2.
The history panel on the right allows "undo" to any state along the way, even back to just after opening (or just after leveling). These history states persist for a session, but they will be gone once you save the image.
Hot tip - hold down the space bar to momentarily switch to the hand tool which allows you to roam around the image at 100 percent.
A menu up top left lets you change the brush size. The Bracket keys also allow handy brush size changes.
Once you get this in a layer, you can toggle the layer on and off by clicking on the eyeball icon next to the layer in the layer stack panel. There is also a reset button at the bottom of the levels dialog to allow you to start all over.
Next we create a color balance adjustment layer. You get CMY, not "shadow" or kelvin. He bumps up red and yellow to warm things up. Blinking via the eyeball helps to see the effect.
Clicking Alt and the base image eyeball turns off all the other layers and lets you see the original image without adjustments.
There is also a vibrance adjustment layer, which gives you vibrance and saturation sliders.
Each layer can have opacity adjusted. This is a way to trim the effect of individual layers.
So click on the brush too, then go to the color picker tool (a white box in from of a black box near the bottom) to select foreground color. You want white on top of black. Brush properties can be set along the top.
Hold down Alt and click on mask to see where the mask is on the main image.
Shift and click on the mask to disable the mask.
This is "painting with light", and essentially dodging and burning, but not retricted to just exposure like dodging and burning are/were.
For TIFF files you can choose no compression or various sorts of compression.
Now size for print and use image/size to do so. Set resolution (probably 300 pixels/inch). Set the print size in inches. Keep the aspect ratio linked and set one dimension as you desire.
He wants a 16x24 print. Then uses filter/smart-sharpening. He finds a 50 percent display shows him what he wants. No noise reduction. Radius 1.0. Remove lens blur. Set amount. He can check/uncheck the preview checkbox and blink compare the sharpening. Click OK to do it. Now use file/save-as, set a filename, but select JPEG rather than TIFF to save. He selects JPEG quality of maximum (12).
Now, what about a copy for screen viewing? The process is as for print. For image size he now uses pixels rather than inches. Resolution means nothing here. He uses 1400 pixels wide on his website. He uses smart sharpening, but now reduces Radius to 0.2.
He uses file/export/save_for_web now. He goes as low as 70 or 80 compression and selects sRGB. This gives a detailed dialog, allows copyright information to be included, and so forth.
Drama in a cloudy sky. Use the quick slection tool to quickly select the sky. This is pretty amazing. He turns this into a levels adjustment layer. The Alt key allows fixes when it makes mistakes. He changes the blending mode from normal to multiply which darkens the sky. The levels sliders can fine tune what is going on.
His youtube channel has many photoshop videos, and the help menu takes you to tutorials prepared by Adobe.
Tom's Digital Photography Info / [email protected]