Meet Damien (with his handsome little boy)!

What can you tell us about Damien Symonds?

Well, for three days per week I’m a stay-at-home Dad, and on the other two days I run my little home business, doing Photoshop stuff.

Despite my enthusiastic involvement in all things photographic, I am not a photographer, and couldn’t use a DSLR camera to save my life!  My background is in the printing industry, and for the first few years of my career I only used Photoshop to clumsily create a few logos.  On the basis of that feeble experience, I was lucky enough to get a job in the Image Enhancing department of a major newspaper a few years ago.  There I learnt Photoshop from the ground up from half a dozen tradesmen, who each had different methods and philosophies.  It was a messy way to learn!  I emerged from that job with an excellent eye for editing, but a horrible mish-mash of techniques.

From there I spent a great deal of time teaching myself the best ways of editing, and now I’m very proud of my skills.  I am developing a modest reputation as a “troubleshooter”, so people send me their hard-to-fix images.  I love that kind of work – the more challenging, the better.

My main passion is old photo restoration.  We live in an era where cameras are commonplace, and photographs are abundant.  But people bring me faded and damaged photos of their grandparents and great-grandparents, and I’m very conscious that those people probably only stood in front of a camera a handful of times in their entire lives.  Those photos are precious relics, and I’m always proud to preserve them.

Recently, my career has evolved again, and most of my time is spent delivering one-on-one Photoshop training courses with folk from all over the world.  I love to teach, and I’m determined that nobody should have to learn Photoshop the way I did (aimlessly!).  My hope is to give my trainees a solid foundation of knowledge on which to build their skills.

How did you get started in your business?

My wife (then my girlfriend) was studying photography at about the same time as I was learning Photoshop in my newspaper job.  We started a little photography business together, which I’m ashamed to say I’ve completely monopolised!  It’s much more of a Photoshop business than a photography one now.

We’ve never really advertised much, but our site has a modest Google ranking, so enough work comes our way.

What is your philosophy regarding photography and photo editing?

I have a saying: “A great SOOC is important, not for what it is, but for what it can become”
{Beckie’s note – SOOC is a commonly used term in photography circles that means “straight out of camera”, or an un-edited image}

There’s no doubt that a great photo begins in the camera.  The more you can get right at the time of shooting, the better the photo will be.  But I’ve never seen a photo come out of the camera that I couldn’t make even better in post-production.

I believe that Photoshop serves two purposes.  The first is to make bad photos look acceptable; the second is to make good photos look amazing!

What are your favorite tools of the trade?

Levels and Hue/Saturation.  Even if you took away all the other functions in Photoshop, and only left me those two, I could still do most of my work, and do it very well.

What resources do you recommend for beginners looking to develop their photo editing/enhancing skills?

The internet is wonderful, because there are resources available for everyone, no matter what “type of learner” you are.  If you learn well by reading, there are heaps of great written tutorials.  If you learn well by watching, YouTube is full to the brim with great videos that people have shared.  And if you learn well by doing, there are heaps of great training courses available.

Whenever I see people say “Photoshop is so daunting!  Where do I start?”, I always tell them to start at the Layers Palette.  It’s the beating heart of Photoshop – everything else stems from there.  Once you familiarise yourself with layers, everything else begins to fall into place.

It’s hard to have favourites.  I’m proud of all of my work; but at the same time I always look back at my edits and see things I could have done better.  Maybe the day I do a “perfect” job is the day I’ll retire!

Here are two of the very first restorations I ever did, and I’m still proud of them.  They took me quite a while to do!

{Before –> After}

{Before –> After}

Here’s a raw photo I enhanced for a customer recently.  This is exactly the kind of challenging photo I enjoy editing :)

{Before –> After}

One of the most significant improvements in recent versions of Photoshop has been the ability to adjust the white balance of Jpeg files by opening them in Adobe Camera Raw.  In the past, fixing light temperature problems in Jpeg files was difficult and clumsy in Photoshop.  But now, even people who don’t shoot in Raw format can enjoy the ease of white balance adjustments in ACR.  As long as you have CS3, 4 or 5, or Elements 7 or 8, you can do this.  If you haven’t tried it yet, I encourage you to do so.  Correct white balance makes a world of difference to the quality of your photos, and I know how hard it is for your camera to get the white balance right every time.

If you’re really serious about your photography, I encourage you to try Raw format, if you haven’t already.  The power and flexibility of raw data is unsurpassed.

The main piece of advice I can give about editing is “Start big, and get smaller”.  It’s very important to edit the photo as a whole, before doing this and that to parts of it.  Photoshop has such wonderful tools for editing eyes, smoothing skin, etc, that it’s easy to dive right in to those things, and forget to make the whole photo acceptable first.

Imagine for a moment that you were editing a photo of me.  What if you immediately whitened my teeth a bit.  Then later on you decided the whole photo needed lightening, so you made a Levels adjustment to do so.  What would happen to my teeth?  All of a sudden they’d look crazy bright, right?  I’d look like some kind of cartoon character.  It’s very important to get the overall photo looking great, before turning your attention to little details. 

Well I don’t know about you guys, but after seeing those before and after shots, I suddenly wish I could un-delete a bunch of my own photos, LOL!

To see more of Damien’s incredible work, and to read through the tips and tutorials he has available, visit his site and his blog! Some that you may be particularly interested in:

• Converting to black and white
• Fixing skin blemishes

Damien has many other tutorials available, so be sure to check them out! Even if you prefer the ease of actions to the effort of editing your own photos, there are many tutorials you might find useful! Like this one that offers alternative techniques to cloning for removing distractions and imperfections in your shot.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing his work and learning more about the possibilities with photo enhancing and editing!  And many thanks to Damien for stopping by the Shoppe Blog for a visit with us today!  :)

CONGRATS ‘browneyedsusan’ :o)  I sent you an email so I can get all the info necessary for your $100 gift card to Sarah’s amazing store!  YAY :o)

If you haven’t already downloaded the awesome actions that Sarah is sharing with our blog visitors (for FREE) – get them now!

And don’t forget that Sarah has SOOOOO generously offered all of our blog visitors a special coupon code for 50% her actions!

 I just have to say THANKS AGAIN to Sarah (owner and photographer extraordinaire of my4hens)  for her participation and generosity :o)  Her talent, sweetness and genuine kindness are unmatched!

OK…on to more Shoppe ‘business’ lol!  Just a couple of reminders for you :o)

TOMORROW is the DEADLINE for the Shabby Shoppe’s PRE-TEAM call – so get your applications/submissions in!  We have had a great response and are thrilled and excited with all of the talent we have seen!  But, it’s not too late to join the fun…we hope you will!

And finally (lol)…we wanted to remind everyone of our first TEMPLATE CHALLENGE here at the Shabby Shoppe Blog (there are plenty more to come :o))!  You have until May 22nd to post your layout/comment!  We will announce the winner on the 22nd of May – so be sure to have your submission in EARLY in order to be eligible for the random drawing!  We have been so pleased with the participation in this first challenge…you guys are just awesome!  You can download the template below…and don’t forget that we included a FREE piece-a-cake page for you as well!  For all of the ‘rules and guidelines’ for the template challenge – CLICK HERE :o)  Be sure to read them so you can be sure your are entered into the random drawing!

Whew :o)  I think that’s it for today!  Be sure to come back tomorrow as Kathy will be posting a SUPER AWESOME COOL ADORABLE hybrid project :o)  LOL…sorry, but it is just really fantastic!

HAVE A WONDERFUL and BLESSED day…and thanks again for stopping by :o)

Sarah Cornish

1.  Were you a photographer first, or a scrapbooker?  How did you get your
start in the digi world?
I started my journey into photography as just a child and my love has
continued to bloom through the years. I bought my Canon S3is (not a dslr
but had a manual mode) when my younger son (now 4) was 6 weeks old and
started to pace myself but take more and more of a serious interest. Over
time I began to update my equipment little by little. I bought my Canon
Rebel xti when my son Noah was a little over a year old and started
scrapbooking around the same time. I was definitely still in hobbyist mode
but I had serious goals in place! I took things very slow as I also delved
into the amazing digital scrapbooking community and have tried hard to
juggle both. Unfortunately the scrapbooking has had to take a back seat to
the photography but I am determined to find a way to really marry the two
and find a good balance! I have just recently applied for my business
license and decided to go professional and am finally building my portfolio -
yay!!

I am a total creative soul! My great grandfather was an amazing painter
and though he passed away before I really had an recollection of him I
often wonder if I get that from him! I think my “style” would more or less
be softer and more romantic and whimsical! I am inspired by absolutely
everything from my sweet children to the colors in my surroundings,
magazine articles and ads, fellow photographers and scrapbookers. There is
just so much inspiration to be had!

Ha! When I figure it out I will be sure to let ya know LOL!  Honestly I
just try to get down to their level (and by that I mean stooping down so I
can make eye contact when I talk to them) and befriending them from the
start. I try to keep things moving along so that they don’t get bored or
restless and I ask a ton of questions so I can bring it up during my
sessions. Things like what is your favorite TV character go a long way
because you have no idea how much a kid loves to go on and on about their
fave character LOL! I got through one of my latest sessions by singing the
Dora theme song with the most adorable 4 year old I have ever met LOL!
(besides my own of course!)

I think with all things photography one of the best ways to spice a page
up is to not be afraid of experimentation! I always try to put a little
extra TLC into my photo editing because I feel like it really brings a
little extra something something to my scrap pages. I also like to edit my
photos so they are cohesive with the colors in my scrapbook page. It doesn’t
have to be matchy matchy of course! Just have a nice flow to everything!

Okay so this is embarrasing but I don’t have a really good organization
system at all LOL! That is something I REALLY need to work on and I am
totally up for suggestions lol!! I do back up as regularly as possible! I
am currently looking to a good web based server I can store everything on
to be double covered though! I also plan on buying an extra ehd (external hard drive)! You can
never be to safe!

Oh my goodness my fav?? LOL That is SO insanely hard! Well I might have a
couple of favs but I will try to keep it short and sweet LOL! This is one
of my absolute favorites!

Its just my daughter doing what she loves to run around barefoot and point at
everything she sees lol! But I am so into creative cropping! I love images
that tell a story and I really feel like this one speaks volumes to me!
I also really love this one

because it was my first real photo session with a newborn and I was scared out of my
mind but I fell in love with the images! It made me feel kind of like I
accomplished something big!! Kind of one of those aha! moments for me!

I think one of the best places for installation instructions or just for
information in general on using them is Erin from Texas Chic’s Blog! She
has such a wealth of information and is so generous with it! She has even
given me some lovely suggestions on how to improve my elements Photoshop
actions which I full intend to take advantage of in the very near future!
You can find her here.

I LOVE to read!! I am a total book worm. I could seriously read my way
through the dictionary lol! Yeah now that you know I am a nerd! Honestly my
number one besides God is my family! We are very family oriented so
everything we do we generally do together. We go everywhere together. We
seldom go out. We are just very laid back and easy going people around
here!!

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about Sarah!  And as a special treat for the Shabby Shoppe Blog readers, she has generously shared SEVERAL goodies with us!  first is this GORGEOUS set of Photoshop/PSE actions – FREE!

Download these gorgeous actions now!

Feeling up for a challenge??  Put these actions to use and show us your before/after images!  Upload a simple LO that shows your before and after images to the Shabby Shoppe Gallery, add a comment to this post that links to your LO, and you’ll be entered into the random drawing to win a $100 gift card to Sarah’s store! Be sure to do both steps  (upload and comment here with a link to your LO) to be entered.  You must post your comment here by 11:59 PM (CST) on Wednesday 5/19 to be eligible to win.  We will randomly select a winner from all of the valid entries.  The winner will be announced on Thursday, 5/20!  Here’s a sample entry layout I created with these beautiful actions!  (note: you don’t have to include all of the actions, but you must include at least one!)

And finally – Sarah has generously provided a HUGE coupon for Shabby Shoppe customers!!  Use coupon code Royal50 when you check out to receive 50% off!!  This sale only lasts through the end of May, so be sure to visit Sarah’s store soon to discover easy ways to enhance your photos! (below those gorgeous photos on Sarah’s store front you’ll see listings of all the actions available!  freebies, bundles, PSE compatible actions, etc! click on one of those categories to get started!)

Here are all the links one more time!

• Download Sarah’s FREE actions
• Visit Sarah’s site! (Use coupon code ROYAL50 for 50% off through the end of May!)
• And don’t forget to upload your entry by midnight 5/19 to be entered to win a $100 gift card to Sarah’s store!

Thanks for stopping by today!  We hope you enjoyed getting to know Sarah a little better, and we can’t wait to see you try these gorgeous actions out on YOUR photos!