Aloha and thanks everyone for coming out for our premier city, SAN DIEGO! We had the usual "snafu's" setting up, a too short projector cord (thanks, Colin, for running out to get a longer one!), a loaner projector from NIK (thanks, Victor, you are a life saver!) but everything was smooth and easy thanks to the great job Marathon did in organizing our tour (thanks, Bill, you are the best in the industry at this!). Ron from Dury's offered IMPRESSIVE deals on the things Jack and I use every day - 200 dollars off the NIK suite for one! Mark from X-RITE / MacGroup attended with great prices on the color management tools Jack and I rely heavily upon. Charlie from Graphic Authority gave away 180 dollars worth of my new henna designs, Phil showed up from the Professional Photographers of California and Colin and Than from Photoshop Cafe had preview covers for Jack's and my CS5 dvds that will be shipping in the next two weeks. Tony came in from Wacom with a slew of tablet options and Victor wowed the crowd with his deft performance of NIK software. The sponsors that were not "live" at the event sent offers, coupons, catalogs and door prizes - we couldn't have asked for a better premier :-)
Packing up now, grabbing some coffee and it's LOS ANGELES tonight and DENVER on Thursday!
I arrived yesterday and spent the afternoon at Ocean Beach with Janice Wendt from NIK Software. The wind was blowing and the sun was bright - I LOVE San Diego! This morning I made a fast motion retouching movie for tomorrow night so we can have more time to share painting with light and difficult retouching techniques - pack more into our time together. Jack arrived home from the Texas School having premiered his way too cool CS5 content to "the gang" from Texas and Bill Camacho from Marathon Press came in around noon today. We checked out the room and we're ready for a fabulous Monday night show. If you're not registered yet, there's still time so come on over and bring your friends because it's going to be a great evening for all of us. LOS ANGELES - I know the Lakers are playing - YAAAAAAAA! We'll have the game up in the bar outside so you can see both, OK? And Denver - Jack is looking forward to FINALLY getting to see y'all and has something special for you. My niece, Kelly, is coming down so it's going to be family night for me. Signing off - I'm playing with some images I just made with my new Tamron 60mm macro lens - wait til you see the quality - See you soon!
Our webinar with X-Rite broke records for sign ups - over 1900! Joe and Liz say the response was overwhelmingly positive and we hope we can do another one once the tour is under way. Thank you to everyone who took the time to be with me for some preview tips from Two Shots!
Wow - THANK YOU to every one of our great sponsors who are providing really generous door prizes and record breaking presents and discounts for each attendee - thousands of dollars - everyone who attends will leave with gifts worth a lot more than the price of admission. Jack and I work with some of the industry's best companies - every one of them has been with us for years and have become personal friends. You will love meeting them and seeing the innovative products they create and realizing how great customer service can be!
Jack and I have been getting a lot of questions regarding CS5 dvds and we are happy to report that we have both just finished recording our initial CS5 content. Photoshop Cafe is in the process of editing and burning the discs. Jack's are on CS5 new features and ACR / Lightroom global and targeted processing and mine are on portrait retouching and enhancements offering a variety of options for creating beautiful portrait arts. We're both coming out with Photoshop painting techniques that will be available later this summer. You will be able to purchase the dvds at the tour venues (the first few cities may be on pre release and shipped asap) and through Photoshop Cafe. If you're not upgraded to CS5, we will have discs available in previous versions of Photoshop. Thank you for your interest in our expanded learning sessions!
We've received a lot of emails asking if Jack and I are going to be present or if our tour is just a recording - I know it's inexpensive (don't call us "cheap" - ha!), but, YES, we are both going to be at every venue - live, kicking and dueling our photoshops on stage - along with a great group of industry suppliers who are bringing 1000's (yes, thousands) of dollars of gifts, door prizes and discounts to everyone who attends. None of us would miss this for the world! Come and see us - we will likely be there early so stop and say hello before the event begins. We look forward to seeing you soon! Trade show starts at 5 pm in all cities, the presentation runs from 6 - 10 ish .... we're about 20 minutes over at this point :-)
Wow - Adobe is giving away a free version of CS5 in every city as a big thank you for coming out to see how Jack and I are incorporating the newest features into our regular imaging and retouching workflows. This is really exciting news - everyone who attends has a chance to win - good luck to YOU!
McKinley commented on May 11th, 2010
Thanks for the seminar! I learned a ton and am so excited about my newly learned tools! I use Lightroom 3 beta daily and had no idea how much I wasn't using! Thanks Jack!