December 21st, 2017, Katrin Eismann, who founded the Master degree program of Visual Photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York and served as the head of the department, an international respected artist who received the title of Sony Image Master andPhotoshop Hall of Famecame to ShanghaiTech University. She presented a lecture called PS, Makes PhotographyBetter!It is a beginning to build the first connection between the New York School of Visual Arts and the School of Creativity and Art.
Katrin Eismann
Ms. Eismann has used Photoshop to create thousands of outstanding photographic works. She has co-authored Photoshop Restoration and Retouching, Photoshop Maskingand Compositingand The Creative Digital Darkroom, etc. These books have been translated into multiple languages and distributed around the world, becoming the Bible for countless photography and design enthusiasts. Although she has 30 years of experience, her thoughts are not out of date, still smart and active, always at the forefront of art. At the beginning of the lecture, she emphasized that excellent PS users should be immersed in software tools and spur their own innovation, and innovation is the reason why you stand out.”
I don't know if failure is the mother of success, but failure must be the step of progress. Ms. Eismann encouraged the students, when they were frustrated with the retouching experience, when they sighed that their might not be so talented that they should think differently: It was these failures that would remind us to not repeat the same mistakes in the future. The more we fail, the more we would master.
In order to show the creative visual effects of Photoshop, Ms. Eismann showed the works of her previous students. There were towering modern buildings, and there were stars and clouds in the Milky Way. Some people used the software to outline their dreams, some used photography to retain reality, and some people used paintings to recall the scenes of their hometown. Behind every picture, there was a story, and each story was written by Photoshop.
In terms of specific techniques, Ms. Eismann emphasized that the original pictures should not be deleted or erased. You would not be able to modify it back later. For the selection of the target, she was more inclined to use masking. “Not losing every pixel is my principle.” In her 30 years of Photoshop career, Ms. Eismann summed up her SMO (Screen, Multiply, Overlay) system with the least steps but the best effect. For example, when talking about how to perfectly select a person's hair in a picture, she said, “put the background on top, move the selected mask to the background layer, then reverse the mask, then change Blend Modeto Overlay to display every hair.”
The two-hour lecture was short, but full of useful information, and the students benefited a lot. Not only did they learn the skills of retouching, such as mixed layers and separation of hair, but they were inspired by the creative principles and attitudes conveyed by Ms. Eismann. Trust yourself to learn from your mistakes. Ms. Eismann said. “The road to pursuing beauty is not smooth, but as long as there is still a love for beauty in your heart, you are not a failure.” After the lecture, the audience enthusiastically raised many valuable questions on the use of Photoshop. Ms. Eismann was deeply impressed by the curiosity of the students.
On the following day, Ms. Eismann led more than 30 students to conduct a Walking and Photographing, Re-discovering ShanghaiTechevent on campus. In the afternoon, the students walked enthusiastically with their cameras on the campus. Under the guidance of Ms. Eismann, they explored the beauty that was often overlooked from a new perspective. Then the students selected their photography works and submitted them to Ms. Eismann. These outstanding works will eventually be shown in the SCA Gallery, which will be officially opened to the faculties and students on January 4th.
