Featured week  Autumn colours

This week we turn our attention to photographing autumn colours. Each autumn we get a range of displays as the leaves change colour before being dropped, with some years far better than others.

Although the majority of our readers are in Britain, we are aware there are readers of this newsletter now from over 60 countries, some in the southern hemisphere, and some from countries near the equator, and if you are one of these then still take a look, some of the material covered is also relevant to landscape photography and managing colours in other situations.

This week we have a collection of articles relating to photographing autumn colours including:

Autumn colours introduction   This looks at the overall topic, explains what is happening , how its triggered and more leading into the overall subject.

Finding autumn colour locations   With autumn colours all around us you may be tempted to skip this one, but in it we look at sources of information, planning and finding the best displays.

Photographing autumn colours   is the photography technique article, looking at various aspects to consider.

Filters for autumn colours   looks at the different types of filters, some to assist some perhaps to enhance the effects, we also look at where its needed as opposed to being able do this in editing.

We have also put together a listing of some of the places that you can get the best displays, organised by county across the UK. This has 261 locations listed from arboreta, woodlands, landscaped gardens and more, but you may well know of some others that you feel we should have included, if so let us know so we can extend the listings.

Free online training

This week, on Saturday, the first part of the Photo Skills FREE online digital photography training course will become visible. This is a completely online course with no cost, and you don't need to register. They are not able to monitor how you are getting on individually, but they do have the ability to follow how people go through the monthly sections, and know what percentage of users take each choice.

The course is interactive, the simplest way to explain this is as a maze driven by multi-choice questions at the end of pages, this allows them to both offer extra explanations where you need them, while allowing those who don't to skip over them, and also to make technical information relevant to you and the equipment you use.

It does not include photo editing in any detail, Photo Skills have another FREE course specifically on editing in Photoshop covering all versions from Elements to CS4 and this will run one month behind the digital photography course, so as projects come up you will be taking the photographs one month and editing them the following month, if you are doing both courses.

The full course is currently planned to last 3 years, but all of the main technical areas of photography will be covered in the first year. After year one the course is structured so you can pick and choose which additional areas of photography you want to perfect. Each year there are a number of year long projects that build into portfolios or books allowing you to both learn and produce interesting work. Most months will include quite a bit of practical work, so over this course you will get the chance to take very many photos as well as covering a large amount of technical information.

They are able to offer FREE courses as they will be running some advertisements on the edges of some pages, and from the sale of advertising will be able to fund the project. This you will realise is the way that photography magazines and commercial TV, such as ITV and Channel 4 run. While photo magazines have a cover price, their main income is from the advertising that they carry. Local newspapers and magazines use a similar business model, which is most obvious when you see FREE newspapers being delivered in geographic areas.

We are working very closely with Photo Skills and they will be using many of our articles, tables and location guides in the courses. This will allow them to have projects running where by using our location information you are able to find locations that are near to you, keeping down costs and time used.

You can see the first part of this FREE course by going to www.photo-skills.co.uk and looking on the Digital Photography training course page. There is a link at the very top of the page that takes you into the course as soon as it is live, and from there it is all explained. This link should become live at some point tomorrow, Saturday 27th September, and will stay live for some period before going back into a waiting mode, before starting the next group of students.

Autumn colours introduction   This looks at the overall topic, explains what is happening , how its triggered and more leading into the overall subject.

Finding autumn colour locations   With autumn colours all around us you may be tempted to skip this one, but in it we look at sources of information, planning and finding the best displays.

Photographing autumn colours   is the photography technique article, looking at various aspects to consider.

Filters for autumn colours   looks at the different types of filters, some to assist some perhaps to enhance the effects, we also look at where its needed as opposed to being able do this in editing.

Autumn Colours in England

Autumn Colours in Wales

Autumn Colours in Scotland

Autumn Colours in Northern Ireland

Photoshop CS4 announced. As we expected Abode announced the new complete CS4 suite, updating just about their entire top end program range. There was an online TV Broadcast, but of the hour long show only a few minutes was on Photoshop CS4. Beside this there is some other information available and although we have looked at it, we haven't yet had time to study it fully in depth. I am also not sure when its actually available. Over the next few weeks we will produce some write ups on Photoshop, and attempt to explain what is in each of the bundled options, what is new, and what as photographers rather than graphic artists, is really relevant to us. At the same time we will look at pricing, here and elsewhere, upgrade options, student copies, and the qualification for these and more.

Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire 

Stourhead, Wiltshire