Ben Willmore’s HDR Mastery Course shows step by step how to master High Dynamic Range images. “Ben Willmore is the master in high dynamic range image processing and xTrain is thrilled to offer his online training videos to our growing learner community,” said Siotha Vest, xTrain’s Director of Training. The course features 4 classes including Shooting for HDR, Merging Exposures, Processing HDR Files, and Enhancement. It costs $79 to enroll, or you can subscribe for $19.99 a month or $199 a year for unlimited access to all of xTrain’s courses.

The Essence of Photography with John Upton is a new educational DVD from Calumet Photo. It’s the perfect guide for beginners and advanced amateurs who want to learn photography from the legendary John Upton. The Essence of Photography provides a discussion of topics that include Upton’s mentors, understanding how cameras work, learning to see pictures, photographic history and development of the photographic image. The Essence of Photography with John Upton costs $39.99.

Travel Photographer of the Year are running a range of photography courses this year in the UK and internationally. TPOTY can help photographers strengthen their compositional and editing skills, get the most out of their camera, or really get to grips with Photoshop. To give a taste of what’s offer on TPOTY courses, TPOTY founder Chris Coe is giving free image critiques at Intrepid Travel’s London Store on Sunday, February 17th.

Kubota Image Tools has announced its 4th creative photography workshop for professional and advanced amateur photographers in Italy. This 7-day photography workshop (October 5-11, 2008) includes several exciting photo excursions, classroom instruction, photography critiquing and more. “My wife Clare and I are so thrilled to return for our fourth creative photography workshop in Italy – one of the most beautiful countries on Earth,” said Kevin Kubota, Idea Man of Kubota Image Tools. “There’s nothing like a trip to Italy to inspire you—and your photography. It really is a life changing experience.” The cost of the 7-day trip is $2,995 for class attendees and $2,550 for non-class participants.

Become a better photographer with HP, which is currently offering free online photography classes. Learn how to get better results from proper use of your digital camera, find out how to work with perspective, angles and light, and also how to share your digital photos with friends and family. For your New Year’s Resolution this year, learn to take better photos with HP.

A recent survey of over 1,000 professional photographers reveals that 89% of their images are digital, and they keep 90% of those. “Today’s photographers are technologically savvy, as a significant majority is using image editing software and many are using RAW conversion and color management software,” commented Ed Lee, Director at InfoTrends. “It’s particularly interesting to note that 83% of professional photographers are using the Web as part of their business and about 30% use an online photo service provider.” The full survey results are available in InfoTrends’ recently released report, “Digital Imaging and Professional Photographers: 2007 Survey Results”.

i1 Defined is a brand new training package for all Eye-One colour management solutions. It offers users an interactive guide to Eye-One products, plus an overview of the fundamentals of colour management. An enhanced version of the package, including a Personal Color Trainer session, is also available. “Eye-One solutions have always combined user-friendliness with professional standard features, and the extra support from i1 Defined takes this to a new level. i1 Defined offers much more than the standard manual or CD-ROM; it gives users the chance to understand just how their Eye-One system can benefit their specific workflow, and therefore maximise the return on their investment”. commented Geoffrey Clements, Managing Director of Colour Confidence.

Website photo-i has launched a Nikon D40x DVD user guide in association with Nikon. Written and presented by Vincent Oliver, the DVD shows how to get the best from the Nikon D40x without having to wade through hefty manuals. The Nikon D40x DVD User Guide runs for 1 hour and 25 minutes and costs £12.

The Digital Story have published an impressive gallery of underwater photos taken with the SD700 IS camera (also known as the Canon Digital IXUS 800 IS), plus some useful tips on how get better results under the waves.

“Having a camera with image stabilization is very important. Everything is moving underwater, including you. The image stabilizer minimizes the effects of camera movement during exposure. I also increase the ISO to 400 to enable as fast a shutter speed as possible. And don’t forget to use the camera’s Underwater scene mode if it has one. It really helps with the white balance setting.”

Website: The Digital Story - Caribbean Underwater Gallery Posted (and shooting tips)

The free “The Good, the Bad, the Ugly” Adobe Photoshop online training course features portrait retouching tips and techniques from expert Russell Brown. “This fun and exciting class features all of the professional techniques that anyone using Adobe Photoshop needs to know to make their portraits better than real life,” said Siotha Vest, xTrain’s Director of Training. Dr. Brown provides several insider secrets for retouching portraits such as whitening teeth and eyes, enhancing eyelashes, reducing 5 o’clock shadow, removing wrinkles, and color correcting skin tones.

xTrain.com has announced six new online course titles and classes, including Digital Photography & Photoshop for Baby Boomers. “xTrain is delighted to add these new online video courses,” said Siotha Vest, xTrain’s Director of Training. “The breadth and depth of our courses are matched only by the quality of our instructors and the first-rate production values built into each class.” You can pay $79 to access a specific course for 1 year or $29 a month to access all of xTrain.com’s creative training.

Interested in food photography? New York photographer and author Lou Manna is holding an all-day digital food photography workshop at his studio in New York. The workshop explores how effective lighting, composition and tricks-of-the-trade all work together for creating the perfect recipe for success. It’s open to all and is ideal for photography students, professional photographers and culinary experts. Lou Manna’s food photography workshop takes place on Sunday, November 18, 2007.

The Royal Photographic Society have released details about their range of Winter 2007 photography workshops. Topics include Studio Portraiture, Documentary Photography, Colour Management and Adobe Lightroom. All workshops are open to non-members and members of The Society, with most held at the RPS headquarters in Bath.

Kubota RAW Workflow for Lightroom is a new DVD that helps photographers learn how to efficiently use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. It guides the user step-by-step from proper organization, to efficient editing, to quickly adjusting the images, to enhancing, to final presentation. “We created this tutorial, derived from our live Lightroom workshops, to help photographers make the most of the features they really need, and to understand the ‘big picture’ of the entire workflow system.” said Kevin Kubota. Kubota RAW Workflow for Lightroom costs $79 and is available now.

Fujifilm’s “Capture to Print Solutions” seminars for professional photographers show how Fujifilm’s FinePix S5 Pro DSLR can be usedfor school, portrait, sports and wedding photography. Held in five cities across the United States, the seminar series will kick off on Monday, November 5th in Orlando. The half-day “Capture to Print Solutions” seminars are completely free to attend.

The Apogee Photo Online Campus is adding 2 new instructors and 5 new classes coming in November 2007 and January 2008. Professional nature and wildlife photographers Noella Ballenger and Andy Long will teach 5 online photography classes, which aim to make learning this photography easy, interactive and fun. Apogee Photo is an online magazine designed to entertain and inform active photographers of all ages, both amateur and professional, from around the world.

Eddie Tapp joins Scott Sheppard to explain how he maintains consistent colour throughout his workflow on the Inside Digital Photo radio show. Eddie shares some steps with Inside Digital Photo on the elements of good color management starting with white balance using a target while on location, calibrating your monitor, and different equipment to use to measure and monitor your color. Eddie warns users about the dangers of “tweaking” color in their PhotoShop files using an uncalibrated display as this can significantly remove critical color data from the file and ultimately impact the quality of final output. Eddie and Scott also discuss output color profiles and the importance of choosing the right color space within PhotoShop to ensure great prints.

Website: Inside Digital Photo - Eddie Tapp Interview

Raw without FUD is a video tutorial which explains why RAW is the easier way to shoot. Available either as a download or a DVD-ROM, Michael Tapes from RawWorkFlow.com cuts through the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) surrounding the RAW format. The 6-hour DVD and Download Versions are Mac- and Windows®-compatible and plays on any PC with Adobe Flash Player installed in the user’s web browser. The RAW without Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt Video Tutorials are now available and will be priced at $34.95 (Download Version) and $49.95 (DVD with Extras Disc). Both are currently discounted to $29.95 and $44.95 during October 2007.

Northlight Images has just published an excellent two-part beginner’s guide to black and white photography, covering everything from taking the image to printing it out.

“When I’m thinking of black and white images, the absence of light can be as important as the highlights. Good deep shadows can give a depth and solidity to an image. If you look at old black and white movies you can see a completely different way of lighting sets. The lighting directors knew how different colours and lighting would show up on film, and made use of the knowledge…Lots of pictures of things that don’t look very good in black and white will help you decide what looks better in black and white. It also has the beneficial side effect of making you think about colour much more when you use it. My black and white photography has really benefited from the switch to digital. I take more pictures, I experiment more and –many- more of my images get printed.”

Website: Northlight Images - Black and white digital photography

Epson America has teamed up with Inside Digital Photo to deliver a new weekly podcast series aimed at advanced amateur and professional photographers. The “Passion of Photography”series will take a closer look at what inspires some of today’s top photographers. It will also cover a range of topics impacting the entire workflow, from capture to output, including techniques and technology insight provided by leading creative professionals. In the inaugural episode, pro shooter Jack Reznicki joins Scott Sheppard to discuss helpful tips and advice for taking sharp photos and making breathtaking prints.