Education- Both Getting and Giving

I went to a friend's house to get her started with digital scrapping a few days ago. (Hi, Jennifer!) I had gotten a few digital scrapping kits for her to play with as a baby shower present. She is already a capable photographer. By the end of this month, she will be a mother, as well. I had a good idea of the type of kit that she would like, and she was quite pleased with my selections. Neither of us likes the 'cartoony style', as I call them.

Later, I went to a free seminar on off camera flash. While I didn't pick up much information about using off camera flash, I did gather information about accessories for my flash that I can use. I also realized that the seminars end up being a sales pitch for the more experienced photographers and are more useful for a beginner.

My program of self-teaching pretty is going well, but slowly. I have holes in my skills and the fastest way to fill in the holes at this point would probably be a class. However, classes cost money that I'd rather be spending on new windows, new glasses and other new objects around the house, like drapes or wallpaper. To pay between $325 to $465 for 12 hours of instruction seems ridiculous.

I am going to continue with my plan of self-teaching. Today's task is learning to use the unsharp mask. Which actually reduces the anti-alias and creates a much sharper looking photo. I'm not positive that my poor vision will notice such changes.