41 Photography courses in Cowdenbeath

Professional photographer Simon will show you how to get the most out of your camera in the most beautiful city in Scotland.

Event Planning 1 Day Training in Edinburgh

In this workshop you will be shown methods to create beautiful portraits with minimal equipment. Focusing on indoor portrait photography and the use of natural and available light we find ways to effectively work with sitters and light to further your existing practice. You will have existing knowledge and good understanding of digital photography, so the workshop can focus on experimentation with natural light source, positioning, composition, communication, reflection and pose.   Courses are subject to minimum enrolment. Please register early, within five days of the start date, to reduce the likelihood of course cancellation. Please read our cancellation policy before booking. Students, anyone over the age of 65, and those in receipt of any form of benefits can claim the concessionary price, offering a 10% discount on the full course price. Valid proof of eligibility must be produced on the first day of the course. Please use the code CONCESSION when prompted at checkout.

Tour start from St Giles Cathedral or your hotel and last approx 3 hours ​This photo tour usually starts in Edinb8rgh Old Town but as it is a private tour this can be adjusted to suit your needs. It starts off by instructing you how to get the best out of your camera if you require this (and skipping it if you don't) and then the emphasis is on capturing stunning photographs of Edinburgh rather than the usual tourist snaps that most people will capture. You really get to see Edinburgh in a different way and with the help and advice of Will who has worked as press photographer, covered humanitarian crises in Iraq, shot covers and content for Lonely Planet guidebooks, covered Fashion week for many years but now concentrates on teaching from his vast skill set. ​If you prefer the tour to take place in the New Town, Dean Village etc we can do that too. We want you to see the best of Edinburgh, hear some amazing stories about our city and leave with great photos regardless of your skill level before your tour or the equipment you use. We will teach you how to get the best out of your camera or smart phone, explain everything in easy to understand language and help you "see" how to get a great photo.​ * We welcome people of all levels and have catered for absolute beginners to professionals. * As well as photography, you'll learn the background to the places we visit and the stories behind Edinburgh's colourful characters past and present. * We'll recommend places to eat/drink and other things to do in town to avoid the usual tourist traps. * We don't mind if you use a smart phone, compact camera or DSLR, we'll help you get amazing photos using anything. *We keep it simple, understandable and in no time you'll be getting photos you love. *Why choose us? We have a wealth of professional experience, our photography clients include Lonely Planet, getty images and we have been exhibited globally. We take our experience and break it down to keep it simple, effective and easy for you to pick up and develop your own style on our fun and friendly tour. * We recommend bringing the camera you are most comfortable with, whether it is a DSLR or a smartphone. * For cameras with manual settings, we recommend a wide-medium range zoom (24-105mm range) as being the most useful but anything wider (16-35mm) or longer (70-200mm) as well as prime lenses (50mm fixed lens for example) will also be used on the session. * If you are using a smartphone we recommend you download the "Snapseed" app before the tour. It's free and it an amazing editing tool. * Please make sure your batteries are fully charged and have spare batteries with you. * Please make sure you have space on your memory card/device. ALL OUR PHOTO TOURS ARE PRIVATE TOURS SO WE CAN CONCENTRATE 100% on you: These tours run daily at 9.00am, 1.00pm and 5.00pm subject to availability. Our private tour is tailored to suit your needs, whether you want in depth 1-on-1 instruction with your camera, just want to see the best of the city on your own, or you are already know about your camera functions and just want find the best places off the beaten track to get the best images then this is the tour for you. Where this tour goes does depend on the light, but we can get to areas you might not otherwise get to. What we see and what we can do is decided by you. Private tours are £120 for 1 person and add £30pp thereafter

Adobe Lightroom Classic helps solve two of the main problems that afflict digital photographers: how to organise all your files, and how to edit them without spending all of your spare time at a computer screen. Lightroom Classic is a convenient and flexible desktop programme that helps you to organise and sift your photographs into collections, and also gives access to a powerful set of tools that edit, enhance and export your pictures. You can use intuitive pre-set tools, you can create your own favourite adjustments, you can edit large numbers of images with one click of a mouse, and you can fine-tune your image-editing by selectively working on parts of a picture. And you can experiment, secure in the knowledge that you are working in a non-destructive environment and that your pictures are safe. This practical short course will introduce you to the principles of file organisation and image-editing, giving you the knowledge and confidence to choose when to work with this convenient and flexible programme, and whether or not you need the full power of Photoshop Creative Suite. Sample picture files will be provided for you to work with, or you can bring a selection of your own. If you work in RAW, please also bring JPEGs on a memory stick, external hard drive or cloud storage such as Dropbox. Please note this course does not cover the new version of LightRoom CC (which is specifically designed for mobile devices) and only uses the most recent version of LightRoom Classic. Morning You will get to know the Lightroom layout and workspace, importing a set of files into the catalogue and starting to organise the files into collections and adding useful file information. You will explore the opportunities for viewing and aids for analysing the pictures. You will start to use the convenient ‘quick develop’ editing tools. We will then explore the digital image-editing workflow. The usual flow is to correct and optimise before we enhance, interpret or exaggerate. The basic areas to consider are cropping, cloning, colour and tone. Taking each in turn, we will correct and clean up the pictures in a measurable and controllable way. We will investigate techniques to control digital noise, colour distortions and lens corrections. We will work on individual files and also start applying corrections to batches. We will create and apply pre-set corrections. Afternoon Having corrected and optimised the picture files, we can start interpreting, enhancing and exaggerating – the fun part of image-editing! We can try colour to black-and-white conversions, using the many pre-sets to guide; we can selectively boost or restrain colours; we can add grain and textures, vignettes and split tones; we can mix and match these effects and create and save our own favourite effects. We can apply adjustment effects to selected picture areas. Image editing is all good fun, but how do we know where to start? Or when to stop? We‚’ll have a look at some photographic styles and techniques from photography’s rich history to give us some ideas and then try to replicate them. We will discuss ways of using the programme and the technology to develop photographic projects. And we will look at how Lightroom can help us to export those projects as books, prints and slideshows. Designed for those who are already familiar with some digital photography processes but who want to pursue a particular aspect and develop skills in a specific genre. This course is the perfect follow-on from our Digital SLR training courses and will support you in building upon your existing knowledge of camera skills and allow you to work confidently on your own projects. Some prior digital SLR photography experience is therefore recommended.   Courses are subject to minimum enrolment. Please register early, within five days of the start date, to reduce the likelihood of course cancellation. Please read our cancellation policy before booking. Students, anyone over the age of 65, and those in receipt of any form of benefits can claim the concessionary price, offering a 10% discount on the full course price. Valid proof of eligibility must be produced on the first day of the course. Please use the code CONCESSION when prompted at checkout.

The Smartphone Only Group Photo Tour

The Firth of Forth is a stunning and diverse location for photography. During this full-day session we will travel across both the North and South banks of the River Forth to capture some amazing locations from characterful old jetties to the Forth Bridges; from the smallest port in Scotland to hidden bays. This is designed for people who know the basics of their camera and want to learn how to take stunning landscape and seascapes images whilst discovering the beautiful scenery around the Forth estuary. Attendees on the session will learn how to create stunning images in-camera through the use of filters and more advanced composition techniques. The full-day session commences from first light and will last until sunset so there are many opportunities to practice your skills. During the day we will also spend some time looking at how we can use editing software to enhance your images. The workshop will have a minimum of two and a maximum of six attendees to ensure that everyone receives individual attention from a professional photographer. About Ideal if you understand how to set the exposure of your camera manually and want to learn how to use filters to improve your photographs. We visit several locations along the banks of the Forth River to capture sunrise and sunset, panoramas and change the way we see movement in water. This is a full-day workshop, picking up from Edinburgh a couple of hours before sunrise and returning about an hour after sunset. Lunch is not included Experience level – intermediate and advanced What to Bring A camera that you can set the exposure manually A good sturdy tripod. It is helpful to have a wide-angle lens and a long zoom, although if you only have a kit-lens then that will still be fine for this workshop. You will need a filter system such as Lee, Nisi or Cokin with ND and ND graduated filters Ensure your camera batteries are fully charged and strongly consider having a spare An empty memory card, we’ll take about 150 photographs during the session. Duration 12 hours 

This course is about learning to use your digital SLR camera with confidence and skill. Explore aperture, shutter speed and megapixels through to white balance, ISO ratings, histograms and much more! With a blend of technical tuition, demonstration, practical assignments and group discussion, you will discover how to unlock your camera’s full potential and take better pictures. If you don’t have a digital SLR we can often provide one for you – please select from dropdown at time of booking. You can also use your interchangeable or fixed lens system, mirrorless or rangefinder camera on this course. Bridge cameras without interchangeable lenses can be used too, but please note that they may not allow the full range of camera controls. Computer experience is beneficial. Day 1: Features of your Digital SLR camera. Areas covered include aperture, shutter speed and megapixels through to white balance, ISO ratings, histograms and all the rest. There will be time to ask questions and demonstrate the advantages of each feature, getting to grips with the “how’s” and “why’s” We will put into practise all the features that have been discussed and demonstrated in session one on a walk around town with your cameras. We will come back to the gallery, learn a little about methods of downloading and viewing photographs, and explore some basic Photoshop tools. Day 2: Exercises, Assignments and Review Question time. There will be a few formal exercises set up to practise on and time to discuss the elements learned in day one. We will also discuss in more detail the more compositional aspects of photography, and prepare for the afternoons’ assignment. You will carry out your assignments outside the gallery and be given a time to return with your completed assignments. Assignment presentations, troubleshooting and review. The last half will involve editing and viewing the photographs, open discussions and asking any final questions.   Courses are subject to minimum enrolment. Please register early, within five days of the start date, to reduce the likelihood of course cancellation. Please read our cancellation policy before booking. Students, anyone over the age of 65, and those in receipt of any form of benefits can claim the concessionary price, offering a 10% discount on the full course price. Valid proof of eligibility must be produced on the first day of the course. Please use the code CONCESSION when prompted at checkout.

This short course will help you take your images from the screen to final professional-quality prints. We will walk through the processes and techniques needed to take the mystery out of this often daunting and overlooked part of the creative process. By the end of the day you will have gained the skills and confidence to take digital files through preparation in Photoshop, optimisation, and onto physical test printing, adjustments and final output on Stills’ large format Epson inkjet printer. We’ll cover areas critical to the desired outcome including screen and print calibration, paper choice and ICC profile use. By the end of the day you will have two A3 prints on premium Hahnemule matt or gloss papers. Participants should have a basic understanding of Photoshop and attend with a selection of their own RAW files or high resolution TIFFs to work with through the practical exercises. Morning We will begin with evaluating our images and processing the file to maximise print quality output. We will then use Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw & Adobe Photoshop for the optimisation process. Participants will be guided in preparing their images ready for test printing, before evaluating and adjusting. Discussion will cover using ICC profiles, screen and print calibration, colour rendering, canvas sizing, and sharpening for final print output on various media. Afternoon We will then put the skills we have learned into practice, producing and evaluating test prints before undertaking our final A3 digital inkjet prints. Each participant will finish the session with two finished prints. There will be plenty of opportunity for participants to ask questions at every stage, so that you feel confident and can make informed decisions throughout the whole process. This course is designed for those who are already familiar with some digital photography processes but who want to pursue a particular aspect and develop skills in a specific genre. It is the perfect follow-on from our Digital SLR training courses and will support you in building upon your existing knowledge and allow you to work confidently on your own projects.   Courses are subject to minimum enrolment. Please register early, within five days of the start date, to reduce the likelihood of course cancellation. Please read our cancellation policy before booking. Students, anyone over the age of 65, and those in receipt of any form of benefits can claim the concessionary price, offering a 10% discount on the full course price. Valid proof of eligibility must be produced on the first day of the course. Please use the code CONCESSION when prompted at checkout.

This new tour is 8 days and 7 nights touring the Scottish Highlands visiting the places covered in the book with a few bonus locations thrown in along the way