Hi gang,
Look, if you’ve ever had an image that was
almost there — the shot is good, the idea is right, but something in the edit just isn’t landing — you know the feeling I’m talking about. Most of us have a folder full of those.
That’s really why Photoshop World exists. For four days, some of the best photographers and Photoshop artists working today sit down and show you exactly how they’d handle it. Not theory. The actual steps, in the actual order, with the reasoning behind each one. You watch somebody do it, you try it yourself that night, and something you’ve been fighting for years finally makes sense.
I’ll be honest about something. When we moved Photoshop World online, what I worried about losing was the community — the hallway conversations, the after-hours fun, all the parts that made it feel like a reunion. Turns out we didn’t lose them. We still have The Meet-Up on the first night, the Film Fest, an evening with Richard Bernabe, and Late Night with Larry Becker, and people show up for those the same way they always did. What we gained on top of that were the folks who could never travel to us — the ones who couldn’t take a week off, or afford the flights, or leave their family for four days. Now they’re in the same sessions as everybody else, asking the same questions. Honestly, it made the whole thing better.
Here’s what I think separates this from every other conference out there: who you learn from. More than 30 instructors this year, and they aren’t teachers who happen to know Photoshop — they’re working photographers and artists at the top of the field who teach. The people other pros quietly learn from. We open with the Keynote alongside Adobe, so you hear where this is all going from the people building it. Brooke Shaden is teaching live. And there are sessions on tools that didn’t exist a year ago, taught by the ones who figured them out first — that’s the part you can’t get anywhere else, because most of it hasn’t been written down yet. Alongside all of that, the fundamentals that never stop mattering. Four days of this and your work is in a different place than it was on Monday. Then we close with the Guru Awards, which is still my favorite hour of the whole thing.
If you’ve been on the fence, here’s the only thing I’d say about it: in all these years, nobody has ever told me they regretted spending four days getting better at this. Not once.
We go live September 14th. I hope you’ll be there with us.
All my best,
Scott Kelby
Conference Technical Chair, Photoshop World
President & CEO, KelbyOne
