by A.J. Wood

Photoshop World – Midnight Madness

Good morning dear readers. If you haven’t been watching the #PSW hashtag then you might not have seen the announcement that I won the “Photoshop Challenge EXTREME” last night at Midnight Madness here in Vegas at Photoshop World. What a crazy night. I wanted to thank @NAPP_News for calling me out as a contestant, and @JohnPoz who also encouraged me to throwdown a Photoshop tip in public. I also have to thank @JohnPoz for taking photos of the contest so there would be public record of the hazing I took as a proud member of NAPP. (I couldn’t have gotten through without that final kiss of encouragement from @LayersTV_RC – OMG LOL!!!)

Finally, a shout out to @JustinSeeley, Patrick LaMontagne, @DawnMHSH, @TKRPhoto, @TigerBright, @RomyYoung, @MattKloskowski, @JanineSmith, @Edpflager, @Vanelli, @ScottKelby and all the Twitter peeps I finally met in person here in Las Vegas. It’s cool when the bond created through social media extends offline.

Checkout some of the pictures @JohnPoz took last night:

I’ll be posting more of John’s pics on my Flickr page later today.

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 by A.J. Wood

Photoshop World 2008 Recap

Recovering today from the event that was Photoshop World 2008. Arrived home in the late evening (due to time change), and a week of no sleep has finally caught up to me. This was my fourth time out to PSW, and it never fails to be a worthwhile experience. Some highlights from my trip:

  1. Just met a ton of people, including Twitter peeps Nancy, LeAnn, Dorothy & Jeff. This was really the best part of the trip for me. Not only did I make new business contacts, I had a great time with folks sharing our interests in photography and Photoshop.
  2. I won a copy of the CS3 Master Collection my first day at the pre-conference. (This would ultimately doom me the next day)
  3. I was a Photoshop Guru Award top three finalist in the Photo Restoration category. (I would have gladly traded out my CS3 prize for the Guru award)
  4. I had a chance to chat with Scott Kelby, and had him sign his book for a friend back here in Dallas.
  5. Afterparty at the House of Blues. Probably the largest showing I have seen this particular event. The club was packed, standing room only. I posted a Flickr photostream of Scott Kelby and the band.
  6. Tweeting live from the event. I didn’t get as much posting done as I had planned, but a few folks commented on tweets. I’ll have a better plan of attack for next time.

You can click the thumbnails to see the TwitPics.
Photoshop Guru Award Finalist

 

 

 

 

NAPP reminds me of the employee culture at Southwest Airlines. I’ve yet to meet a NAPP member or employee who doesn’t think the world of the organization. That’s truly a testament to the company that Scott Kelby has built. Twice a year they put on this conference, and it only gets better. If I would have changed anything it would have been some cooler announcements from Adobe, Canon or Nikon. Really, with a captive audience of 3000+, I expected some insider info, not confirmation of rumors learned two months ago.

The only regret I have is I didn’t take any pictures after the House of Blues event. There I was with my new iPhone, twitpicking away, and not once did I grab a photo of the cool peeps I met at the conference. Oh well, next time…

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