Blog

Wednesday began early for the attendees of Photoshop World, as everyone scrambled to shake of the sleep, grab a little coffee and nourishment, and head over to the Convention Center for the opening keynote and presentation. This year, alumni with 4+ conferences under their belt were invited to a special "alumni lounge," presented with complementary Speed Passes (to get us in to the front rows of all closes and even the keynote), and also challenged to take photographs of the keynote event and submit them as part of a contest. A big thank you to the NAPP staff for recognizing this elite and somewhat crazy group!

The keynote started right on time, as usual, and this year’s theme was fashion design – and if you’ve been to Photoshop World before, you can imagine the kooky things that Scott Kelby and his team dreamed up for this event. I won’t go into any details, so as not to spoil things for the PSW Vegas attendees in the fall, but I will say that the opening included some of the most unusual fashions I’ve seen, as well as Scott Kelby taking the stage amid red-flag-waving men, with thousands of balloons dropping from the ceiling.

Following the opening farce, the show became even sillier, as Johnny L was first swarmed by the models with the strange dresses, then conducted a live poll for a Photoshop Extreme competition, and Jeff Schewe attempted to enter the competition with an alleged entry by Scott Kelby. Now that was a sight to see!!

Johnny L and Brian O’Neil Hughes presented what to me was a slightly disappointingly short display of some new technology (don’t get me wrong, the technology was great, I just wanted to see more of it!). A significant tidbit of news, for me was that the JDI program will be revived with a vengeance for the next version(s) of Photoshop. After Johnny’s presentation, we saw the Guru awards presented (congratulations to all the winners!) and then it was off to class for the balance of the morning.

At 1:00 the expo opened, and there was plenty to see and do – from the almost non-stop presentations, demos and free classes, to the tremendously popular and wildly inventive Westcott interactive live model shoot exhibit.

Last, but certainly not least, Bert Monroy’s Times Square hyperrealist digital painting was a sight not to be missed. Over 5 years in the making, this image was 5 feet tall and almost 30 feet wide. The level of detail was incredible!

Now the day is done, and it’s time for those of us with party passes to head over to B.B. King’s House of Blues for the PSW Party. Then? Tomorrow starts early!