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Thursday was a full day! The second day of any Photoshop World is the Long Day, and yesterday was no exception. But, the events were made all the more challenging as a result of the Florida weather. The thunderstorms started early and stayed for most of the day – not too much of an issue if you stayed in the convention center all day, but definitely a problem if you needed to go back to the hotel to get your camera (me). When they said we’d have a full day of training, I think maybe they meant raining, but in the end we had both.

The day started early, with a crowd forming at the crack of dawn to stand in line for tickets to Midnight Madness. More on that later, but it is a typical Kelby prank that you have to stand in line at 7am for tickets to an even that take place from 10:00pm to midnight on the same day!

Once the day got started, it was nothing but first class training all day, interspersed with humor and wisdom from the instructors. Joe McNally had gremlins in his computer in the first class, and he blamed it on the weather. But in the same breath, he blamed the weather on himself, claiming his ethnic heritage required thunderclouds from the shores of Ireland to follow him wherever he goes. And, when Jeff Schewe proclaimed, "thou shalt soft-proof thy images!" the accompanying flash of lightning and clap of thunder inspired me to make sure that this is one bit of advice I will follow… And, at the end of each session, was that a thunderous round of applause, or was it actually thunder?

Following the morning classes (which ran until 1:00pm) there was time for the expo, where you could get lots more training (surprise!). There was a seemingly endless rotation of excellent classes in the expo theaters, from the likes of Dave Black, Jim DiVitale, Fay Sirkis, Matt Kloskowski, Dave Cross, Corey Barker… the list goes on and on. And, of course, what Photoshop World would be complete without a live recording of Photoshop User TV? Point. Choppy.

Once again, the big hit of the day was the Westcott booth, where the inventive and inspiring interactive studio shoot continued, with great models and great instructors:

Fortunately I was able to grab a little bit of lunch during the expo, because once the afternoon classes started, it was nonstop Photoshop World goodness until the day was (quite literally) over. Several more great training classes, and then it was off to one of the main auditoriums for the Art of Digital Photography. The panel of 8 of the most outstanding photographers and artists kept a standing-room-only crowd mesmerized for two hours, with examples of their work and insights from behind the scenes.

Once the show was over, there was no time to rest. After a quick trip to the room to drop off some gear and schwag, it was off to Midnight Madness. As the crowd gathered, semi-official NAPP security personality Robert Vanelli (known to most as "V") kept the waiting masses busy with hula hoops and juggling contests.

At 10pm sharp, the doors opened, and in we all went for two hours of fun and farce, in which we were promised that we "would learn absolutely no Photoshop whatsoever." However, this turned out to be not true, as I did learn that Photoshop has an audio annotation tool!

The shenanigans at Midnight Madness? I can’t reveal this, you have to see it for yourself! But, I will say that there was silliness, fun, and of course, Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

By the end of the day, I had just enough energy left to get back to my room, plug in my camera card and pull my images into Lightroom. The almost imperceptible hum of the laptop as it imported the images lulled me softly to sleep, at the end of a long and satisfying Photoshop World Day.