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Bluestone outcrop with Foto-Works nestling below in the trees.

Foto-Works courses are run by Ian Jebbett from his base in the Preseli mountains and are a great way to explore creative image making using digital photography, in a relaxed, friendly setting.

Courses are available to mature students at Beginner to Intermediate level and are aimed at enthusiasts who want to find out more about the amazing possibilities of digital photography and the creative freedom it offers us. We hope you find the following information useful and look forward to welcoming you if you decide to book a few days with us in this beautiful part of Pembrokeshire.

Day Courses are non-residential and ideal for local people and tourists looking for an activity to do whilst on holiday. They can cover any number of individual days and be booked at short notice. They are usually held on weekdays. Refreshments are provided.

Garden Room with Cottage annex on Right

Enjoy our Garden if the Weather is Good

On the first morning, weather permitting, we’ll travel to a location where you will be encouraged to shoot lots of photographs and experiment using the full range of settings and facilities of your own camera or the camera and lenses we can supply - and don’t worry, you will get loads of helpful advice, guidance and encouragement - we want you to enjoy every part of the course.

Dragons

View of Lounge with en suite and kitchen at rear. The sofa easily and quickly converts into a comfortable double bed.

View of Lounge showing large picture window overlooking valley.

Private Shower Room and kitchen area.

We feel it is important to tailor our courses to individual participants, so they are held on a 1 to 1 basis, or 1 to 2 basis. For instance, a beginner who has just bought a digital camera and wants to learn how to take good quality photographs and view them on a monitor will need a very different approach to a keen amateur photographer who is already familiar with digital cameras and equipment, but now needs to go that extra step to produce and print creative, striking images, using some of the more advanced features of Photoshop.

We usually start off with an informal chat about digital cameras and lenses, their functions, and ways to make the most of them. We look at how different aspects of the equipment play a large part in influencing the final quality of our images.

Foto-Works Studio

On our return to the studio, image files are downloaded to the workstations and archived to high quality CD. When the files are safely backed up we can sort, edit and discard any images not needed, ready for the start of the next step - doing the creative fun things on computer - experimenting with colours, contrast, levels and exploring the huge range of options available to us.

There are many makes of software around for amateur and professional photographers to tweak images with, but they all do the same basic job - allow us to produce uniquely creative images with just a few clicks of our mouse button. The software we use is ‘Adobe Photoshop’, well known for its powerful features - but it’s only as powerful as we need it to be! Beginners will use it for basic tasks like organizing and filing images, cropping, adjusting levels, colour correction, burning, dodging and sharpening. More advanced users will explore layers, masks, styles, filters and channels.

After Photoshop has been used to create our images on screen, we’ll prepare them for printing. This is one of the least understood parts of digital photography, so we’ll explain how the computer talks to the printer and how important it is to use the correct settings - after all, why go to the trouble of getting the image as you want it on screen if the printer produces a photograph with different colours!

Finally we’ll produce A3 prints from selected images you have taken and manipulated in Photoshop using the skills and knowledge gained during the course. Photographs will be printed on an Epson 2100 professional printer using Ultrachrome inks on Ilford Galerie Pearl paper which offers excellent quality and archival permanence.

Shadows of Trees

We hope that the prints you take away will be a happy reminder of a pleasant few days spent with us exploring the exciting and rewarding world of digital photography and the creative opportunities it offers to anyone with a digital camera and some imagination.

Even when the course is over, our support remains! We would like you to stay in touch and let us know how you are getting on, in particular, let us have any news about published images or articles - we will place details on this web site with your permission. Also, if you have a question or problem related to digital photography, contact Ian and he will get back to you with the answer or will point you to a WebLink where you will find the information you need.