This competition is a fitting end to the Season. It is a fun competition in which all members are involved (both as competitors and as judges) and Jill Hargreaves and Jonathan Bawden have evolved a very satisfying method of finding the winning print. Fifteen members entered 35 prints. We all have slips of paper on which we select our own personal best six prints, having seen the prints on the light-box and then having examined them in more detail when laid out on the tables around the room. From this part one of the proceedings Jonathan and Jill work out the most popular six prints overall, whilst the rest of us have our refreshments. For the second half the six prints are displayed in turn on the light-box and then on the collapsible stand for the members to mark on a new marks sheet. We can assign any mark from 1 to 5 for each print. Having done so Jonathan practices his 17 times table (for example!) to total the marks and deduce the winner.

No. 25 Monsal Dale by Graham Johnston 163 marks
No 15 Matterhorn by Trevor Rogers 154 marks
No. 34 Avocet by Joyce Streets 154 marks
No. 28 Smile by Tony Redford 153 marks
No. 5 Three Yachts by Dorothy Redford 147 marks
No. 16 Buxton Crescent by Noel Patterson 144 marks

The total marks for the six prints were very close, though, to be fair to Graham his 9 mark lead was reasonably substantial.
When the results were announced the winning six authors were invited to comment on their images.
Graham thanked Ian Bramham for the idea of a long exposure image. Trevor Rogers had been amazed to find his image staring him in the face when he opened the curtains of his holiday chalet. Tony and Dorothy Redford had sat on a bench by the sea for hours waiting for their images to compose themselves before their very eyes. Noel Patterson had lain on his back in Buxton Crescent to get an unusual view of the world (and a most unusual picture).
This was President Graham Johnston’s last meeting as president before the AGM. He thanked the audience for letting him win, and for making it such a great evening; and thanked Jill and Jonathan for another well organised event.
Bill Chadband

Jon Allanson had volunteered to demonstrate some more of his Photoshop techniques in this, the final workshop of the season. Using CS 3 he, unintentionally, demonstrated the associated calibration problems when using a newly overhauled Windows laptop coupled to the club projector and that Jon had been using a Mac in more recent times! Graham had asked him to demonstrate, with one of his images, an alternative method to using the Clone Stamp tool for removing railings which, were impacting on the main subject. For this Jon decided to use the Patch Tool which allows cloning/copying from another or similar part of an image. This was initially unsuccessful but, with help and humour from the members the process was eventually appreciated by all. For those using Elements the Patch Tool is not available and a workaround can be achieved using the Lasso Tool, feather and transform.
Jon’s next tip proved to be more successful in using Unsharp Mask to enhance the tonal effect of an image by keeping the Amount low and moving the Radius to 30 After the break the subject moved to Monochrome and the benefits of not just desaturating the whole image but, working with layer masks and isolating parts of an image using Hue and Saturation to vary the tonal effects of the various colours. Levels were used to lighten parts and finally the finished image checked with levels to see the full tonal range. Next, images of a desert scene was used with copy layers, enhancing detail by converting to monochrome then blending and multiplying and levels to lighten. A Layer Mask being used to correct a tree in the specific image.
If I have any of the methodology confused, I’m sure I can be forgiven and Jon will put me right! The only way to learn Photoshop is to try and understand as much as possible in such a session and then experiment yourself. I will test my understanding this way in the coming days with images of my own.
In his vote of thanks Geoff Robinson said Jon had presented us with an interesting evening of alternative ways of using Photoshop and a new one to him was the different use of Unsharp Mask for tonal work.