EdgeofLeading

Technology

®$5.00/NOVEMBER 2004 n THE MAGAZINE FOR PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS

Julieanne Kost PROFILE

By Harvey Goldstein

By John Iacovino

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Rumor has it that Ju-lieanne Kost, an experiencedphotographer and one ofthe world’s foremost Photo-shop experts, has even per-formed a few miracles infront of crowds of enrap-tured professional photogra-phers.

Water into wine? Not aproblem using the Brushtool in color mode with anice dark red color chosen;about 20 percent opacityand a 200 pixel diffusedbrush. Turning one loaf intomany? That’s easy for Kost,employing any one of adozen different tools at herfingertips.

For nearly a decade, Kosthas been spreading thegospel of Photoshop specifi-cally to professional photog-raphers at literally hundredsof tradeshows, conventionsor wherever the trade hasbeen known to gather.

She’s in demand. Her trav-el schedule includes approx-imately 200 to 250 days ayear on the road, almost allof it speaking to professionalphotographers.

“It’s a grueling schedule,and I could not do it if I werenot constantly being ener-gized by the inspiring peo-ple I get to meet each day,”says the unassuming tallblonde who actually is a little embar-rassed by her title.

“Almost every day I see photographersdiscover something cool, even awesome,that they can do with the software. I seethe spark and then the light goes on in

their eyes, and you can just feel the mo-ment of discovery happening for them.Sharing that moment with real people iswhat keeps me sane in an airline seat,”she says.

Kost has witnessed the dramatic im-

pact her company’s softwarehas made on the world—and particularly in the worldof the professional photog-rapher. She calls it nothingshort of revolutionary.

“Most working photogra-phers will begin by learningthe 20 percent of Photoshopthat is essential for their spe-cific workflow. Learningmore features is like icing onthe cake—enabling them tocreate, manage and manipu-late images in ways theynever thought possible.”

Started YoungKost has an appreciation

for the advantages of digitalphoto manipulation be-cause she is well acquaintedwith the traditional alterna-tives. Her father was an avidamateur photographer whoconverted the family laun-dry room (imagine the dust)into a darkroom when Kostwas a child. She remembersthe smell of developer (andparticularly of fix) and thetechnique of rolling filmonto stainless reels in thedark. And naturally, theterms “dodge” and “burn”did not need to be ex-plained to her when she firstplayed around with Photo-shop years ago.

She knows firsthand the“wow” feeling photographers are discov-ering as they get familiar with the toolsand features of digital photo editing

“Professional photographers are literal-ly rediscovering the creative process—practically every few months—as they

er official title is Senior Digital Imaging Evangelist for Adobe Photoshop™.Not “Photoshop senior trainer” or “Photoshop product promotion manager” or even “Photoshop

guru”—though those titles would certainly fit.She is one of just two North American individuals in Adobe’s Photoshop software division in

this capacity. She’s employed by Adobe to go to the four corners of the world and not just spread thegospel of digital image editing, but to educate and inspire a massive audience who already believe.

learn to apply a new software tool (layermasking, selective sharpening or the“healing” tool, for example).

“When can you remember seeing sucha variety of truly artful, emotionallyevocative, visually stimulating images likethe ones photographers are bringingto trade fairs and contests in 2004?”Kost asks.

“Even photographers who are justdipping their little toe in the Photo-shop waters are coming out invigor-ated. I think most photographerswould agree: This is a great time tobe in this business.”

Kost speaks about Photoshop withthe passion of an evangelist, butwhen it comes to the nuts and boltsof the software, “guru” is perhaps themore accurate description.

She considers her essential value tophotographers as being a personwho knows every tool and menu op-tion in the program and its intendeduse. She explains, “I learn the in-tended use of features from our engi-neers, but I’m always amazed at howphotographers push the limits ofPhotoshop and often use tools andfeatures in ways that we may nothave thought of.”

Every Tool?“When it’s your only job, it’s not as hard

as it sounds,” she says. It doesn’t hurt thatshe has engineers and Adobe’s own brain-

trust of software writers in the same officebuilding as her—down the hall, in fact.

“They’re (the software code writers) ge-niuses,” she says. “Really, they’re scary-smart. Each engineer has a multiple of fea-tures they work on in parallel—they’re a

phenomenal team and it’s an honor towork with them. For the record, the soft-ware engineers never get enough creditfor their incredible devotion to their

craft,” she adds. “With those re-source people on my team, I reallydon’t have any excuse for not learn-ing all the product features,” saysKost.

Love at First ByteSpeaking of living in the world of

Photoshop 24/7, Kost has anotherAdobe ally close at hand. Her hus-band has the exact same job andtitle for Adobe, except a differentproduct area. He spends his timeworking with users of Adobe digitalvideo products, specifically Pre-mier™ Pro, After Effects™ and En-core™.

“Dinner table discussions at ourhouse are Adobe all the time; theyprobably sound a bit geekish to ob-servers,” she confesses. “My hus-band is very ‘techy’—much more

so than I am—he’s probably my biggestsupport person, and definitely my biggestfan,” Kost says.

And Kost has many fans. One could sayshe wrote the book on Photoshop. No,not “a” book, but THE book—the one

that comes with the software in the box.One of her more novel Photoshop creditsis that Kost worked on the manuals thatshipped with the release of Photoshop 5.

PHOTOS © JULIEANNE KOST

Julieanne Kost is not just a Photoshop techie, she is also an accomplished fine artist. The work that appears onpages 8 and 9 is her conceptual art, which has universally received high acclaim.The photos that appear on pages10 and 12 could be referred to as her aerial artistry—images created at 40,000 feet on her endless coast-to-coastvoyages.

“Not exactly the great American novel,” she humbly says. How-ever, she has been asked to personally autograph a few of themanuals by photographers and friends.

“One of the great perks of my job is that I get to meet some ofmy photographer ‘icons’ in person,” she says. “When I first metmy all-time photographer idol, John Sexton, I was so nervous Icould barely ask him to sign a copy of one of his books. He wasso gracious: He told me he’d sign a copy if I would sign his Pho-toshop user’s manual. It was the nicest thing he could havedone,” she says.

More currently she has produced an entire set of training DVDsfor Photoshop CS that are distributed by Software Cinema. Theyinclude over 40 Quicktime movies and are accompanied by sam-ple files to teach everything from basic concepts to advancedtechniques.

Many portrait photographers new to Photoshop find the pro-gram overwhelming. “One of the things I try to get across rightfrom the start when I teach is that you don’t need to know all, oreven most of the program to have your work benefit from it,” shesays. “Often the challenge is to show restraint and sensitivity. Lessis usually more when you’re using digital photo editing tools.”

Still, Kost says she’s very impressed with how photographersare learning at such a rapid rate.

“I really have a ton of respect for the photographers I help,”she says. “I get time during development to learn all the new fea-tures, and if I have questions, I get answers from the program-mer down the hall who actually created the feature. Most pho-tographers get 10 minutes or less in a seminar to learn a new fea-ture—then I’m gone.

“The fact that this industry is doing so many awesome thingswith Photoshop just blows me away.”

Favorite Photoshop Tool“I don’t really have a favorite tool, but I do have a ‘favorite’ real

world use of the software,” she says. “I believe that the strength ofthe tool to help make a change in society is clearly evident whenpolice and forensic artists use the program to show how missingchildren might look today. Law enforcement people have locatedindividuals based on using those ‘aged’ photographs,” she says.

Kost maintains a web site (www.adobeevangelists.com), whichhosts a significant amount of information regarding Adobe prod-ucts, tips and techniques and additional resources. In addition, shefinds that the user-to-user forum on www.adobeforums.com is afantastic resource for posting questions and answers.

“With the sheer volume of Photoshop users that post to thatforum, it’s very likely that someone will know the answer to whatyou’re asking.

“There are also hundreds of trainers around the country withwhom I work. Many of these teachers are great—better than I amin a hundred different ways,” she says. And that’s Julieanne Kost’sreal goal—to help hundreds of others in and out of the photo-graphic industry to get so good with Photoshop, that her job con-tinues to be challenging.

John Iacovino is a journalist with 20 years of newspaper and magazine pub-lishing history.Ten years ago he founded Blossom Publishing, a design & printfirm producing high-end print marketing projects for portrait photographers.Blossom Publishing currently works with 600 photographers annually nation-wide.

Reproduced with permission from Rangefinder, November 2004.