Each month, Oak Hill Collaborative invites Vince Shivers, a media expert and consultant, to instruct Adobe Photoshop.
The Photoshop class Shivers teaches is a beginner class to teach the basics of manipulating images in a creative and fun way.
After students go over computer basics, feel comfortable with their device and understand how to navigate the application, the course expands to cover more in-depth skills.
“Once they learn those basics, we can take it to another level where they can be creative as an artist. So if they have pictures, family pictures or anything along that line to manipulate, to clean them up, or whatever they choose to do,” Shivers explained.
Shivers, who has a combined 15 years of experience using Photoshop as a former photojournalist for 21 WFMJ and educator at Youngstown City Schools, is an award winning photographer who has both worked in the U.S. and overseas.
“I won awards that were from the National Press Photographers Association, I’m probably one of the very few photographers in Youngstown who has ever won a National Press Photographers Association award,” Shivers said.
Shivers said his classes at Oak Hill Collaborative are about more than just learning Photoshop.
“It’s not just Photoshop that I’m teaching, I’m also just teaching that learning never ends,” Shivers said. “This is an opportunity for [people] to learn how to navigate technology and they can learn Photoshop — but then they can come back and learn Excel or email or anything Microsoft Word.”
Shivers also said he enjoys helping people engage and learn an application he uses often.
“To spread what I know to the public, and particularly people that are my age or younger or older, to give them something to do because as people get older, they feel like they don’t really have anything to do as technology has passed them by,” Shivers said. “This is a chance to give them an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, I can learn something that younger people are learning. I can feel like I can engage with the rest of the world and understand what’s going on.’”
Another Adobe Photoshop class with Shivers will be announced in our upcoming June calendar.
