"oh!...cool...so, that's how you do that!...

...that's so easy...wow, I can't believe I can make my pictures look like that!" I can't tell you how many times those words came out of my mouth last night.

Yesterday, I took Mandy's Workflow Mentoring Session and let me tell you, not only did she share her wisdom of Photoshop, she kinda saved my marriage and re-ignited my dream of someday taking my photography to the next level.

As you know, I LOVE to take picture of my babies. And recently, my friends have started to ask me to take pictures of their babies. It's one thing shooting your own kids - sitting in the playroom, casually taking random shots of "cuteness" not considering lighting or composition. But when my friends wanted professional-ish quality shots for announcements and 8x10s, I realized that it probably wouldn't hurt to "learn" how to take pictures.

So that's what I did...I bought a bunch of books and enrolled in a few classes...basically spent a small fortune. The books were okay, the classes were pretty good. But while the photo 101 classes taught me how to get a good picture straight out of the camera, I knew from other blogs I read, that with a little processing I could take the photo from good to great. That was the mysterious step that no one wanted to share...how to achieve the "great".

Mandy's Workflow Session EASILY demystified PhotoShop for me.

Now, I've been a fan of Mandy's blog for awhile and have always admired her bright, clean photography style...so when she posted about her online mentoring sessions, I jumped at the chance. One of the things I learned the hard way from taking a couple expensive photo classes is that you really want to be sure that you're learning from a photographer that you admire - if you're into textures and dramatic over processing then you want to learn from a photographer that has mastered this style. For me, I love that Mandy works in natural light and specializes in portraiture. And because she's a busy mom like me, she's mastered the "efficient edit".

This is how she saved my marriage and re-ignited my dream of someday taking my photography to the next level. Before the session, I was spending hours on the computer each night mindlessly editing my photos. I felt like I was going in a perpetual circle, never knowing when the edit was done - they were either too processed and then not processed enough...

My husband was starting to hate my hobby cuz it was taking up all "our" time after the babies were asleep and I was starting to think that I would never be happy with my photos.

During the session, Mandy showed me her editing process that consists of only a handful of steps! We took my SOOC picture from good to great in 5 minutes!!! To say the least I was amazed!

I LOVED this class and would highly recommend it anyone who wants to achieve a professional look for their photos. Mandy was extremely organized, very assessable and super knowledgeable. I came into the class with a few off-topic photography questions and she was more than happy to share her wisdom with me. Not a lot of professional photographers are willing to give away their workflow secrets, but Mandy's "share the wealth" attitude is worth it's weight in gold...

That being said...my only regret is that I wish Mandy had offered this session when I started on my journey - she would have saved me a ton of time and money!