normankoren.com

What It Is

Norman Koren Photography is the personal website of photographer and Imatest founder Norman Koren. Its core content includes photography portfolios, technical photography articles, and illustrated tutorials. It is not a typical online course platform; it is closer to a long-running archive of photography technical resources, covering topics such as the digital darkroom, image editing, printing, scanning, color management, sharpness and MTF, and comparisons between digital cameras and film.

Core Content and Teaching Format

Based on the extracted text, the site’s tutorials are mainly English illustrated web pages, with a strong technical focus. For example, “Making fine prints in your digital darkroom” covers monitor calibration, printer calibration, paper and ink, black-and-white printing, and more; “Understanding image sharpness and MTF” discusses lenses, scanners, printers, depth of field, and digital camera testing. There are also series on Picture Window Pro image editing and color science. The author also mentions having taught in the United States, London, Oslo, Germany, Haifa, Shenzhen, and other places, but the current pages do not provide specific course schedules, enrollment methods, or certificate information.

Pricing and Certificates

The tutorials on the site do not show any fees and can generally be regarded as freely available public reading materials. The $59 mentioned in the text refers to the early price of the Imatest software, not a course fee. No information is provided about accreditation, completion certificates, payment methods, or student services.

Pros and Cons

The main advantage is the site’s high level of technical depth. The author has a background in physics, extensive photography experience, and developed Imatest for image quality testing, making the content relatively credible on technical topics such as sharpness, MTF, color, and printing. The drawbacks are also clear: the author explicitly states that since 2003, much of his energy has gone into Imatest, so many parts of the site are now outdated. The pages are not organized as a structured course and lack learning paths, video demonstrations, assignment feedback, a community, and after-sales support. Some of the content on equipment, scanners, and software is also dated.

Who It’s For

This site is better suited to intermediate and advanced users who already have a foundation in photography and want to gain a deeper understanding of the digital darkroom, print calibration, imaging quality, and lens testing. It is also useful for engineers or reviewers looking for background reference materials. For complete beginners, or for users who want Chinese-language instruction, systematic training, and certificates, this site is not the best choice.

Access in China

The extracted text does not provide information about access from mainland China, so the situation is unknown. Since the content mainly consists of English static web pages, the main learning barriers are language and technical depth rather than platform complexity.