Category: Adobe

In the News – Doo Wah!

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Bop bop doo bop doo bop do wow!  Okay, sorry, that’s a bad skit for the great jazz tune from the ’50’s, but nevertheless, whenever I hear the phrase “in the news” I feel compelled to sing that line.  Now, for your real news from CB today:  I’ve got two stories for you, some news from Adobe on the next iteration of Photoshop and some Canon news on the Canon Hacking Development Kit (aka CHDK) that is now maing waves.  Read on for all the details!

Adobe Photoshop News

Well, the big news I read today during lunch was that the folks at Adobe will be incorporating some sort of GPU support for its next iteration of Photoshop.  Tapping into the GPU (graphics processing unit) means that larger images can be rendered on your display faster.   Another added benefit will be an increase in processing speeds for filters and other intensive activities. Nothing too earth-shattering, except they did report that at the Nvidia show, they watched the presenter zoom and rotate the canvas on a 2 GB image as though it were a 5 MB image.

 

Canon CHDK News

In more Canon-specific news, I have now read at least 10 articles from a number of resources talking about the Canon Hacking Development Kit (CHDK), which is a free firmware hack that can be applied to P&S grade cameras to allow them to do a number of things that SLR’s do, and even a few that your average SLR can’t do!

 

  1. The CHDK allows Point-n-Shooters to shoot in raw mode.  The caveat is that since it’s not a standard raw format, you can’t open this in Photoshop or Lightroom directly.  Instead, there is a third party software kit out there (also for free) called dng4ps2 that can convert the image to the more common DNG, which is Adobe’s Digital Negative format.  The DNG file can then be opened in Photoshop or Lightroom.
  2. The CHDK kit enhances the P&S feature set by adding a battery status indicator so you can see how much of a charge you have left on your battery.  I know this feature is already there in SLR cameras, so I guess the P&S’er didn’t have this feature regularly – news to me.
  3. The CHDK kit also adds what they’re calling a zebra mode which will show you whether a picture is under- or over-exposed.  Basically, it sounds like it’s adding a histogram feature.  Again, this feature is standard on most SLR’s, but not on most P&S cameras.  I just think that even a lot of SLR shooters don’t use the histogram (although I would personally encourage more use of it), so adding the feature on P&S cameras may be a little overkill.
  4. Finally, the CHDK kit allows P&S’ers to extend their range of shutter speeds.  The most reliable info I saw for the CHDK claimed the range went from a standard of 1/3200-15 seconds all the way up to a range of 1/33,333 to 65 seconds!  You read that right, that’s one-thirty-three-thousandsth of a second (and change).  Kind of makes the 1/8000ths shutter speed on the 40D look pathetic, eh?  Granted, this was specific to the S5 IS, but the standard change is to 1/64000ths of a second, which is still earth-shatteringly fast! 

Now, the caveats:

 

  1. Write time slows down considerably when shooting in raw (to about 2-4 seconds – yikes!).
  2. The raw file format is not recognized by mainstream applications like Photoshop and Lightroom.  In other words, file accessibility is likely not reliable.
  3. The software that you have to use to access the raw image data is freeware.  While some software from the open-sourced community is excellent (case in point GIMP, OpenOffice, and many others) and perfectly safe, the fact that this software comes from Russia and is (to my knowledge) untested, sets off red flags all over the place for me.  Of course I work in IT, so it’s in my nature to be suspicious of third party software from third world countries…
  4. As with any firmware hack, this is likely going to void any manufacturer warranty or vendor support for the camera if you install the software.

So, having shown the pros and cons, I’ll leave it to the community – install at your own discretion.  For those that do decide to install, feel free to share your thoughts here in the comments, or with me via email – I’d like to hear feedback on the reliability of the kit.  The CHDK can be downloaded direct from the link here:  http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/S5IS, and the raw converter from here:  http://dng4ps2.chat.ru/index_en.html  Until next time, happy shooting and watch those apertures (or should I say shutters?)!

 

Back to Basics – Rule of Thirds Grid

Jason3 Comments

After I recorded and started production on this tutorial my mind began to remember that perhaps I had covered this subject before. I reviewed the subjects I have posted over at the Tutorial Resource Center and did not see it covered there, so figure I am not repeating some tutorial I have already done. Having said that, this is kind of a return to the basics. Continue reading “Back to Basics – Rule of Thirds Grid” →

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Calendar Templates, Part II

Jason2 Comments

This week I wrap up the tutorial started last week on creating a Calendar Template using Photoshop. One of the things I found most useful was performing the screen captures of each month prior to beginning the place functions inside Photoshop. As you can see in the tutorial, the results came out really nicely.

This whole project started from wanting to make a single-page calendar and in looking at the design offerings on Mpix, thought “Hey! I could make that!” The second half of the genesis came courtesy of Matt Kloskowski over fro the Photoshop Guys where he did a tutorial a while back on making a desktop calendar for a single month. So…I put the two ideas together and this is the end result of that effort. I figured it may also have some interest for other photographers in making calendars incorporating either their own prints or those of their clients. Clearly, this is a “down and dirty” version, but if anyone is interested, I do have a pretty high resolution sized template that I would be willing to share on request.

In other news, I’d like to give some shout outs to Brian over at Professional Snapshots, who just last Friday celebrated the birth of his new daughter Isabelle! Congrats to Brian, even though this means he has pretty much lost the ability to sleep through a night for at least the next 18-24 months! Yeah, this may be your fourth, but I’ve heard the stories from siblings and neighbors! Enjoy!

Also, don’t forget to stop over at Jason D. Moore’s weekly summary of all things photography! I always head there to make sure I’m not missing anything interesting.

Last, but not least, the tutorial links: Flash first and QT second…

Calendar Templates, Part II

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Workflow – ACR vs DNG which way to go?

Jason4 Comments

Recently two of the blogs that I read brought some meaningful insight on individual work flow perspectives. The first was Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider, where he had a few people criticize his critique of camera raw in Photoshop CS3, Lightroom, and Bridge. It was a pretty good and informative post, but a select few saw that as an opportunity to say that he was not giving Apple’s Aperture a fair shake. He actually replied to the comments (which he normally doesn’t do), and with quite an effective argument. This was quite the departure from his normal style, where he has just a few things to say and they are punctuated by pictures, as he likes the visual aids. The ultimate point though, was that Scott is very much a fan of the Adobe Camera Raw in his work flow and post processing of prints.

The other was Mike Johnston’s The Online Photographer. TOP is a great blog if you like to read, but is not very often written with the visual learner or “reader” in mind. The post that struck me was Mike’s Friday post, where he espouses “What to Buy” and his thoughts on the DNG format. While quite interesting, it’s not exactly in keeping with my thoughts on post processing.

Since I am more of an ACR guy than a DNG guy, it’s really going to be beside the point to discuss my feelings on work flow and post processing. Instead I am goig to take a different tack here and say that work flow is really up o whatever works best for the individual. I know some people that go with open sourced options like GIMP, and that is equally viable if the results are acceptable to the photographer. It’s ultimately a matter of this – opinion!

All of this brings me to my final point, and that is really about the nature of blogging itself. Blogging, as much as we like to think otherwise at times, is just our personal opinions. I think sometimes we get wrapped up in promoting certain ends, and I am equally guilty of that here at CB – I promote my own photography, ideals that I believe in, and software and hardware that I use. Nevertheless, it is, after all, just my opinion.

So, partly in response to those that started giving Scott K. a hard time, and in defense of Mike’s DNG work flow with the Pentax – lest we begin to take ourselves or others begin to take us too seriously, we are all just promoting our own opinions on subjects related to photography. It’s definitely useful though as different thoughts and opinions and ideas are what inspires each and every one of us to new levels of creativity and original thoughts. So, my hats off to all the blogging world, but this weekend, most especially to Scott K. and Mike J. for being on the leading edge of the topical content for photography.

In closing, I’d like to open the comment section up for others to share their thoughts and opinions on work flow, and blogging in general if you like. What work flow style do you prefer? Do you act on the recommendations of fellow bloggers, fellow photographers, or on other resources? Don’t forget to get out and shoot too though, so happy shooting and watch those apertures!

In the spirit of keeping things light-heartedly, and as a “make-up” for the short post yesterday, here’s the weekly best from What the Duck!

What the DUck - Friday, April 25th

Wednesday’s Webinar

Jason3 Comments

Okay, it’s not really a webinar, it’s a tutorial, but since I usually publish the tuts on Tuesdays, I had to come up with a clever name for the post title, and webinar was the best I could think of…it’s corny, but what the heck.

This week, the final installment of creating web galleries using different applications. Previously, I had looked at how to create web galleries using both Photoshop and Lightroom, and discussed some of the basics involved there, as well as some of the pros and cons of each. In this third and final segment, I look at an open-sourced option called Jalbum. This actually turned out to be a really cool application with some features built in that just made me say “Now hey, that’s cool!” For starters, you can add a comments section for your photos – great if you want to get a dialog going. You can also include a shopping cart and a link to a paypal site for people to not only check off what they want to purchase, but also complete the transaction. Very slick and clever implementation here. I wish the folks at Adobe had thought to incorporate this sort of feature in Lightroom – I can’t imagine a professional photographer not wanting to sell their work, so am wondering why Adobe seems to have missed the boat on this one. Perhaps when LR 2.0 comes out of beta, this will be an incorporated feature. (Is anyone at Adobe watching?)

After watching the video, you should bounce back here to the blog, so please feel free to share your comments on the video. Did you like it? Was there anything I missed that you would like to see? Too much material, not enough? Did I talk too fast? Let me know if you have software or applications you would like to see featured as I can usually find a trial version or something to go over some of the basics. Comments section or email, as always are encouraged. We’ve also only got two weeks left in the camera quantity poll, so don’t forget to vote!

Anyway, enough teasing and hinting of what’s to come…I bid you adieu and happy shooting until next week as I give you the full tutorial on creating web galleries with JAlbum! (don’t forget to watch those apertures…)

View Jalbum tutorial online (flash-based)

Photo Tuesday (to take your mind off taxes)

Jason4 Comments

Since I devoted Monday’s post to the Photography and Photoshop Blogroll report for Jason D. Moore, my other announcement got shifted back a day, so this week things will be a tad more compressed. I’ll try not to bore you with excessive links and heavy-handed material where you have to read a lot. That means – it’s Photo Tuesday! (The tutorial will be released Wednesday…since there’s no “Wednesday Web Gems” for the theme.) Besides, since it is a blog that I am pretty much writing single-handedly, I can change things up if I want, right? 🙂

So…for Photo Tuesday I thought I’d announce that I have a new gallery of photos put together on my dedicated photo site. The site portal is here: www.jasons-photography.com and the latest gallery addition is here. Please take a moment to stop over and then share your thoughts with me here (or via email) on the shots. Too many? Not enough? Layout? Treatment? Etc.? I’ve collected these images over the past 3-4 years and finally have enough (I think) for a dedicated gallery of wildlife. As a teaser, here’s a few thumbnails…all taken from my Canon XT and processed through Adobe Lightroom 2.0 (Beta)

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As a final reminder, it is tax day here in the U.S., so if you haven’t done your taxes yet, today’s your last chance to get them in legally.  If you’re a last minute kind of person, this is pretty much it!  Well, that’s it for Tuesday – happy shooting and watch those apertures! 😉

Another weekend shot to….heck

Jason2 Comments

First it’s the teeth, then it’s the toes – anyway, another weekend of hopefully getting out and shooting for a change of pace (I really do prefer to be out taking pictures, rather than in PS or LR editing them, or even be inside on a computer, but being in the IT industry as a profession, well, that’s the fallout…anyway I digress).  As it is, I am stuck inside again, so after a day of actually walking around on my feet, I am trying to post with one leg sticking out to the side (left) and leaning back to write.  Needless to say, it’ll be a short post.  As a kind of wrap-up of the various projects I have in the works, here’s a week in review:

  1. Work is almost finished on the web gallery articles.  I have one more video tutorial to record on JAlbum, and two articles to share with the readership.
  2. My magazine cutting frenzy continues as I shred through stacks of almost two years of photo magazines.  The binder is getting thicker and the magazine stack is getting smaller!
  3. I’ve launched a beta for a new idea on a sub-domain for Canon Blogger, The Online Photograph Test (or TOP Test), which has already seen a few corrections and improvements, so thanks to those that wrote in and emailed…keep ’em comin’!

In other news around the photo world:

  1. Adobe launched their new “TV” service…it’s really a flash-based online multimedia portal to all types of content, naturally with much of it focusing on Adobe products.  Seems like a cool enough idea, and probably intended to compete with YouTube, but on with a more professional and polished approach.  We’ll see if it catches on – my guess is yes with the poster boys talking it up all over the web.
  2. Adobe makes the weekly news twice as they re-released Camera Raw 4.4 that were previously pulled.pulled, have since been re-released by Adobe.   This link is for the Windows version of CS3, LR and Mac versions are also available from the download site – just use Google as needed to find the version you are looking for.
  3. In case you missed it earlier this week, Donny did his last episode (my guess is “of the season” in another hysterical segment of You Suck at Photoshop -careful with kids around…’nuff said.  Well, it ‘s been followed up by a “honorarium” of sorts where you can vote for the DIY’er in both Photoshop and comedy categories.  Kinda funny, but not the same as Donny – so go watcfh, then vote to bring Donny out of hiding!
  4. What The Duck makes it’s Friday appearance below, which means my leg is getting numb and the hour is getting late, so it’s time to bid a hasty adieu!  Good night, have a great weekend, happy shooting, and watch those apertures!

What The Duck - Friday, April 11th

Lightroom 2.0 Beta – First look at the dual monitor! (A preview video)

Jason4 Comments

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Just before I hit the sack last night, I saw that Adobe went and released Lightroom 2.0 in its beta form. I’ve already downloaded it and checked out some of the key changes. Until this release, I had used a trial version on my one desktop, and decided I’d tr it for 30 more days just a week or so ago on this main one. Well, right after recording a tutorial on creating web galleries in LR 1.x Adobe goes and does this! I shoulda known better.

The NAPP staff was clearly in on the development as they’ve got a page already set up with a first look on a lot of the key items. Great info and the features are definitely the ones I’d been waiting for – guess it’s time to buy! In my earnest to see everything I noticed though, that Matt K. does not show the dual monitor display on his first look. Was rather disappointed, so….in the interests of showing to others what I just saw, I did a little brief first look of my own. The resolution is super huge (1024×768), and it does look a little “off”. The reason here is because my one monitor is a 19″ and my other one is a 15″. So, on Windows it looks a little funny. But, it does get the gist across for those interested in seeing what’s there for the latest version. Check it out in the Quicktime download attached to this post.

As for the nuts and bolts of changes, I’ll leave those details to the pros over at NAPP and other blogging venues. Some of the more salient and interesting ones I saw today are here:

Only a few wishes…I didn’t immediately see any support for tethered shooting…but I guess that’s could go on a wish request since it’s still in beta. Also, it looks like the second monitor support means just 5 view options: loupe/grid/live loupe/locked loupe/compare/ and survey. I was hoping the 2nd monitor would be customizable with the LR panels (like Photoshop), but I’ve not figured out how to do that yet. If anyone knows whether that is something I am missing, or if it’s not been added…let me know.

Anyway, that’s the big news today – LR 2.0 beta was publicly released during the keynote at Photoshop World! With Photoshop Express, and tons of other R&D stuff coming out of Adobe – it’s a good time to be a fan! SO, without further ado, here’s my first look at LR 2.0 dual monitor setup options! Quicktime only version today (renders faster than the flash version and has wider viewing from those that visit the blog).

Creating Web Galleries using Lightroom

Jason2 Comments

As Photoshop World is starting tomorrow, I imagine most are watching the pros blogs to see what news, events, and info is forthcoming from that semi-annual event. Something tells me I will be ponying up the $500 to go to the September one in Vegas. (Benefits of NAPP membership notwithstanding…) In looking at the classes that they are offering for this Spring I guess two things caught me as surprising – first that there are so MANY classes to choose from. In a way a lot of options is a good thing, but it also has downsides. The upside is there are lots of choices. The downside is that sometimes the subject matter is so compartmentalized, you really have to pick a path and stick with it. In other words, if you pick one subject, you are also conversely choosing not to go to other subject matter. Case in point, I would like to have seen Painting With Photoshop by Bert Monroy on day one, but that conflicted with the Top 10 Photoshop Techniques by Matt K. – and since very few classes are repeated, there’s no chance to catch the other class later during the event.

In light of that – one small suggestion for future shows (like anyone is even listening to me)… offer fewer classes but repeat them more – that way you give everyone a chance to see everything. I realize it sounds kinda cheap, but for the price tag of entry, I really would rather get to learn from everyone rather than 3 or 4 instructors only.

The other thing that surprised me is that the head honcho himself, Scott Kelby, is teaching very little this go around. One of the things that has made Scott so endearing to so many is his supremely effective teaching style. yet for this Spring ’08 show, he’s only teaching three classes (and one of them is basically his 7-point system which can be gotten from Amazon for a mere fraction of the cost for Photoshop World entry. I’d rather spend my time learning stuff I can’t get from a book. As kind of the “front man” for NAPP, Photoshop World, and leading pitchman for Adobe products, it would have been nicer to see more classes with him up front. Maybe that will change for Fall ’08.

Although I should also note that Scott just busted up his leg the other day, so is heading out on crutches, and that may have mandated some scheduling changes. He is also delivering the keynote speech, which I am sure took a great deal of time to prepare, so there are possible mitigating circumstances involved with his decreased participation in the instruction. Since I hopefully will have saved enough to go to the Fall ’08 one in Vegas, I’ll look forward to seeing if he’s doing more instruction.

In other, more directly related news to Canon Blogger, I’ve finished the tutorial for this week a little early, so will post it here now. Last week I went over some of the basics of how to create a web gallery using teh automated feature of Photoshop CS3. This week, I look at another product in the Adobe family – Lightroom. Setup and generation is pretty quick and easy, just a couple pointers on what to avoid and precautions to take in putting everything together, from both the perspective of the photographer and the viewer. A little shorter than last weeks tutorial, but still hopefully useful. The flash version is linked, and the Quicktime version is attached for those tuning in via feeds, iTunes, and with iPods.

Web Galleries II (Lightroom)

Happy shooting and watch those apertures! For those going to Photoshop World, have a blast!

The Nitty Gritty on Photoshop Express

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I was going to wait until Monday to make this post, but in light of all the hubub, decided to go ahead and make an exception this go around and do a weekend post.  So…without further ado:

Adobe on Thursday unveiled it’s latest incarnation of photo editing software, an online editor it’s calling Photoshop Express. In the aftermath of the online communities reviews, first looks, tutorials and grabbing the headlines, some salient questions are coming to the fore on the value that PE will bring to the marketplace.

What is Photoshop Express?

First and foremost, even heavyweights from NAPP are quick to say that PE is not really Photoshop. Scott Kelby, Matt K., Dave Cross, and the whole bunch were clearly in on the development, but only to a degree – since the Photoshop moniker was there on release. In retrospect, Adobe may re-brand this down the road so as to clear up perceptions of what it’s trying to accomplish here. With that in mind, it does seem pertinent to say that Adobe is likely trying to bring a web-based application into play that can compete with the likes of popular online image-sharing repositories like Facebook, Photobucket, and Picasa (which you can log in to via the PE interface with what is likely a means to transfer images from one repository to another.) It does seem interesting that there is no similar facility in place between PE and Flickr though…perhaps someone could share some thoughts on that in the comments?

The Legalese

The other big hubub surrounding the release was a bit of legalese that granted Adobe some pretty potent rights on images uploaded. Full terms are disclosed here. The specific part that many seem to be having an issue with though, are on transference of licensing. Specifically, the terms stated that:

“Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.”

Apparently there was enough of an outcry (especially the license granting) that Adobe is re-writing the terms to accommodate the concerns. This comes according to some news from the blog of John Nack (who works for Adobe). It will be interesting to see how things roll out from here.

Photoshop Express Backlash

Finally, a question about its value came up on the NAPP forums where members share their feedback on everything NAPP and Kelby Training has going on. Some have expressed concern that even though the new application is being touted as intended for the “18-24” crowd, that with the photo editing that is available, this could further dis-illusion the average Joe Public into thinking that they can do their own photo editing and no longer need professional photographers. As one poster put it, “it’s giving the consumer a false sense of what it really takes to truly manipulate and retouch photo[s]”.

Conclusions

From my perspective, as both a photo enthusiast and as a consumer, that this is merely an attempt by Adobe to expand their market footprint. They’ve already got the pros and enthusiasts (like myself), but there is a huge market share out there of the next generation to appeal to and gain market share from. With the internet expanding past its infancy and getting to the point of ubiquity, the growing trend for online collaboration and Web 2.o applications becoming more common, it only makes sense for Adobe to expand in this regard. Why should other companies like Facebook, Photobucket and Picasaweb get exclusive access to this demographic?

As for the notion that PE will dip into the market share of professional photographers and retouchers – it’s unlikely to have an impact on the higher end professionals that cater to corporations, businesses, and clientele who are interested in the highest quality. Where there likely will be some fallout is the GWOC (guy-with-camera/gal-with-camera) who wants to hang out a shingle. It’s actually a win-win situation for Adobe because the GWOC’s will find that there is no market for them unless they upgrade their skills and buy a higher end product like full versions of PS. At the same time, the next generation of photo enthusiasts is likely to try this Photoshop Express for a while, then want to do more. It would only make sense to “upgrade” to the standalone application for their computer. My hats off to Adobe for an excellent marketing plan to expand their footprint in todays competitive marketplace.