Jeff Tranberry's Photoshop Crawlspace

April 10, 2008

New Photoshop Scripting Goodness

Trevor Morris, of Morris-Photographics, has posted two great articles on scripting Photoshop:

Scripting Photoshop, Part 1 — An Introduction

Scripting Photoshop, Part 2 — A Practical Example

Trevor also writes custom scripts for hire.

Tom Ruark and I presented at Photoshop World Orlando last week. The new class files are located here.

Dr. Brown's Services has been updated to 1.9.4.

Not related to scripting: Be sure to check out Adobe TV. Russell Brown and Julianne Kost already have videos posted. Let us know what kinds of things you'd like to see there from the Photoshop team.

September 21, 2007

Awesome Scripts for Photoshop CS3 and Bridge: Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2

Russell Brown has produced a great collection of FREE workflow scripts for Photoshop CS3 & CS3 Extended in Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2 which he announced at Photoshop World, Las Vegas earlier this month.

"Background Remover," "Interpret Video," "Fit Video to Audio," and "Slide Show" scripts all take advantage of Photoshop CS3 Extended's spanking new video capabilities. Fit Video to Audio and Slide Show are especially nice for allowing photographers to easily make video slideshows with music.

"Stack-A-Matic" is another script to take advantage of CS3 Extended and it's new Smart Object Stack Modes. If you haven't checked out Stack Modes, check out the tutorial video Russell has provided, and Martin Evening's tutorial over at Photoshopnews.com and open yourself up to new way of shooting and manipulating images.

If you want to save time on your next Photoshop project, do yourself a favor and head over to russellbrown.com and download Dr. Brown's Services 1.9.2!

For all you scripters out there, there's a wealth of code to learn from in Dr. Brown's Services, everything from manipulating the Animation (Timeline) palette to working with Smart Objects.

I'll also point out that Photoshop ships with a folder of simple sample scripts in the "Scripting Guide" folder in the Photoshop application folder. However, some of the best example code, showing you how to tie it all together, can be found in the scripts that are increasingly becoming part of Photoshop - Image Processor, Merge to HDR, Photomerge, Export Layers to Files, and any of the Layer Comps workflow scripts. You can find these scripts in the Presets>Scripts folder inside the Photoshop CS3 application folder.

June 03, 2007

Photoshop Scripting Sessions @ Photoshop World Las Vegas

The class schedule for Photoshop World Las Vegas, September 6-8, 2007 has been posted. I'm happy to announce that there are not one, but two, Photoshop Scripting Classes this time around:

Thursday, September 06

01:00p-02:45p - Photoshop Scripting (Beginners) - with Jeff Tranberry:
“Do you think Scripting is just for geeks? Photoshop offers a world of new possibilities to those who are familiar with writing scripts to automate and extend Photoshop. In this session you’ll learn the basics of scripting in Photoshop CS3 using Javascript and examine some real world examples of how you can make use of these basics to push Photoshop even further.”

03:00p-05:45p - Photoshop Scripting (Intermediate, Hands-on Workshop) - with Tom Ruark:
“In this session you’ll learn the how to write and debug more complex scripts using the Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit. You are encouraged to bring your own laptop to participate in the class workshop, where you can put your skills to work writing your own scripts with the help of the instructors. Class participants can then share their creation during a final show-and-tell discussion.”

We did a Beginners session at Photoshop World Boston back in April. This time Tom Ruark, a Computer Scientist at Adobe, who is responsible for the SDK, plug-in API, and scripting API for Photoshop, will show some more advanced stuff during the intermediate session. Tom and I will be on hand for both sessions, so come by and check it out.

June 02, 2007

Adobe Media Gallery

As John Nack has already announced, Adobe has just released Adobe Media Gallery.

What is Adobe Media Gallery? It's an extension for Bridge CS3 that lets users easily and quickly create Flash-based and HTML-based web photo galleries.

To get started using AMG, make sure you first update to Bridge 2.1. (It won't run in 2.0)

Then download the Adobe Media Gallery installer from Adobe Labs.

I've created a quick start video tutorial:

• Tutorial Video (8.1mb)
[Disclaimer: I had to to make some edits to match the actions to the words better, and fake the upload section because I didn't have a net connection when I recorded the video.]

• Quick Start Guide
• Known Issues
• FAQ

I'll do another video tutorial on how to modify, create and save your own templates.

I'll also point out some of the interesting ExtendScript code used to extend Bridge and build AMG in future posts.

Lastly, tell us what you think. We want to hear your ideas. That's what Adobe Labs is all about.

August 31, 2006

Photoshop Batch processor: XBatch

xbytor and Uwe Steinmueller have released XBatch, a Photoshop batch processor that maintains the folder hierarchy of the original images for the processed images.

xbytor is a script junkie that doles out useful Photoshop scripting advice over at PS-Scripts.com. Check out his Introduction to Photoshop Scripting. Uwe Steinmueller runs outbackphoto.com.

June 15, 2006

The Minnesota Office

Jeff Schewe, from PhotoshopNew.com stopped by Adobe's Minnesota Office while in town for one of his Epson Print Academy sessions.

Jeff was here to specifically meet with the Lightroom development team. Besides the Lightroom developers, the Minnesota office also has engineers working on Photoshop, Premiere, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, EncoreDVD and others.

Unfortunately, I was in meetings most of the day, so I missed my opportunity for 15 minutes of fame.

May 09, 2006

Installing and using the ScriptingListener plug-in

Not all operations are scriptable using Photoshop's built-in methods. There are a couple of ways to get around this. One is calling a Photoshop Action from your script:

// Which Action(s) to run
doAction("My Great Action","Default Actions");

If you plan to share scripts with other users, this method requires that other users install the script and any Actions the script calls in order to run the desired operations.

The second is using the ScriptingListener plug-in to capture Javascript created by Photoshop to build Actions and incorporate this code directly into your script.

Installing the ScriptingListener plug-in:

Quit Photoshop

Locate the ScriptingListener plug-in inside Photoshop's application folder:

• Adobe Photoshop CS2>Scripting Guide>Utilities>ScriptingListener

Drag the ScriptingListener plug-in into the folder 'Automate' in Photoshop's Plug-Ins folder:

• Adobe Photoshop CS2>Plug-Ins>Adobe Photoshop Only>Automate

Launch Photoshop

Using the ScriptingListener plug-in:

As you work in Photoshop, the ScriptingListener plug-in records Javascript for any operation which is Actionable to a log file named ScriptingListenerJS.log, which by default is saved to the desktop on Macintosh, or to the root of your C:\ drive on Windows.

To determine if an operation is Actionable, double-click the ScriptingListenerJS.log file to launch the Console application. Keep the Console window view of the ScriptingListenerJS.log visible as you are working. You will see the log update if the operation you just performed is Actionable. Painting, for example, is not an Actionable operation. You can click 'Clear'' at any point to clear the entries in the log.

As you will notice, the Javascript which is recorded by the ScriptingListener plug-in isn't always easily read or clearly labeled.

For Example, here is some ScriptingListener Javascript for generating a guide:

// =======================================================
    var id8 = charIDToTypeID( "Mk  " );
    var desc4 = new ActionDescriptor();
    var id9 = charIDToTypeID( "Nw  " );
          var desc5 = new ActionDescriptor();
      var id10 = charIDToTypeID( "Pstn" );
      var id11 = charIDToTypeID( "#Rlt" );
      desc5.putUnitDouble( id10, id11, 72.000000 );
      var id12 = charIDToTypeID( "Ornt" );
      var id13 = charIDToTypeID( "Ornt" );
      var id14 = charIDToTypeID( "Vrtc" );
      desc5.putEnumerated( id12, id13, id14 );
    var id15 = charIDToTypeID( "Gd  " );
    desc4.putObject( id9, id15, desc5 );
  executeAction( id8, desc4, DialogModes.NO );

Try to get in the habit of recording one step at a time and commenting each operation so you know what it does. I generally record the operation a few times with different settings so I can see where the settings change in the code. In this case, I've determined that 72.000000 refers to the pixel position of the guide, and that "Vrtc" is used for vertical guides and "Hrzn" is used for horizontal guides.

Here is the code with some comments:

// Create Vertical Guide
/*This javacript creates a vertical guide 72 pixels in from the left edge.*/
    var id8 = charIDToTypeID( "Mk  " );
    var desc4 = new ActionDescriptor();
    var id9 = charIDToTypeID( "Nw  " );
          var desc5 = new ActionDescriptor();
      var id10 = charIDToTypeID( "Pstn" );
      var id11 = charIDToTypeID( "#Rlt" );
      desc5.putUnitDouble( id10, id11, 72.000000 );
      var id12 = charIDToTypeID( "Ornt" );
      var id13 = charIDToTypeID( "Ornt" );
      var id14 = charIDToTypeID( "Vrtc" );
      desc5.putEnumerated( id12, id13, id14 );
    var id15 = charIDToTypeID( "Gd  " );
    desc4.putObject( id9, id15, desc5 );
  executeAction( id8, desc4, DialogModes.NO );

You can also turn the Javascript that the ScriptingListener plug-in generates into your own functions. You can even pass in your own variables. In this case, we pass in an integer for pixelOffSet and the string "Vrtc", "Hrzn" for orientation:

function makeGuide(pixelOffSet, orientation) {
    var id8 = charIDToTypeID( "Mk  " );
    var desc4 = new ActionDescriptor();
    var id9 = charIDToTypeID( "Nw  " );
          var desc5 = new ActionDescriptor();
      var id10 = charIDToTypeID( "Pstn" );
      var id11 = charIDToTypeID( "#Rlt" );
      desc5.putUnitDouble( id10, id11, pixelOffSet ); // integer
      var id12 = charIDToTypeID( "Ornt" );
      var id13 = charIDToTypeID( "Ornt" );
      var id14 = charIDToTypeID( orientation ); // "Vrtc", "Hrzn"
      desc5.putEnumerated( id12, id13, id14 );
    var id15 = charIDToTypeID( "Gd  " );
    desc4.putObject( id9, id15, desc5 );
  executeAction( id8, desc4, DialogModes.NO );
}

Then you can simply call the function every time you want to use it:

makeGuide(100, "Hrzn");

Using an 'include' to reference an external script

Another neat trick is to move all of your own functions created using the ScriptingListener into an external .jsx file. Then you can use an 'include' to reference the .jsx file with all your functions, keeping the script your working on neat and tidy.

Save your functions in a file 'myFunctions_lib.jsx' in the Photoshop's 'Scripts' directory:

• Adobe Photoshop CS2>Presets>Scripts

Next create a new script. Use an 'Include' to reference 'myFunctions_lib.jsx' file:

// Includes an external .jsx file

// @include 'myFunctions_lib.jsx'

Note: the 'Include' code will execute even though it looks like a comment.

Call the function 'makeGuide' from the 'myFunctions_lib.jsx' file:

makeGuide(100, "Hrzn");

Save the file as 'my_script.jsx' in the Photoshop's 'Scripts' directory:

• Adobe Photoshop CS2>Presets>Scripts

Run the script called 'my_script.jsx'.

If you want to comment out an 'Include' you can comment it using /* */.

// Includes an external .jsx file

/*// @include 'myFunctions_lib.jsx'*/

April 26, 2006

DAM: It's Peter Krogh

Peter Krogh, author of The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, was recently in the Twin Cities to do a presentation on Digital Asset Management. While he was in town, we were able to sit down and talk about the future of digital imaging and DAM. I caught up with Peter to find out how his tour went:

You're fresh off a DAM tour with ASMP. How did it go?

Great. There was a lot of interest, and the feedback indicated that the program is really helping photographers to get control over their collections. It was also great for me personally, since I love talking to photographers and being able to see how business is conducted around the country.

What's your involvement in ASMP?

Right now, I am on the National Board of Directors, as well as leading the DAM “It's Your Business” program. In the past, I have been the founder of the Digital Standards Committee, which changed into UPDIG. That job was also particularly gratifying since it is probably the most successful cross-association effort ever created. If you haven't taken a look, UPDIG.org is a resource for all parties in the field of imaging to ensure predictable rendering of the images as they get passed along the production chain.

How are people responding to your book - The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers?

Better than I could have imagined. I'm getting notes from around the world, and more invitations to speak than I can actually do. We've gone into a second printing.

What's been the biggest reward of writing your book?

Well, unfortunately it wasn't the money ;-). Having an impact on my fellow photographer has been a wonderful effect. I believe in the power of the image, and I believe in the need for photography professionals. This is a time of great change in our art and profession, and I'm happy to be working in the interest of my people.

What's next on your agenda? It looks like you have a new series of Professional Photography Workflow Workshops...

The field is really opening up, and I'm trying to spot the area of greatest need. I'll continue doing workshops and seminars, and I expect to do more writing. The hard part of all of this is making sure that the technology fits the needs. I spotted some needs that the DNG could fill in workflow, and was able to work with Adobe to make sure that functionality was included.

DAM is an exploding field right now, and digital photographers are really just the leading edge of the crowd. Soon everyone will have hundreds of gigabytes or more of valuable data that they will need to manage for a lifetime. It will be interesting to see how the photographer tools will move into more mainstream usage.

You've been a big proponent of Bridge and scripting. You have your DamUseful/Pimp My Bridge website, and some pretty neat scripts to assist professional photographers workflow. Tell me about some of your scripts and what they do...

The one I can't live without is RapidFixer, which lets you make Camera Raw adjustments from within the Bridge window. Not only does it speed the process up for me by at least 50%, but it lets me better integrate Picture Editing (deciding which is the best picture) with Image Editing (making the pictures look right). It's a great way to work, since these two tasks are often intertwined.

Rank and File lets me translate Ratings and Labels to Keywords so that they are preserved and more discoverable. Now that Ratings are picked up by iView, it's less necessary, but I still like it for a couple of reasons. It turns the Bridge Labels into Keywords, which is the only way to get iView to see these. It also writes the filename to the IPTC Title field, and to XMP PreservedFileName space so that I can find the original file, even if it gets renamed. We've just developed a new version that runs a lot quicker. This one will be a free upgrade, once it's out of testing.

Tell me how you got started developing scripts for Bridge?

Well, it was by necessity. I asked Adobe for some of this stuff during the beta-development cycle for CS2 (Labels to Keywords, for instance) and was told that it was not going to happen this version. John Nack suggested that scripting could do the trick. I was having dinner later with some family friends and brought the subject up. Tom Nolan, my partner in DAMuseful, writes onboard software for spacecraft, and was interested in the challenge.

RapidFixer came about after an ASMP presentation. I was showing how you can make menu presets for Camera Raw adjustments in Bridge, when I got the idea of putting the adjustments into button form. I had seen how Bridge had enabled the creation of buttons in the "navbar" area. Tom was up to the challenge, thankfully.

When you were in the Twin Cities earlier this month, you mentioned that you have some ties to Minnesota?

I was born in Rochester when my father was doing a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. It was my first time back since I was 2. I really enjoyed the Twin Cities, and look forward to a more timely return.

How and when did you get involved with Photoshop?

When I started the Digital Standards Committee for ASMP, I contacted Adobe. (I was trying to get them to make something that ended up being the CaptionMaker. Check it out at www.russellbrown.com, part of Dr. Brown's services). I made a presentation to John Nack, and a few weeks later an invitation to join the Alpha program of CS2 hit my email box. I was flattered to be asked, and a bit intimidated when the time commitment choice was between 10, 20 and 40 hours per week. And, no, I don't get paid for it. Try explaining that to your wife. ;-)

What's your favorite feature in Photoshop CS2?

That would be Camera Raw, hands down.

Where are you based out of?

The Washington DC metro area. Been here all my life.

How long have you been a pro photographer?

23 years.

What's been the biggest change for photographers moving to digital?

In the words of the Firesign Theater, “everything you know is wrong.” It's a huge change in how you think about what you are doing as a photographer, from shooting, to image handling, to business practices.

The changes in shooting are the easy part. Almost every photographer I know has been reinvigorated by going digital. The changes in how to think about image handling are like learning a new language. You just have to start with the new vocabulary and dive right in. Unfortunately this can lead to mistakes, which often means data loss.

The business changes are still evolving. My first big project, the Digital Standards Committee was all about how to identify profitable business practices and spread the gospel. We're still learning, but many photographers charge reasonable rates for digital production. It's been a little hard for many photographers to see how this can be done, but I have hope.

What's been the key to allowing photographers to go digital and embrace going to a digital workflow?

I think the most important part is higher productivity in the field: the ability to make better pictures more quickly. There were a lot of developments that finally made widespread digital photography a reality: Photoshop, less expensive digital cameras, color calibration, fast computers, big storage.

Once you start working with it, you realize it's just better.

What's your impression of Adobe Lightroom so far? Any favorite features?

I love the way you can adjust images in Lightroom. I think it's faster and more intuitive. I also love being able to look at full-size images. I can't wait for it to be done, so that I can put it into production for real photos (not just tests).

April 24, 2006

Masters of the Midwest: Ben Willmore

We all know Ben Willmore as an extraordinary Photoshop author and trainer. What you may not know is he's sold his house in favor of traveling the country, living in a motorcoach bus, and documenting his adventures on his blog: Where is Ben?.

I was able to get a tour of Ben's new wheels/home during Photoshop World, Miami. I was amazed at the number of groupies on his bus - if you can consider Bert Monroy, Bruce Fraser, Stephen Johnson, and Vincent Versace “groupies.”

I decided to catch up with Ben and see how things were going, and maybe find out a few new things about him:

So, Ben, where are you?!?

I'm parked at an campground just North of Gainesville, FL.

You're originally from the Midwest, correct?

Yes! I grew up in a Minneapolis suburb known as St. Anthony Village. I lived there for 30 years before moving to the mountains of Colorado... and now I've sold that house to live on a motorcoach.

What did you enjoy most about Minneapolis?

Growing up in Minneapolis was great. You get a good range of hot and cold, which makes it easy to move to any part of the world (glad I didn't grow up in Florida, which would have really limited my options). The arts scene was great and the lakes make for great recreation. Minneapolis is also a hub for graphic design and advertising, which helped me as a graphic designer. I didn't realize how friendly everyone is until I started traveling the country and noticing a lack of eye contact and conversation when I run into strangers.

How did you get into Photoshop?

I used Photoshop before it was a product. I got a hold of a beta version and played around with it. I didn't really do all that much serious stuff until 2.5 came out. I was using it to modify photos that were used in advertisements... removing backgrounds from images, adding artificial shadows, performing color correction, retouching, etc. I mainly used QuarkXPress, Freehand and Photoshop and was an expert in each one. As time has gone by, I've focused more on Photoshop.

What are you currently up to?

I'm currently touring the country with my Photoshop for Photographers seminar and working on some new training DVD's. You can see where I'm heading on my website at www.DigitalMastery.com.

What's been the best thing about being involved with Photoshop?

Getting paid to spend all my time playing with Photoshop... stuff that I'd do in my free time if it wasn't my job. The other thing I love about it is that going to national parks to take photos can be considered "work" if those photos might end up being used in one of my books or seminars :-)

What's your favorite feature in CS2?

Smart Objects: I love how they let me embed RAW files into my layered .PSD files, scale & warp images non-destructively and use one image in multiple areas while keeping all of them up to date while I make future edits.

What's the least understood feature in Photoshop?

Color Management is the least understood. Some major changes are necessary before this area becomes easily understood and the problem is that too many parties are involved: Adobe with Photoshop, Apple/Microsoft with their OSes, and printer manufacturers with their printer drivers. It's a complete mess and I don't see an end in sight. It affects everyone from photographers, web designers and grandmothers... we all want consistent color and don't want to have to get a PhD, or spend hundreds to make it work.

What's the most under-utilized feature in Photoshop?

There is a long list of under-utilized features:

1. Most people don't even know that you can hide menu commands to simplify Photoshop
2. Variables, which allow you to create many documents that contain a common design (like business cards)
3. The Color Replacement tool, which makes easy work of changing the color of everything from people's eyes to the color of your car
4. The Background Eraser, which can save eons when you need to isolate an area

How's the bus been treating you so far?

I'm loving the lifestyle so far. I keep having to remind myself that I'm not on vacation. I've been living this way for just over a month and tonight is the first one where I've paid to park somewhere overnight (read... it doesn't have to be expensive). I've really enjoyed meeting my of my blog readers and they have been overly helpful in finding me stealth parking spots.

Thanks, Ben. Have fun and keep in touch. We'll look forward to seeing you in Minneapolis in June.

April 11, 2006

Siva's Photoshop Conditional Action

Sivaratnam Gunaratnam has created an “Image Processor“-like script for Photoshop CS2 that will run actions based on various conditions including:

• File Format
• Height
• Width
• Resolution
• Color Mode
• etc.

I haven't tried every condition, but it seems to work as advertised, even if the UI is a little ragged.

CS UI Builder 2.0 Alpha

Jakub Kozniewski, creator of the Flash application “CS UI Builder 1.0,” has released a Windows only “CS UI Builder 2.0” alpha. This WYSIWYG tool helps create some of the javascript layout code for Script UI dialogs for Photoshop. Jakub has added support for some new controls and icons within dialogs.

CSUIB 2.0 alpha is available at http://www.jkozniewski.com/tools/CSUIB_2.0a.zip

April 08, 2006

Photoshop Speed Clinic: Automating Photoshop

Photoshop World Miami was a blast this year. Matt Kloskowski's “Photoshop for Geeks” session was filled to the gills. It's great to see that people are interested in ways to simplify and automate their workflows through scripting.

Matt has kindly provided his article on the Script Events Manager from the January/February issue of Photoshop User magazine, and a list of Photoshop scripting resources:

Scripting Resources (PDF)
Script Events Manager article (PDF)

I should also mention that Matt released his new book at Photoshop World: “The Photoshop CS2 Speed Clinic : Automating Photoshop to Get Twice the Work Done in Half the Time.”

The book was a hot item at the show and sold out from the Peachpit Press booth almost as soon as they hit the shelf. Of course, copies are still available through Amazon and most bookstores.

The book covers automation using actions and batch processing, strategies for smarter actions, streamlining Camera Raw & Bridge workflow, Smart Objects, and a chapter on scripting.

The scripting chapter includes information on:

• Installing and using scripts
• Editing scripts in the ExtendScript Toolkit
• Using the Scripts Event Manager to automatically run scripts and actions
• Installing & using the Scripting Listener plug-in

March 01, 2006

Extending Applications

Adobe Photoshop and Bridge has opened the doors to users and third party developers to extend our applications through scripting.

Peter Krogh's Rapid Fixer and Lexar's recently announced Smart Download are commercial examples.

Thomas Fors recently updated his ACR Calibrator script to work with Adobe Camera Raw 3.3.

Photoshopnews.com has a script that lets users browse the Photoshop News website right inside of Bridge without using a web browser or RSS news reader.

BarredRock Software has an interesting collection of scripts for Photoshop, Bridge and Illustrator.

Yahoo Widgets (formerly Konfabulator) has a script that takes your layered Photoshop document and makes a fully functional Widget out of it.

Apple has two scripts for iPhoto to interface with Photoshop: Do Photoshop Action & Prepare Images for iDVD.

Extending applications isn't limited to the Creative Suite - Check out this third-party developed extension that gives Fireworks Photoshop's Layer Comps functionality.

People are even finding creative ways to extend Adobe Lightroom to work in tethered workflows. Watch it in action.

February 24, 2006

Photoshop For Geeks

It's that time of the year again. Time for Photoshop World. If you were at the last Photoshop World in Boston, you might have attended Matt Kloskowski's Photoshop After Dark session entitled "Photoshop For Geeks" which focused on scripting Photoshop. If you weren't there, you missed out on a fun session.

I stuck around afterward to talk with people who were interested in learning more about scripting. The thing that struck me was that a lot of the interest came from web folks, particularly people familiar with Macromedia's ActionScript. The comments were along the lines of, "Hey, that looks like ActionScript! - I could do that! - and it would save me a ton of time at my job!"

Well, since Photoshop World Boston, Adobe has completed it's merger with Macromedia. We can actually start dreaming how scripting Adobe applications might play with Flash and Flex, and how we can work with the incredible Macromedia development community.

If you're interested in chatting, I'll be at Matt's Photoshop For Geeks session, Wednesday, March 22nd, 8:30-9:30pm. Stop by and say hello.

I also wanted to point out that Shane Stanley and Ray Robertson will be putting on their AppleScript Pro Sessions in the New York City area, May 8-12, 2006. These sessions focus on using AppleScript to drive the Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat) along with the finder and other applications.

Happy scripting!

February 23, 2006

New Photoshop Podcast from Jan Kabili

I thought I'd duck my head in and point out a new podcast from Jan Kabili over at The Unofficial Photoshop Weblog.

It's been a while since I've last posted. We've been busy beavers over here since the merger with Macromedia. I've also adopted a special-needs puppy, so between work and the Todd, it's been a busy month.

January 10, 2006

Adobe Lightroom

It's satisfying to see that the Adobe Lightroom public beta is being well received by the user community. I'm especially happy for my friends and former teammates in the Arden Hills, MN, and San Jose, CA, offices and have been putting in a lot of hard work to get this product ready for public beta. Hats of to you!

Here are some links on Adobe Lightroom I found useful:

Training and Tutorials

• Lightroom Video Tutorial - by George Jardine
• Photoshop TV Episode 12 - by the NAPP Guys
• Adobe Lightroom Beta Learning Center - Photoshop User/NAPP

News and Reviews:

• Lightroom Intro and FAQ - from John Nack
• Lightroom "First Look" - from MacWorld by Derrick Story
• Announcing Lightroom - from Photoshop News by Jeff Schewe
• The Shadowland/Lightroom Development Story - from Photoshop News by Jeff Schewe
• Lightroom Preview - from The Luminous Landscape by Michael Reichmann
• Adobe Lightroom A First-Look & Primer - by Ian Lyons
• Adobe Announces Lightroom & Adobe Lightroom beta: First Impressions - from ARS Technica

Some members of the Minnesota Lightroom development team will be on hand at the next Twin Cities Photoshop User Group meeting to give users a glimpse at the application.