May 31, 2012

New Adobe tech for making cinemagraphs

You know cinemagraphs, “still photographs in which a minor and repeated movement occurs”?  They can be extremely cool, but creating them is tricky.

Now Adobe researcher Aseem Agarwala & colleagues at UC Berkeley have devised “a semi-automated technique for selectively de- animating video to remove the large-scale motions of one or more objects so that other motions are easier to see.” It’s easier seen than described:

From the project site:

The user draws strokes to indicate the regions of the video that should be immobilized, and our algorithm warps the video to remove the large-scale motion of these regions while leaving finer-scale, relative motions intact. However, such warps may introduce unnatural motions in previously motionless areas, such as background regions. We therefore use a graph-cut-based optimization to composite the warped video regions with still frames from the input video; we also optionally loop the output in a seamless manner.

Our technique enables a number of applications such as clearer motion visualization, simpler creation of artistic cinemagraphs (photos that include looping motions in some regions), and new ways to edit appearance and complicated motion paths in video by manipulating a de-animated representation. We demonstrate the success of our technique with a number of motion visualizations, cinemagraphs and video editing examples created from a variety of short input videos, as well as visual and numerical comparison to previous techniques.

Check out Adobe Proto: Fast wireframing on iPad

David Hogue shows how design agency Fluid uses Adobe Proto for iPad:

May 30, 2012

Camera Raw 7.1 & DNG Converter 7.1 now available

Per the Lightroom Journal:

Camera Raw 7.1 is now available on Adobe.com and through the update mechanism in Adobe Photoshop CS6. Camera Raw 7.1 adds new Defringe controls to help address chromatic aberration. Defringe is available as part of the Lens Correction panel. Camera Raw can also now read 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit HDR files. Supported HDR formats are TIFF and DNG.  Photoshop CS6 customers can upgrade to Camera Raw 7.1.  Customers of previous versions of Photoshop can utilize DNG Converter 7.1 for raw file support for newly added cameras.

See the LR Journal post for a list of the dozens of cameras now supported & new lens profiles added.

Lightroom user group meeting in SJ tonight

Lightroom team members will be on hand at Adobe HQ in San Jose tonight to discuss, among other things, the new Defringe and HDR Tone Controls introduced in Lightroom 4.1.

One of the suggestions we got at our last meeting was that we provide some time for networking, in addition to the presentation itself. I think this is a fabulous idea, so how about this: bring a photo that you’ve taken that you love. You can bring it on your laptop, tablet, phone, or printed on an honest-to-goodness piece of paper. Then, while enjoying complimentary pizza prior to the presentation, share your photo with at least one other person (someone not previously known to you!) and talk about why you like it. People who choose not to bring a photo will be publicly scorned.

The meeting will be held in the ‘Park’ conference room.  If you haven’t RSVP’d more than 24 hours in advance, you’ll need to get a badge from security when you arrive.”

May 29, 2012

“Photoshop Dimensions” magazine now available

Very cool: free*, and right from the Photoshop 3D team:

Photoshop Dimensions is the magazine of 3D in Adobe® Photoshop®. Whether you are new to 3D in Photoshop or an old hand, Photoshop Dimensions will show you new and exciting ways to add another dimension to your work. Photoshop Dimensions is written by leading authorities and experts who truly understand Photoshop’s powerful 3D features.

In this free issue of Photoshop Dimensions, we look at the many changes made to Photoshop’s 3D tools in CS 6 that will speed-up your workflow and expand your capabilities.

Grab it for iPad from the App Store. Amazon (Kindle), B&N (Nook) and PDF versions are also available; check out the site for links.

*Update: The first version is free, and the second costs $4.99.

May 28, 2012

A thought on persuasion

Note to self: More Demosthenes, please.

In 1983, advertising pioneer David Ogilvy summarized his mission as follows: “I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip’.”

[Via]

May 27, 2012

Whatever happened to all my design links? (Hint: Pinterest.)

You might remember that I often used to featured bulleted lists of links about photography, illustration, typography, etc.  I still share links when possible via Twitter, but I just haven’t had time in recent months to amass collections as I once did. (Could I now be working for a living? Perish the thought!) I still pine for an automated solution that apparently doesn’t exist.

A silver lining, though: Now I find that my Pinterest boards absorb what would otherwise have been tweets. I can’t add quite the same context/commentary there, but the site offers a beautifully visual presentation, and you might want to follow me there.

May 26, 2012

Demo: Making HTML5 animation for iPad apps

What’s new in Edge Preview 6? Check it out:

Here’s a tutorial specifically on putting HTML animation into tablet publications Adobe’s Digital Publishing System.

On a related note, here’s how to convert a multilayer Illustrator document to SVG format for use by Edge:

And if you’re new to all this, see also a demo on getting started with Edge.

May 25, 2012

Creative Cloud subscriptions: Cross-language, cross-platform

Jeff Tranberry notes some differences between Creative Cloud membership & traditional Adobe software licenses:

Cross-Platform License: Access to both the Mac OS and Windows versions of the desktop applications and the ability to install them on your primary computer and one backup computer.

Multi-Language License: Access to any language version in which the CS6 and other desktop applications are available. Unlike owning the traditional licensed version of a Creative Suite product, Creative Cloud membership gives you the freedom and flexibility to choose whichever language works best for you in any given application.

Both of these are changes many of us have wanted to make for a long time, and I’m glad to see that they’ve arrived.

Accessing multi-language support is simple, but the UI isn’t obvious.  In the new Adobe Application Manager (AAM), install whatever apps you want in your primary language, then go into Preferences (upper left corner) and switch to a different language. App links that had said “Installed” will revert back to “Install,” though you may need to restart AAM for that to happen.  You can then install apps in the newly chosen language.

After installing multiple language versions Photoshop, you can go into its preferences, switch the UI language, and apply it via app restart.  (There’s just one copy of the app on disk, plus multiple language packs.)  It appears that not all apps support this switching capability, but at least reinstalling in a different language is fairly painless (and can be done as often as needed).

Touching—sort of—across time & space

In high school I had my first long-distance girlfriend. My dad would roll his eyes at our pre-Net attempts to connect. “Oh, you’re probably eating a cheese sandwich as 6pm, because Jeanne said she’d eat a cheese sandwich at 6pm…”  He was kidding (and wrong), but there’s much to be said for synchronicity across space.

Enter Marco Triverio’s concept “Feel Me.” As Fast Company puts it,

When a friend is typing, you can see where they’re touching on your own screen. And when your fingers match up, from halfway across the world, haptic feedback can allow you to serendipitously touch. In a text-me-later culture, Feel Me enables communication that’s transient and visceral.

I think it’s rather brilliant. And as for Jeanne, sometimes I now see her across space, hobnobbing with Mitt Romney. Funny old world.

May 24, 2012

Configurator arrives for CS6

After more than 125,000 downloads (!) of versions 1 & 2, Configurator 3.0–Adobe’s drag-and-drop tool for creating custom panels–is available for download from Adobe Labs.  Enhancements include:

• Support for the new tools & commands in Photoshop CS6 & InDesign CS6
• Color theme support for Photoshop CS6
• Watermarking and panel personalization
• Ability to target both CS5 and CS6
• Custom panel icons
• Improved welcome screen
• Faster launch time
• Improved text widget
• Sample panels
• DPS panels

What do you think?  Is your team creating and/or using panels made by Configurator?

A Brief History of John Baldessari

I’m a little chagrined to admit that I didn’t know about artist John Baldessari prior to seeing this short film narrated by Tom Waits. Now I’d like to know more:

[Via Sam Potts]

May 23, 2012

Photosmith 2 enhances Lightroom-iPad integration

I’m delighted to see that Photosmith has released version 2, enabling multi-image tagging, bidirectional sync with Lightroom, native Eye-Fi support, and more.

According to their site, new features of the $20 app include:

• Wirelessly sync your unsorted backlog from Lightroom with our free plugin
• Sort and filter your photos
• Organize them into collections
• Apply star ratings and color labels
• Apply keywords and IPTC metadata individually, in groups, or with presets
• Share highlights and rough selections to Facebook, Flickr or by e-mail
• Support for RAW, JPG, or RAW+JPG
• Support for 100% zoom for many cameras
• Native support for Export and Publish Services in Adobe Lightroom
• Directly receive from Eye-Fi cards
• Very powerful sync options, allowing workflow customization

I can’t wait to try it out when I get home. If you’re using the app, what do you think of it?

LEAP Motion promises object-tracking UI breakthroughs

If this thing ($70?!) works even remotely as advertised, we’re in for an exciting future:

[Reader Pierre-Etienne Courtejoie quips, "I just shudder about the possible single-finger gestures to force quit software." (Hmm, seems very John Gruber-positive.)]

This is *not* your father’s Adobe installer

It used to be that Adobe’s installers were… well, to be charitable, not a source of pride.  A bunch of hardworking people have been listening, engaging with customers, and cranking away–and with Creative Cloud you can see the results. To grab any CS6 app,

1. Download & install the App Manager (less than 1MB), then log in with your Adobe ID.
2. Click the links for the apps you want to install.
3. “There’s no step 3!”

Right–no typing/copying/pasting serials (and potentially losing them later), no running installer after installer. Here’s a two-minute demo (though honestly you can probably try it yourself just as fast):

I’m sorry that installers were such a sore point in the past. Hats off to the installer team for buckling down & hugely improving the user experience.

PS–Engineering manager Eric Wilde says, “Please ask people to reach out to us on the forums if they have trouble. There’s lots of engineering folk reading our forums daily.”

[Update: Note that the new mechanism lets you install apps in multiple languages & across platforms, too.]