May 31, 2011

Photoshop 12.1 = Photoshop 12.0.4

What’s the difference between Photoshop CS5 and 5.5? Nothing besides subscription support. Here’s some concise clarification from Jeff Tranberry:

Photoshop CS5 (Version 12.1 – which comes as part of Creative Suite 5.5) and Photoshop CS5 (Version 12.0.4 – a free update for the version of Photoshop which came as a part of Creative Suite 5) are exactly the same in terms of functionality except that 12.1 will support a subscription license.

Both contain the same updates to fix issues, both have the same camera support with Camera Raw 6.x, and both work with the Photoshop Touch Apps.

A record-player wedding invite

How incredibly cool:

The resulting booklet is comprised of a cover, two inner pages, a letterpressed band (with instructions and a tear-off RSVP postcard), and a flexdisc on a screwpost. The recipient bends the second page of the booklet back to create a tented “arm.” With the needle placed, they then carefully spin the flexidisc at 45 RPM (ish) to hear the song. The sewing needle travels the length of the song and produces the sound.

Check out the designers’ blog for more info & photos. [Via]

May 30, 2011

Lightroom 3 60% off on Amazon today

I don’t know how long this deal will last, but Lightroom 3 is being offered for $119.99 (60% off) right now on Amazon.com. [Via]

(rt) Photographic history: Abbey Road to Mt. Rushmore

• Ever seen the original design of Mount Rushmore; who knew?
• Iain MacMillan remembers the Abbey Road album cover sessions.
• 40 years of industrial design history: Design house ItalDesign commemorates its work via iPad.
• The NYT remembers Willard S. Boyle, father of the CCD. On behalf of all digital shooters, thanks, Dr. B!

May 29, 2011

Video: Skaters on fire

Is it pyrotechnics, or is it Memorex? Hard to say, maybe, but I like the effect:

The filmmakers have posted a behind-the-scenes feature for the subsequent video in the series. I highly applaud their use of “FM.” [Via]

May 28, 2011

Video: Unspeakably masterful Tetris playing

What on earth, besides a vague computer graphics connection, does this have to do with the general thrust of my blog? Not a ton, but it’s just a pleasure to see someone do something so well. As Jason Kottke puts it,

It starts getting insane around the 3:00 mark and then, at 5 minutes in, all the blocks turn invisible and he keeps right on going! It’s like he’s playing blindfold speed chess on the hood of a stock car!! I mean, !!!!!

Even more tangential: I love that someone has created “Bastard Tetris,” a game specifically designed to make you feel bad by choosing the worst possible block at any moment.

May 27, 2011

iObsessed for iPad

Photographer Dan Marcolina used InDesign CS5 to create iObsessed, an interactive compendium of over 30 apps. The book complements his iPhone Obsessed photo book, and he writes:

This interactive format allows you to see video tutorials right in-line with the featured images, along with the ability to pinch and zoom any image to see its full detail. Additional surprise links are found on each chapter page.

Here’s the quick demo:

May 26, 2011

(rt) Illustration: Silhouettes, CSS, & Mr. Peanut

• I love these clever, subtle silhouettes (Rushmore, PW Herman, etc.) from Olly Moss.
• LayerStyles.org offers a Photoshop-style interface for CSS editing. [Via]
• Ill advised:
  • An illustration I’d almost like to see: “UFC Fighter Has Idea For T-Shirt With A Bunch Of Sh*t Written All Over It.”
  • Worst illustration idea ever? “Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction“–plus Mr. Peanut!
• To cleanse the palate, here’s some classic Russian design inspiration: The Posters of Dziga Vertov.

A question for plug-in developers

If you use (or might consider using) Adobe’s GPU-accelerated Pixel Bender technology to write plug-ins, Todd Kopriva from the After Effects team would like to pick your brain for a minute.

May 25, 2011

Adobe TV: Lightroom coloring techniques & shortcuts

Recent vids of possible interest:

The Complete Picture with Julieanne Kost: Selective Coloring Techniques in Lightroom

In this Episode of the Complete Picture Julieanne Kost explains two different methods for selectively colorizing an image to differentiate the subject from the background using Adobe Camera Raw.

Creative Suite Podcast: Photographers – 5 Lightroom Keyboard Shortcuts that will Speed up your Workflow

In this episode I’ll show you 5+ Lightroom Keyboard shortcuts that will definitely speed up your day-to-day Lightroom workflow!

Camera Raw 6.4.1, Lightroom 3.4.1 updates released

These updates for Camera Raw (Mac|Win) Lightroom (Mac|Win) fix the rare but potentially serious file corruption bug (see previous) that was introduced in Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4.

May 24, 2011

(rt) iPhone bits & content-aware fails

• iPhone:
  • Hmm: A Leica-iPhone hybrid? (Would this still be relevant if wireless camera-to-phone transfer got good & pervasive?)
  • Though I don’t use the app, I can dig this hip Hipstamatic iPhone case. [Via]
  • Terry White gets detailed on “How the iPad fits into a Photography Workflow.”
• ‘Shop You, ‘Shop Me:
  • An Orthodox Jewish newspaper Photosh–er, digitally removed–Hillary Clinton from a photo.
  • Right back atcha: “Citing modesty, hipster website removes ‘sexually suggestive’ male images from Situation Room photo.” [Via]

May 23, 2011

(rt) Photography: Finding art in nukes, tulips, & more

• Natural art:
  • Wow–this is really a photo, not a composite? [Via]
  • Julian Faulhaber treats tulips in Netherlands as abstract art.
• Conflict:
  • Odd: The Unabomber’s famous hood & sweatshirt. Even odder: The US Marshals are auctioning it all (and evidently use Flickr). [Via]
  • The Atlantic rounds up striking, sometimes ghoulish photos of nuclear weapons tests. The mannequins creep me out. [Via]

May 22, 2011

Video: Terrific projection mapping for Hyundai

What amazing options exist for visual storytellers these days.

[Via]

May 21, 2011

Origami sculptures transform in water

Etienne Cliquet’s fascinating “Flottille” micro-origami sculptures are 2-3 centimeters long and open based on capillary action.

[Via]

May 20, 2011

Machiavellian thought o’ the day

I’ve heard about totalitarian regimes using Facebook to promote “anti-government” rallies, then simply arresting whoever shows up.  Seems like a ruthless manager could take a similar cue: Invite employees to “training sessions” on things like how to use the new travel website, then fire anyone who attends–figuring that if you’re dumb & idle enough to attend such a thing, you mustn’t be worth keeping.

Of course, if that test were applied to people with time to write blog posts like this… uh, forget I said anything.

Feedback, please: Photoshop-controlling iPad magazine now available

DI Direct, the publication that can link with Photoshop CS5* and drive it via interactive tutorials, is now available as a free download. In case you missed it previously, here’s a demo:

I find the concept very intriguing, but I’d really like your feedback.

• As a reader, how compelling do you find this sort of interactive training? Would it make you more likely to buy a certain magazine or book? Do you (or would you) use your tablet & your computer together this way?
• If you’re a writer, trainer, etc., how compelling do you find it? If we made it extremely easy to add such links via InDesign, then publish to a tablet, would you take the time to add them?

Thanks,
J.

* If you’re using CS5, don’t forget to update to 12.0.4 (via Help->Updates). If you’ve installed CS 5.5, you’re all set already.

(rt) Useful online photo tools

• Neat idea: SLR Camera Simulator teaches the effects of camera parameters. [Via]
• StolenCamera Finder “uses the serial number stored in your photo to search the web for photos taken w/the same camera.”
• Bigger camera sensors generally offer better performance. Sensor-Size.com lets you “Compare & Convert Digital Cameras.”

May 19, 2011

Potential JPEG bug in Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4

Ugh. The bug seems quite rare (affecting JPEG files from one camera found to date), and it should be fixed by next week, but because it could lead to file corruption, the team wants to provide a heads-up. See Tom Hogarty’s post for more details.

Lee Varis lecture recording now available

By popular demand, we recorded photographer Lee Varis‘s talk in San Jose Tuesday night (see previous overview). There was a break during the session, so here are Part One (an overview of Lee’s career) & Part Two (the “’10 Channel Workflow,’ a radical new image enhancement routine”).

May 18, 2011

Gradients & meshes in Illustrator, this Friday

This session (noon Pacific on Friday) with illustrator Russell Viers might be up your alley. The point I’ve bolded sounds particularly interesting:

• Adding light perception and depth with a basic gradient
• Bringing your art alive with Gradient Mesh
• The value of Gradient Swatches
• A nifty hidden feature in CS5 that lets you finally add a gradient to live text
• Understanding that crazy Gradient Tool
• How the Gradient Panel can help
• Non-uniform gradients with Gradient Mesh

Screenstagram: A screensaver of Instagram images

Check out this groovy (and free) Mac screensaver from the Barbarian Group. And props to them for one of the world’s most succinct demo videos:

Weirdly, I got a blank screen when testing the screensaver yesterday, but today it works fine. [Via]

Adobe’s enriching CSS, WebKit

HTML is great, but its text-layout limitations have always been a drag for print designers–particularly those now wanting to create tablet-based magazines. That’s why Adobe has been proposing to enhance the CSS spec & contributing to the WebKit browser project.

Now you can download a build & learn more about CSS Regions. According to the project page, key highlights of CSS Regions include:

• Story threading — allows content to flow in multiple disjointed boxes expressed in CSS and HTML, making it possible to express more complex, magazine-style threaded layouts, including pull quotes and sidebars.
• Region styling — allows content to be styled based on the region it flows into. For example, the first few lines that fit into the first region of an article may be displayed with a different color or font, or headers flowing in a particular region may have a different background color or size. Region styling is not currently implemented in the CSS Regions prototype.
• Arbitrary content shapes and exclusions — allows content to fit into arbitrary shapes (not just rectangular boxes) or to flow around complex shapes.

Cool. (And do wake me when the Adobe-scourging Apple fansites pick up this news, won’t you?)

Update: To answer some questions I’ve seen, here’s some clarification I pulled from CNET’s coverage of the news:

“We’ve talked to everyone,” Gourdol said, noting that all the browser makers, though; all of the major ones are active in the CSS working group. They’re all very excited about it.

Next stop is getting the software accepted. Adobe has a team of 12 programmers [emphasis added] in the United States and Romania who work on WebKit, Arno said. Adobe hopes to build its CSS software into the browser engine, making it easy for Google, Apple, and others “downstream” of the central project to incorporate it into their actual browsers.

“Webkit is the most interesting area to focus right now because of its mobile presence,” said Paul Gubbay, vice president of engineering for Adobe’s design and Web group. “We’ll see if the [WebKit] community takes it.”

May 17, 2011

iPhone photo seminar at 5pm Pacific today

Photographer & designer Dan Marcolina is “iPhone Obsessed,” having used his phone + apps to produce a coffee table book (with up-resing courtesy of Photoshop). Now I see that he’s presenting a seminar just over an hour from now (sorry, just saw the invite):

His new book, iPhone Obsessed, covers over 47 apps and the post-processing steps you need to know to achieve works of art right in your iPhone. Dan will cover many of these apps during this live Peachpit Photo Club event.

Having met Dan & discussed the book last summer, I can vouch for him being a really interesting, creative guy; should be a good session.

Orchestral Daft Punk

Just clearing the palate for a sec, enjoying some Irish kids enjoying the heck out of music:

[Via]

May 16, 2011

Let’s grab a beer Wednesday in SF

Designer Shyama Golden (whose portfolio I’ve mentioned previously) has set up a happy hour for designers this Wednesday in San Francisco, 6-9pm. Interesting folks like Sebastiaan de With & former Adobe/now Apple UI designer Johnnie Manzari should be there, and I’m planning to attend. As always I’d love to hear what you’d like Adobe to be doing vis-à-vis mobile devices.

Also a reminder that if you’ll be a bit south tomorrow night, you’re welcome to check out the San José Photoshop User Group meeting; see previous post for details.

(rt) Illustration: Hidden images, Saul Bass, 3D lights, & more

• I love these beautifully designed stamps for the Royal Shakespeare Company. [Via]
• Amazing: illustrator István Orosz hides artwork inside anamorphic drawings. [Via]
• Did you know that Photoshop’s 3D lights can do 2D effects?.
• Bass-o’-matic:
  • Saul Bass’s great work has been pretty systematically wiped from DVDs.
  • Fortunately, fans online have been collecting his beautiful title sequences.
  • Christian Annyas rounds up Saul Bass logo design: then and now.
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May 14, 2011

Russell Brown demos Eazel for iPad

Watercolor on a tablet becomes a Photoshop layer as Russell puts the proverbial chocolate in the peanut butter:

Check out the Eazel product page for more info.

May 13, 2011

Save big Photoshop files up to 20x faster

Time is money, and storage is cheap. If you use large Photoshop docs & don’t mind them becoming much bigger, you may be able to save them much faster.

You’ll want to update CS5 to 12.0.4 (via Help->Updates), then grab this plug-in (Mac)/registry key (Win).  Photoshop PM Jeff Tranberry writes, “Saving the file can be much faster (20x in some cases), if you have a fast hard disk and enough disk space to hold the larger file size,” and performance expert Lloyd Chambers goes into detail on his site.

May 12, 2011

Creative Suite subscriptions Q&A Friday

If you’re interested in Creative Suite subscriptions (new as of CS 5.5), check out this session Friday at noon Pacific:

Group PM Yashodhan Gokhale will be talking about Adobe’s Creative Suite subscriptions. In this session you’ll be shown how subscriptions give you the latest features and functionality of Creative Suite 5.5 software for an affordable monthly cost. Yashodhan will walk you through the process and give you a better feel for the benefits, when you may need a subscription, and how easy it is to purchase, use, and manage.

PUG meeting next Tuesday in SJ

If you’ll be in San José next Tuesday evening, drop by Adobe HQ (map) for a Photoshop User Group meeting featuring Lee Varis:

Lee Varis is a photographer, educator and digital imaging artist, based in LA. He will present a brief overview of his 30 year imaging career and show some of the movie posters and other interesting projects he has worked on in the first portion of the presentation.

For the second half Lee will demonstrate his “10 Channel Workflow”, a radical new image enhancement routine. The workflow is based on applying individual channel luminosity to the color image to manipulate tonal separation and contrast apart from the color. This approach can create sophisticated effects that could not be achieved any other way. Read on for more details.

(more…)

After Effects stabilization in the real world

Photographer Uwe Steinmueller has posted a set of samples made using AE CS 5.5. They’re not crazy-dramatic, but that may well be the point: the new feature improves even what was already decent footage.

In the accompanying article Uwe write, “This may be a situation where a new tool is really up to its hype and exceeded our expectations. Hard to describe how excited we are.”

May 11, 2011

In-depth B&W conversion video

Speaking of old friends, former Lightroom evangelist/PM George Jardine has posted a free 37-minute video that dives deeply into black & white conversion. He writes,

In this video, I start by taking you on a brief exploration of some of the various conversion techniques that we all used back before there were better controls for creating good black & white’s from raw data. And I did this because I think reviewing those tried-and-true Photoshop techniques, helps set the stage for a better understanding of black & white conversion in general.

Check out George’s site for details.

Deke McClelland talks PS iPad apps

Our friend Deke McClelland has posted half a dozen quick videos that cover setting up & using the new Photoshop CS5 touch apps. The videos are available free of charge from Lynda.com.

May 10, 2011

Photoshop CS5 apps for iPad now available

I’m happy to report that the three recently announced Photoshop companion apps are now available for download:

• Adobe Color Lava for mixing colors & sending them to Photoshop (demo)
• Adobe Eazel for creating watercolor-style paintings, then sending them to Photoshop (demo)
• Adobe Nav for selecting Photoshop tools & managing open documents (demo)

Please note that to use them together with Photoshop, you’ll need to apply the Photoshop 12.0.4 update. We encourage developers to make their own Photoshop-savvy apps by downloading the Photoshop Touch SDK and optionally ActionScript source code.

May 09, 2011

“OS X Inception”

Heh–Chris Baker tackles the who’s-in-whose-dream question using just his Mac’s Finder:

[Via]

TypeDNA enhances Photoshop font selection; now on Windows

I’ve written previously about how the TypeDNA panel lets Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign select fonts by similarity, choose complementary fonts, etc. I’m pleased to see that the $49 tool is now available for Windows (as it was previously Mac-only). As a refresher, here’s a quick demo:

Other developments are in the offing. Founder Darren Glenister is speaking at Google I/O this week, promising to show “some new features that extend Google web fonts direct inside of Adobe CS5.” Check out the TypeDNA site for details about attending in person or online.

May 08, 2011

64-bit DNG Codec & other updates

If you’re a Windows 7 user, you can now grab a preview version of the DNG Codec, in both 32- and 64-bit versions.  The codec lets you browse DNG files in Windows Explorer and Photo Gallery.

In other news, techie photographers can grab beta 3 of the Adobe Lens Profile Creator and beta 3 of the DNG Profile Editor. [Via]

May 07, 2011

Animation: Tim Minchin’s “Storm” rant

This funny, profane beat poetry eats like a meal, and it was beautifully animated by Dan C. Turner using After Effects, Flash, Photoshop, and a Wacom Cintiq.

See the project site for more info. [Via David Simons]

Control Photoshop via AIR & Flash

If you’re an ActionScripter who’d like to develop apps (tablet or desktop) that drive Photoshop CS5, check out Daniel Koestler’s post, “Want to create Photoshop apps with AIR, Flash, and AS3?“ [Via]

May 06, 2011

VectorScribe adds powerful tools to Illustrator

The “Vector Paparazzi” app I blogged on Sunday drew an extremely strong response, and now it’s arrived for real: VectorScribe is available in two flavors, Designer (£39+VAT (roughly $65/€45)) which features path manipulation & measurement tools, and Studio (£69+VAT ($119/€79)) which adds smart shapes & dynamic corners. Here’s a slightly updated version of the earlier video:

The site features a large number of training videos, and VectorTuts has posted a detailed tutorial on creating a vector motorcycle using the VectorScribe tools.

I’ve only just started playing with the tools, but I think that the dynamic corners features alone will be a godsend. If you give it a try, I’d like to hear your thoughts.

High-speed gelatinous action

Modernist Cuisine has fun at 6200 frames per second:

[Via] See also “Exploding Christmas Ornaments Filled with Various Things.” [Via]

May 05, 2011

New Image Processor Pro Script for CS5

If you batch-process images in Photoshop, particularly via the Image Processor command or Russell Brown’s 1-2-3 Process, you’ll want to check out what Russell has been up to.  He’s looking for beta testers and writes,

Just like the earlier versions, this script (download, see demo video) will batch process hundreds of images into any file type, or format, that you need.

It’s the ultimate time saver and will eliminate the need for multiple exports from other Adobe applications.

Here are some of the new features:

1. Improved interface.
2. Support for any number of  conversions during a processing run.
3. Batch renaming.
4. Expanded support for almost all file formats known to man.

Make Cmd-J duplicate multiple layers

My personal “JDI” list of Photoshop tweaks includes a request to make the Cmd-J/Ctrl-J keyboard shortcut duplicate multiple layers (and/or layer sets) at once. That change hasn’t been made yet, but scripter David Jensen has a solution: Install a script that dupes layers, then assign Cmd-J to it. It’s very easy to do:

1. Download this script and drop it into your Photoshop CS5/Presets/Scripts folder. (I’ve only tried it in CS5, but I’d imagine it works in previous versions, too.)
2. Choose Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts, then choose File->Scripts->Duplicate Layers and assign Cmd-J.

May 04, 2011

Video: Thoughts on the Photoshop Touch SDK

Photoshop engineer Tom Ruark & PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes talk about how the new Photoshop Touch SDK came to be & some of what it enables:

You can read more about the project & see some real-world examples of its use on the Photoshop.com blog. You’ll need to grab the latest CS5 update to enable connectivity, and the three iPad apps that rely on it should be available for download soon. (If you’d like we can notify you when they’re ready.)

May 03, 2011

(rt) Photography: Surreal composites, underwater history, & more

• National Geographic shows the first underwater color photo, plus an exploding flash raft & more.
• The “Surrealistic Pillow” is a set of trippy photos composites from Ronen Goldman. [Via]
• If that’s up your alley, see also this atmospheric photography from Swinspeed. [Via]
• Neat: Cartagram lays out popular Instagram photos according to geotags.
• “Switzerland: Come Take a Dump in the Alps!” (Or is that just how I read it?)

May 02, 2011

Photoshop 12.0.4 update for CS5 arrives

This update (choose Window->Updates from within Photoshop) enables remote connections between Photoshop CS5 and other apps, including the new Adobe Nav, Eazel, and Color Lava for iPad.  According to the release notes,

The 12.0.4 update also fixes Liquify performance, type-related crashes, and other top customer issues. The most significant fixes include the following:

• A number of potential security vulnerabilities have been addressed.
• Liquify save mesh now works as expected.
• An issue with Sharpen crashing has been fixed.
• An issue with Quick Selection crashing has been fixed.
• The Orphea Studio File Info issue has been resolved.

(rt) Illustration: Buscemi eyes, Ali, & more

• A colleague rushes in: “My God, this site just changed my life!” ChicksWithSteveBuscemiEyes.
• Michael Kalish has made a portrait of Muhammad Ali using 1300 punching bags, held up by 5 miles of stainless steel cable and 2 miles of aluminum tubing. [Via Maria Brenny]
• Check out the neat HTML parallax on the Bloom.io site; scroll down to see it. [Via]
• “Omar comin’, yo!” The Wire gets made literally Dickensian.

May 01, 2011

Vector Paparazzi adds smart shapes to Illustrator

I know very little about it (nothing beyond what this video shows, in fact), but the Vector Paparazzi plug-in promises to give Illustrator a number of features I’ve wanted for years–most notably smart shapes (e.g. live rounded rectangles with on-screen control handles):