This has been another eventful year, like 2005 we have had our encounters with nature in the form of storms, droughts and general insanity from many of the worlds nations and political leaders. North Korea tested a nuke, Saddam Hussein was executed, Israel and Hamas went to war in Lebanon and Pluto was demoted to a planetoid.
For the world of digital imaging we have seen a new trend in Public Beta releases of software from many of the long standing players in Camera RAW software solutions and from Adobe with Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom. Konica/Minolta stopped making cameras, Pentax merged with Hoya and The DSLR dropped below the US$500 threshold. Anti-shake/Image Stabilization became the newest feature of choice and Leica released their M8 Digital Rangefinder Camera.
We also lost several of our leading personalities, including; Slim Aarons, Tom Abercrombie, Ruth Bernhard, Warren Bolster, Peter Borsari, Roland Boyes, Bob Carlos Clarke, Raul Corrales, James Fee, Bruce Fraser, Leonard Freed, William Garnett, William Gottlieb, Masumi Hayashi, Heinrich Heidersberger, Robert Heinecken, James Hinton, Tana Hoban, Martha Holmes, Philip Hyde, Frank Lennon, Catherine Leroy, Jim Murray, Arnold Newman, K Kenneth Paik, Gordon Parks, Michael Richard, Joe Rosenthal, Anthony James Ryan, Arnie Sachs, Bill Strode, Mpozi Tolbert, Seema Aissen Weatherwax and Volkmar Kurt Wentzel.
The biggest technological news was the emergence of the Intel based Mac. With Mac OS running on a platform which can also run Windows, it's going to be interesting to see what the future has to hold for creatives looking at upgrading their hardware.
That's all for now ... enjoy yourselves, keep safe and have a happy new year.
Pics, Pixels and People - Covering photography, photographers, imaging, technology, tidbits, news and reviews...
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
Adobe Icon Scrabble
I had a brilliant idea yesterday, lets take the new adobe icons (or are they glyphs?), and use them to make words out of ... a kind of Adobe scrabble if you like. I can just imagine designers using these icons to spell things out on their desktops and the application bar.
So no surprise, when I check out some of the blogs today and I find other people have had a similar idea. Ok, so maybe it's not so brilliant but it certainly could be entertaining to see who could come up with the longest word or the rudest. The first one that came to me, and I'm not alone, was FLAW. I can just see it now ... someone out there (maybe even Adobe themselves will put these icons on magnets and we can have hours, or is it maybe minutes, of fun on our fridges. All I can say is have fun, but don't forget to enjoy the holidays...
So no surprise, when I check out some of the blogs today and I find other people have had a similar idea. Ok, so maybe it's not so brilliant but it certainly could be entertaining to see who could come up with the longest word or the rudest. The first one that came to me, and I'm not alone, was FLAW. I can just see it now ... someone out there (maybe even Adobe themselves will put these icons on magnets and we can have hours, or is it maybe minutes, of fun on our fridges. All I can say is have fun, but don't forget to enjoy the holidays...
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Photoshop CS3 Features - Wow Factor
The whole Photoshop CS3 Icon issue aside, I'm very impressed with what Adobe have done with this latest incarnation of what is really quite a wonderful application. This Public Beta is very usable. I've already utilized it for several non critical projects. I like many of the new features and have used it for several images already. The improvements go quite beyond what I was exposed to, when I was working with Adobe on a UI project last year, well done...
Many of the features they were experimenting with have made their way into the product and even more have appeared, with a definite and overwhelming nod from many beta respondents and reviewers as being both intuitive and real time savers.
I am especially a fan of the new drop down presets in many of the dialogs (I guess I'm greedy, as I'd like to see more presets) and also the other enhancements to capabilities like the new Curves and Black and White conversion dialogs, both of which are extremely powerful.
There have been improvements in the performance of the application with faster start ups, better support of the Intel based Macs with the addition of Universal Binary Support. A new UI and vastly improved printing capabilities, are only some of the many reasons to want to upgrade, when it is finally released.
Other feature enhancements for Photoshop CS3 include improvements in Camera Raw, the versatile and powerful Quick Selection Tool, Improved Cloning and Healing and the smart filter capability.
I especially like the Refine Edges feature, which affords you even more control over the selection capabilities. With this new feature you can further refine any selections made by simply tweaking a slider and some settings. Quick, easy and painless.
They've even added the capability for in document notation, which will make any art director and editing team extremely happy. Even better is the capability to add audio notes ... reminder to oneself to warn you about the possibilities for abuse with this feature, instruct your staff not to leave rude or obnoxious messages or noises here...
The new interface design is the biggest change, with differences jumping out at you immediately upon opening the app. A tools palette which can change from double to single column modes. Palettes which are tabbed and dockable and which are easily accessed through a quick button click and afford you more flexibility over how you access the many powerful features in Photoshop CS3.
The upgrade of Adobe Camera RAW and Bridge make this new version more versatile and powerful and in many ways echo many of the features found in the new Lightroom product.
The inclusion of a histogram in the curves dialog is a much sought after and often requested feature. As is the inclusion of a presets drop down in this dialog. I especially like the fact that you can see the individuals curves for each colour channel once you've made adjustments.
The Black and White adjustment Dialog is a beauty offering you many ways to modify your image to better affect how you image is converted to Black and White.
Another excellent enhancement is the clone source palette which is a welcome addition and allows you to accurately overlay image so that you can more easily clone elements for image repairs and other uses. You can now select the source layer from which to work which greatly enhance its usefulness.
On a final note, the history pallette, also logs the time spent on a project ... an extremely useful feature for logging whats billable and doing productivity assessments.
All told there are many excellent improvements to an already powerful application and all of which will be well worth the cost of the upgrade. The combination of Photoshop CS3, Bridge 2.0 and Adobe Camera RAW 4.0 will leave you itching to get your hands on the final versions.
Many of the features they were experimenting with have made their way into the product and even more have appeared, with a definite and overwhelming nod from many beta respondents and reviewers as being both intuitive and real time savers.
I am especially a fan of the new drop down presets in many of the dialogs (I guess I'm greedy, as I'd like to see more presets) and also the other enhancements to capabilities like the new Curves and Black and White conversion dialogs, both of which are extremely powerful.
There have been improvements in the performance of the application with faster start ups, better support of the Intel based Macs with the addition of Universal Binary Support. A new UI and vastly improved printing capabilities, are only some of the many reasons to want to upgrade, when it is finally released.
Other feature enhancements for Photoshop CS3 include improvements in Camera Raw, the versatile and powerful Quick Selection Tool, Improved Cloning and Healing and the smart filter capability.
I especially like the Refine Edges feature, which affords you even more control over the selection capabilities. With this new feature you can further refine any selections made by simply tweaking a slider and some settings. Quick, easy and painless.
They've even added the capability for in document notation, which will make any art director and editing team extremely happy. Even better is the capability to add audio notes ... reminder to oneself to warn you about the possibilities for abuse with this feature, instruct your staff not to leave rude or obnoxious messages or noises here...
The new interface design is the biggest change, with differences jumping out at you immediately upon opening the app. A tools palette which can change from double to single column modes. Palettes which are tabbed and dockable and which are easily accessed through a quick button click and afford you more flexibility over how you access the many powerful features in Photoshop CS3.
The upgrade of Adobe Camera RAW and Bridge make this new version more versatile and powerful and in many ways echo many of the features found in the new Lightroom product.
The inclusion of a histogram in the curves dialog is a much sought after and often requested feature. As is the inclusion of a presets drop down in this dialog. I especially like the fact that you can see the individuals curves for each colour channel once you've made adjustments.
The Black and White adjustment Dialog is a beauty offering you many ways to modify your image to better affect how you image is converted to Black and White.
Another excellent enhancement is the clone source palette which is a welcome addition and allows you to accurately overlay image so that you can more easily clone elements for image repairs and other uses. You can now select the source layer from which to work which greatly enhance its usefulness.
On a final note, the history pallette, also logs the time spent on a project ... an extremely useful feature for logging whats billable and doing productivity assessments.
All told there are many excellent improvements to an already powerful application and all of which will be well worth the cost of the upgrade. The combination of Photoshop CS3, Bridge 2.0 and Adobe Camera RAW 4.0 will leave you itching to get your hands on the final versions.
Photoshop CS3 Icon Storm
One of the issues, many designers are polarized on with the new version, is not actually a functional issue, but, an aesthetic one. There is a storm brewing which in my mind is almost as big an issue as the faux pas Quark created when they re-branded last year.
The issue has actually to do with the new look of the Adobe Product icons. As a long time designer of icons for applications and as a creative whose been involved in the process of creating software, I am deeply troubled by this new look, which on the surface looks like nothing more than a couple of letters on a button.
For me the creation of an icon for identifying an application has to be considerate of functional, aesthetic and practical considerations. It must both be immediately identifiable and also in the case of a product which sits within a suite of products, look like it is part of a family.
When I first saw the new icon I wrongly assumed (like many others) that it was a placeholder for a later and more visually exciting design. An assumption which I was quickly disabused of by none other than John Nack ... and rightly so too, that'll teach me to open my gob, before I finish reading and looking into the facts. The color wheel below was shown on the Adobe site as an indicator of the thinking behind the colour values assigned to the icons and also an indicator at how the new look was mapped onto their products.
As you can see above, most of the icons are very simple buttons with a two letter label ... pretty boring if you ask me, even if they are functional. If this is the direction chosen, then I'm more than a little disappointed at what has up to now been a very inspiring and explorative approach to application identity.
So why am I being so critical ... truth to be said I am a fan of simplicity, and if like in the case of the existing Macromedia icons for Flash and Dreamweaver, Adobe had used a very distinctive looking font or character type, then the approach could perhaps be forgiven.
However, the typeface selected for this application is in my mind, very nondescript, and as a result, is in danger of falling into being somewhat ineffectual. These icons have a Homogeneity which much like political correctness and which should, in my thinking, be avoided at all costs.
The whole look reminds many who have commented, of a periodic table type concept mapped onto a colour wheel, and whilst the approach is cute, it is far from creative in it's current incarnation. Cute but no cigar...
Adobe, please create a look and feel that makes the icons look unique and immediately able to stand out from the crowd rather than one which looks like an afterthought. I personally want more effort put into the applications I use, rather than just being represented by lettered buttons.
All this aside ... it's only a tiny issue when you consider just how awesome this new version of their top application actually is. Too bad if this is what you’re settling for ... raise the bar please. I know your in-house creatives are more than capable of a lot more.
As I suggested on the Adobe forums whilst simplicity is one of the stylistic approaches you can take when designing icons, it is not necessarily the most communicative. Iconography is largely about communication and whilst these icons do have a distinctive look, that look is in danger of being nothing more than a textual label on a button.
Give me something which is evocative, something which cries creativitity and echos some of the products traditional roots, rather than a perceivably bland button. The Application is awesome, let the icon live up to that...
Visit the following sites for several threads on the subject; Jason Santa Maria dislikes the look whilst Veerle Pieters Veerle Pieters, likes them. John Nacks blog on Adobe, also has several threads worth visiting this thread introduced the question, and this one took the issue further.
Update 25/12/2006 - Another issue where the new icons/glyphs will run into trouble, and it's a big one, is in the area of localization. What are adobe going to do for other languages. In the case of western languages this wont be too big a problem but what about arabic, CJK (Chinese- Japanese-Korean), Hebrew, Greek or Cyrillic. Icons should have some kind of link to functionality, English Text labels unfortunately do nothing for users whose language is soemthing which doesnt use latin glyphs. This has always been one of the most fundamental lessons that I've taught many of my students and junior designers.
The issue has actually to do with the new look of the Adobe Product icons. As a long time designer of icons for applications and as a creative whose been involved in the process of creating software, I am deeply troubled by this new look, which on the surface looks like nothing more than a couple of letters on a button.
For me the creation of an icon for identifying an application has to be considerate of functional, aesthetic and practical considerations. It must both be immediately identifiable and also in the case of a product which sits within a suite of products, look like it is part of a family.
When I first saw the new icon I wrongly assumed (like many others) that it was a placeholder for a later and more visually exciting design. An assumption which I was quickly disabused of by none other than John Nack ... and rightly so too, that'll teach me to open my gob, before I finish reading and looking into the facts. The color wheel below was shown on the Adobe site as an indicator of the thinking behind the colour values assigned to the icons and also an indicator at how the new look was mapped onto their products.
As you can see above, most of the icons are very simple buttons with a two letter label ... pretty boring if you ask me, even if they are functional. If this is the direction chosen, then I'm more than a little disappointed at what has up to now been a very inspiring and explorative approach to application identity.
So why am I being so critical ... truth to be said I am a fan of simplicity, and if like in the case of the existing Macromedia icons for Flash and Dreamweaver, Adobe had used a very distinctive looking font or character type, then the approach could perhaps be forgiven.
However, the typeface selected for this application is in my mind, very nondescript, and as a result, is in danger of falling into being somewhat ineffectual. These icons have a Homogeneity which much like political correctness and which should, in my thinking, be avoided at all costs.
The whole look reminds many who have commented, of a periodic table type concept mapped onto a colour wheel, and whilst the approach is cute, it is far from creative in it's current incarnation. Cute but no cigar...
Adobe, please create a look and feel that makes the icons look unique and immediately able to stand out from the crowd rather than one which looks like an afterthought. I personally want more effort put into the applications I use, rather than just being represented by lettered buttons.
All this aside ... it's only a tiny issue when you consider just how awesome this new version of their top application actually is. Too bad if this is what you’re settling for ... raise the bar please. I know your in-house creatives are more than capable of a lot more.
As I suggested on the Adobe forums whilst simplicity is one of the stylistic approaches you can take when designing icons, it is not necessarily the most communicative. Iconography is largely about communication and whilst these icons do have a distinctive look, that look is in danger of being nothing more than a textual label on a button.
Give me something which is evocative, something which cries creativitity and echos some of the products traditional roots, rather than a perceivably bland button. The Application is awesome, let the icon live up to that...
Visit the following sites for several threads on the subject; Jason Santa Maria dislikes the look whilst Veerle Pieters Veerle Pieters, likes them. John Nacks blog on Adobe, also has several threads worth visiting this thread introduced the question, and this one took the issue further.
Update 25/12/2006 - Another issue where the new icons/glyphs will run into trouble, and it's a big one, is in the area of localization. What are adobe going to do for other languages. In the case of western languages this wont be too big a problem but what about arabic, CJK (Chinese- Japanese-Korean), Hebrew, Greek or Cyrillic. Icons should have some kind of link to functionality, English Text labels unfortunately do nothing for users whose language is soemthing which doesnt use latin glyphs. This has always been one of the most fundamental lessons that I've taught many of my students and junior designers.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Bruce Fraser - 1954 - 2006
After a long battle with lung cancer, Colour Guru, Bruce Fraser passed away on Saturday December 16th. Bruce was a highly influential and respected member of the international photoshop community. Author of several books, consultant and contributor to creativepro.com, co-founder of Pixel Genius, colour expert and quiet luminary.
Bruce passed away at home in his own bed, he was surrounded by his family and friends. He is survived by his wife Angela. Our thoughts are with you.
Bruce passed away at home in his own bed, he was surrounded by his family and friends. He is survived by his wife Angela. Our thoughts are with you.
Andromeda Creates Special Holday Bundles
Andromeda Software have release a couple of bundles featuring several of their cool Photoshop plug-ins. Featuring a festive theme, their offers are presented in the form of two "Platters", one of which features their Shadow and Scatterlight Plug-ins for $119 US, and the other, Perspective, Cutline, Red Eye Pro and Varifocus for $149 US. Not a bad deal if you ask me ... for more information, pop on over to Andromeda Software Inc.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Nik Software Christmas Offer
Nik Software are offering a Christmas special to registered users of their products. One offer consists of a 20% discount on Nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 Select Edition which comes with 45 digital filters. The other offer will give you a free camera profile with the purchase of Dfine 1.0, their fast and professional noise reduction plug-in. Visit the profiles page for a list of available profiles.
For more information on the offer visit http://www.niksoftware.com/xmas.
For more information on the offer visit http://www.niksoftware.com/xmas.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Colour Guru, Bruce Fraser Gravely Ill
I just came across the news that Bruce Fraser, long time colour guru and one of the founders of Pixel Genius LLC, is gravely ill. I'm certain that many of us offer our support and best wishes to Bruce and his Family.
Bruce has just this week been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals in recognition of a Lifetime of Contributions to the Development, Advancement and Education of the Digital Imaging Community. Without a doubt he's had a singularly significant influence on shaping the way we work with colour today.
Bruce has just this week been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals in recognition of a Lifetime of Contributions to the Development, Advancement and Education of the Digital Imaging Community. Without a doubt he's had a singularly significant influence on shaping the way we work with colour today.
Photoshopuser Launch Photoshop CS3 Support Centre.
To coincide with the release of the Public Beta of Photoshop CS3, NAPP/Photoshop user have launched the CS3 Learning Center which offers users tutorials, new feature overviews and exclusive interviews. The video tutorials are immensely useful and well worth the time. Pop on over to PhotoshopUser and explore to your hearts content.
Photoshop CS3 Public Beta Launched
The rumours of a public beta of Photoshop CS3 have been proven to be true ... I downloaded and installed mine last night and I must say, I'm quite impressed overall, many of the features and proposed changes I saw whilst working with Adobe, have made it into the Beta.
The download for the Photoshop CS3 Beta is available here. The beta will only run for 2 days without a serial number. In order to qualify for a non-trial version you must have an existing and registered licence of Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite 2, Creative Suite Production Studio, Design Bundle, Web Bundle or Video Bundle serial number. Use your CS2 serial number to get your CS3 beta serial number here.
In addition to Universal Binary Support for Intel based Macs, a new UI and a vastly improved Bridge and Printing capabilities, other feature enhancements for Photoshop CS3 include improvements in Camera Raw, the Quick Selection Tool, Curves Capabilities, Black and White conversion control, Improved Cloning and Healing and a really useful smart filter capability, which is not unlike Smart Objects, but even more useful. I really liked the Refine Edges feature, which affords you even more control over the selection capabilities in PSCS3.
They've also improved the panoramic picture creation capabilities with an enhanced Auto Align and Auto Blend feature.
The download for the Photoshop CS3 Beta is available here. The beta will only run for 2 days without a serial number. In order to qualify for a non-trial version you must have an existing and registered licence of Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite 2, Creative Suite Production Studio, Design Bundle, Web Bundle or Video Bundle serial number. Use your CS2 serial number to get your CS3 beta serial number here.
In addition to Universal Binary Support for Intel based Macs, a new UI and a vastly improved Bridge and Printing capabilities, other feature enhancements for Photoshop CS3 include improvements in Camera Raw, the Quick Selection Tool, Curves Capabilities, Black and White conversion control, Improved Cloning and Healing and a really useful smart filter capability, which is not unlike Smart Objects, but even more useful. I really liked the Refine Edges feature, which affords you even more control over the selection capabilities in PSCS3.
They've also improved the panoramic picture creation capabilities with an enhanced Auto Align and Auto Blend feature.
System Requirements
For Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta,
recommended system requirements are as follows. For Macintosh: Mac OSX 10.4.8 or
10.5, 1 GHz PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor, Intel based Macintosh. For Windows:
Intel® Xeon® , Xeon Dual, Centrino® or Pentium® 4 processor, Microsoft Windows
XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, Microsoft Windows Vista. Both platforms
require 512 MB RAM and a 1024x769 resolution screen. Photoshop CS3 beta will
expire soon after the launch of Photoshop CS3 in Spring 2007. Details on final
pricing, system requirements and availability have yet to be
determined.
For more in depth coverage visit photoshopuser, where Scott Kelby has produced a good article on Photoshop CS3. The article covers these new features, in much more depth. To read the full press release from Adobe, follow this link.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Photoshop CS3 Beta Rumours
AppleInsider are reporting that Adobe might be releasing a Public Beta of Photoshop CS3 this coming Friday. If this is true then Adobes servers will be inundated for the next few weeks. I can tell you this ... if this is the case, I'll be hitting the servers to download my copy of the Beta as soon as possible. As with all these rumours it's best to take a wait and see posture. The original post at Appleinsider can be found here.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Focal Press Release Paint Shop Pro Photo XI for Photographers
Focal Press, a division of Elsevier, have announce the release of Paint Shop Pro Photo XI for Photographers by Ken McMahon. Paintshop Pro has been around for many years and as a tool for editing photos, it is something to be seriously considered when making decisions for purchasing imaging tools. This book from Focal Press, promises to open up this powerful tool so that you can more effectively use it in your day to day imaging work. This beautifully produced book, introduces you to Corel’s Paint Shop Pro Photo XI and provides coverage of all the tools and features needed to edit and enhance your digital photographs.
Having played with PSP XI, I can tell you that for many users, it more than covers the features needed for digital imaging. With this book, Ken McMahon provides "real life workflow projects with clear, step-by-step tutorials, eye-catching visuals and numerous tips and tricks to get users up and running fast." Ken also covers all the new features and advanced tools available in PSP XI, including Camera Raw and PSP XI's other workflow and special enhancements.
For more information on Paint Shop Pro Photo XI for Photographers visit the product page at Focal Press.
Having played with PSP XI, I can tell you that for many users, it more than covers the features needed for digital imaging. With this book, Ken McMahon provides "real life workflow projects with clear, step-by-step tutorials, eye-catching visuals and numerous tips and tricks to get users up and running fast." Ken also covers all the new features and advanced tools available in PSP XI, including Camera Raw and PSP XI's other workflow and special enhancements.
For more information on Paint Shop Pro Photo XI for Photographers visit the product page at Focal Press.
Alien Skin Blow-up
A while back, I announced the release of Alien Skin BlowUp. A short time later, I was sent a copy of the software by the folks at Alien Skin and whilst I had played with it for quite a while. It wasn't until I actually had to use it to work on an image from a cell phone that I really appreciated the features of this excellent utility.
The image itself was of a child that recently died in a traffic accident and the only recent images the parents had were those taken on their Cell phones. The image was barely VGA quality and suffered from a lot of artifacting (blocking), due to heavy JPEG compression. So I decided to try BlowUp and see if I could get a decent sized image out of this picture. I tried using it on its own and found that although I could resize the image fine the results were less that acceptable because of the heavy artifacting.
I then went back to the original image and used an image recovery utility to eliminate the blocky artifacts. Once I was happy with the corrected image, I then used BlowUp to resize the image with excellent results.
What really helped, were the photo grain controls contained within BlowUp, as these controls help to add an organic feel back into your images. I was able to take a very poor 640x480 image and turn it into a fairly respectable photo.
The bereaved family were very happy to have the resulting photo, and I was happy to have brought some light into what was a very dark time for the family of the poor child. Based upon my experiences with it, the only suggestion I can make to Alien Skin for improving what is already an impressive tool, is to add the capability for removing compression artifacts directly into BlowUp.
The image itself was of a child that recently died in a traffic accident and the only recent images the parents had were those taken on their Cell phones. The image was barely VGA quality and suffered from a lot of artifacting (blocking), due to heavy JPEG compression. So I decided to try BlowUp and see if I could get a decent sized image out of this picture. I tried using it on its own and found that although I could resize the image fine the results were less that acceptable because of the heavy artifacting.
I then went back to the original image and used an image recovery utility to eliminate the blocky artifacts. Once I was happy with the corrected image, I then used BlowUp to resize the image with excellent results.
What really helped, were the photo grain controls contained within BlowUp, as these controls help to add an organic feel back into your images. I was able to take a very poor 640x480 image and turn it into a fairly respectable photo.
The bereaved family were very happy to have the resulting photo, and I was happy to have brought some light into what was a very dark time for the family of the poor child. Based upon my experiences with it, the only suggestion I can make to Alien Skin for improving what is already an impressive tool, is to add the capability for removing compression artifacts directly into BlowUp.
For more information on Alien Skin BlowUp visit the product page here. BlowUp retails for US $199.00 although, if you happen to be the owner of another Alien Skin product, you can also purchase an upgrade package for US $99.00.
John Nack on New Adobe Photo Guides
John Nack has posted on his blog about several very informative PDF files that have been published by Adobe. The article is well worth a visit, as is his blog. The guides cover several digital imaging techniques and technology issues and should be downloaded.
Kuler Colour
OK, I'm a little late releasing this bit of news ... Adobe have released a cool web-based application called Kuler. Kuler is a technology preview of a Web-hosted application that allows users to quickly create and share harmonious color themes over the Web. I came across the info on Designorati which happens to be one of my favourite websites for creative info. Check out Kuler here.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Art, Design and Photography Emags
I've been finding a lot of free art, design and photography emags lately. Some of which you can download and some which are browser based. The beauty of these emagazines is that they use no paper and that they are really easy to use. I've been able to use mags in chinese without too much difficulty. Only frustration is that you need a computer to view them ... roll on umpc (Ultra Mobile PC).
Some of these mags, even emulate the whole page turning experience. I think however, that as cute as this is, it's only going to be a shortlived feature ... I soon grew tired of "turning" pages. I much prefer clicking in the corner or on a button. Check out 08SHOW, it's in chinese but should be fairly easy to follow.
Once I started exploring the site, I also came across a link to a photoshop weblog in German where there were some really cool articles. It's well worth exploring so here's the link.
Some of these mags, even emulate the whole page turning experience. I think however, that as cute as this is, it's only going to be a shortlived feature ... I soon grew tired of "turning" pages. I much prefer clicking in the corner or on a button. Check out 08SHOW, it's in chinese but should be fairly easy to follow.
Once I started exploring the site, I also came across a link to a photoshop weblog in German where there were some really cool articles. It's well worth exploring so here's the link.
onOne Ships Mask Pro 4.0
onOne Software, Inc. has announced that Mask Pro 4 is now shipping. Mask Pro 4 is one of the leading productivity tools that tackles the most challenging masking jobs. And this new version focuses on teaching the user how to best use this powerful tools. Visit the Mask Pro 4 product page for more info.
Martin Evening on Tethered Shooting with Lightroom
Whilst reading Prodig I came across a posting which talks about a substantial introduction on how to shoot via a tethered connection using Lightroom. The article in question actually appears on PhotoshopNews and makes for interesting reading.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Photo Centre Europe Launches Directory
Photography Centre Europe have launched a new online directory dedicated to photography and photographers. The Photo Directory is highly optimized to be search engine friendly, a very useful feature to promote your sites. I'm off to add myself right now. If you have a Photography related web site then pop on over to Photo Centre Directory and register. Visit Photography Centre Europe
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Alien Skin Announce Snap Art
According to the press release "Snap Art creates beautiful, natural media artwork in a single step." This plug in consists of 10 Photoshop compatible plug-in filters, each of which creates a very distinctive effect. Effects include; oil paint, pencil sketch, pen and ink, comics watercolour and others. It is very similar in the range of effects it creates, to some of the styles found in other artistic effects emulation plug-ins. Having played with it, I can tell you that although it won't turn you into an artist, it is very good and the results are much more effective and configurable than several other plug-ins I've used. Alien skin have done their usual excellent job with this delightful tool, and I look forward to reviewing it for you in the next few days. Snap Art sells for US $149.00, however a discount is available for owners of other Alien Skin products. For more information please visit the Snap Art product page.
CEIVA Announce New Digital Photo Frames
CEIVA announced its new line of digital frames which are designed to display digital photos in a full-color slideshow and which can can automatically receive and display new photos sent from anywhere in the world via a phone line or broadband connection. The frames, which look very cool and include a built-in card reader, begin at US $149. From the looks of things they are trying to push their picture hosting solutions with the frames. Please visit CEIVA for more information.
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