Category: Adobe

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Scott Kelby visits Motown

Scott Kelby paid MacGroup-Detroit a visit yesterday where he unveiled his NEW 7=Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3. It’s always a pleasure and an honor to have Scott pay us a visit as this is the only user group meeting that Scott does each year and it’s really exciting when he shows us never before shown tips and techniques. His presentation was based on his New book (yep, you guessed it)
Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3. Scott took us through the 7 techniques that could be used to fix just about any photo.

Thanks to Shirley Kussner (one of Scott’s biggest fans) for organizing this visual welcome!

As you can see from the shots above (photos by Mike Brady), we paid Scott a very warm welcome and it was just a big Scott Kelby love fest with about 200 people in attendance. If you missed the meeting, you missed a good one, but you don’t have to miss the techniques. Order Scott’s NEW book today!

Scott delivers another knock out presentaton!

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eBay creates a rich internet app using AIR

If you’re into technology and gadgets you almost have to be into eBay as well. How else would you get rid of that older gear that you had to have at the time, that isn’t as cool anymore?

eBay is my favorite site for not only cleaning out my basement and garage, but it’s also a site that I use to find good deals on new gear. So anything I can do to make that experience go faster or better, I’m all for it. eBay Desktop lets you create your own eBay environment to track the items that you’re interested in. You can do searches, place bids and have it continously update while you are connected all without ever touching your web browser.

eBay decided to use Adobe’s Integrated Runtime (AIR) technology which allows anyone to create rich internet applications that are cross platform and stand alone.

"We wanted for a long time to create a desktop presence. Previously, our team agreed it was too expensive and couldn’t be done. Then along came Adobe AIR."
– Alan Lewis, Product Manager, eBay Desktop

AIR lets developers leverage HTML, CSS, AJAX, Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex technologies.

You can download the new FREE eBay desktop here. You can learn more about AIR here.

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A new Creative Suite Podcast is born

The good folks who bring you Layers Magazine have launched a NEW video podcast called "Layers TV". Layers Magazine is dedicated to all learning all things Adobe. While Photoshop User TV is a great show, it was lacking in other Creative Suite content. So now you’ll have another great show hosted by Corey Barker and Rafael "RC" Concepcion. These guys will be convering all of the products in the Creative Suite.

You can check it out here on the web or here in iTunes.

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Lightroom 1.2 & Camera RAW 4.2

Adobe has released two important updates today. One being Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.2 and the other being Camera RAW 4.2 (for Photoshop CS3, Photoshop Elements 4 and 5). Lightroom 1.2 offers an array of bug fixes, but also brings new camera support on board:

Canon EOS 40D, Fuji FinePix IS-1, Olympus EVOLT E-510, Panasonic DMC-FZ18 and more. Of course the Camera RAW update also supports these cameras too.

Download the updates here.

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Adobe keynote at Photoshop World

Terry White & Lesa Snider-King introduce the Histograms

Terry White and Lesa Snider-King introducing the Histograms

 

I had a blast at Photoshop World – Vegas last week and while I still going through all the material and shots that I took, I thought I would share with you the Adobe keynote address by Adobe’s SVP Johnny L. The keynote was great and you’ll see Johnny L introduce the new Photoshop brand as well as some never before seen technology. However, you’ve got to check out the humorous intro that Scott Kelby did which shows us what Photoshop would be like on the iPhone.

See the video here.

Johnny L rolling out the New Photoshop Brand

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I’m headed to Photoshop World

I’m headed out to Photoshop World today! This is one of the few shows that I go to anymore and it continues to get better and bigger each year. I’m teaching two InDesign CS3 sessions at the show. I’ll also be doing some podcasting for the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and hanging out at the tech expo. I also can’t wait to get my hands on the Nikon D3 and D300 which Nikon will be giving previews at the show to show attendees. Hopefully I can get some test shots and share my findings here. If you’re around the show be sure to say hi.

Also today is Apple’s big "The beat goes on" announcement (1PM EDT) where they are rumored to be announcing new iPods, and possibly a ringtone service through iTunes. Most likely Steve has a few surprises up his sleeve too. As usual I’ll share my thoughts and opinions on the announcements and what’s hot and what’s not about the new gear.

So stay tuned for more from the world of Photoshop and Apple this week…

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Thanks for coming out last night

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who came out last night to my Adobe Photoshop CS3 presentation at the Somerset Apple Store. The American Society of Media Photographers were the organizers for this special event and I want to thank Brendan Ross for setting this up. I also want to thank my buddy Joseph Grey for grabbing the shot above. We had a great group of photographers as well as some folks that were new to Photoshop. Since this presentation was just about Photoshop I had more time to drill down into the new features of Bridge CS3, Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended. The Somerset store has recently been remodeled and provided a great venue for this type of presentation.

Of course I’ll be back at the store later today for the other big event 🙂

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Adobe ships Lightroom 1.1 update

Adobe has shipped the Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 update which is a free update to all Lightroom 1.0 users. Although this update is modestly called 1.1, it really packs in quite a few useful features beyond the normal bug fixes. This would be a 1.5 update by most other software standards. I’m really happy about this update because it incorporates two of the features that I wanted most and really pushed for. The first one is a little checkbox in the image import dialog box that allows you to Eject your Memory Card after the import is complete. It was always a pain to have to remember to go back to the Finder to do that before. Now it happens automatically. The second one is actually one that most would not encounter. I actually store my images on my Mac OS X Server. It’s a dedicated Mac here in my home office that we all access. It gets backed up daily, etc. etc. While Lightroom 1.0 had no problem with this setup and referencing the images there, the problem came in when it was time to delete an image. I would go through a shoot rejecting the images I didn’t want to keep and then when I went to actually delete those rejects Lightroom would give me an area because it was unable to move those images to my local trash. Now in Lightroom 1.1 I get a dialog box with the option to delete those images immediately. I couldn’t be happier!

The next big feature is one that I didn’t ask for personally, but now I’m really glad it’s there. The Lightroom Library is now called a Catalog. This means that you can have multiple catalogs (only one open at a time though). This is important for me because it also allows you to export images to a catalog (complete with previews and edits) and import catalogs. So now when I import images while out on location using my MacBook Pro, I can do the work on the plane ride home. When I get home I can move the images to my server and then export that catalog and then import it into my desktop Mac Pro. This way both computers will have access to the same images with all the edits. Having this option really makes multiple computer workflows so much easier.

Lightroom 1.1 also incorporates all the latest enhancements from Camera RAW 4.1 including support now for over 160 different Camera RAW formats. There are tons of other subtle changes that will greatly enhance your use of Lightroom. Don’t walk, but run over to adobe.com and download this must have update.

If you would like to see this update in action be sure to check out tomorrow’s episode of the Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast.

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CS3 Tour – New York – Live!

I’m here in New York at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel which is the last stop on the CS3: Creative License Tour. We have over 850 people registered for this event. I’m here with my colleagues: Sebastian Distefano – showing the Design Premium Suite, John Schuman – showing the Web Premium Suite and Kevan O’Brien showing the all new CS3 Production Premium Suite. I love New York. This two day event started out with some really interesting pre-conference breakouts before the main event this afternoon. Be sure to check out the new CS3 logo’d items introduced in LA and here.

I’m posting this blog entry live using Adobe Contribute CS3 during my keynote address.