Category: Software

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Klix saved my bacon

She’s jumping for joy for a reason!

While I like to think I’m organized when it comes to my computers and file management, sometimes I’m not. I did a photo shoot last month of a friend who has a really interesting face and great features. The shots were on a memory card and I never got around to importing them in to my computer. I had another shoot last week and when I picked up my camera before leaving the house I turned it on and I could tell by the number of available shots that I had some on the card. Since I wanted to start fresh I was going to format the card, but of course I checked to see what was on it first (or so I thought). I previewed the first couple of shots which I recognized (not the ones of my friend) and said, "oh yeah I’ve downloaded those already I can erase the card!" BIG MISTAKE! While I had previously downloaded those first couple that I looked at, I didn’t look at all of the shots and sure enough I deleted the ones of my friend Hosain.

Luckily when I went to do the new shoot I ended up shooting tethered and bypassing the card altogether which means I didn’t write any new data to the card. Well a couple of days ago I realized that I didn’t have the shots of Hosain and panic mode set in. I calmly took the card out of the camera and set it aside. I had bought a copy of Klix from Prosoft Engineering when they visited my users group a few months ago. Now I don’t generally review recovery software  because, it’s one of those things that I hope I never have to use. However, this was a perfect chance to try out Klix because It was exactly what I needed to get me through this minor disaster. I installed the software and keyed in my serial number. I then popped in the memory card and it stared to scan the card for shots immediately. While it doesn’t take that long, it seems like it’s going in slow motion because you’re sitting there waiting with baited breath to see if your shots are going to be found. A few minutes later the missing shots were in view!

It not only found the ones I needed, but it found shots from several shoots. I only recovered the ones I needed which were shot in Camera RAW and it worked PERFECTLY!

This is one of those apps that I hope I never need to use again. However, if I ever find myself in a bonehead situation like this again I wouldn’t be able to launch this app fast enough. My only ask for a future update is that when you click the Recover button to recover your shots to a folder on your drive, the software doesn’t let you create a new folder in that dialog box. Other than that small little request, the software worked AS ADVERTISED! Highly recommended to all digital photographers to keep handy.

Klix is available for Mac and PC (in the same box) and goes for $29.95.

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Tuesday afternoon news bytes

The folks in Cupertino have been a little busy today. Apple has announced that Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) will ship on the highly rumored date of Friday, October 26, 2007. They published a list of the 300 new features.

Also if you live in the Michigan area, Apple will be opening its 5th store in the state. The Apple Store, Partridge Creek, opens its doors at 10:00 a.m., October 18th. As usual you can expect lines and free t-shirts to the first 1,000 visitors. Apple stores are doing very well and the ones we already have here are constantly PACKED with people.

 

Aperture vs. Lightroom: What do Pros use?

I get the question a lot of "what’s the difference between Aperture and Lightroom?" and of course I respond "just buy Lightroom." Actually I’m kidding. I explain that while I can tell you about the features of Lightroom quite extensively, I’ve never really used Aperture, so I’m going to be a little (ok a lot) biased. However, our good friend John Nack at Adobe has some interesting stats on what the pros are using. Head over to his blog to check them out.

 

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5 Million Thank You’s

I have to take this opportunity to thank all of my listeners/watchers. My Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast has reached over 5 Million Unique Downloads! I’m close to my 200th episode and the response has been phenomenal. Last year I made the iTunes Peoples Choice list and this year has been just fantastic.

So thanks for tuning in and taking to the time to watch my content and provide such great feedback!

If you haven’t checked it out, go do so now. It’s free and you can subscribe right in iTunes.

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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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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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My Favorite Things…

FavoritesPeople ask me to recommend products and services to them all the time. Sometimes they take my advice, sometimes they don’t. But that’s besides the point. Rather than having to constantly go back and dig up a link to a product that I like, to send it to them, I’ve decided to put it all in one place, here on my tech blog. This way you will always be able to tell which products and services I’m currently recommending at any given time. The products and services listed here are the ones that I actually use (or have used in the past) and I don’t get paid to recommend them (other than Adobe products of course. Although I was using and recommending Adobe products long before I worked for the company.) Most of these companies don’t even know that I exist.

So the next time you’re looking for a hot gadget recommendation or you’re wondering what I use in any given category, you can just take a peek at "My Favorite Things" to find out. I’ll keep the page updated as I swap out my gear over time.

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Adobe releases a new version of GoLive!

Adobe GoLive 9 CD Case

After the aquistion of Macromedia, people really questioned the future of certain products like Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Freehand. As far as the latter goes, Adobe did officially announce the end of the line for new Freehand versions. Adobe will continue to sell Freehand MX to those customers that need it. Adobe also promised that we would see a new version of GoLive. GoLive 9 is here. The difference (in policy/behavior) is that GoLive was/is an active product before the aqusition. Macromedia had already stopped development of Freehand before being aquired by Adobe. That’s why it never saw a Studio 8 upgrade.

Why two products?

That’s Simple. There are two types of customers that do web design/development. Dreamweaver CS3 is aimed at the code savvy developer high-end of the market. It is the industry leader in this space and that’s why it’s included in CS3. GoLive 9 is aimed at both code-savvy web professionals and non-coding graphic designers who need to create sophisticated, CSS-based content in an intuitive visual environment. I for one am happy about this (as I most closely fit the GoLive customer model). While I intend to continue getting up to speed on Dreamweaver CS3, all of my existing sites are in GoLive. So therefore it much easier to maintain them in a workflow and tool that I’m used to. GoLive 9 is also a universal binary and therefore runs faster on my intel based Macs. Yes, it runs on Vista too.

Can you switch over to Dreamweaver CS3?

Absolutely! If you want to move from GoLive to Dreamweaver, you can. It’s included in many of the CS3 suites. Also Adam Pratt and Lynn Grillo (GoLive gurus) have created an Adobe GoLive to Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Migration Guide. There is also a GL2DW Site Migration Extension.

What if I want to stay with GoLive for now, what are my upgrade options?

The upgrade to GoLive 9 is $169 from GL 6, CS, CS2, or Creative Suite CS Premium or Creative Suite CS2 Premium. Education price on GoLive 9 is $79.

Will Adobe keep making GoLive forever?

Whether we see a version 10 of GoLive or not is quite honestly up to the customer base. If GoLive 9 is a hit, then Adobe will likely pay attention to that success.

What are the new features in GoLive 9?

Best to head over to the Adobe site and check them out there. You can also download a trial version and take it for a spin.