Tag: iPad

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Have Another Look At Adobe Revel

adobe_revel_iPad

Adobe Revel (originally known as Carousel) got off to a shaky start. There were features missing that many saw as a show-stopper and originally the only way to use the service was to pay for it. A LOT has changed since then. First off, what is Adobe Revel? Adobe Revel is a photo sharing and storage service. Imagine having access to all of your photos no matter if you’re on your computer or your iPhone or iPad. With Adobe Revel you can upload an unlimited number of photos to the cloud. You can share them with others and have shared albums with family members and friends. Best of all (at least for me) you can use the Adobe Revel iPhone/iPad app to show your photos off.

How do I get my photos into Adobe Revel?

There are a couple of ways to do it. You can import photos using the Adobe Revel desktop App. You can import photos using the iPhone and iPad app or you can upload to Adobe Revel directly from Lightroom 4 or 5 using the Adobe Revel publish service (the method I use).

How many photos can I store on Adobe Revel?

adobe_revel_mac

Unlike other services, Adobe Revel doesn’t have a photo limit. You can upload as many as you want. This is important and makes Adobe Revel better than many other services because your photo library is only going to get larger, not smaller.

Once my photos have been uploaded to Adobe Revel how do I view them?

You can view your photos in the desktop app, iPhone App, iPad App or via the web. Since you’re logging in to each app and the web with the same Adobe ID, your photos are instantly available on all your devices.

What if I’m offline, can I still view my photos on my computer or iPad?

Yes, Adobe Revel caches your photos to your device and they are available even if you’re offline.

Terry, why do you like Revel so much?

adobe_revel_publish

Adobe Revel gives me the thing I’ve always wanted. An easy way to have my portfolios with me and always up to date. Once I hit the publish button in Lightroom 5 on any of my published collections, I don’t have to think about it anymore. The next time I fire up Adobe Revel on my iPhone or iPad those photos are there. Sure there are more full featured portfolio apps out there, but all of them are a pain in the butt to keep photos updated in. Also the Revel team did a great job in redesigning the iPad App. It looks very elegant now.

If I share an album with others can they add photos/videos to it?

Yes, if you share albums with others they can add photos/videos from their devices. This is great for families on vacations or event photos.

Sounds too good; this must cost a fortune right?

This is why I said it’s time to take another look at Adobe Revel. You can start off with a 30-day trial and during those 30 days you can upload as many pics as you want. After that you can keep using Adobe Revel for free and have a limit of 50 new uploads a month. However, if you want to continue to have unlimited uploads it’s only $5.99/month for Revel Premium.

OK how much are the iPhone and iPad Apps?

They’re free to download. Actually it’s a Universal App and you can get it here:

iTunes.

OK, I want to try it. Where do I sign up?

You can try out Adobe Revel here.

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7 New Things You Can Ask Siri in iOS 7

siri-IOS7

This seems to be an annual thing  for me as each new iOS version lets you do more with Siri and each year there are more and more new iPhone and iPad users. Siri lets you do so much with simple voice commands and most people have no clue what you can ask Siri to do. For quick reference here’s my original 25 Fun Things to Ask Siri post and the follow up 25 New Things To Ask Siri when iOS 6 came out. Well iOS 7 is here and of course you can Ask Siri even more things now. Here are a few of my favorites – 7 New Things You Can Ask Siri:

AirPlane Mode (you tell Siri to control your settings, Bluetooth on, make the screen brighter, etc.)

siri-iOS7-airplanemode

Play iTunes Radio

siri-iOS7-playitunesradio

FaceTime My Sister

siri-iOS7-facetimemysister

Post to Facebook (or write on my wall, or Tweet)

siri-iOS7-posttofacebook

What’s trending on twitter?

siri-iOS7-trendingontwitter

Read my email

siri-iOS7-readmyemail

What planes are flying over me right now?

siri-iOS7-whatplanesoverme

Now for a little fun

Siri definitely has a sense of humor. Ask Siri these 5 questions and see what she comes back with:

Can you make me a sandwich?

Beam me up

What’s the answer to the universe?

Is Santa Claus real?

Who’s on first?



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CamRanger Review – Wireless Camera Control

camranger

I’m finally getting to my CamRanger Review. This is a product I saw several months ago and always wanted to do review of it. I get the question all the time: “Is there a way to wirelessly shoot to my iPad?” I’ve covered many ways that the iPad can fit into a digital photography workflow here and another wireless solution here, but at the time CamRanger wasn’t out yet. CamRanger offers a complete wireless camera control solution for your Nikon or Canon DSLR. It’s a small lightweight box about the size of a smartphone that plugs into your compatible DSLR via a supplied USB cable. It creates a wireless network on its own and therefore doesn’t need a computer or other wireless hotspot. You can connect to it with your iOS devices (such as an iPad or iPhone), Android devices, or a Mac or PC. For my testing I used an iPad Air. Set up was very easy and only required about a minute of reading the instructions. I tested it with my Nikon D600. Once it was set up I was able to work in either direction. I was able to use the iPad to control most aspects of my camera including picking focus points, ISO, shutter speed, f/stops, white balance, etc. and I was able to take shots using the camera and have them show up as I was taking them on the iPad. The latter mode is probably the one I’d use the most out in the field because I really don’t need the remote control functions as much as say a landscape or wildlife photographer would.

Rather than continue to write about it, I recorded this short video of how it works:

 

The Bottom Line

CamRanger works exactly as advertised. It has a range of 150 feet and a battery life of about 5-6 hours. It allows the most control over your DSLR than any other solution I’ve seen and it allows you to shoot directly to your mobile devices. Many of the newer Nikon and Canon DSLR are actually coming with optional wireless connectivity. So if you have a new camera you probably have more options to choose from. However, if you’re working with a slightly older model like the Nikon D700 or Canon 5D Mark II for example, then this may be your only option. CamRanger comes with all the cables, chargers, etc. necessary to get started including a pouch to easily put it on your camera strap or belt.

You can get CamRanger here.

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Use Any Smartphone on any iPod Dock

dock_boss_iphone5

I’ve reviewed several iPod music docks here over the years. Starting with the Bose SoundDock I’ve had an appreciation for these music devices to dock my iPods back in the day as well as my iPhones over the years. As a matter of fact I used to smile when I’d walk into a hotel room and see an iHome or other similar device on the nightstand. This meant that at a minimum I could dock my iPhone and charge it overnight even if I had no plans to listen to music via the dock’s speakers. Well those days are over, or at least I thought they were when I got an iPhone 5. Apple has aggressively phased out the 10+ year old 30 pin dock connector found on several of these music docks and in most modern cars. While Apple does sell Lightning Adapters to adapt older 30 pin connectors to the new Lightning connects found on the iPhone 5, newer iPods and current iPads. The problem is that compatibility can be hit or miss. Some may still play music, but not charge the device.

Enter the CableJive dockBoss 5

The dockBoss is an adapter for the older 30 pin based docks and on the other end is a standard USB port and 3mm audio-in jack. Instead of simply converting the older 30 pin connection to a Lightning connection, the dockBoss 5 converts to a standard USB port for power and a standard audio-in port for music. This means that not only can I use my iPhone 5 on any of these devices, but I can use my iPad or any other handheld device or smartphone. I now travel with a dockBoss 5 in my luggage. When I arrive to an iPod dock equipped room I just plug in the dockBoss and one of my regular USB-to-Lightning cables. Now my iPhone is charging without me have to search for a plug by the bed (some hotels still don’t get this need) and if I want to listen to music I can plug in the supplied audio cable that comes with the dockBoss 5 (as pictured above). If I don’t care to listen to music then it’s just a single cable connection. Also note that the dockBoss 5 includes both an audio cable and standard micro USB cable for connection to most other smartphones and other portable devices.

The Bottom Line

dockboss-cables

Since Apple retired the 30 pin dock connector most portable music player manufacturers are now leaning towards bluetooth and wi-fi for connectivity for there new devices. However, if you’ve got an older music dock that works perfectly there’s probably no reason to throw it away! With the dockBoss 5 you can get more life out of it and make it compatible with other devices that it never worked with before.

Order the dockBoss 5 here.

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One of my NEW photo sharing workflows is powered by Adobe Revel

iPad_with_DSLR

Sometimes you can be so focused on what you do professionally that you totally overlook what’s out there for fun. Both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC are at the heart of my day-to-day photography workflows. Many of you have heard me talk about Adobe Revel in the past. I had begun using it as my portfolio App on iPad. I loved that it sync’d my photos from Lightroom to the cloud and instantly to my iPhone and iPads. However, the one BIG THING that was missing from the iOS apps was a “slideshow” feature. Sure you could swipe the images, but you couldn’t simply hit play and let them run. The beautiful new redesign of Revel 2.0 changed all that. The app is gorgeous and has many new features that has me using it as my Portfolio app again. Let me share some of the other updates with you that you may have missed…

adobe-revel2-ipad

 

What’s Adobe Revel?

adobe-revel-mac

Adobe Revel is Adobe’s “consumer” based photo sharing service. It’s FREE to use for those with modest needs. With the FREE account you can upload an unlimited number of photos in the 1st 30 days after setting up your account and then 50 photos a month after that. If you “need” more than that you can go UNLIMITED for $5.99/month. Yes, that’s unlimited imports, no limits ever. Once you upload your images to Revel they are instantly available on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (Windows and Android is in the works, but no timeline for when they will be available). As with other services like Flickr. com, most will only need the FREE account, but if you want to handle a lot of photos each month you can go unlimited whenever you want.

Download Adobe Revel for Mac here:

Adobe Revel - Adobe

Download Adobe Revel for iPhone, iPad and IPod touch here:

Adobe Revel - Adobe

Why isn’t this a part of Creative Cloud?

Adobe Revel is on the consumer side of the house and the consumer offerings from Adobe (like Photoshop Elements) will remain separate from the professional offerings in Creative Cloud.

 

What do the Mac and iOS Apps let you do?

adobe-revel-iPhone5-editing

In addition to uploading your photos, the Mac and iOS Revel Apps allow you to do non-destructive edits to your photos. Think of it as a Light version of the Lightroom develop module for consumers. It’s all slider based and like I said, 100% non-destructive. Once you make edits on one device those edits are automatically sync’d to all your other devices. This means that you always have the most up to date photos with you. You can also use the App to display your photos on screen or via AirPlay to say an Apple TV.

 

How does this work with Lightroom 4 and 5?

adobe-revel-LR

Lightroom 4 had a Revel Publish Service built-in and Lightroom 5 has a plug-in that you can download for free that does the same thing. Get it here. When I sign in to the Revel Publish Service I see my Revel libraries and I can create collections (or better yet, Smart Collections) that represent my portfolios. This means that I can publish my best/favorite images from Lightroom directly to Adobe Revel. I have created a Smart Collection in the Revel Publish service for each of my portfolios. When I update the regular Lightroom collection with new images, all I have to do is hit the Publish button in the corresponding Revel Publish Service Collection and my images are uploaded and my iPhone, iPad and Mac are updated. This has been the easiest way for me to carry my “CURRENT” portfolios around with me on my various devices. Yes the images can be viewed offline too. Actually if it weren’t for the Lightroom tie in I wouldn’t be half as excited about Revel. Since all my photos live in Lightroom it’s the hub of all my photographic workflows.

 

You mentioned a NEW photo sharing workflow. What’s NEW?

adobe_grouppix_iphone5

Everything I mentioned above is pretty much old news to Revel. The 2.0 iOS Apps and rate plan changes have been out for a while. What’s new is a couple NEW iPhone Apps. The 1st one is called Grouppix. I reviewed it here last week. When you and your friends download this FREE App, one of you can create a “shared” Album and invite the other to it. At that point anyone that has access to the album can upload pics to it and you all see them. This is GREAT for events such as parties, weddings, conferences, etc. Now everyone will have access to all the photos. That’s pretty cool, but what I didn’t realize right away is that those albums are powered by Revel! If you’re a Revel user those Grouppix shared albums show up in your Revel account. This also means that they show up in the Lightroom Publish Service. This makes it really really really easy for me to not only share photos I’ve taken with my iPhone, but also the ones I’ve taken with my DSLR. I can import my DSLR photos into Lightroom 5, select my picks, Develop them and add them to a Revel collection (Grouppix album), hit Publish and everyone that’s on the shared Grouppix album now has access to them. I did this last week during the Adobe Create Now Tour in APAC and it worked GREAT! If you’re into video there’s also a consumer based video editing app for iPhone called Video Bite. Yep it’s free too. It’s basic, but hey it lets you put clips together quickly and output a final movie right on your iPhone. Also did I mention that it’s free?

Get Adobe Grouppix for iPhone here:

Adobe Grouppix - Adobe

Get Adobe VideoBite for iPhone here:

Adobe® VideoBite - Adobe

 

Learn more about what Adobe Revel has to offer here.

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Thanks goes out to my now over 75,000 Subscribers on YouTube!

75000-youtube

I just wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU for subscribing to my YouTube Channel. I just blew past the 75,000 mark and I’m thrilled that so many of you like my content. Having over 75,000 subscribers and over 13 Million Views is no small accomplishment and again thanks.

Hey if you’re in the subscribing/following kinda mood, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (approaching 25,000 followers) and Like my Facebook Page (over 15,000 likes). Also add me to your Google+ Circles (over 25,000 have me in their circles) and follow me on Behance.

In other news

learn-cc

My Learn the Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White App has now been rebranded to “Learn the Adobe Creative Cloud with Terry White” as well as some bug fixes. Be sure to download the update. (note – I did have one person tell me that he’s having issues with it on iPad 1. So if you have an iPad 1 you might want to hold off till I confirm).

Grab the app here:

Learn Adobe Creative Cloud with Terry White - Wizzard Media

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Get the June Issue of Adobe Inspire Magazine on your iPad

adobe_inspire_iPad

The June 2013 issue of Adobe Inspire Magazine is here! This month’s issue contains articles on Adobe Muse CC, Photoshop CC, the CSS Designer in Dreamweaver CC and more. There’s even an article and video from yours truly on Photoshop CC’s new Sharpening and Upsampling capabilities.

adobe_inspire_iPad_tw

Adobe Inspire is a FREE digital publication created with the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) and you can get it here:

Adobe Inspire - Adobe

 

Don’t have an iPad?

You can also check out the web version here.

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Long and Short Lightning Cables

monoprice_black_lightning

Ever since I upgraded to the iPhone 5 and got an iPad mini I’ve been slowly but surely replacing my old 3o pin iDevice cables with newer Lightning cables. While the price of Apple’s Lightning cables are a bit on the expensive side, what bugs me more is being limited to a fixed 1m length. While 3rd party 30 pin iDevice cables are a dime a dozen and can be found in many different lengths and configurations, 3rd party Lightning cables are just now starting to become widely available. There were some really cheap knockoffs that appeared early on and as the saying goes you get what you pay for. I tried a few of the different cables and found that either they didn’t work at all, didn’t work reliably or stopped working after a while. One problem is that many of the cheap ones aren’t “reversible.” That’s one of the main benefits of Lighting cables is that there is no front/back up or down. You can plug it in either way and it just works. Many of the cheap ones only worked one way. I did find some 10 foot cheap 3rd party ones that worked properly. However, over time one by one they simply stopped working or started acting very flaky. I decided to wait until some of the trusted brands I’d used in the past. I wanted both shorter cables and longer ones than the 1m Lighting cables that Apple sells.

6 foot and 10 foot Lightning Cables

monoprice_lightningcables

One of my favorite sources for low price, quality cables and gear is Monoprice.com. Monoprice has listed both 6 foot and 10 foot Lightning cables for a while now, but they recently started shipping. Before these cables became available I was using USB extension cables to make my Apple cables longer, but I prefer to have a single cable that’s long enough. I bought a few of each length and as I expected they work perfectly. You can get them in either white or black here.

 

Very short Lightning Cables

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CableJive is known for selling a variety of different specialty cables and as I had hoped they just started selling pocket sized 12cm Lighting cables. This cables are short for a variety of different uses when you don’t want a long cable that you’d have to coil up. They are a bit pricey for the length, but they fit the bill for always having a Lightning cable for charging my devices, in my pocket.

Amazon has them here.

 

Lastly a lower priced 1m Lightning Cable

Amazon has their own brand of cables and they are offering a 1m Lighting Cable for less than Apple sells them for here. Monoprice also has some 1m cables cheaper too, here.

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Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPhone and Android Smartphones

Photoshop_touch_iphone5

Just in case you missed my post over at bestappsite.com, I wanted to give you a heads-up that Photoshop Touch has just been released for iPhone and Android Smartphones.

 Adobe Photoshop Touch for phone offers powerful new capabilities for smartphone users:

·         Enhance images using popular Photoshop features such as layers, selection tools, filters, tonal and color adjustments

·         Apply effects and add graphical text for endless creative possibilities

·         Edit images as large as 12 megapixels with layers

·         Combine images together quickly using the Scribble Selection feature, and easily refine your selection with the Refine Edge tool

·         Automatically sync images to Adobe Creative Cloud™ with free 2GB of storage

You can get Photoshop Touch for iPhone here
iTunes

You can get Photoshop Touch for iPad here
iTunes

Yes you can also get it for Android here.

 

To make it even better, get one of these

Brushing with your finger is ok, but if you want more precision I highly recommend getting one of these Wacom Bamboo Styluses for touch screens.

You can get one here.

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PlugBug World Can Charge your MacBook Pro and Your Mobile Devices Too

 

plugbug_world

As a frequent traveler I’m always looking for ways to charge my multiple devices with fewer chargers or taking up less outlets in a hotel room. I saw an ad for PlugBug and decided to order one and see if I liked it or not. The idea behind PlugBug is that it replaces the standard plug of your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air Adapter with one that has a USB (2.1 Amp) port built-in. This way you can charge both your laptop AND any USB power device at the same time. The concept is simple and it takes all of 2 seconds to install. I opted for the PlugBug World, which comes with all the necessary adapters to plug into various outlets around the globe. It works as advertised and although it’s “short” on the 85w MacBook Pro adapter, it doesn’t hender its use.

plugbug_1

How could it be better?

The 1st thing that I wasn’t crazy about was that it replaces the “extended cord” on the MacBook Pro adapter. I know that you can simply plug the adapter into the wall with or without a PlugBug, but I prefer using the optional extended cord that comes with the MacBooks so that I don’t take up so much space on a power strip and I get a longer cord.

plugbug_2

That’s a personal thing with me, but the product works as advertised. Although I CAN use the extended cord, it’s clear by the way it sticks up over the PlugBug that they didn’t design it to be used this way. While we’re at it, I’d also like to see TWO USB ports instead of just one. It would make it much more useful to me if I could use one plug to charge my MacBook, iPhone and iPad at the same time. So make it a little taller to accomodate the extended cord AND a second USB port and I’d “love” it.

You can get a PlugBug here or PlugBug World here.