Category: Software & Technology

John Nack on Adobe:

Photoshop engineer Geoff Scott spotted a beautiful black & white image from photographer Moose Peterson, made with the help of Photoshop CS3.  (Too bad the online version isn’t larger.)   Moose writes, “I’ve always loved B&W photography but until recent developments such at the Epson 3800 and 7800 and B&W conversion in Photoshop, B&W was downright painful. With amazing paper like Epson’s UltraSmooth Fine Art and the ease of B&W conversion in CS3, why wouldn’t someone enjoy the amazing old art of B&W photography.”

For more info, check out Russell Brown’s 4-minute video intro to the Black & White dialog, where he shows off the ability to click and drag on color regions to adjust them, as well as a technique for hand-tinting the results.  Russell produced some great B&W presets for Camera Raw in CS2, so I’m sure he’ll offer more good info, tips, and settings for the much-improved B&W controls in CS3’s Camera Raw 4.0.  I had fun using the new split toning functions, together with Photoshop’s venerable Lighting Effects dialog, to show my wife contemplating a “Portrait of the Governor as a Young Man” on New Year’s Eve. (It was a weird party. ;-))

Here.

Business Week, via ValleyWag:

The man who, after Jobs, is most responsible for Apple’s amazing ability to dazzle and delight with its famous products, chose instead to talk about process — what he called “the craft of design.” He spoke passionately about his small team and how they work together. He talked about focusing on only what is important and limiting the number of projects. He spoke about having a deep understanding of how a product is made: its materials, its tooling, its purpose. Mostly, he focused on the need to care deeply about the work.

…

After graduating, Ive joined Grinyer in 1989 in a London startup, Tangerine Design. But he couldn’t get British companies to appreciate his work. When a company mothballed a bathroom sink he’d spent months working on, “he was dejected and depressed,” says Grinyer. “He had poured himself into working for people who really didn’t care.” Ive admits he wasn’t cut out to be a design consultant, where salesmanship is the most essential skill. “I was terrible at running a design business, and I really wanted to just focus on the craft of design,” he told Pearlman.

Here.

From Rob Galbraith:

Photoshop CS2 (aka v9.0) for Windows and Mac has been updated to v9.0.1. The free update is comprised mostly of bug fixes and minor tweaks; the download page for each platform, linked to below, lists the changes. Note that the Mac updater is for English copies of the application only, whereas the Windows updater covers all languages.

Here.

From Rob Galbraith:

The latest release of the pro photo browser from Camera Bits adds uploading to a PhotoShelter account from within the application, viewing and processing of RAW files (Mac version only; OS X 10.4.6 required), more flexible CD/DVD writing, the ability to read code replacement data out of multiple text files, several new variables (includes one that returns a camera’s total shutter actuations) and many other improvements and fixes.
Here.

From RobGalbraith:

Camera Bits today has released a public beta version of Photo Mechanic 4.4.3, the next release of the pro photo browsing software for Mac and Windows. Highlighting the list of changes is the ability to upload directly to a PhotoShelter account in Photo Mechanic on both platforms, improved CD/DVD burning in the Windows version and numerous other fixes and enhancements.

Here.

From Rob Galbraith:

Canon has posted updaters or installers for several of its digital SLR software applications. Available for download are Digital Photo Professional (DPP) 2.1, EOS Utility 1.0, CameraWindow DSLR 5.3R2 (Windows), ZoomBrowser EX 5.6.0 (Windows) and ImageBrowser 5.6.1a (Mac).

Here.