Ok, I suppose I should explain the title. The formula represents “Pareto’s Law” of income distribution. The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto used the formula to show that the distribution of income and wealth follows a logarithmic pattern. In essence, 20% of the people have 80% of a nation’s wealth.

Pareto was one of the leaders of The Lausanne School, a Neoclassical school of thought and a proponent of the General Equilibrium Theory, an attempt to use a “tastes-and-obstacles” structure as opposed to a “demand-and-supply” structure in economics. The structure is also called “The Law of the Unequal Distribution of Results”. So what in the world could the 80/20 formula have to do with Photoshop? Read on. . .

Press release: SAN JOSE, Calif. — April 14, 2005 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that Adobe® Photoshop® CS2, a major upgrade to the professional industry standard for digital image editing and creation, will be showcased at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, April 16-19. Announced on April 4 and available in May 2005, Photoshop CS2 builds on the software’s role as an essential tool for film and broadcast production. Industry professionals are already hailing Photoshop CS2 software’s advanced film and video features (see quote sheet addendum) and improved power, precision and control for creating high-impact, broadcast-quality images and effects. At NAB, Adobe will give live demos and offer free 30-day trials of Photoshop CS2.

Source: Economist

Bruce Chizen, the boss of Adobe Systems, wants to end bureaucracy as we know it.

“IT’S exciting; we get to change society once again,” says Bruce Chizen, boss of Adobe Systems, the firm behind the popular PDF (or “portable-document-format”) files that are widely downloaded and e-mailed around nowadays. This is not, he adds, about making offices “paperless”, as some people—ludicrously, in retrospect—were predicting a decade ago. Instead, it is about bridging the separation between paper and electronic files in order to make all documents, in whatever form, “intelligent”, thereby blasting apart the way that paper-pushers in government and corporate bureaucracies work today.

If his vision becomes reality, it would be a remarkable vindication for Mr Chizen, who was not at Adobe when it last “changed society”—by launching the desktop-publishing revolution of the 1980s and early 1990s. John Warnock and Charles Geschke, Adobe’s bearded and boffinish founders, had invented PostScript, software that allows printers to reproduce text and graphics exactly as they appear on computer screens. It was followed by Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, three applications used by creative types everywhere.

Source: CBC News
CBC News Viewpoint by Greg Hughes
April 13, 2005

I’m about to earn a graduate degree in journalism from the University of King’s College in Halifax, N.S. While small, it’s got a big reputation for excellence.

As I walk around the campus, I see students of all ages using the tools of the trade in the Internet Age: iPods, cellphones, laptops and USB Memory Sticks.

Workshops feature everything from video editing software such as Final Cut Pro to audio programs such as Cool Edit for radio pieces. Computer labs are equipped with state-of-the-art hardware in both Mac and PC format. It’s a very digital, 21st-century campus.

In the span of just 20 years, the mythology of universities and colleges as bastions of pure intellectual and skill development has been shattered. The Ivory Tower hasn’t just got an upgrade – it’s the Silicon Tower now.

Source: Publish
Written By Robyn Weisman

Starting with its Creative Suite 2, Adobe Systems Inc. has implemented a feature that has met with some controversy: an activation requirement for individual license holders, both on the Mac and Windows side.

Once installed, users must register their copies of CS2 either over the Internet or by telephone within 30 days or the software will no longer be usable. CS2 is scheduled to ship in May.

Source: eWeek
Written by Ian Betteridge

Developers, dealers and analysts have given a strong welcome to Mac OS X 10.4, aka Tiger, announced by Apple Computer on Tuesday.

The update, which introduces a slew of new features including a new search engine called Spotlight and revamped versions of core applications including Safari and Mail, is set to be released at the end of the month.

Source: Digital Media Designer
Written by Kevin Schmitt

Editor’s note: while the story is about Apple and the newly announced Motion the story has far reaching implications regarding Apple and Adobe relations. We’ve excerpted the salient bits for Photoshop users and Adobe watchers, but we recommend you read the entire article.

Scenario 1: The Domino Effect

“For the purposes of this scenario, let’s assume the worst about Adobe; namely, that they’re feeling spurned by Apple and that they’re looking for any excuse to standardize as much of their codebase as possible on Windows. There have been enough indications over the last year or so to at least lend some credence to that assumption, from the whole “PC Preferred” debacle to Premiere and FrameMaker being dropped to Encore DVD being written from the ground up a Windows XP -only product. If I’m Adobe, and I’m looking at Apple releasing a competing product that is at a price point way below my product and is quite likely to cannibalize future sales, then bam! There’s my excuse.

As many of you will be aware by now, the Photoshop File Browser has metamorphosed into a new standalone program called Bridge, which is supplied with all the programs in the Adobe CS2 Creative Suite. And in this new release, the Adobe engineers have been able to add a lot more new features, to make Bridge a powerful application with which to carry out all your picture selection editing. Bridge is primarily designed to enhance the workflow between all the programs in the Adobe CS2 Creative Suite. But one of the cool new features in Bridge is the Slideshow viewing mode.

Just a quick ping to mention the countries that visitors to PhotoshopNews are from:

Press Release: April 12, 2005

Kyocera Corporation (President: Yasuo Nishiguchi, hereafter called “Kyocera”) has decided to terminate CONTAX-branded camera business.

Although Carl Zeiss and Kyocera have entered into a long term co-operation regarding the development, production and sale of CONTAX-branded cameras, Kyocera has decided to terminate such business due to difficulties in catching up with the recent rapid market changes.

Consequently, Kyocera will terminate the shipment of CONTAX-branded cameras, and the exclusive lenses and accessories in September, 2005, except for the CONTAX 645 camera system, the shipment of which to some markets will come to an end in December, 2005.

Kyocera will continue to provide after-sales services to its customers for their CONTAX-branded cameras, and the exclusive lenses and accessories over the maximum period of ten years within the specified time of each model.

Press release link

Source: PHASE ONE
Article written by Michael H. Reichmann

In every field there is a leader; a product that others seek to surpass, or at least catch up with. When it comes to raw file converters, Phase One’s Capture One fills that role. Though it wasn’t first to market, and still doesn’t support as wide a range of cameras as some competitors, like Adobe’s Camera Raw, for many photographers, especially pros, Capture One has become the program of choice for raw file conversion. But before being able to understand why this is the case, it’s necessary to have a look at what a raw file converter does. Indeed, what is a raw file?

Press Release: April 12, 2005-SAN DIEGO by Andrew Darlow, Editorial Director, Digital Imaging Techniques

The PhotoImaging & Design Expo is coming to San Diego, CA, April 19-21, 2005. The conference features seminars, live photo shoots and hands-on workshops by over 75 photographers, consultants and other imaging professionals, including:

Jerry Avenaim, Cameron Davidson, Douglas Dubler, Robert Farber, George Fulton, Greg Gorman, Michael Grecco, Judy Herrmann, Douglas Kirkland, Kevin Kubota, Jay Maisel, Andy Marcus, Joe McNally, Moose Peterson, Denis Reggie, Jeff Sedlik, Mike Starke, Colin Smith, Beth Taubner, Von Thomas, Vincent Versace and Steven Wilkes.

Source: MacWorld
Written By Peter Cohen

Pangea Software has released PanoPreviewer, a free Photoshop plug-in designed for photographers who work with 360-degree Virtual Reality (VR) panoramas. The software lets you preview “equirectangular” panorama images in Photoshop directly, rather than having to use an intermediary application, and it uses OpenGL for maximum performance.

Read entire article

Source: PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Reported by Terence Smith
Original air date: June 10th, 2004
Video available in Windows Media format.
Transcript Page

“With its imposing name and military-tight security, you might think that the Iron Mountain National Underground Storage Facility is one of those forbidding places where presidents and generals huddled during the Cold War.

But these days there is a much different sort of planning going on.

Here, in an old limestone mine some 200 feet beneath the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, is the Corbis/Bettmann Film Preservation Facility. The goal here is not to destroy but to preserve, not to end time, but to stop it altogether.

If you’ve never visited Adobe Studio, you’re missing out on a useful free resource that Adobe provides for its customers. Recently redesigned and updated, Adobe Studio provides a diverse array of resources; Tips & Tutorials, Links to User Groups and Forums, Events that Adobe will be at, Print Resource Center, Small Business Resources and Tools & Software from Adobe Studio Exchange.

It costs nothing to visit but the bandwidth. . .

On news stands this month: Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe team up to write an authoritative cover article for the April/May issue of Photoshop User magazine. The six page article, Shooting in the RAW–the naked truth about advanced Camera Raw talks about controlling all the editing power and flexibility of Camera Raw without over-cooking your brain.

“Many photographers have come to enjoy the enormous flexibility that RAW provides over JPEG. When shooting RAW, the image is wide open for interpretation–a simple yank of some controls makes a vast difference to the rendering of your image.

But what are you supposed to pull and how do you decide what your image is supposed to look like?” –Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe

At long last, you can spend a day with the photo realist genius of our times – Bert Monroy. While you may not be able to draw like Bert does (no one can, he’s truly the master) you’ll be able to learn the techniques he’s developed over the years to create realistic images that boggle the imagination.

Bert Monroy is one of the pioneers of digital art and co-author of the first book written on Photoshop, The Official Adobe Photoshop Handbook. His work has been seen in every major trade publication of the computer industry. Additionally, his work has been featured in scores of books including Making Art on a Macintosh, The Photoshop WOW Book, The Illustrator WOW Book, The Art of Digital Painting, The Grey Book and The Photoshop A to Z in Japan.

Great Lakes Digital presents Photoshop Soup2Nuts 2.0
a professional, internationally known Photoshop Conference located in Ann Arbor, Michigan–right in the heartland of America, will be one of the first conferences to feature the all new:

Adobe Photoshop CS2 with sessions by Thomas Knoll, original author of Photoshop and Camera Raw 3.0.

UPDATE: Great Lakes Digital opens Online Registration.

Source: Gulf News
By Vinita Bharadwaj

Editor’s note: This story is about the ambitions of a woman journalist–Farzana Wahidy, from Afghanistan and an “experiment” by noted international photographer Reza Deghati, of National Geographic fame. The experiment was to set up an independent non-profit press agency and train both men and women in photojournalism, including writing, photography and Photoshop-which in Afghanistan is a radical new democratic concept, teaching women.

“I wanted to write about the truth,” she told Weekend Review from Kabul, “and I wanted to be a correspondent for one of the international organisations.” A harmless adolescent ambition in most countries, but a potential death sentence in Afghanistan at that time.

Conference: 31 July – 4 August 2005             Exhibition: 2 – 4 August 2005

Los Angeles Convention Center

SIGGRAPH 2005 Web Site
Bring your brain. . .

Source: The News & Advance
By Zack Smith

Phillip Whitt had a problem. His wife had a photograph of her and her brother that had badly faded. By playing around with Adobe Photoshop, he managed to fix the picture, restoring it to its original appearance.

Whitt was intrigued, and soon found he was tinkering with photos every day.

“I got hooked,” he said.

Press Release: Did you think Photoshop CS was too sloooow. Did the File Browser take forever to load your thumbnails? Were you using a bunch of different applications just to process your files? Do you have a need for speeeed? Well, Photoshop CS2 will accelerate your workflow. The old File Browser has matured, becoming an elegant and sophisticated separate application called Adobe Bridge which bridges the gap in workflow. It acts seamlessly with CS2 and other Adobe applications. In conjunction with Camera Raw 3, raw processing workflow has been completely re-tuned allowing work to really flow, enhancing digital processing, file management and generally reducing time while improving quality. Speed is fundamental for workflow and CS2 is all about SPEED.

In case you missed them, last fall Adobe commissioned a variety of top authors to write editorial content about a variety of subjects relating to; Digital Photography, Raw Captures, DNG, Digital Workflow, Digital Image Integrity, Calibrating the Digital Darkroom, B&W Conversion, Metadata, Color managed Raw Workflow, Making the Transition from Film to Digital, Highlight Recovery in Adobe Camera Raw and State of the Art: Digital Printing.

At the risk of revisiting the Kate Doesn’t Like Photoshop story and the ethics of digital manipulation, assuming you DO want to give somebody a quick 5-10 pound weight loss, there is a method so easy that when you learn it, you’ll wonder why you never figurered it out before. As with any technique, the secret here is to use it in moderation.