50 Students from 30 Film Schools to Produce Daily Broadcasts from Cannes

Press Release: SAN JOSE, Calif. — May 17, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that it is sponsoring the American Pavilion Student Filmmaker Program at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, May 17 through May 28 in Cannes, France. Students representing 30 film schools in North America, the United Kingdom, India and South Africa will be paired with professional filmmakers and instructors to create documentaries on their experience at Cannes using the Adobe® Production Studio, Macromedia® Flash® and Macromedia Studio 8. Documentaries will be broadcast daily on the Adobe.com Web site.

Source: CNET
Written by Candace Lombardi

Adobe Systems is overhauling its publishing applications to more closely resemble its popular Photoshop program, in a bid to sway designers who are already using the image-editing software.

Source: The Register

Competition–Here’s a challenge for all you Photoshop jockeys: create an improved human for the chance to win Reg t-shirts and goodie bag overflowing, cornucopia style, with the fruits of Vulture Central.

Stamps.com’s PhotoStamps Now Available as Part of Adobe Photoshop Services

Press Release: LOS ANGELES, May 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Stamps.com (Nasdaq: STMP – News), a leading provider of Internet-based postage services, today announced the availability of PhotoStamps® from within Adobe® Photoshop® CS2, Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Album Starter Edition software. The launch of PhotoStamps for Business, also announced today, will now allow users of the Photoshop family of products to easily design and use PhotoStamps to create awareness for their products or services, to build their brand, or for other commercial uses.

Next workshop:
June 24-25, 2006 in New York City
The Lifecycle of a Digital Photograph

The Great Luminous Landscape 2006 State-of-The-Art Shootout

Left to right: Chris Sanderson, Michael Reichmann, Charles Cramer, Bill Atkinson
Bill is blurred because he was running around to get into the shot

Written by Michael Reichmann

Adobe Photoshop CS2 (aka version 9.0.0) has a new update available for download to update Photoshop 9.0.0 to 9.0.1.

The updates are now available for downloading-the Mac version is here and the Windows version is here.

Scott Sheppard, host of inside mac tv was at the most recent Epson Print Academy in San Francisco and interviewed the speakers and various luminaries in attendance including Photoshop Product Manager, John Nack and Adobe Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty.

Camera Bits has released Photo Mechanic 4.4.3. Formerly available in beta, the final version is now available for download.

The update is free to registered users.

Source: Associated Press via USA Today
Written By Peter Svensson, AP

NEW YORK — With its market eviscerated by digital photography, Eastman Kodak last year stopped making black-and-white photo paper.

In cooperation with Quark Expeditions, The Luminous Landscape is offering two remarkable photographic expeditions to the Arctic this summer.

Each will be taught by teams of exceptional photographic instructors, Stephen Johnson, Anthony Hobbs and Bruce Fraser for Expedition #1 and Seth Resnick and Jeff Schewe for Expedition #2.

Mac Holbert (left) and Graham Nash (right)

George Jardine, Pro Photography Evangelist of Adobe has posted a new iTunes Podcast about Adobe Lightroom with Mac and Graham of Nash Editions.

Source: ars technica
Written by Dave Girard

It is no secret that I wasn’t a fan of Aperture 1.0. From the outright broken things like 8-bit TIFF export and EXIF data stripping on output to the Zen take on a manual (there is no documentation”), everything about Aperture 1.0 pointed to an unrealistic deadline and a QA department with their monitors off. While the EXIF bug was fixed with the OS X 10.4.6 update, the problems I saw in Aperture 1.0 were sadly only the tip of the iceberg and eventually users’ different workflows exposed numerous additional flaws, some nastier than others. After inconsistent responses to some angry customers who wanted their money back, the whole thing got even uglier.

Scott Kelby, World-Renown Photoshop Guru, Offers a New 21-Day Online Course – Photoshop for Digital Photographers

Press Release: TAMPA, Fla.–May 9, 2006–The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), the world’s leading educational and training resource for Adobe® Photoshop®, has just released Photoshop for Digital Photographers with Scott Kelby — a 21-day online training course on its newly launched training site — http://www.photoshoptraining.com.

Check out the new updates to his ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TIPS & TECHNIQUES page.

b>What’s New?
Dr. Browns’ Services 1.4
This is a set of time saving, Macintosh and Windows, scripts for Adobe Photoshop CS2!

Updated Camera Raw 3.4 Plug-in Now Supports Over 120 Camera Models With Eight New Cameras from Canon, Epson, Leaf, Olympus, Pentax and Samsung

Press Release: SAN JOSE, Calif. – May 8, 2006 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced an update to the Camera Raw plug-in for Adobe(r) Photoshop(r) CS2, extending raw file support to eight additional digital camera models. Available as a free download from the Adobe Web site, the Camera Raw 3.4 plug-in builds on Photoshop CS2 raw file support for digital cameras from leading manufacturers such as Canon, Epson, Leaf, Olympus, Pentax and Samsung.

When the members of the Epson Print Academy were in Seattle, Washington, we had a special treat-a Washington State Wine Tasting!

…with a few friends for the Epson Print Academy in San Francisco!

The City on the Bay, the Giants, Golden Gate & Silicon Valley…
(ok, officially, that’s in San Jose, but we’ll be close).

Source: Macworld
Written By Jim Dalrymple

Apple on Thursday responded to rumors that the company has asked the engineering team for its professional photography workflow application Aperture to leave. The rumors, which started late last week, are completely false, according to Apple.

“The reports of Apple reducing their commitment to Aperture are totally false,” Kirk Paulsen, Apple’s Senior Director Pro Applications Marketing, told Macworld. “In fact, we’ve got more people working on Aperture right now than ever before.

Press Release: 4th May 2006 – At the heart of all Epson’s digital printing technology lies the unique Micro Piezo print head. The leader of the project responsible for its invention, Minoru Usui, currently Seiko Epson director and the general administrative manager of the Production and Engineering & Development Division, has been awarded the prestigious Perkin Medal in recognition of his achievement. The award, established by the Society of Dyers and Colourists, recognizes individuals for their outstanding technical development within the realm of colour science. Only 22 of these medals have been awarded since the award’s inauguration in 1901.

Adult entertainment market seems to have already chosen Blu-ray.
Source: PC World
Written by Lucas Mearian, Computerworld

Just as in the 1980s, when the Betamax and VHS video formats were battling it out for supremacy, the pornography industry will likely play a big role in determining which of the two blue-laser DVD formats–Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD–will be the winner in the battle to replace current DVDs for high-definition content.

Press Release: VICTORIA, British Columbia – April. 27, 2006 – ACD Systems International Inc. (TSX: ASA), today announced updates to its two flagship products, ACDSee 8 Photo Manager and ACDSee Pro Photo Manager. The enhancements are designed to improve speed, performance and productivity, and include advanced support for RAW formats that meet and exceed industry demands.

What Worked, and What Didn’t– especially what didn’t

Long Shadows. Namibia, April 2006 © by Michael Reichmann

Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape has just returned from three weeks of shooting in South West Africa. As he usually does, he reports on the relative success or failure of his choice of equipment and his shooting.

A lot of Photoshop users wonder where Adobe gets feedback for feature development in new versions of Photoshop. There are a variety of ways; from the Feature Requests section of the Adobe User to User Forums (here’s the Mac forum and here’s the Windows forum for Photoshop and here’s the Bridge Forum). Adobe does focus group studies and also has a team of advanced Photoshop users from outside of Adobe called the “Alpha Testers”. But anybody can offer their best feature requests by using a simple web form, the Adobe feature request form.

For those of you who put the day of the month in front of the month (the European method of designating days of the month), shortly after 1 AM tonight the time/date will be 01:02:03 04.05.06.

Is this significant? I don’t know. All I know is that last month, on the 5th of April, I missed the North American time/date designation of 01:02:03 04.05.06 so I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to mention it to my European friends.