Photoshop Disasters web site recently took a swipe at Photoshop User TV for doing “inept reflections” in an announcement at the most recent Photoshop World about the Photoshop User TV live taping. See: Photoshop World: Photoshop User TV Useless At Photoshop.

Jeeesh, everybody is a critic!

“We’ve actually started talking to ISO [International Organization for Standardization] of potential standardization around a new RAW format,” Connor says. “We’ve submitted DNG as something for them to consider. At this point in time, it’s sort of premature to speculate whether a formal standard will come out of that or not. Obviously, it’s a standardization process that can take a long time, with many parties involved and different viewpoints. The good thing is that there’s a discussion happening.”

John also mentioned that Adobe will be releasing a “DNG-viewing codec for Windows Vista, making it possible to view DNG files right within the operating system. Expect this free download to be posted soon.”

The creators of You Suck were recently revealed to be Troy Hitch and Matt Bledsoe, two ad agency refugees from Covington, Kentucky. See this PSN story: THE PHOTOSHOP GUYS REVEALED!.

Press Release: ALYS BEACH, Fla., May 6 /PRNewswire/ — A Florida beach resort town will host a unique festival on Labor Day weekend.

“Digital Graffiti at Alys Beach” was created to celebrate and promote the world’s most talented and innovative digital artists. But the event has a very unusual twist.

“We’re inviting digital artists from around the world to project their original artwork onto our town’s famous white walls,” said Kelli Arnold, Alys Beach’s Events Coordinator. “Our entire town will literally become their blank canvas.”

Sometimes referred to as “Photon Bombing,” “Guerilla Projection,” “Projection Bombing” or “Urban Projection,” underground artists around the globe have already been using the latest design, animation and projection technologies to cast their images onto skyscrapers and other urban structures, as a means of artistic expression.

“Some of the talent that we’re finding is truly stunning,” said Arnold.

To help lure that talent, Alys Beach has announced numerous award categories and over $5,000 in cash prizes, including a $2,500 “Best of Show” award. A certain number of qualified artists may also be eligible for cash stipends to help them attend the event.

The festival will be hosted by several celebrity and industry expert judges, including Alan Hunter — MTV’s very first “VeeJay,” co-host of the “Big 80’s” channel on Sirius Satellite Radio, and co-founder of the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, and Warren Heaton, an award-winning digital media artist and UCLA professor, whose film, video and interactive media projects include such clients as Adobe, Aquantive Microsoft, Concorde-New Horizons, DirecTV, Motor Entertainment and Walt Disney Imagineering.

Artists are encouraged to submit their original works of digital art for consideration as soon as possible. Entries may include new or existing abstract digital imagery, short films, photography, VJ sets, animations, YouTube videos, Adobe PhotoShop creations or entirely new interactive concepts. All subject matter is eligible for the festival, although a special $1,000 prize will be awarded to the best entry with a “green” or environmental theme. The deadline for all submissions is Friday, July 11, 2008. The festival will be held on the evening of Saturday, August 30, 2008.

Alys Beach is located in Florida’s panhandle on Scenic Highway 30A, between Destin and Panama City Beach, along what The New York Times said “may be the best beach in the continental U.S.” In April, Forbes.com named Alys Beach America’s “Best Spot for the Design-Savvy.”

For more information about Digital Graffiti at Alys Beach, visit www.alysbeach.com/DG , call toll-free 1-866-481-8387, or email events@alysbeach.com .

ABOUT ALYS BEACH

One of the most beautiful new towns in the world, Alys Beach’s extraordinary architectural vision drew inspirations from both Bermuda and the family courtyard homes of Antigua, Guatemala. When complete, the town will be home to over 600 villas, rowhouses, courtyard homes and family compound retreats, as well as numerous restaurants, parks and shops. All homes in Alys Beach are built to Fortified … For Safer Living® building standards, as certified by the Institute for Business & Home Safety, and are also built to the Green Home Designation Standard of the Florida Green Building Coalition.

“Alys Beach may be the most truly innovative community under construction in the United States today, and it will eventually be imitated everywhere,” said Andres Duany, who was ranked one of the Top 5 most influential people in home building by Builder magazine.

For sales or rental information, please call 866-481-8387 or visit www.alysbeach.com .

GREG GORMAN’S MENDOCINO DIGITAL WORKSHOP - SPECIAL GUEST: JEFF SCHEWE
June 8-13, 2008

Delight your senses, hone your craft and maximize your technical expertise at the most unique photographic venue this June, 2008 in Mendocino, California*. Immerse yourself in the secrets of the pros within a small intimate setting during a week-long workshop at Greg’s personal studio adjacent to his home. Nestled in the picturesque coast of the Pacific, the studio offers an amazing backdrop for photography students – redwood forests, vineyards, and the spectacular local sites of Northern California.

Indulging each attendee with a combination of digital photography and comfortable hospitality, Greg Gorman begins the week with an evening “meet and greet” dinner in his home followed by an orientation meeting with the instructors and models. The dinner provides a platform of intimacy within the small group setting and enables Greg to familiarize and focus on the individual student and his/her portfolio and experience.

Daily workshops offer opportunities to shoot in studio and on location and each student may choose to concentrate on his/her individual preference of portraits, nudes or a wide variety of Northern California locations. Evening entertainment includes wine tastings and a final dinner.

Sessions feature both the expertise of Greg Gorman, plus one of his professional guests per quarterly workshop and provide:
• camera demos, including setup and download
• editing techniques
• color management training and tools for monitor calibration
• Photoshop/Camera Raw & Lightroom lessons
• fine art printing techniques
• actual printing of images for all students
• two models
• in-studio and location shoots
• gifts from workshop sponsors
• daily gourmet lunches prepared by Chef Ueli
• wrap-up dinner prepared by Chef Ueli with slideshow and presentation gifts

Students are required to bring:
• personal portfolio
• digital camera (power supply and battery)
• flashcards
• lap top computer with OSX or PC equivalent and a mouse and installed imaging software
(Photoshop CS3 and/or Lightroom suggested)

*Mendocino is located north of San Francisco/Oakland (the closest airports). The drive time from San Francisco/Oakland to Mendocino is three hours. We can offer hotel referrals and transportation suggestions.

About Guest Instructor Jeff Schewe

Jeff Schewe is a Photoshop Guru’s Guru. He’s on the inside of the development and testing of Photoshop and has helped guide and direct many features since Photoshop 4.0.

He is also the co-author of Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3, the definitive book on Camera Raw. Jeff has also been involved with the development of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom since the very beginning. See this PSN story for more info.

Shots from previous workshops

The house…

…and the studio which serve as the base of operations for the workshop.

Greg and the crew getting prepared for the Sunday arrival of the attendees.

The opening orientation with the students in the studio.

Greg does an opening slide show before the class goes over to the house for dinner.

Chef Ueli prepares the dinner…

…and plates the main course.

Greg teaching how to work with models…

After taking several shots, he shows the students what the shot looked like on the back of the camera.

A variety of locations are available depending on weather. Here the class is at the dunes.

Greg talking and directing the class in the dunes.

A couple of shots from Jeff Schewe (above and below).

There are beach locations for shooting…

…as well as other locations where Greg has secured permission to shoot.

Here’s Greg checking exposure for a student. (Nice to have Greg as an assistant).

Greg also covers studio lighting and explains his signature “look”.

There are nightly critiques and imaging lessons.

There is a delicious lunch served each day.

There’s also plenty of time for students to work on their shots in Camera Raw, Photoshop and/or Lightroom.

Greg also covers shooting under natural light in the studio using the studio’s built in large windows with or without scrims.

Here some students shoot while others check their shots.

One of the best locations is down at the point on Greg’s property at sunset.

A shot by Jeff.

Greg shooting a model.

Greg also goes over each student’s work, helping prepare images for printing.

A variety of student prints in the viewing box.

Greg showing off some of the vino consumed the week Jeff Schewe was last at Greg’s Mendocino workshop.

GREG GORMAN’S MENDOCINO DIGITAL WORKSHOP
To register:
phone: 818.242.0102
Or email:
trish@gormanphotography.com
Price of week-long workshop: $4250

Hotel suggestions:
Fensalden Inn - 707.937.4042
Packard House B&B – 707.937.2677
Pacific Mists – 707.937.1543
Seafoam Lodge – 800.606.1827
Albion River Inn – 707.937.1919

About Greg Gorman
(Excerpted from a commentary by Peter Weiermair, Director, The Rupertinum, Salzburg, Austria)

“Gorman is part of the classical tradition. During the 1970’s and 80’s, he concentrated heavily on details of facial features like eyes, etc. In recent years Gorman has attained the consummate mastery of light and lighting which also distinguishes the studio photography of Horst P. Horst, G. Hurrell, and George Platt Lynes. In Gorman’s studio portraits, the play of light lends faces and bodies to ethereal quality as if they glowed from within. His work looks back on a long tradition which has evolved from early 20th century fashion and portrait photography.

His photographs have the quality,­ a mark of all great portrait photograph, ­ of allowing the subject to unfold his or her own personality in front of the lens. We should always bear in mind that photography began as alchemy, a magical process. Particularly in the field of portrait photography, where the here and now is caught and transfixed, it has retained that magical quality. Most of Gorman’s subjects are people in the public eye,­ actors, artists and architects,­ people in the public at large. We experience them only in films and in the icons of photographic illustration. They and their bodies are figments of our imagination in a modern mythology. Photography is the projection of a figure, evoked, it is true, by reality yet, like all photographs, these are, in reality, fiction.” –Peter Weiermair

The Open Screen Project is working to enable a consistent runtime environment — taking advantage of Adobe® Flash® Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR™ — that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and devices, including phones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), and set top boxes. The Open Screen Project will address potential technology fragmentation by enabling the runtime technology to be updated seamlessly over the air on mobile devices. The consistent runtime environment is intended to provide optimal performance across a variety of operating systems and devices, and ultimately provide the best experience to consumers.

To support this mission, and as part of Adobe’s ongoing commitment to enable Web innovation, Adobe will continue to open access to Adobe Flash technology, accelerating the deployment of content and rich Internet applications (RIAs). This work will include:

- Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
- Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
- Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
- Removing licensing fees - making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

“Adobe is spearheading the Open Screen Project with support from industry leaders who share a common vision to provide rich, interactive experiences across computers, devices and consumer electronics,” said Shantanu Narayen, chief executive officer at Adobe. “A consistent, more open platform for developers will drive rapid innovation, vastly improving the user experience.”

Adobe Flash Player is the world’s most pervasive client runtime, delivering unparalleled creative options, highly engaging user experiences, stunning audio/video playback, and universal reach. Content for Adobe Flash Player reaches over 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops and more than a half billion handsets and mobile devices today. Adobe expects more than one billion handsets and mobile devices to ship with Adobe Flash technology by 2009. Flash technology is used to deliver vector graphics, text, interactivity and application logic, video and sound over the Internet. More than 75 percent of broadcasters who stream video on the Web use Flash technology. Adobe AIR is the next-generation RIA runtime for the desktop, supporting HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flash technology and PDF.

The digital explosion across multiple screens is raising consumers’ expectations for engaging experiences wherever and however they connect with content. Web browsing on mobile devices is becoming commonplace, but delivering a consistent rich Internet experience remains a challenge. To ensure that user expectations are fulfilled, software applications and video must work seamlessly across multiple devices and content must be easily available across those devices.

Support for Rich Web Content and Applications Everywhere
Companies supporting the Open Screen Project share Adobe’s vision that a consistent and more open platform across devices will drive rapid innovation that will ultimately be good for consumers. The participants in the Open Screen Project are leading companies in the mobile, desktop and device ecosystems that will contribute in unique ways to this project.

“Delivering a highly responsive, uncompromised Web and rich media experience to consumer devices and the digital home is a key focus for ARM and our partners,” said Warren East, CEO, ARM. “The Open Screen Project with Adobe enables ARM and our partners to optimize and deploy Flash Player and Adobe AIR across billions of ARM Powered® devices and unlocks the ability for hardware optimizations on future ARM® processors.”

“The market is transitioning from the connected home office to the multimedia enabled home,” said Ned Hooper, senior vice president, Corporate Development, Consumer and Small Business Group at Cisco. “Through our Linksys by Cisco product leadership, we can transform life’s experiences by effortlessly connecting people to their digital world at home, at work and on the move. We share a common vision with Adobe and the Open Screen Project, and expect to work together to help enable the fusion of Web, television and user-generated content delivered anywhere, at any time and to any device.”

“Consumers always want more from their devices,” said Doug Fisher, Intel Vice President and General Manager, System Software Division. “Flash Player already reaches the vast majority of Internet-connected computers, and our deep technical collaboration with Adobe will optimize Flash technology and Adobe AIR across a broad range of devices, including a version of Adobe AIR for the Mobile and Internet Linux project, moblin.org. Intel’s broad and rich hardware and software ecosystem combined with Adobe’s Open Screen Project will help us deliver a full Internet experience, whether it be in your pocket, on your lap, at the office or in your living room.”

“Users clearly want full functionality, the same look and feel, and a similar instantaneous user experience as they have on their PCs,” said Dr. Sehat Sutardja, president and chief executive officer at Marvell. “We are very excited Adobe is making this happen through the Open Screen Project by unifying the software requirements across all platforms. Marvell is contributing to the success of this effort by providing PC class computing horsepower through our advanced application processor technology that is used in many of our mobile and consumer devices.”

“As a long-standing champion of open standards, Motorola supports Adobe’s Open Screen Project and its goal of enabling a more open development experience for the ecosystem,” said Christy Wyatt, vice president, software platforms and ecosystem, Motorola. “We expect the Open Screen Project to further accelerate the use of Flash technology and innovation in mobile applications, interfaces, and platforms, allowing mobile users to experience the richness of the Web on a variety of new devices.”

“Our approach is to empower fans, Web developers and publishers to access, share and interact with our content freely across platforms,” said Mika Salmi, President, Global Digital Media, MTV Networks. “We’re embracing the Open Screen Project so that our fans can continue not only to enjoy our brands, but also build and contribute to them on every device and screen without limitation.”

“NBC Universal delivers a majority of our content in the FLV format across more than 20 streaming video players on our numerous digital properties. We’re excited about supporting this project, which will reduce barriers to Flash technology adoption on non-PC devices and help ensure NBC Universal content can be seen anywhere,” said Darren Feher, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at NBC Universal. “Clearly, devices continue to increase in importance as a means to access rich content and applications, and we are delighted to work with Adobe to deliver great experiences through these additional distribution channels.”

“As a long time strategic partner of Adobe, we are pleased to help launch the Open Screen Project and applaud Adobe’s move toward removing barriers to adoption of Flash technology in the mobile ecosystem. Nokia will continue to deploy Flash runtime technologies on our devices,” said Lee Williams, Senior Vice President, Nokia Devices Software. “Nokia has a long history of pioneering the deployment of Flash technology in the mobile market and we look forward to exploring future opportunities with Adobe AIR for devices. Today’s announcement will help spur a new generation of rich Internet experiences on mobile devices.”

“NTT DoCoMo has long been challenging the evolution of mobile services and Adobe Flash technology has been a crucial part of our success and the work of thousands of mobile developers in Japan,” said Kiyoyuki Tsujimura, Executive Vice President, Managing Director of Products & Services Division of NTT DoCoMo. “As a longtime strategic partner and innovative operator delivering Flash to millions of mobile customers, we applaud Adobe’s move as the next essential step to enable even richer and more expressive mobile experiences. We look forward to working with Adobe and the members of the Open Screen Project to deliver a consistent application runtime environment to devices everywhere.”

“Qualcomm welcomes Adobe’s Open Screen Project,” said Steve Mollenkopf, senior vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “It aligns well with our BREW mobile platform and highly-integrated chipset solutions, allowing an expanded ecosystem of developers to bring applications and services to users of a wide range of 3G mobile devices.”

“A broad range of our handsets are Flash-enabled based on our belief that an engaging and integrated mobile application and Web experience is essential to our users. Adobe’s Open Screen Project will help to further expand the use of Flash technology across the full family of Sony Ericsson mobile devices to energize communication,” said Rikko Sakaguchi, Head of Portfolio and Propositions, at Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. “Flash technology and Adobe AIR are natural fits to Sony Ericsson’s strategy of building on the best of the Open Web Standards and will help provide new mobile experiences to millions of users around the world.”

“The Open Screen Project will make it simple for Verizon and our partners to deliver rich mobile experiences to more devices,” said Mike Lanman, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Verizon Wireless. “As a complement to our Open Developer Initiative, Adobe’s move and our ability to contribute to this initiative will further enable developers and content providers to deliver the next generation of applications using Flash technology and Adobe AIR across mobile platforms and devices worldwide.”

For more information about the Open Screen Project, visit the website at www.adobe.com/go/openscreenproject .

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com .

Adobe Systems is discussing potential standardization of its Digital Negative (DNG) format for digital images, a company executive has said.

Most people are fine with plain-old JPEG for their images, but higher-end cameras can produce more flexible and higher-quality “raw” photos that are encoded with camera makers’ proprietary formats. Because different cameras produce different formats, companies such as Adobe whose software deals with raw files face a daunting engineering challenge understanding.

DNG is designed as an alternative to the profusion–what Adobe calls a Tower of Babel–but it hasn’t caught on widely. Ricoh, Casio, Pentax, and a few other camera makers sell cameras that can record DNG files, but the two heavyweights, Nikon and Canon, along with Olympus and Sony, so far have given it the cold shoulder.

Maybe that will change if Adobe can get DNG standardized. The company has submitted DNG to the International Standards Organization for it to consider, said Kevin Connor, Adobe’s senior director, professional digital imaging, in an interview with Digital Photo Pro.

Read entire article

Read the full text of the Digital Photo Pro article

For those of you with a bit of time on your hands (or want to check out just how bad some people’s Photoshop skills are), check out PhotoshopDisasters.com.

Here you’ll find some really shoddy Photoshop work. So bad in fact that it’s really rather amusing…such as this Hungarian ad for Red Bull.

Red Bull: Gives You Nightmares

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Comment: Red Bull in Hungary makes you wish you had never seen this image. Scrubbing your eyeballs doesn’t work, I tried.

EEEK!

Most of the posts seem to have been made by Cosmo7…but aside from a web mail form, there’s really no way to know who’s behind the site. The main intro says: “Have you seen a truly awful piece of Photoshop work? Clumsy manipulation, senseless comping, lazy cloning and thoughtless retouching are our bread and butter. And yes, deep down, we love Photoshop.”

Here’s another unforgivable disaster…

Zoo: Adolf Hitler Is A Babe And She’s Melting

Comment: Gemma Atkinson gets some rough treatment from this tawdry babeblog. It looks like her right hand is a flip of the left, or would have been if the artist hadn’t quietly given up. I have no idea what they were trying to remove, but the unfortunate shadow under her nose suggests a whiff of the third reich.

I guess there’s still room for schlock in the marketplace, but it would be useful for some of these “professionals” to take a Photoshop class…

Mark Hamburg, founder of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and former architect of Photoshop is leaving Adobe for a post at Microsoft. Mark, who was the second engineer hired to work on Photoshop after Thomas Knoll, has been at Adobe for over 17 years. He joined Adobe in the fall of 1990–the year Photoshop 1.0 shipped.

He left the Photoshop team after Photoshop 7 shipped and spent time in Adobe’s Advanced Technology Group (ATG) where he worked on a “sandbox project” originally called PixelToy which was later renamed Shadowland. Adobe changed that name to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom when it was released as a public beta in January, 2006. See the PSN story The Shadowland/Lightroom Development Story for more info.

Since Mark has been a good friend and co-conspirator over the years, I decided to use some miles and fly out for his going away party at Adobe last week. Mark’s last day at Adobe was Wednesday, April 23, 2008.

Mark’s office was littered with boxes–it’s unclear if those were his new packed boxes or left over from the recent move to 10 West. The Lightroom team was recently moved onto the same floor as the Photoshop team (I guess in an attempt at “togetherness”). Right: Mark explains that he needed to work on one more Lightroom 2.0 bug before going to the video conference with the Minnesota team, his last such conference.

Here we are in one of Adobe’s video conference rooms on the 8th floor. On the screen is the Adobe Minnesota office’s Frostbite Falls conference room. See this story about the Minnesota office on PSN titled A Visit to the Adobe Lightroom Engineers for an explanation of conference room naming.

The two teams, one in San Jose and the one in Minnesota, reminisced about working with Mark. Some of the stories were funny, some poignant and some were melancholy–but all were good natured.

In an ironic twist, Minnesota actually had some pretty good wine while San Jose only had beer to toast with. I say ironic because most of the time the drinks of choice would be reversed (since Mark and George are a bit wine snobbish).

I lucked out and got a Pilsner Urquell…

Mark and Kevin Conner (right) joke about “life with Mark”. Kevin stated his most memorable aspect of Mark’s career was his pure refusal to accept anything but the best. Mark joked that it was “never too late to change a feature”.

My main comment represented the general consensus of the alpha testers who have worked with Mark over the years; “Be careful what you wish for because you just may get it”–and Mark will make it completely different than you thought it would be.

The last goodbye from Minnesota wishing Mark well.

Mark’s last walk down the Adobe halls (on his way to his Adobe HR exit interview).

We walked out of 345 Park Avenue on the way to the Paragon restaurant where Mark’s going away party was to be held.

VP of Engineering for the Digital Imaging Group, Winston Hendrickson (left) and Kevin Connor, Senior Director of Product Management for the same group (right) hosted the party (and paid for the first two rounds–well, I think they paid for every round actually–there were a lot of rounds).

Here’s Kevin saying a few “words” about Mark’s tenure at Adobe…

…and Mark listening carefully.

Kevin presented Mark with a going away present. A 3D print made by Russell Brown.

On close inspection you can see it says “Mr. Microsoft”. But the 3D part actually shows more…

Here’s the 3D arrangement of image planes (below) showing that Mark is actually holding a sign saying Mr. Lightroom that turns into a sign saying Mr. Microsoft. With fire below of course.

Another parting gift was a guitar (I believe from a Photoshop World keynote or party) signed by the “Photoshop World Dream Team” instructors including Scott Kelby, Dave Cross and others.

If you don’t know, Mark is a bit of a guitar buff (spending a lot more money on guitars than camera equipment).

Winston said a few words, claiming he will always go down as the guy who was Mark’s boss when Mark left Adobe.

Bryan Lamkin, former Senior VP of Adobe’s Creative Solutions Business Unit, showed up to say a few words as well. Bryan retired from Adobe in March of 2006 (see the PSN story)

Sean Parent (center in red: researcher at Adobe Systems and manager of the Adobe Software Technology Lab) recounted the time he had spent working with Mark on Photoshop, including the time he wrote a script on Mark’s computer to turn every iteration of the word Photoshop to be spelled PhotoShop (the intercap was a pet peeve of Hamburg’s).

Russell Brown also talked about the importance of Mark’s contributions to Photoshop.

Mark didn’t seem to mind all the attention.

But Mark’s son Gavin didn’t like so much attention–people with cameras…

Gavin decided to hide.

Gavin was pretty much done (he was hungry). Here is Ann, Mark’s wife getting ready to go to McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant for a last supper.

Kevin was melancholic. Obviously Adobe would have preferred not losing Mark, but Mark had already “made his mark” at Adobe and was looking for a new challenge. Mark on the other hand characterized his departure as the scariest thing he had ever done (and mentioned something about RAIN).

At the restaurant, Winston points out that Mark was missing. Seems the long goodbyes took a long time. Finally Mark showed up.

Zalman Stern (from the Camera Raw team) pours some wine for Ann. I think George picked the wine (he usually does, otherwise he tends to complain about the wine).

Mark was eating oysters (left) while Gavin got his fav grilled cheese.

In a more serious moment, Winston wishes Mark well.

Mark’s now defunct Adobe ID–pretty well worn out.

The next morning, Mark and Ann were due to fly up to Seattle to start house hunting. The prospects were daunting–Mark noted that Seattle had just had snow the previous weekend (April 19/20) and that housing costs in Seattle weren’t a lot cheaper than San Jose. And there’s this thing called “RAIN” up there…

As for Mark leaving Adobe, I wasn’t surprised. Mark had talked about leaving the Lightroom team after 2.0 shipped for the last few months. He felt he had pretty much done what he wanted to at Adobe: 11+ years on Photoshop and almost 6 years on Lightroom. And while Mark is a brilliant coder and conceptually creative in the digital imaging/processing realm, he felt a strong pull to do something completely different. For somebody like Mark, there are really very few options; a startup or going someplace where there are few if any limits. He was heavily recruited by Microsoft and given an unbeatable opportunity to work outside his normal digital imaging field. Mark was invited by David Vaskevitch to come lead a team working on the future of OS User Experience at Microsoft.

This is the way Mark phrased it:
Now, given that I find the current Windows experience really annoying and yet I keep having to deal with it, this opportunity was a little too interesting to turn down. I can’t imagine doing serious imaging anywhere other than Adobe, but, I needed to do something other than imaging for a while.

Mark is leaving the Lightroom team at a time when 2.0 is pretty much done except for the bugs (which Mark was literally working on his last day) and the future of Lightroom is really no longer in doubt. The team that Mark has helped assemble for Lightroom’s development and engineering will now actually be able to step out from underneath Mark’s rather large shadow and take Lightroom where it needs to go.

The raw processing pipeline that Lightroom uses is in the capable hands of Thomas Knoll, Zalman Stern and new hire Eric Chan (and a few others). So there will be no let down there. And Mark has long been gone (but not forgotten) when it comes to Photoshop (although the Photoshop team aways seems to get Mark to try to “explain his code” when they come across something he wrote).

The one thing I noted was the gracious manner in which Mark left and the way everybody at Adobe honestly wished him well. Yes, there was a sense of melancholy and a degree of sadness at Mark’s leaving. But no bridges have been burned and Mark will always have a home at Adobe (hey, Adobe even has a Seattle office if the Microsoft thingie doesn’t work out).

Good luck Mark and best wishes. To Microsoft I’ll only say “be careful what you wish for, you just may get it”…

:~)

Source: Time Magazine
Written by Josh Quittner

This might surprise the millions of fans trying to guess who’s the genius behind the hit Web series, You Suck At Photoshop, but no, it’s not the comedian Dane Cook. It’s not Will Ferrell, either.

So who is responsible for the success of the 10-part serial? The series features a hapless, angry, cuckolded, mad-Photoshop-skillz-enabled narrator named Donnie Hoyle and does three things amazingly well: it gives a terrific overview of some key Photoshop techniques; it has an oddly compelling narrative; and it’s wildly funny. It started in December 2007 and ended earlier this month when Donnie suddenly disappeared. Some eight million page views and two Webby Award 2008 nominations (Best Comedy and Best How-To Series) after it launched, a mystery remains: Who is Donnie Hoyle?

You’re probably assuming that the series is the work of a pro, a well-known stand-up comedian…

Wrong! You suck at guessing. (Most of you, anyway.) The auteurs are two ad agency refugees from Covington, Kentucky. And today, they’re unveiling a sequel to their magnum opus: Snatchbuckler’s Second Chance. You can watch the first episode here. Then come back, and I’ll tell you who’s behind it all…

Ready? Troy Hitch, 37, and Matt Bledsoe, 39 — the guys responsible for YSAP and its sequel — met a few years ago while producing a radio ad in Cincinnati, which is 10 minutes from Covington. Bledsoe was the ad’s creative director and Hitch, a polymath, was doing the voice-over (he’s also the voice of Donnie and a real Photoshop expert). They quickly became buddies, started writing funny bits together, and partnered up at a creative agency Hitch later started, Big Fat Institute.

Read entire article

File this under; EEEK!

The poster above is supposedly done by the Katholieke Universiteit Brussel (English: Catholic University of Brussels). I say “supposedly” because according to this Wikipedia entry, last year the university merged with a number of institutions in Brussels (see European University College Brussels), and now has a separate existence only as a legal fiction for accreditation and funding purposes.

But aside from that, do we really need to see an Obama/Clinton mashup? EEEK!

Liz Hurley has risked the ire of children’s health campaigners by admitting she likes having her body airbrushed in photographs.

Liz Hurley likes ‘a certain amount of retouching’.

Miss Hurley, 42, who two years ago vowed never to be seen in a bikini, conceded she didn’t mind being made to look a “bit thinner and a bit younger” as she modelled her new swimwear range.

Launching her new Elizabeth Hurley Beach line, the model and businesswoman said: “I like a certain amount of retouching, like anybody.”

“We all like to get rid of spots and shadows under our eyes. I’ve always been quite particular – I don’t like my face to be retouched. Often, people will want to correct one’s face, and with me, they always want to change my nose and I’m like, ‘No, no, no, I can’t look like that. I don’t mind if you want to make me a bit thinner and a bit younger, but you can’t give me a different jaw or eyebrows.’

“But the vanity retouching – well, who wouldn’t?”

Her comments come as British magazine editors are considering a ban on the use of digitally-enhanced pictures over fears over fears that they are promoting unrealistic body images.

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Error “Could not initialize Photoshop because the file is locked” on Mac OS 10.5 (Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Elements 6)

Photoshop CS3, CS2, or Photoshop Elements fails to start after installing a scanner

Adobe Setup initializes then disappears in Creative Suite 3 or Photoshop CS3

Error “License has expired” when you start Adobe CS3 applications, including Design and Web Suites

Error “Installing Creative Suite 3 / Adobe Photoshop CS3 results in a conflict with Adobe Photoshop CS3″

Even small files take a long time to open or save (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign CS2 and CS3 on Mac OS)

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Press Release: SAN JOSE, Calif. and LAS VEGAS NV — April 14 , 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that it plans to lead an initiative to define an industry-wide open file format for digital cinema files to streamline workflows and help ensure easy archiving and exchange. Adobe intends to leverage its successful Digital Negative Specification (DNG) file format as a foundation, and Adobe plans to work with a broad coalition of leading camera manufacturers, including Panavision, Silicon Imaging, Dalsa, Weisscam, and ARRI—along with software vendors, including Iridas and The Foundry, and codec provider CineForm—to define the requirements for an open, publicly documented file format that it plans to call CinemaDNG.

Adobe is currently working to develop the requirements of the CinemaDNG workflow and intends to subsequently publish a specification for the file format based on collaboration with companies throughout the industry.

“With the CinemaDNG initiative, Adobe is extending its leadership in developing open, interchangeable formats for digital still cameras into the realm of digital cinematography,” said Jim Guerard, vice president of Dynamic Media at Adobe. “By taking a proactive role and working collaboratively with leading digital cinema manufacturers, Adobe is helping to define an industry-standard approach that benefits the entire filmmaking ecosystem. Filmmakers will be able to adopt digital cinema cameras with confidence, and camera manufacturers will be able to provide specialized functionality while ensuring instant file format compatibility with existing workflows.”

Many filmmakers are foregoing film in favor of digital cinema cameras and workflows that offer improved creative flexibility, lower costs, and significantly faster turnaround times. However, those new workflows involve complex hardware and software, with projects passing through multiple vendors along the production pipeline. The proliferation of disparate, vendor-specific raw file formats has the potential to erode some of the advantages of digital cinema. By proactively leading the development of an open, public, and enduring standard that can be adopted throughout the production pipeline, Adobe and other companies through the CinemaDNG initiative are helping to solve an important, emerging workflow issue.

Advantages for Filmmakers
As a publicly documented and open file format, CinemaDNG would offer several advantages for filmmakers. They could avoid roadblocks caused by incompatibilities in workflows that involve multiple devices, vendors, and file formats. They could adopt digital cinema cameras while minimizing the risk that proprietary or camera-specific file formats would be unsupported in the future, because CinemaDNG would provide an open, durable, standard format that would be available for many years to come. Filmmakers could also rest assured that they have access to a robust archival standard for the new generation of raw-capable digital cinema cameras. CinemaDNG would also provide the foundation for an editing workflow that would allow filmmakers to use the highest quality source material.

Advantages for Manufacturers
For camera manufacturers and software developers, CinemaDNG is intended to help remove a key obstacle to the adoption of new products by providing reliable, instant compatibility with existing workflows. Manufacturers may be able to reduce development costs by eliminating the necessity to develop proprietary formats and conversion utilities. CinemaDNG is also planning to deliver support for proprietary metadata, helping manufacturers to differentiate their product offerings from competitors’.

“Experiencing a smoother, more streamlined workflow is, without exception, a good thing and open standards are a great way of accomplishing it,” said Bruno Nicoletti, chief technology officer at The Foundry, a leading visual effects software developer in London. “The Foundry supports Adobe’s plan for CinemaDNG, which will make the adoption of raw digital camera data much easier for everyone in our industry.”

“We are working hard on establishing a realistic and workable method of getting raw data from the camera to post,” said Marc Shipman-Mueller, product manager for Cameras & Lenses at ARRI, a top digital cinema camera manufacturer in Munich. “An industry wide standard for raw data can only help in this future oriented process that will provide multiple benefits for the users of raw data.”

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com .

Wow, that’s a relief. I was getting a bit worried.

It seems that even Matt Drudge was reporting the story of the “naked woman in Dick Cheney’s sunglasses” but McClatchy exposes the real truth. It’s reported that the Office of the Vice President wasn’t amused.

“Clearly the picture shows a hand casting a rod,” grumbled spokeswoman Meagan Mitchell.

Now, if we can just get to the truth of that artificial heart…

The WrestleMania banner on the side of the Lynx building in downtown Orlando shows wrestlers without their nipples. A Lynx bus still sports wrestlers with nipples. (GEORGE SKENE, ORLANDO SENTINEL / March 27, 2008)

Source: OrlandoSentinel.com
Written by Scott Maxwell

Anybody who’s ever seen a professional wrestler knows their bodies don’t look like most folks’. But the wrestlers featured on a massive sign in downtown Orlando look even more unusual.

They’re missing nipples.

Yep. John Cena, Triple H, Randy Orton and even Big Show. All nipple-less.

It’s rather unsettling.

And Ken-like.

Even more unsettling is the fact that government is partly responsible for the missing areolas on the banner that hangs on the side of the Lynx office building, facing Interstate 4, and promotes this weekend’s WrestleMania.

Mayor Buddy Dyer claimed to have the, um, skinny.

“Apparently there’s an ordinance that prohibits them from being displayed,” he said.

“For men’s nipples?” I replied, immediately becoming uncomfortable about discussing such a thing with Buddy.

He shrugged, saying, “It does seem a little overboard.”

It turns out, it was.

There is, in fact, no city law that bans the display of male chests. In fact, the exact same image can be spotted — with nipples aplenty — on Lynx buses.

Comparing the two pictures is like playing a disturbing game of “Spot the Differences.”

Banner detail.

Original image.

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The Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 1.4.1 updates are available immediately as free downloads at http://www.adobe.com/downloads. Senior Photoshop Lightroom Product Manager, Tom Hogarty, has included a complete list of the corrections on his blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal.

On the official White Page is a photo by David Boher showing Vice President Dick Cheney fly-fishing on the Snake River in Idaho. Nice shot, right? But, what exactly is reflected in his sunglasses?

After doing a 400% up-sample in Photoshop, I just can’t tell exactly what (or who) it is…but I can tell you what it kinda looks like. Perhaps it’s the reason for Cheney’s smile?

You decide.

:~)

In the latest saga from Donnie Hoyle (You Suck at Photoshop #10), Donnie puts things in perspective using Vanishing Point…

To the sounds of helicopters and police in the background, Donnie calmly works his way through a demo of Vanishing Point.

As Donnie moves the train off into the sunset, the questions remain, is this the last of Donnie Hoyle? Has the You Suck at Photoshop series been yanked off the air? Is this all there is?

Source: AfterEllen.com
Written by Dorothy Snarker

As the Sex and the City movie fast approaches (May 30, have you circled the day on your calendar with a big red pen yet?), new photos of the fabulous foursome have been released to promote the premiere. The ladies look like no time has passed since they first began sipping cosmos together on-screen a decade ago. Ah, Hollywood magic. Still, some news outlets are expressing surprise that the actresses may have been digitally enhanced in the promo pictures. Um, duh?

U.K. newspapers the Telegraph and Daily Mail both had pieces “exposing” the airbrushed shots. Help me out, British AfterEllen.com readers: Do people not use Photoshop across the pond? Or have we Americans been so conditioned to expect extreme reality makeovers that we no longer notice a digital nip here or computerized tuck there? Heck, even the women’s original Sex and the City photo shoot for the TV show 10 years ago was retouched.

Today the fab four are all in their 40s and beyond: Sarah Jessica Parker (43), Cynthia Nixon (41), Kristin Davis (43) and Kim Catrall (51).

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