Photoshop Elements 7 & Photoshop.com

Adobe has announced version 7 of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements as well as a mobile strategy for the Photoshop.com website. Looking at Adobe’s site it appears that these version upgrades are only for the Windows platform. While I understand the rationale, WAAAAAAYYYYY more Windows consumers in the global marketplace, it’s a little disappointing that the Mac version still lags behind. What’s even more annoying is that Adobe’s mobile strategy is setup immediately for Windows 6 Mobile, and not an iPhone–still on my Christmas wish list donate today–which is really a better device for imaging.

As a professional, my day-to-day is inside Photoshop CS3, and rarely do I need to fire up PSE. In the consumer market, interest in PSE is picking up, which caused me to add it to the Media Cats class list. It’s a great tool even for the serious photo hobbyist, and with a price point of $99 it’s a tough program to beat. So long as they don’t make features exclusive to PSE over Photoshop I’ll be okay. I hate having to install an app *cough iPhoto* that I keep just for one or two features I use on occasion.

First reviews of Photoshop Elements 7 seemed to draw a yawn, but PSE has always felt a bit cluttered to me compared to Photoshop. Certainly it does not have the UI strength built into Lightroom. More coverage can be found on the CNET download blog.

Send Scott Citron Some Love

I have had the privilege to meet a few folks while growing my business, and traveling the country. Many of them are gurus in the industry, authors, well-respected educators within the Adobe community. One such person is Scott Citron.

While I don’t know Scott very well, I appreciated his dry sense of humor & wit the few times I heard him speak during gatherings of Adobe InDesign chapter leaders. I found him easy to talk to, and we swapped a few stories about clients we had in common.

Recently, Scott was in a very serious car accident. He suffered a number of injuries, was admitted to ICU, and just last week was brought out of sedation after multiple surgeries. One of the first things Scott said upon regaining consciousness was “This sucks.” Sandee Cohen has immortalized those words with a design in support of Scott’s recovery.

Please take a moment to read Scott’s story, leave some get well comments, and purchase some “This Sucks” gear.

UPDATE - 08/07/2008 - Scott is awake & waving.

Adobe Releases Lightroom 2

Adobe has released Lightroom 2. Information Week has a summary of all the new Lightroom 2 features for anyone who did not download the beta. Eric Bernskiold has a blog post with links to learning resources for Lightroom. Go visit the Lightroom Community education center where you can chat with Dallas’s resident expert Gene McCullagh.

As with the CS3 suite, I would recommend this upgrade to anyone looking to improve their Adobe digital workflow. The improved Library support, and targeted adjustment brush in the Develop module expand both the function and creativity of Lightroom. Look for a more detailed review on this blog in the upcoming weeks.

Getting Flash On The iPhone

Yesterday, Adobe chief executive Shantanu Narayen said Flash has been successfully run on an iPhone emulator. This news may raise the hopes that Flash will show itself on the iPhone at some point, maybe even this year. The full story can be read in this Apple Insider article.

My one complaint about working on a Mac has been its less than stellar Flash performance. This is a common complaint, and many of the working Flash guys I know run Windows XP. Apple has complained for some time about the poor OS X performance, and I don’t know if Adobe will change their position. Flash is not the only product that is inferior on the Mac. Acrobat has more functionality (LiveCycle Designer), and features (3D support) under Windows than on OS X. The recent release of Acrobat 9 only furthers this gap.

While the Intel Macs have helped boost Apple’s position in the computer market, I think the bottom line is that Adobe will focus on the platform that delivers more dollars through the door. Corporate customers are more likely to be on a Windows computer. That demographic is the one that relies on the feature set of Acrobat.

Flash leaves me puzzled. I’m seeing a lot more designer/programmer types on Macs, in fact whenever I attend an Adobe related event, the speakers are on Macs. Perhaps the low percentage of Macs in the 3D space has something to do with the lower numbers & Adobe interest. Will be throwing out that question and more while I visit with Adobe here in San Jose.

UPDATE - Found an excellent article regarding Flash & the iPhone via Chris Pirillo.

Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth Betas Available

If you want to stay on top of Adobe’s vision for new media, the best place to go is the Adobe Labs. There you’ll find the latest innovations, and next creations from the engineers that make creatives squeal like giddy school girls.

The Lightroom 2.0 beta was recently made available for download, and now bleeding edge creatives can checkout the next releases of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth. These products, used for web development, web prototyping, and audio, allow you a sneak peek at the future of the Creative Suite, and a glimpse at the integration between products. Cross-media publishing should be on your brain, as new Adobe products continue to blur the lines between web & print products allowing a smoother exchange of files, and better workflow.

If the betas are any indication, the CS4 release looks to be the next stage in creative evolution.

Stupid Person of the Week

This week’s award for stupid people goes to Lance Cpl. David Motari and Sgt. Crismarvin Banez Encarnacion of the Marine Corps. You may remember these two from their infamous YouTube video where they threw a puppy off a cliff. (The video was immediately removed from YouTube’s website) It’s unfortunate that such cruelty is considered humorous by many folks.

I had never really witnessed animal cruelty personally until I came to Texas. I was shocked the first time I drove I-35 through Austin and saw a billboard warning motorists about frat boys throwing kittens at cars on the highway. Criminally insane, just maddening I tell you. In 2003, I was in San Antonio and saw some teenagers torturing kittens.

There are few things that really upset me, but the behavior displayed by Lance Cpl. David Motari and Sgt. Crismarvin Banez Encarnacion is completely unacceptable. I don’t know if there’s a punishment fitting enough.

Time Warner Cable To Meter Internet Access

It appears Time Warner Cable has decided to test the waters for metered Internet access. Starting in Beaumont, Texas, customers will be charged additional fees if they go over their monthly allotted bandwidth. The proposed rate is $1 for every gigabyte of bandwidth exceeded.

Time Warner spokesman Alex Dudley has stated that the new price plan reflects the impact of 5% of customers consuming a heavy amount of bandwidth. Michael Arrington from TechCrunch shoots back that metered access will stifle innovation.

I agree with the opinions that Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and other cable companies are simply extorting customers in areas where they are the only option for Internet access. It doesn’t surprise me that cable would make this shift given the availability and increasing use of media downloads via iTunes, Amazon, etc. The telecommunications industry has a better network to handle the bandwidth usage of its customers, and is not directly impacted by the consumer choosing to download an episode of Grey’s Anatomy from iTunes or ABC.com versus watching it on cable.

I’m not sure how many customers will jump ship when hit with the new metered access plans. The unfortunate folks trapped with TWC or Comcast as their only option, will have to pay. For myself, I will quickly change providers.

I don’t see this proposal as a long term option in a competitive market. Hosting companies used to charge for the bandwidth usage on a metered basis, but many now have super-large plans or unlimited bandwidth. Same can be said for cell phones; competition recently spurred the new onslaught of unlimited plans.

POW! BAM! ZING! Updated Website!

Between clients, the birth of my daughter Sydney, finding time for Michelle, school, frequent air travel, and well, that which we call having a life, it’s taken several weeks to get the website redesign flushed out. But here you have it. I chose to build the site using Brian Gardner’s Revolution Theme set. Overall, it wasn’t too difficult to tweak the theme, and Brian has some decent Camtasia tutorials on the website. He has also built a pretty active community around his themes. If Brian cannot assist you with web development, he has several recommended WordPress enthusiasts who can.

I can now direct my attention to generating the content that we (the collective) have so readily talked about in recent months. I have my minions working in the background to transfer content from previous sites, and launching the podcast is the next big update for the blog.

For longtime readers, I appreciate your patience during this transition, and for all the new folks dropping in, expect great things here.

Adobe TV Launches Along with Media Player

Adobe launched a new Media Player alongside its new Adobe TV channel. A review of the Adobe Media Player is up at Ars Technica. I agree with the initial assessment that limited channels & limited file support will not do much to peak interest. However, as an AIR-based application, the Media Player is a cross-platform solution for watching and storing web content on a local machine.

Consumers have numerous decisions to make when grabbing their content on the web. I’m interested to see which media players, video channels, and file formats will rise as the people’s choice.

Adobe Lightroom 2.0 Beta Available

The Lightroom 2.0 beta is available for download over at Adobe Labs. This beta can be run simultaneously with your current Lightroom 1.3.1 install, and is not meant to import catalogs from the current version.

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