My Passport Studio Ultra-portable Hard Drives
I have blogged several time about backing up my photos and Hard Drive. I use mostly Western Digital external hard drives. Wester Digital has recently released a new series of “My Passport” and “My Book” HD with a new feature called E-label.
Camera Dojo’s, Kerry Garrison shared a blog post written by Maurice Naragon. Here is the link to the blog post written by Maurice Naragon, My Passport Studio for Mac from Western Digital.
Does anyone have any news when Adobe will release their Creative Suite 5. I started looking across the web to find a release date for the CS5. I have come across a blog called CS5.org. According to CS5.org they had an unconfirmed release date of October 2009. Well obviously they were a little off on their release date.
I did find another date that seemed be a little more realistic. This date has been repeated form web site to blog. The date of the suspected release will be April 2010.
3. Adobe Creative Suite 5
Rumor has it that the new versions of Photoshop, Flash et. al should be with us around April. It’ll be a new era for the design suite because the Mac version has been completely rebuilt in Cocoa, and will no longer run on PowerPC chips. Judging by the sneaky peeks we’ve seen here and from what was announced at Adobe MAX 2009, designers will be whimpering with delight when CS5 finally becomes available. New goodies you can expect from the suite include ‘wet look’ 3D Photoshop paint brushes, native iPhone game compiling in Flash, and a ‘Smart Paste’ tool for Dreamweaver that makes it easier to integrate vector graphics and Illustrator-created content into your web sites. Ref: Top Software for 2010
I am really interested in the release of CS5, because I am thinking of buying the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium and I don’t want to throw my money into a product that will be out dated in two months. I learned my lesson in the past. I have purchased products and spent a great deal of money on them, when a month or two later they release a new item. Then it’s to late to return the item and it cost another chunk of change to upgrade. That happened to me on my DSLR.
I guess that is one of the questions I can ask when I head into San Francisco for the Photoshop 20th Anniversary bash.
I you have any information on a release date of any Adobe CS5 products put them in the comments.
Apple iPad
I am sure I am not the First, and I know I won’t be the last. Apple today revealed in San Francisco, in their grand fashion the new long anticipated iPad. About six months ago word was out that Apple Inc. was going to come out with a new device. And today was that day to see what the iPad would look like and how much it would cost. It seems to be a large version of the iTouch.
The size seem to be about the same as the MacBook Air just without the clam shell. The screen is 9.7 inches, measured diagonally. So overall, it’s slightly smaller than a magazine. And at just 1.5 lbs and 0.5 inches thin, it’s easy to carry and use anywhere. The high-resolution, 9.7 inch LED-backlit, IPS display on iPad is remarkably crisp and vivid. It uses a display technology called IPS (in-plane switching), it has a wide, 178° viewing angle.
iPad uses the same revolutionary technology that’s in an iPhone multi-Touch. To maximize battery life, Apple engineers took the same lithium polymer battery technology they developed for our notebook computers and applied it to the iPad. As a result, you can use iPad for up to 10 hours while surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos, or listening to music.
The iPad will be released in March with wireless, and in April Apple plans on releasing the 3G version. The iPad will start at $499 pirce tag. And iPad is available with a choice of 16, 32 or 64GB flash storage. I don’t think that will be enough storage. I have a feeling that will be a limiting factor for those of us that will be using this as a substitue when we don’t want to us our MacBooks.
Here is the link to the video if your would like to learn more. iPad
Hi,
I thought I would post this little bit of news. I was reading Scott Kelby’s new post and found a contest to get a free ticket to the Adobe Photoshops 20th Anniversary invitation. The birthday party will be on February 18, 2010 at the Palace of the Fine Art theater, in San Francisco.
Here is the link to Scott Kelby’s Blog Photoshop Insider. Read his post and sign up, maybe I will see at the party. I just got my ticket sent to me in my email.
Thanks Scott, that was fast service.
Ringed Nudibranch at the California Academy of Sciences, display tank for California Nudibranchs.
The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach is offering a special event for photographers. I have been to many aquariums. The more popular the aquarium the busier it is with visitor and guests. Sometime I wished that I had the aquarium to myself so I could film the exhibits without the interference of people walking in front of your lens or bumping you as you hold your camera still for that long exposure shot, because most aquariums don’t allow tripods, because tripods can trip and injure clumsy visitors.
Another plus to a photographers only night, is you can bring flashes, light boxes and any equipment that may require to plug in. Most of this equipment is prohibited at any other time at aquariums.
Sometimes the addition of people in the image make the photo. Here is an example that I took a couple years ago at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The addition of people made the image.
For more information read below or got to Aquarium of the Pacific Events. Continue Reading…
I saw this posted on the East Bay Photography Meetup site:
East Bay/SF Photo Op – No Pants Subway Ride 2010
- Description
- As part of the national Improv Everywhere movement(http://improveverywhe…, riders across the country are riding public transportation without pants…this should prove to be an interesting photo op.
Locally, a group of folks will be riding the Pittsburgh/Bay Point line and droppin’ trou’s between the hours of 2:30-6pm. They’ll be taking the 1:27PM Train out of Concord with others joinging along the way and getting off at the Embarcadero BART station at 2:11. From there, they’ll hop onto some unknown Muni Transportation and continue the ride.
However the first round of the NFL Plays will be on TV, so I might not make it.
Costco Photo Center has recently sent out “An Exclusive Invitation”. If you are a member of Costco’s Online Photo Center then you recently received a email. Costco Photo Center is launching a new free service to provide Costco Photo Center members with valuable tips on digital photography, prints and gifts. Here is the letter they sent out if you missed it Continue Reading…
Adobe today released Lightroom 2.6, Camera Raw and DNG Converter 5.6. According to Adobe this willl be the final update to Lightroom 2.0. Next stop Adobe Lightroom 3.0.
In the new release from Adobe Lightroom 2.6, Adobe fixed previous issues that came to be in release 2.5. They also added new support from new camras that came to market since the last update.
Click here to get the download:
Known Issues
• Burning exported images to disc is not available for the Lightroom 64-bit Windows application.
• Upgrading a Lightroom 1 catalog during a catalog import can create multiple temporary copies of the catalog while upgrading
• Lightroom performance can be impacted when the Window’s Recycle Bin contains thousands of files
• Lightroom may not automatically launch an import dialog when a memory card is attached to a Windows Vista computer. Please select the Import button in the Library and select the attached card reader to begin the import.
• Lightroom 2.6 will not automatically migrate plug-ins located in the following directory: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2\Modules\. Any plug-ins in this folder should be moved to: o XP: C:/Documents and Settings/{your_username}/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules/ o Vista: C:/Users/{your_username}/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules/
Supported File Formats:
• JPEG
• TIFF (8 bit, 16 bit)
• PSD (8 bit, 16 bit)
• DNG
• Proprietary raw formats (Please visit http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html for a
full list of raw file support. File support for Lightroom 2.6 aligns with Camera Raw 5.6)
New Supported Cameras:
Support for the following cameras has been added in this update.
Canon EOS 1D Mark IV Mamiya M22
Canon EOS 7D Mamiya M31
Canon PowerShot G11 Nikon D3s
Canon PowerShot S90 Olympus E-P2
Leaf Aptus-II 5 Panasonic DMC-FZ38
Mamiya DM22 Pentax K-x
Mamiya DM28 Sigma DP1s
Mamiya DM33 Sony A500
Mamiya DM56 Sony A550
Mamiya M18 Sony A850
Important File Format Support Exceptions (Formats not supported):
• CMYK Files
• PSD files saved without a composite image. (Saved without “Maximize Compatibility” setting)
• Files with dimensions greater than 65,000 pixels per side (512 Megapixel Total)
• All video files, including those acquired by digital still cameras
New in Lightroom 2.6
The goal of this release is to address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom 2 and provide additional camera raw support. A comprehensive list of issues fixed in this release is included below:
Lightroom 2 Bugs – Fixed
• The crop tool would unlock a locked aspect ratio after a rotation adjustment
• For Mac OS X 10.6 customers, visual artifacts could appear when panning an image viewed at 1:1 in
the Develop module.
• For Mac OS X 10.6 customers, the 10.6.2 update included a correction that prevented Lightroom 2 from opening more than two files using the Edit-in-Photoshop functionality.
• Lightroom 2.6 provides a fix for an issue affecting PowerPC customers using the final Lightroom 2.5 update on the Mac. The issue, introduced in the demosaic change to address sensors with unequal green response, has the potential to create artifacts in highlight areas when processing raw files from Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and various medium format digital camera backs.
• Lightroom 2.5 and earlier did not support the updated Panasonic DMC-LX3 aspect ratio modes added with the camera’s latest version 2.0 firmware.
Working with Lightroom 2 and Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw
Lightroom and Photoshop Camera Raw share the same image processing technology to ensure consistent and compatible results across applications that support raw processing. These applications include Photoshop CS4, Photoshop Elements 7.0 and Premiere Elements 7.0.
Photoshop Camera Raw 5.6
Adobe applications must be updated with the Camera Raw 5.6 plug-in in order to ensure compatibility with Lightroom 2 develop module settings and Photoshop integration features. Photoshop CS4 users can update the Camera Raw plug-in automatically using the Update tool listed under the Help menu. The Camera Raw 5.6 plug-in can also be downloaded and installed manually by visiting the Adobe web site: www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html. Please follow the installation instructions carefully.
Sharing Lightroom Settings with Camera Raw 5.6
By default, Lightroom’s develop module settings are stored in Lightroom’s database. In order to ensure that Lightroom develop settings can be viewed by Camera Raw 5.6 the settings must be written to the XMP metadata block for that file. This metadata is stored in an XMP sidecar file (Imagename.xmp) in the current image directory of proprietary raw files or stored directly within DNG files. To update images with the latest develop settings, choose the library module and select the group of target images. Choose the shortcut Command(Ctrl) + S to save the settings to the XMP metadata block.
Viewing Lightroom settings in Camera Raw 5.6
Before working in conjunction with Lightroom and Camera Raw please set the Camera Raw preference to: Save image settings in: Sidecar “.xmp” files. By default Camera Raw will display the image adjustments exactly as performed in Lightroom’s develop module.
Viewing Camera Raw settings in Lightroom
Raw files edited by previous versions of Camera Raw will maintain their previous appearance when imported into Lightroom. Note: Those files must have been edited with the preference set to Save image settings in: Sidecar “.xmp” files in order for Lightroom to respect the previous edit. Files edited in Camera Raw after importation into Lightroom can be updated in Lightroom by choosing the “Read Metadata from Files ” from the Metadata file menu. Note: This menu option is only available in the Lightroom Library.
Additional Notes on Camera Raw and Lightroom
• Camera Raw will only read the current settings for the primary image in the Lightroom Library. Virtual Copy adjustments will not be displayed or available in Camera Raw 5.6
Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2010, the New York Institute of Photography (http://www.nyi100years.com) is pleased to offer the free NYIP Monthly Newsletter to photographers looking to improve their photographic skills. In addition, when aspiring photographers sign up for the NYIP online newsletter they will receive as a PDF download “NYIP’s Three Guidelines and Six Tips for Great Photographs” – a colorful collection of ideas and eye-catching photographs that will quickly and easily help photographers take better pictures. Read more…
Free Photography Tips from the New York Institute of Photography
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The San Francisco Meetup Group is planning a rendezvous on November 21, 2009 at 4:30pm. Meeting place Dolores Park 20th St., San Francisco, CA 94110.
Twilight Shootout & Meetup!
Xavier Lanier and I got to talking a bit after last months meetup,
he expressed his keen interest in helping to organize a Shootout and get a
chance to meet all the local photogs and introduce them to
Notebook.com as a resource. Xavier has been in touch with HP
and is very excited about their new laptop the HP Envy 15 – HP
and Intel have joined him in hosting our after party! Read More…
