Matt Kloskowski of NAPP and the infamous Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips, has come out with a response to the Apples release of their Aperture 3. He has a blog post of 5 Reasons to Stay with Lightroon? posted Feb 15, 2010.
I will let you got to the link above to view the entire post. But, here are my quick thoughts on the Lightroom vs. Aperture. First, any program that makes my life easier is a good program. When I first got my MacBook Pro, I was given a trial version of Apples Aperture 1. It was a step up from iPhoto, because it offered more post processing control over the current version of iPhoto at the time. I knew I wanted to go the Adobe Lightroom way, because of the workflow is designed to work better with other Adobe products i.e. Photoshop. Another reason I chose Lightroom over Aperture, is the fact that most plug-ins a free, and more user presets.
Aperture has one major benefit that I looked into to help me make a decision to go with Apple Aperture. In the early days I really used the iLife programs especially iWeb and iMovie/iDVD. Aperture works seamless with these programs. However, as my needs grew beyond what these programs offered, my interest in Aperture diminished. I nolonger use iWeb for my web publishing, I use Adobe Dreamweaver CS4.
In conclusion, any program that makes photo post processing easier for anyone whether it is Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, Adobe Bridge or one of the other web 2.o programs available, I think you should use the best one for your needs.
Post your comment, thoughts or ideas in the comment section below or take the survey.
Matt’s Final Thoughts:
Final Thoughts If you’re a current Lightroom user, you’re among the group of the most used photo management/processing software in the world. There’s a reason why when you do a search for buzz, news, tutorials, presets, etc… on Lightroom vs. the same for Aperture, you find much more about Lightroom. It’s an awesome program and like anything out there, will just get better with time. Be happy with it. If your curiosity just has to get the best of you then by all means, download the free trial of Aperture and give it a try yourself. Maybe you’ll switch. If that’s the right thing for you then go for it. Just don’t do it because it’s new and different. As always, leave a comment. I welcome your thoughts on the topic (just be nice)
I am still working on my photo web site. It’s still a work in progress, however my free trail of Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 ends today. I have learned alot in the last 30 days.
I still have a ton of reading to do, but I need to order a copy of Dreamweaver to continue my construction.
Learning a new Language
I have been working on a new website. When I got my MacBook Pro, I also bout a year subscription to Apples Mobile Me. I built a small website in iWeb ‘08. I know that iWeb ‘09 has many more features then iWeb ‘08, but I didn’t feel it was going to produce what I needed. The UI or user interface is great. Drag and Drop, easy setup and easy to post, as long as you had an active Mobile Me account. Like I said, iWeb is a great little program, but it was limited to what I thought I needed. Stuff I wanted to do to on my site was beyond the capabilities of iWeb.
So I am working on a new design for my website. I am using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. I downloaded it free from Adobes website. They offer a 30-day free trial. I have used Dreamweaver before.
A few years ago, a friend and I would drive to Kearney Mesa (San Diego) twice a week to attend this free Dreamweaver class. The version we used was the Dreamweaver MX that was Macromedia product. The new version of Dreamweaver is easier to use and not as clunky, even though I thought that Dreamweaver MX was the bomb back in the day.
So if you look at my site you would say I haven’t gotten very far. Well you would be correct. This is why I have left the old website under my current domain name www.KiHoPhoto.com. Continue Reading…
I have been working on a new website. So I am working on a new design for my website. I am using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. I have not done much to the new site because; I spend a tremendous amount of time reading. Dreamweaver isn’t like iWeb, you have to know a little html to get going, plus you need to have a little understanding of how the w3c works. Here are a few books that I am reading Dreamweaver CS4 The Missing Manual, and Creating a Web Site The Missing Manual. The Dreamweaver CS4 book has almost 1100 pages. So you can imagine its not light reading.
Most sites are built with HTML, DHTML, XML and CSS. I have found some that are built using Flash or have flash components in them. Other sites use Java Script for fancy and smooth looking features. And then you have some sites that have a pseudo Java Script function JQuery. JQuery is a simple way of writing Java Script. Also, you have website that use MySQL and or Php. Then I have found some sites that use a little of everything.
I am so confused. Yesterday with all the new languages that I was learning, I thought to myself “I might as well learn how to read and speak Chinese or Japanese it would be easier”.
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.
Several months back I posted on my blog Safety First about the importance of backing up your files and data, especially photo files. As you may have gathered I am a photographer. No matter what you may think of my photography it does not really matter. The point is I spend an good amount of personal time behind my lens trying to capture that perfect photo in a moment of time. So I can afford to lose any of my images no matter how bad they are. If I choose to delete them at least I made the choice and not a hardware or software failure doing it for me.
I brought this up because one of my Terabyte HD’s was filling up with all my system backups. I only had 50 gigabytes left on my primary backup HD. So I decided to delete all my backups up to November 1, 2009. It was simple, all I needed to do is find the folder and files under the Backup main folder a delete the folder I wanted.
I moved the no-longer needed folder to the trash. What I didn’t realize is how long it would take to actually empty my system trash once the deleted folders were in the trash. For the record it took just over 5 hours for the entire trash can to be emptied. That just over half a terabyte of free space has now been recovered. I am sure that in my obsession of backing up my system that it will only be a matter of month and I will be deleting a 1/2 terabyte of re-storable files and folders.
If you feel so inclined to read my previous post here is the link Safety First.
If you use WordPress for your blog then you know you have the option to use Akismet to help keep the spam down on your site. What most bloggers that use WordPress know that you can download and use Akismet for free.
What worries me is when companies explain that you can protect your WordPress site form spammers by using a anti-spam program that they will supply to you for $5 per month. Wow that seems like a good deal if you are a idiot.
I by my domain names through GoDaddy.com. I also host my website trough GoDaddy.com. However, when my contract is up with GoDaddy.com I am going to consider using a different Web Hosting Company.
I find it a little insulting that GoDaddy.com would send me an email soliciting my business for a product that I can get for free. I have a WordPress Blog, and you need to have a better then average intelligence to have and maintain a WordPress site. I have changed my template several times. I have added many plug-ins and other add-ons. One of the plug-ins I use and downloaded for free is the Akismet anti-spam plug-in.
If GoDaddy really wanted to keep me as a customer instead of trying rip me off and get me to pay monthly for a service that is free, they should have pointed it out to me with a link and tell me that it is a free plug-in that can be found on the WordPress Plug-in page. Here is the email that was sent to me.
Kelby Training Live is offering a Adobe Photoshop CS4 Seminar in Sacramento, CA on Monday November 9, 2009. This should be a well informative trainging session taught by Ben Willmore. For more information got to Kelby Training Live.
Ben Willmore has personally helped over 30,000 design and photography professionals make the transition from blindly following step-by-step techniques, to “Aha! I finally GET Photoshop!” His breakthrough teaching style of “not-just-how-but-why” has made Ben the in-house instructor of choice for companies such as Mercedes Benz, Adobe Systems, America Online, and Fisher-Price. He’s a member of the Dream Team for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), a featured speaker at design and photography conferences in around the world, and writes for numerous digital imaging publications.
Ben Willmore is author of the award-winning, best-selling book, Adobe Photoshop Studio Techniques and co-author of another bestseller, How to Wow: Photoshop for Photography. His hit seminars, “Photoshop Mastery” and “Photoshop for Photographers”, have established Ben as one of America’s favorite Photoshop instructors. He has personally helped over 30,000 design and photography professionals make the transition from blindly following step-by-step techniques, to “Aha! I finally GET Photoshop!” His breakthrough teaching style of “not-just-how-but-why” has made Ben the in-house instructor of choice for companies such as Mercedes Benz, Adobe Systems, America Online, and Fisher-Price. He’s a member of the Dream Team for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), a featured speaker at design and photography conferences in around the world, and writes for numerous dig… read more »
Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 for Photographers
Coming to Sacramento, CA | Monday, November 9, 2009
Join Ben Willmore as he shows you how to master your digital photography
and apply the hottest and most cutting-edge Photoshop techniques to take your photography skills to a whole new level!
You’ll learn extremely powerful Photoshop techniques such as adjustment essentials by exploring Photoshop CS4’s new adjustments and masks panels
and see how they can solve even the most challenging adjustment issues.
You’ll also learn how to control the viewer’s experience by directing your viewer’s eye through your photographs by adjusting tone, color, and sharpness. Learn how to produce images that would be impossible in a traditional darkroom, such as, how to slow down water without slow shutter speeds, reduce or eliminate environmental mist, changing background colors by filtering the subject’s light, creative light painting and streak photos with a difference, shooting techniques that ensure accurate color and skin tones, how to combine two less-than-ideal shots to produce an acceptable result, hand-held extreme panoramas that will blow your mind, a two-shot process for making flash look natural, simulating sunrise or sunset light, and much, much more!
“The BEST! One of a kind, master teacher, focused, clear, incredible instructor! Ben’s off the charts!!! I’m amazed at how much I learned!”
P. Toney, Attendee – view more testimonials
with Ben Willmore Best-Selling Author, Photographer, and Instructor
If you are fascinated in Astrophotography and how they do it, wired.com has a great article of how Rogelio Bernal Andreo does his Astrophotography. He walks you a quick tutorial of how it’s done and the equipment that he uses to make his fantastic images of the stars. Here is the link to Wired.com article “The Making of a Mind-Blowing Space Photo”.
My attempts have never show the results that Andreo has produced. The closest celestial body to earth is the only thing I can get a good image from in space.
This is not my photo I borrowed it for another Flickr users. I use a Mac, so I can’t create my own.
A few months back I put up a little post called Fractalius… It hasn’t received a lot of attention, but it has seen its share of web traffic.
In a nutshell it was about my frustration with Redfield who creates this fractalius plug-in. If you haven’t seen this plug in take a look on the internet. Go to Google or your favorite search engine and type in Fractalius images.
Redfield has stated in thier FAQ, that the plug-in is not supported on for a Mac, and nor do they ever plan on making a plug-in for Mac.
I have noticed an increased amount of traffic to my blog posting over the past few months. After going back through the searches that have led readers to the post and 90% have been from “Fractalius for Mac”.
If you ask me I think that Redfield is missing a crucial market. The Apple Mac user is basically a graphic user, and since this is a graphics image plug-in, I think it would be only natural to have this unusual plug-in available for the Mac OS platform.
I know, I am not the only Mac user that thinks this way. After linking to other sites from the links queried on my blog, I found an on-line petition. This petition is for all those Mac user being discriminated against by Redfield Plug-in. This petition is for all those Mac users that have said “Enough, I want my Fractalius Plug-in”.
Do yourself a favor sign the petition above. Do me a favor a sign the petition. Do it for your mom, your dog, your fish or your spider . Sign the petition, sign it for any reason on earth just sign it, so we all can enjoy that little plug-in.
My life through actions. Actually it’s my life through Photoshop CS3 Actions. Earlier this week while I was furiously trying to catch up on all the photography blogs I follow, I found a tutorial by wildlife photographer Moose Peterson.
The tutorial is how to create a poster action in Photoshop for a web page. The first few times I tried creating the action I had a few hiccups. Then when I got the hang of creating an action, I felt more confident to create and work on my own. I took his action and put my own spin on it.
It really is a process of trial and error. Unfortunately I discovered you really have to double check your work. Once the action is created and you find a mistake… It is a pain in the arse to correct one line-action. I find that it is better to scrap the whole action and start over. I have managed to shorten a few steps because I have had to redo a few more than once.
If you don’t know how to use or create actions, take the time and learn. Once they are created, you spend less time in Photoshop and more time creating more productive stuff.
Above and below are examples of the poster and picture frame actions I created in the past few days. If you have any question about actions or how I created mine drop me a note and I will do my best to explain what I learned.
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 
