Attention Photoshoppers!

Deep Aperture review on Ars Technica

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Tue, 6 Dec 2005 00:47:00 GMT

I just finished reading an incredibly detailed Aperture review by Dave Girard on the excellent Ars Technica website. Dave discovers that there are some significant RAW issues with version 1.0 of Aperture, as well as some other drawbacks. It's unlikely that you'll see another review as detailed anytime soon (given that Apple hasn't sent me a copy!).

Episode 7

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 18:50:00 GMT

Yes, folks, you've been patient, and here's episode 7, with our first interview! Katrin Eismann is the Photoshop Diva, artist, teacher and author, and she shares her thoughts about all things Photoshop.

Episode 6

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 17:51:00 GMT

In this special hour long episode, David takes an in-depth look at Apple's new imaging application Aperture, and decides that Apple was indeed correct in stating that it's a companion, not a competitor, to Photoshop. Learn the good, bad and ugly about Aperture, and compete for a copy of Ben Willmore's "Photoshop CS2: Up to Speed" book (published by Peachpit Press) in this week's Photoshop trivia contest.

Aperture 1st Look

attentionphotoshoi — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 21:54:00 GMT

At the PhotoPlus Expo today, I received an extensive demo of Aperture from Joseph Schorr, the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Aperture. I'll be devoting the next episode of the show to discussing what I learned, but suffice it to say that while it's a very interesting application, there are more than a few significant omissions from the product as it stands today. As far as speed of manipulating RAW files, it's definitely a great performer (of course, I saw it running on a quad core Mac with a boatload of RAM, a machine on which Photoshop also screams), and it's a great way to sort and manage large numbers of RAW files (or any other significant image format, for that matter, including Photoshop files). The Light Box is awesome, and is a great way to look at and play with images. That's the good news. The bad news is that I found the color correction tools to be less than thrilling, and I'll sum it up like this: no Curves control, no densitometer (Info palette), no channel-by-channel capabilities, no masking, no layers, no CMYK output. Yes, the approach of keeping operations separate from the source data files makes tons of sense (as it does in Adobe After Effects), and is a big part of the reason for the speedy performance. I hope this puts some fire under Adobe to consider moving Photoshop towards a similar technology. For professional photographers looking to manage large numbers of Raw files, Aperture will be a useful tool, but for everyone else, the $499 price tag is a bit prohibitive, in my opinion. Listen to the next episode of Attention Photoshoppers! for my in-depth analysis.

The ImagePro myth

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 19:11:00 GMT

I've been getting a lot of email from people who are _incorrectly_ guessing that the answer to the current contest - what was the name of the first version of Photoshop you could _buy_ - is "ImagePro". It seems that the source of this name is a Derrick Story article written for the 10th anniversary of the program, and for the record, this detail is incorrect. ImagePro was a name the Knoll brothers considered (along with PhotoHut), but it was never adopted. A couple of other folks have written in with the name of a scanner vendor, but the name of the scanner vendor is only part_ of the correct answer. Gee, I love this contest stuff!

Apple special announcement

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:27:00 GMT

After I posted episode 5 of the show, I received an invite from Apple (thanks, Christine!) for a press conference to be held next week at the PhotoPlus Expo in NYC. The invite has a picture of a camera lens (!), and says that they'll be unveiling "Apple's latest pro innovations". I am exceedingly psyched, and given that Steve Jobs was showing off the cool "Photo Booth" application this week at the video rollout, I wonder if this is going to be something of interest to Photoshop users. Thoughts?

Adobe RSS feeds

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:17:00 GMT

As mentioned in episode 5, here is the Adobe RSS feed for top issues related to Photoshop, and here is the RSS link for recent Photoshop documents. Paste these links into your RSS news reader application.

Episode 5

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 17:03:00 GMT

In this episode, David continues his 16 bit rant, speculates on Core Image coolness, tells a story about precision crosshairs for painting, reviews "How to Wow - Photoshop for Photography" by Jack Davis & Ben Willmore, and "Photoshop CS2: Up to Speed" by Ben Willmore, and shows a cool little trick using Fade Filter. There's also a new contest for a copy of the excellent Dan Margulis "Lab Color: The Canyon Cunundrum" book.

16 bit images and HDR

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Tue, 4 Oct 2005 14:44:00 GMT

So my comments about 16 bit per channel image manipulation in episode 4 brought in lots of email from listeners who continue to question the need for working with 16 bit data. Check out this link for a great discussion of HDR (High Dynamic Range) image processing and why it's important for the future. Also, check out this link for info on a cool HDR-capable display. Only costs $50,000, but hey, I remember when CD burners were $10,000. And the Andrew Rodney 16 bit challenge mentioned in episode 4 is here .

Episode 4

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 18:55:00 GMT

David gets into the advantages of working with 16 bits per channel and a Popular Science article on image forgery, reviews the Bruce Fraser "Camera Raw for Photoshop" book, links Emerson Lake & Palmer to the Crystallize filter (no kidding!), and tells you why iStockphoto.com rocks (thanks to listener Sean Collins for the tip).

We have a winner!

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:53:00 GMT

Yes, folks, Christopher Holland sent in the correct answer to the contest today. John Knoll established a loose rule that every filter name is a VERB. More to come later this week. Thanks for playing!

Photoshop 1.0 filter menu

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 20:39:00 GMT

Here's the Photoshop 1.0 filter submenu. Note the location under the Image menu, instead of a discrete menu location as seen in later versions.
As of right now, no one has yet correctly answered the challenge: what do these filters - most of them - have in common? As mentioned on episode 3, John Knoll's rule was _loose_, so here's a clue: 6 of the 22 filters break this rule.

Reindeer Graphics and ImageJ links

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 14:31:00 GMT

You can find the folks at Reindeer Graphics here , and the NIH software ImageJ here

Episode 3

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 18:01:00 GMT

This week, David shares his thoughts about the Adobe Stock Image collection, tells the sordid tale of Quark XPosure, discusses Hemera Photo Objects and quantitative image analysis. Also, win a signed copy of the cult collector's book "Photoshop Channel Chops" in the first Attention Photoshoppers! Photoshop Trivia contest.

Biedny interview on visualfood blog

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Fri, 2 Sep 2005 15:18:00 GMT

There's an interview with me up on a cool blog called Visual Food. Read it here

Photoshop interface history site

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 19:00:00 GMT

Last week, listener Jeff Schmidt sent in a link to a cool site that's documented the history of the Photoshop application interface. You can find it here

Episode 2

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:40:00 GMT

This week, David talks about the Adobe-Macromedia merger, remembers XRes, reviews "Photoshop Masking & Compositing" by Katrin Eismann, shares some insights about the technical prowess of Adobe After Effects, and talks about the relationship between the size and resolution of an image.

Episode 1

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 22:03:00 GMT

It's the very first Attention Photoshoppers! In this episode, David introduces the show, looks at the incredible new book "Photoshop Lab Color: The Canyon Cunundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace" by Dan Margulis, talks about some early Photoshop history, and how to do perfect red eye removal in any version of Photoshop.

Welcome to Attention Photoshoppers!

attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 16:31:00 GMT

You've found my new Podcast show, all about the fascinating realm of all things Photoshop. My name is David Biedny, and if you've been using Photoshop for any length of time, you've probably come across one of my books or videos. I was one of the very first people to ever actually see and use Photoshop, and was the principal author of the very first Photoshop book EVER, "The Official Adobe Photoshop Handbook" (Bantam), as well as the cult classic "Photoshop Channel Chops" (New Riders). I'm currently a Contributing Editor for MacAddict magazine, where you can read my product reviews just about every month.

My goal is to make this show the definitive destination for Photoshop related news, history, book and product reviews, tips, tricks and anything that makes your Photoshop work more fun and engaging. We'll be talking to prominent people in the Photoshop industry, artists who are creating cool work and developers making the next great plugin or companion product, as well as the authors who have spawned the massive aftermarket of Photoshop books. Any of you who have listened to "The David Biedny Zone" on Gene Steinberg's "Tech Night Owl" internet radio show already know that I'm just a little opinionated, and I'll continue that tradition on "Attention Photoshoppers".

If you want to get in touch with the show, ask a question about Photoshop, or offer an opinion of anything on the show, you can reach us at attentionphotoshoppers@gmail.com .

So sit back and enjoy the show!