Photoshop Online?

I found through StumbleUpon this cool website called pixlr that is basically an online version of Photoshop albeit an older one. The toolbar, layers, and history layout and functionality could have been directly copy and pasted from Photoshop. It was built in Flash 9. Seems fitting that a company would try to kill your product by using another of your products. It's like being shot in the back with your own gun.

I see online applications as the way of the future. No longer will apps be purchased on CD-ROMs and installed on your computer. You will simply subscribe to let's say Adobe Online and log on to a secure account and select the apps you want. There won't be anymore yearly releases or upgrades, they will fix the bugs as they arise and add functionality as the demand requires. Utopia!

EWU Athletic Lettering

I found a tutorial on creating athletic lettering at The Design Playbook . I created an example of my alma mater Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA.

From Lightroom to flickr by Magic

I was given a link to this great Lightroom 2 plugin by a good friend that throws me tidbits of social networking goodness occasionally. This plugin allows you to export directly to your authenticated flickr account. It is truly a timesaver.



This talented programmer is living in Japan. His name is Jeffrey Friedl. After downloading and installing the plugin I was having trouble with it enabling. I sent him a bug alert and he emailed me with a fix within a few hours. Great customer service for a guy that was just demo'ing his plugin.

The plugin basically puts the functionality of flickr into the export section of Lightroom. You can not only upload the exported media to flickr but you can click about a million option boxes to totally optimize the way your media is handled by flickr. You can put your photo in a preexisting set or create a new one. You can send the photo to a group photo pool. You can specify the level of permission the photo gets and then send a tweet about it.

I love it when software goes above and beyond by not only giving me what I want, but giving me 100 extra things that will give me new ideas for working. That's what makes great software. Check him out .

A Bridge to flickr: Metadata Propagation

Here's a little table that is in beta. It is an attempt to determine what metadata fields Adobe Bridge inputs and flickr outputs. This can help with serialization of media content.

Data Sets	Adobe Bridge CS3	flickr.com
File Properties	Filename	*Information may be propagated from Filename, Title or Headline.
	Document Type	File Type:
	Application	Software:
	Date File Created	Date and Time (Original):
	Date File Modified	Date and Time (Modified):
	File Size	File Size:
	Dimensions	Image Width: and Image Height:
	Dimensions (in inches)	Dependant upon Dimensions and Bit Depth
	Resolution	X-Resolution: and Y-Resolution:
	Bit Depth	Bits Per Sample:
	Color Mode	Color Space:
IPTC Core	Creator	Artist: and By-line:
	Creator: Job Title	By-line Title:
	Creator: Address	Creator Address:
	Creator: City	Creator City:
	Creator: State/Province	Creator Region:
	Creator: Postal Code	Creator Postal Code:
	Creator: Phone(s)	Creator Work Telephone:
	Creator: Email(s)	Creator Work Email:
	Creator: Website(s)	Creator Work URL:
	Headline	Headline:
	Description	Caption- Abstract:
	Keywords	Keywords: and Subject:
	IPTC Subject Code	Subject Code:
	Description Writer	Caption Writer:
	Date Created*	Date Created:
	Intellectual Genre	Intellectual Genre:
	IPTC Scene	Scene:
	Location	Location:
	City	City:
	State/Province	Province- State:
	Country	Country- Primary Location Name:
	ISO Country Code	Country Code:
	Title	Object Name:
	Job Identifier	Original Transmission Reference:
	Instructions	Instructions:
	Provider	Credit:
	Source	Source:
	Copyright Notice	Copyright:
	Copyright Status
	Rights Usage Terms	Usage Terms:
	Raw Filename	Raw File Name:
Camera Data (EXIF)	Exposure Mode	Exposure Mode:
	Focal Length	Focal Length:
	Lens	Lens:
	Max Aperture Value	Max Aperture Value:
	Flash	Flash Mode:
	Metering Mode	Metering Mode:
	Custom Rendered	Custom Rendered:
	White Balance *Note this value is of the original image.	White Balance: *Note this value is of the original image.
	Scene Capture Type	Scene Capture Type:
	Serial Number	*Not displayed.
Camera Raw	Raw Filename	Raw File Name:
	White Balance *Note this value is of the adjusted Raw image.	White Balance: *Note this value is of the adjusted Raw image.
	Temperature	Temperature:
	Tint	Tint:
	Exposure	Exposure:
	Recovery	Saved Settings Parameters Highlight Recovery:
	Fill Light	Saved Settings Parameters Fill Light:
	Blacks	Shadows:
	Brightness	Brightness:
	Contrast	Contrast:
	Vibrance	Vibrance:

Metadata in Bridge

Adobe Bridge CS3 is a great tool for browsing photos, videos, and documents, but it really excels at is metadata editing. Metadata is the extra stuff, besides actual picture data, that can accompany a digital photograph. There are two classes of metadata within Bridge: EXIF and IPTC Core.

EXIF is fixed, uneditable data that comes directly from your camera. It contains a host of cool information about the focal length of the lens, the shutter speed, the ISO and metering amongst others. One of the more Big Brother-esque bits of data is that it records the camera's serial number, so if you sent your product registration into Nikon, they now know every time you post a picture to flickr. Spooky.

IPTC Core are editable values that can contain information about the photographer, the copyright status and location of the shoot. The most interesting values that can be input are the title, description and tags. When you information in these fields magic happens when you upload them to flickr. These metadadata fields propagate themselves to the same fields in flickr. So by entering this important data in Bridge, you have the information for your own back up plus you don't have to reenter it when you post it to flickr. The data is pretty durable also. I uploaded a photo to flickr, downloaded it to another computer, uploaded it to Picasa and all the metadata came with it. It was awesome.

Careful Browsing: Finder vs. Bridge

Attention graphic designers! All is not what it appears to be. I had this problem come up yesterday at work. A designer in my department came into my office to see a preview of the latest photos I shot for a new marketing campaign. I put the images in the photo archive on the shared server and he went back to his cubicle. He IM'ed me a few moments later stating that he didn't see the color correction to the DNG files on his machine.

It turns out that he was using the Finder in MacOSX Jaguar to browse the photos. Apple has done some pretty good work in enabling their Finder to view camera RAW files, which is far better than Microsoft. But it doesn't apply the Develop settings embedded in the metadata to the preview. Hence when he views the files with the Finder the photos don't look color corrected. After I told him to try Adobe Bridge the color corrections showed on his previews.

The moral of this story is to always browse photos in Bridge and not the Finder.

Saving Lightroom Edits to Metadata

Lightroom is a great tool for digitally developing photos. It does what Adobe Bridge, DNG Convertor and Camera Raw 4.0 do in one easy package. The problem is that it doesn't do what Bridge does well... namely working with metadata. When you change metadata in Bridge such as a keyword or a develop setting the changes are saved to the DNG file automatically. In Light room the metadata may be saved to the Library, but not to the metadata. So when you make the perfect crop and white balance adjustment in Lightroom those changes will not appear in Bridge. You have to save the settings in Lightroom manually using the ctrl-s keystroke as it does not exist in the Edit tab.

Also another note: if you are in the Develop module you can only save the metadata of one file at a time, even if you select all. I found that if you jump back to the Library module, select all then save, all of your files will be updated.

The New Adobe CS4 is More Organic

I found this on a facebook friend's photo page. It is actually a flickr photo. This Japanese photostream is very avante garde and I love it. Check it out.