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!

Depth of Field

Here is another Photoshop tutorial I Stumbled upon. I found it at psd tuts plus. It is a type effect that I am seeing a lot of lately in modern website design. I add a bit of noise to soften up the edges and give a more realistic look.

Cross-Processing Effect

This is a shot of author Pat McManus I shot earlier this spring. I StumbledUpon an online Photoshop CS3 tutorial recreating the Cross-Processing effect. Back in the days of film, chemistry was a big deal. Each individual film stock had precise chemistry and processing recipes that had to be followed to generate the desired look. Occasionally, photographers would have happy mistakes where they followed the wrong recipe for particular emulsion. Colors would shift dramatically, grain would enlarge.

This is my attempt at recreating the effect. I had to tweak the tutorial a little bit . I think it looks like a lot like The Matrix.

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:

Cheap (and Accurate) Color Photo Printing at Costco

Last fall, Adobe came to campus and gave an all- day seminar about their new CS4 products. I really enjoyed the new functionality of Photoshop including their improved panoramic stitcher. The lecturer mentioned something to the class which blew me away. He said that you could print color photos accurately from Costco.

Costco hired Dry Creek Photo to color profile every one of their photo printers and place those profiles on the web. The benefit of having the color profile of a specific printer is that you can accurately adjust your photograph in Photoshop to show you what the print is going to look like. How many times have you gotten photos back and the seem too dark?

So the question is why spend the money for expensive photo printing when you can go to Costco and get a Polish dog and a Coke for $1.50? Be sure to follow all of the instructions on the Dry Creek site for best results.

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.

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.