The O'Reilly Network has taken the wraps off of Inside Adobe Lightroom, a new site featuring articles, a blog and a podcast covering Adobe's professional photo management app. Tips on color correction, adding music to slideshows, how to migrate images from iPhoto  and more are all on the menu, so swing by and find out how much you really didn't know about Lightroom.

[via Daring Fireball]

Adobe has released an update for Photoshop CS2 that John Nack humorously equates to "detention in high school"; or rather, "a kind of penalty box that keeps you away from what you really want to be doing".

Specifically, this update fixes a wide array of odd bugs and quirks, so here's the rundown from Mr. Nack's post:

• After editing an image in Photoshop CS2 via Acrobat Touchup, the image no longer gets re-positioned.
• Photoshop no longer hangs for several seconds when using painting tools with quick strokes.
• A program error that could appear when mousing over high res doc with Brush Tool has been fixed.
• Documents containing a large number of text layers now open more quickly.
• An error that could cause a crash on Mac when launching, or when opening or saving a file, has been addressed.
• Problems related to palettes on Windows (slow redraw, palettes go white, possible crash) have been addressed.
• TIFF files from certain scanners can now be opened correctly.
• XMP metadata from AI & PDF files is now retained in Photoshop.
• Slow performance when toggling layer visibility has been fixed.
• Info palette numbers now display and update when moving a curve point in Curves via the cursor keys.
• Problems opening certain TIFF and PSB files greater than 2GB in size have been resolved.
• The Merge to HDR command now functions properly when using high-ASCII characters in user login.

John also provides Mac and Win download links, though I would wager the software updater app that gets installed with CS2 would catch this as well. If you're on a Mac it's in your Applications/Utilities folder, though I'm not sure where it's at on Windows.

I know we're a little late on this one (finals just finished last week; I can now rejoin the world of the living), but a friend pointed out that Adobe has redesigned their site - and it looks like they hired Macromedia's site designers to do it. The new site looks a lot nicer and offers a more intuitive and navigable structure for the sheer volume of services and software that Adobe now offers.

Adobe is asking for your help to improve the way Photoshop handles HDR (high dynamic range) imaging. If you're a photographer, you can help out by sending Adobe sample images (JPEG and raw) on which you've found that other 32bit to 16 or 8 bit converters do a better job than Photoshop. Adobe engineer John Peterson explains what he needs at Adobe blogs:

I'm looking for cases where the "other leading brand" is doing a better job than Photoshop. I'd like to get three or four really good cases of this from customers that are (potential) heavy users of Merge to HDR. I'd be interested in JPEG or raw source files, plus the HDR result file from the other application. JPEGs should be generated by the camera, not via Camera Raw. f-stop should be held constant, exposure should differ by two stops or so, and resolutions in the 2-6 MP range would be sufficient.

Adobe released a free Software Developer's Kit (SDK) for the Digital Negative Specification (DNG) this week in an effort to encourage further adoption of the DNG raw image format. The SDK gives camera manufacturers and software developers tools and information they need to incorporate DNG support into their products. You can download the SDK for Mac or Windows from the Adobe site.

DNG is an open standard raw format that Adobe introduced to avoid the uncertainty associated with camera and software manufacturers' proprietary raw formats. What does that mean? Let's say your camera produces raw files in a format that only the camera manufacturer's raw converter software can open. If the manufacturer stops making that software in the future, you could find yourself with lots of unusable files.

Adobe moved toward a solution to this problem by introducing the DNG format in 2004, and making it freely available to camera and software manufacturers. DNG files can be opened by the Adobe Camera Raw converter in Photoshop and by third-party software that incorporates DNG format. As the DNG format becomes more universally adopted by camera and software manufacturers, your raw photographs get a longer expected life. Adobe's new DNG SDK is one more step in that direction.

Boy, these Adobe guys sure know how to bait: check out the inaugural post at Nonprofit @ Adobe. It sounds like the company has put together a Nonprofit Team that will be offering eSeminars, a nonprofit pricing program and the obligatory software tips and tricks.

That one post is all we get for now though. If you have anything to do with the worlds of nonprofit and design, I think Adobe just gave you something else to bookmark.

We're a little late on this one, but it appears that the Adobe Lightroom podcast has released its 4th episode (iTMS link). As John Nack summarizes on his blog, this one was recorded at the Greg Gorman digital photography workshop in CA. George and his guests (Martin Evening, Peter Carides and Bryan O'Neil Hughes) discuss digital photography workflows, fashion photography, Lightroom features and archiving strategies.

Check it out in the iTMS podcast directory or grab it at Adobe's RSS feed here.

Earlier today, Apple released Boot Camp, a utility that allows the painless install of Windows XP on the new Intel Macs. TUAW has been covering this announcement quite a bit today, but one of the interesting questions that has been posed is: what's going to happen to third party software? Or, the more specific question pertaining to TUPW here is: does Adobe still have motivation to release CS3 for Mac OS X?

While we wait for an official statement from Adobe or a post on the less formal Adobe Blogs (how about it Mr. Nack?), I think C.K. has pretty much hit the nail on the head at TUAW: While Boot Camp might be great for those who want or have a need to run both Mac OS X and Windows XP on their Mac, those who are going to are most certainly not in the majority of the Mac-using base. In other words: there's still a huge Mac OS X market out there (which doubled in the U.S. last year), and in all likelihood, 3rd party apps that ride the fence like Creative Suite and Office aren't going anywhere.

A year ago or so, Adobe removed the charge for the Photoshop SDK (Software Development Kit), offering it for free per request at a web form. John Nack blogged this the other day, also mentioning that they haven't gotten the word out very well so I thought I'd lend a hand.

In addition to offering Photoshop's SDK for free, they also offer Basic and Super Size Advanced versions now. The basic comes with everything but the File Format and File Import/Export information, for which I guess there is extra (but still free) paperwork.

So now you've just lost a very large excuse for procrastinating on that killer plugin you've been scribbling notes about on bar napkins. In addition to the web form you can fill out, you can also obtain some user-to-user help in a forum covering all things Photoshop SDK.

John Loiacono is the new go-to guy at Adobe for the company's entire creative software portfolio. As newly appointed Senior VP for Creative Solutions, Loiacono has responsibility for development, delivery and marketing for Adobe Photoshop, Creative Suite, Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro, and Macromedia Studio, Flash Professional, and Dreamweaver. He'll be reporting directly to Adobe President and COO Shantanu Narayen. In other words, this is a very big job.

Adobe publicly announced Loaicono's appointment yesterday. Before coming to Adobe, Loiacono held major executive positions at Sun Microsystems since 1987.

Adobe yesterday announced collaborations with a number of partners to add new services for use with Photoshop CS2.  At the Photo Marketing Association conference in Orlando Adobe revealed partnerships with:

• Hewlett-Packard, which has developed a new professional photo printer with a plug-in for Photoshop CS2. The plug-in synchronizes color management between Photoshop CS2 and the printer driver.
• Logitech, which is making the NuLOOQ Navigator, a new kind of navigation device for use with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign CS2 on the Mac.
  
• Lexar, which has developed a plug-in memory card for Adobe Bridge that will allow users to download images from multiple cards at the same time and add metadata to those images.
  
• MorePhotos.com, which offers photographers an online service for uploading photographs from Adobe Bridge for customers to proof and purchase.
  
• Iron Mountain, which will provide an online photo backup service to protect against loss of digital photos. This will be a subscription service for that will allow photographers to backup not only their photographs, but also financial documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other documents.

Get your notepads and your outlining apps ready, cuz the seminars are 'a comin'. First up is the Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour, which I noticed has been in the Photoshop TV link list for a little while now (Being that I still owe for tuition this semester, I don't even have the cash to think about attending most of these things). This tour series breaks down into three specialties, namely: Power, Photography and Creativity tours. Looks like registration for each seminar runs $99, and they just might be on their way to a town near you.

Next up is the Adobe CS2 eSeminar Series, clocking in at the student-friendly price of 'free.' From the seminar overview site:

• Get useful insights into a wide range of creative tools of Creative Suite 2
• Hear tips and tricks on how to use Adobe InDesign to enhance your typographic capabilities
• Leverage the Adobe Bridge feature as the hub for all CS2 files, applications and settings
• Take advantage of the many powerful features of Adobe Illustrator® to extend your creativity
• See how well Adobe InDesign® matches up with QuarkXPress
• Learn best practices to improve your workflow
  

So basically: get schooled in why the entire Creative Suite is, well, a suite. The three-part online eSeminar Series kicks off Tuesday, February 21st at 10 AM EST, with consecutive sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, the 22nd and 23rd. Since I conveniently have class during all three of those sessions, I'll post a reminder on those days in case anyone wants to share their impressions.

[via Macsimum News]

Adobe Proxy is a slick quarterly interactive design magazine (PDF) I wish they'd publish more often. If you aren't familiar, check out our other posts on past issues to get a feel, or simply dig right in, you really can't go wrong.

This latest issue packs a Photoshop Vanishing Point filter tutorial, rendering delay improvements in the Production Studio suite, tips on converting InDesign projects into websites with GoLive, an interview with Alex Gelman on his Japanese design interests, tips on type and more.

You can head over and download past and current issues, as well as sign up for email notifications of the next issue.

John Nack has answered the burning question of OS X Adobe app users everywhere on his blog yesterday: when will we see native Intel OS X versions for all the shiny new Macs Apple is rolling out this year? Unfortunately, the response is less than ideal. In fact, I think it belies something fishy is up either with Adobe, Apple or both.

John Nack's answer is basically that they have no plans to update the current CS2 or Studio 8 suites to run natively on Intel OS X, which means anyone buying a new Intel Mac this year will have to deal with running these apps in the Rosetta emulation layer. While it seems like this might be at least workable for some users, it is by no means ideal. The only way to get an Intel version of either suite, as of Adobe's current plans, is to purchase a new/upgrade suite sometime in 2007. Let's also not forget the just-released After Effects 7.0 - who knows when an Intel OS X copy of that will appear, but according to Adobe's FAQ (pdf link) on the matter, it sounds like purchasers of even that brand new app won't get an Intel version without buying an upgrade/new version.

Now I am not a software engineer, nor do I have a clue as to what goes on inside the walls at Adobe. Still, this less than ideal situation smells rotten to me, and I don't mean just Adobe. Ever since Apple's Intel announcement last summer, they've told the industry (at least the consumer side) that Intel Macs would appear by summer 2006. Yet they released two, one being a pro machine, last month, and they won't have even their own pro apps ready until sometime in March. I don't know about you, but the phrase "rushed to market" comes to mind.

Adding to the pile, I'm starting to believe that John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) might have something with a post last April, worrying about Adobe's move away from being a great software company to just a company with a product to sell and revenues to bolster. The fact that there won't be any updates or even a retail upgrade for previous versions of CS or Studio to run on Intel Macs is quite a slap in the face to consumers. Apple, by contrast, is at least allowing Final Cut Studio owners to trade their PowerPC discs in for Intel copies at the mere cost of $50. While some are complaining about even that $50 charge, it's still a lot better than the price of a full upgrade or an entirely new copy.

My gripes aside however, what do you TUPW readers think? Is 2007 far too long to wait? Is Adobe milking their customers for every dime they can? Or is this just another growing pain due to a processor switch by Apple? Let's hear your thoughts.