Automator World has posted a Photoshop Action Pack for Mac OS X 10.4's Automator, an app that allows you to automate many OS and application functions. The actions you can add to Automator workflows is fairly extensive:

• Add IPTC Captions to Photoshop Documents
• Apply Unsharp Mask to Photoshop Documents
• Apply Watermark to Photoshop Documents
• Assign Color Profile to Photoshop Documents
• Close Photoshop Documents
• Extract IPTC Captions from Photoshop Documents
• Flip Photoshop Documents
• New Photoshop Document
• Open Images in Photoshop
• Resize Photoshop Documents
• Rotate Photoshop Documents
• Save Photoshop Documents
• Trigger Photoshop Action
• Trim Photoshop Documents

The action pack is provided free and looks like a handy addition to any Mac + Photoshop user's workflow.

I came across another portfolio site that offers some before and after images exhibiting the power of Photoshop (mouse over the images to see the magic). What I like about this page is its author, Greg Apodaca, has presented a nice range of imagery, from model photography to product re-touching and image compositing. A few of his images include a clever re-creation of Photoshop's layers palette, and mousing over each layer will deconstruct the image to that particular element. Nice.

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.

The Creative Suite conference is coming up at the Chicago City Center May 18-20. The conference offers sessions on all the Adobe Creative Suite apps. All the usual suspects will be there, including Michael Ninness of lynda.com, Ben Willmore, and David Blatner on Photoshop-related topics. Mordy Golding, who is speaking at the conference, has posted a coupon code on his  Real World Illustrator blog that will get you a deal on the registration fee.

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.

Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, speaking at a Tokyo news conference Friday, repeated Adobe's position that it won't be shipping a Mactel-compliant version of Photoshop until Spring 2007. Chizen said:

"We are working very hard on making our products Mactel (Mac Intel) compliant. When we ship the new product Acrobat 8 this fall it will be Mactel compliant. When we ship Photoshop and the Creative Suite products next spring they will also be Mactel compliant."

Chizen also indicated that Boot Camp won't have much of an effect on Adobe's plans to make software for the Mac:

"For the majority of our products, writing directly for Mac OS is an advantage and you will see us continue to do so and not work through Boot Camp or the Windows emulator because we think that will not be good for the majority of our customers. However there are some products that we have today that we have not been able to afford to continue to develop to make available on the Mac. A great example being FrameMaker. The majority of FrameMaker users use Windows as an OS but there is a small percentage that want to use FrameMaker on the Mac so they can use Boot Camp."

It's rare, at least personally, to hear about software quirks on machines that have too much RAM, but apparently Photoshop CS2 can exhibit a pause while painting on Macs with more than 4 GB of RAM.

Adobe has posted this Disable VM Buffering plug-in to help remedy the problem, but check out the plug-in's details page for more information on whether you should install it.

[via John Nack]

Jennifer Apple over at The Photoshop Blog posted a great tip for getting that perfect selection when you're having a tough time with other methods, possibly due to backgrounds or surrounding elements that are stumping Photoshop and its various selection tools.

Jennifer's idea is to give your selection tool of choice a helping hand by using a Levels or Curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer) to increase the image's contrast. Using an adjustment layer (instead of applying the changes directly) will allow you to preserve the image the way you want it, make the selection you need and then throw out or turn off (for later use) the layer in order to go on about your business.

This method is both a great technique and a prime example of the power of adjustment layers that should be incorporated into nearly every Photoshop user's toolbelt as soon as possible.

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.

I am blown away by these ultra-realistic, technical illustrations by Kevin Hulsey made with Photoshop and Illustrator.

Hulsey shares Photoshop and Illustrator techniques for creating his technical illustrations, including this  cutaway of a cruise ship, and this transparent illustratiion of a car. This surely raises the bar of what's possible to accomplish with these applications.

[Thanks John Nack]

Adobe has placed an ETA on CS3, and it is Q2 of 2007. In an interview/announcement, Adobe's CEO Bruce Chizen boasted that there would be "a lot of integration between Macromedia's and Adobe's products and that the value of the two companies will be clear following the launch of CS3."

Also, for those seeking a lengthier explanation as to why CS2 isn't going to be ported for Intel Macs, an Adobe engineer blogged about the complications and coding woes that prevent porting CS2 while the company is building CS3.

All I know is that I can't wait for the day when I can create a comp in Photoshop and then, through a workflow, automatically vectorize it in Illustrator, add motion to it in Flash, seamlessly throw it all up on the web with GoLive while Fireworks is tying my shoes and Acrobat is cooking my dinner. How 'bout it Adobe?

[via MacNN]

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.

Ray Robertson, of Scripting Matters fame, will be leading "Automating Adobe Creative Suite 2 with AppleScript," a three-hour, free seminar covering - you guessed it - how to use applescript to automate Creative Suite.

From Scripting Matters' site, it sounds like Ray is a one-man applescripting machine with clients ranging from small business to large corporate. While the seminar - including a CD with example scripts - is free, registration for the March 23rd event is required by email. Check out Scripting Matters' press release for more information.

[via MacScripter]

A second version of the fantastic and free Photoshop CS2 Automator Actions has been released - and I am once again smitten. If you aren't familiar with Automator, it's an application Apple includes with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger that allows you to, well, automate the Mac OS X operating system. Think: "like actions in Photoshop, but for my entire OS." Automator allows you to easily drag and drop actions to create workflows that move information and files in and out of multiple programs, manipulating it along the way. As icing on the cake, Automator actions that you create can be shared with anyone else using Tiger, opening the doors for über-automation with your colleagues in the workplace. Check out Apple's Automator details page for more information if you need help wrapping your head around the concept.

This suite of Photoshop actions from Complete Digital Photography brings Photoshop into the automation party, offering a list of actions, options and features far too long to list here. The total list of Automator-enabled actions is now up to 68 with version 2.0, and new actions include, but are not limited to: Change Resolution, Color Balance, Dust and Scratches, Maximum/Minimum, Open Raw Data, Polar Coordinates, Posterize, Radial Blur, Resize Canvas, Smart Blur, Threshold, and much more. A series of bug fixes has been implemented as well, but check out the post at Complete Digital Photography for the full details of how these actions can fit into you Tiger Photoshop Automator workflow, and make sure you download the right set for either CS or CS2.

Photoshop Automator Actions 2.0 is donationware, and I urge you to toss at least a few dollars into the hat if you take a liking to these most excellent tools.

Trevor Morris, of GFX^TM, has raised the bar for defining the phrase "too much time on one's hands" by producing a 4-page PDF containing (what I assume is) every keyboard shortcut for Photoshop CS2. As you might guess, he had to use some pretty small type to fit all the available keyboard shortcuts on only four pages, including editing mode-specific ones. For those not living on the bleeding edge of Photoshop/CS versions, it seems he's created documents like this for every Photoshop version back to 5.0, so take your pic.

[via creativebits]