I’m a fan of reading John Nack’s Adobe blog to keep up with the latest news regarding Photoshop, so I was pleased to hear that he has been selected for the Photoshop Hall of Fame – he will be officially inducted at the Photoshop World Expo in September. Congratulations!
Adobe Lightroom 2 is now available to buy from the Adobe website. It is priced at £175 excluding VAT for the full version (£69 excluding VAT if you are upgrading). However, if you want to get the latest version of Photoshop at the same time, then you can save up to £85 when purchasing both products as a bundle.
There is a whole host of new features in this version of the software, including multiple monitor support, local adjustment brushes and better CS3 integration.
You can find out more about this release by taking a visit to the Adobe website.
PRESS RELEASE
Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the immediate availability of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 software, the photographer’s essential toolbox for managing, adjusting and presenting large volumes of digital photographs. With new enhancements such as dual-monitor support, radical advances in non-destructive localised image correction, and streamlined search capabilities, Lightroom 2 is a compelling upgrade that simplifies photography from shoot to finish. As Adobe’s first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel processors and Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit operating systems, Lightroom 2 also provides improved memory performance for dealing with large scale images.
“A worldwide community of photographers provided valuable insight and feedback, as part of the Lightroom 2 public beta program, ultimately helping us deliver a better product,” said Tom Hogarty, senior product manager for Lightroom and Camera Raw at Adobe. “We’ve considered their requests which helped us develop useful features that make it easier than ever for our customers to quickly refine, enhance and present brilliant photographs.”
Photoshop Lightroom 2: Smarter, Faster and More Accurate
The enhanced Library module in Lightroom 2 helps streamline and accelerate photographers’ workflows. With the ability to visually organise images across multiple hard drives, Lightroom 2 and its powerful Library Filter Bar makes it easy for users to quickly find the images they need. The Suggested Keywords feature helps photographers keyword their images by making intelligent suggestions based on their own previous efforts. New dual-monitor support allows users to expand their workspace, giving them flexibility to edit and organise images in a way that maximises an additional display.
In the Develop module, the new Local Adjustment Brush lets photographers fine-tune specific areas of an image to precisely adjust colour, exposure and tonal range without affecting other areas of the image. The new Graduated Filter expands the toolbox in Lightroom, allowing for edits to larger areas by applying gradually diminishing or increasing adjustment effects such as exposure, clarity, and saturation, alone, or in any combination. Lightroom 2 also helps photographers print more efficiently by quickly arranging photos of multiple sizes on one or many pages with flexible and customisable templates to maximise paper and ink. Intelligent algorithms automatically determine optimal sharpening for screen or print, producing crisper images faster. Developers can further extend the Lightroom workflow with Web, Export and Metadata Software Development Kits available at the Adobe Developer Connection, http://www.adobe.com/devnet/.
Ground-Breaking Innovation in Raw Technology
New raw technology gives photographers access to flexible camera profiles. Camera profiles are the visual starting point for the raw processing workflow, but image preferences vary for every photographer. To minimise surprises, Adobe is supplying default camera profiles that closely emulate the visual looks that photographers are used to seeing from their favourite camera, while also providing the ability to create highly customised profiles to suit different tastes. Camera profiles are available for immediate download on Adobe Labs (http://labs.adobe.com) for use with Lightroom 2 and Camera Raw 4.5, along with the DNG Profile Editor for the community to test and create their own profiles.
The Adobe Camera Raw 4.5 plug-in and DNG Converter 4.5 are also now available on Adobe.com and support over 190 camera models including the Olympus E 420 and E 520 models.
“One of the big reasons why Lightroom has become such a phenomenon among serious photographers is that Adobe built it with the input of a very vocal user community,” said Scott Kelby, president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). “Adobe really listens to the issues and challenges today’s photographers face and they’ve built a complete solution that not only meets the needs of photographers; it really feels like it was made just for us. The enhancements to Lightroom 2, combined with the power of Photoshop, give photographers the ultimate freedom to produce professional images quickly.”
Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 is available now through the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com/store in English, French and German with the Japanese language version planned to be released at a future date. The estimated street price is £175 for new users with an upgrade price of £69 for registered users of qualifying Lightroom customers. Recommended system requirements are Macintosh OSX 10.4, 10.5 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or G5 or Intel based processor, or Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise, Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1 GB RAM and a 1024×768 resolution screen. Additional information on product features, upgrade policies, pricing, and language versions is available on www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/.
If you need professional-quality prints of your work, then I can think of nothing better than using the new online service from the Printspace. The London-based studio has always offered a great drop-in service, but now you can use the internet and get high-quality results delivered to your door! It’s really easy to get started on the site and all prints are made on an Epson 880 series (for Giclee inkjets) and a Chromira (for digital C-type prints), plus there is a downloadable colour profile so you can manage your images from your desktop. Check it out at www.theprintspace.com.
Can you take a good picture? If so, then why not enter the Digital Photographer of the Year Awards? Digital Photographer, our sister publication, is our favourite semi-professional photography title on the market today and the Awards promise to be even bigger and better than last year. In conjunction with Fujifilm, entrants can submit images into a number of different categories to be in with a chance of winning a Fufifilm S5 Pro among other models. See the website from 17 July for more information (www.dphotographer.co.uk).
Press release:
In the extremely competitive market, up-and-coming photographers can find it hard to get their work noticed; the Digital Photographer of the Year Awards 2008 aim to give a helping hand to talented individuals and showcase their talents. “Working in conjunction with some of the leading names in the photographic industry, our objective for these awards is to find hidden talent and expose it to the world,” explains editor, Debbi Allen. “Encompassing multiple genres of photography, the awards will showcase the high standards achieved by many enthusiasts and semi-professional photographers.”
This year’s categories will include Portrait, Landscape, Documentary, Travel, Black and White, Macro, Wildlife and Wedding, with one winner scooping the title of Digital Photographer of the Year and eight separate category winners.
All categories are open for entries from the 17 July 2008 and all categories will close to entries on 14 November. Winners will be announced in issue 78 of the magazine, on sale January 2009.
Theo Georghiades, Fujifilm’s Senior Product Manager says: “Fujifilm UK Ltd are very pleased to be sponsoring the Digital Photographer of the Year 2008. Both Fujifilm UK Ltd and Digital Photographer share the same values in terms of quality, creativity and professionalism, and this makes the magazine an ideal partner for us to work with.”
The judging panel boasts Digital Photographer editor Debbi Allen, Imagine Publishing’s Creative Director and keen photographer Mark Kendrick, professional photographer and magazine contributor Mark Cargill and Fujifilm’s Theo Georghiades.
The overall winner will receive a Fujifilm S5 Pro with the eight category winners scooping other Fujifilm cameras, models TBC.
In issue 45 of Advanced Photoshop we had a great tutorial by Doug Sirois on fantasy painting. Now he has released his first book, showcasing his favourite paintings and sketches. It is definitely worth a look and you can see it at http://stores.lulu.com/dasillustration for the incredibly generous price of £11.02.
I love Blurb.com for creating professional-looking books, and I am sure that if you haven't already taken a look, you'll be just as enthusiastic as me when you do. Now you can enter your self-published photography titles into a competition to win $25,000 to start (or finish) a project of your choosing. Of course, the prestigious award also comes with worldwide recognition, so it's perfect for anyone who wants to get their photography seen. Entires are being judged by a pretty impressive panel of editors, publishers, curators and photographers. If you have published your photography book through Blurb, then it's all pretty easy, as you don't need to send anyone a copy of your book - Blurb will make sure that the jurors get their hands on one. And if you've published a book using a different service, you can still enter. Find out more, as well as access entry forms and terms and conditions, at www.photographybooknow.com.
The Coningsby Gallery is hosting an exhibition showing off the works of two fantastic illustrators. Jim Smith (www.waldopancake.com) is an ‘illustrator, designer and copywriter specialising in humorous, comic approaches’ and Alice Daisy Smith (www.alicepictures.co.uk) has had success with her children's book I'm SO over fairies, published by Orion, and also has her own range of greeting cards with The Artgroup. You can find out more about the exhibition at www.coningsbygallery.com.
Yorkshire Sculpture Park is currently featuring the work of two international artists: Sophie Ryder and Helen Escobedo. Both are open air, and Ryder’s work will be on view also in the Longside Gallery, with Escobedo’s work also in the YSP Centre Upper Space. The former artist’s work is wire wall drawings and freestanding wire and bronze works, while the latter’s work comprises 25 cylindrical sculptures. Find out more about the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, one of Europe’s leading open-air galleries, at www.ysp.co.uk.
In order to keep the magazine relevant, I want to know which tutorials you enjoy in the magazine and which you don't. Head over to http://www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1394 to enter our poll and leave your comments. I will take on board your votes and comments to make sure that there's more of what you want and less of what you don't in the mag.
The New Art Gallery, Walsall, is hosting a contemporary art exhibition exploring Contemporary Art and the Cult of Celebrity.Website information: ‘We live in a culture obsessed by celebrities. David Beckham's latest hairstyle, the fluctuating weight of celebrities such as Nicole Ritchie or Victoria Beckham, celebrities with addictions and the seemingly frequent necessity for 're-hab', are all capable of selling newspapers and magazines as much as, if not more, than pressing current affairs. This exhibition will bring together artists whose work engages with the cult of celebrity in a variety of ways. Artists include Candice Breitz, Peter Davies, Alison Jackson, Yasumasa Morimura, Mario Testino, Gavin Turk, Francesco Vezzoli and Jessica Voorsanger.’The exhibition is on until 15 June; visit www.artatwalsall.org.uk for more information.