photoshop

Adobe just updated its Photoshop Express service with a handful of relatively unexciting but useful new features. The most important one is the inclusion of printing through Shutterfly, making it easier to take edited photos and get them printed either for yourself or to send as gifts. Previously you'd have to pull down the photos off of Adobe's servers or send them to a partner server to have them printed elsewhere. Now you can just get them ported out with a single click.

There's also a new Adobe AIR uploader that lets you send photos from your … Read more

As an avid amateur photographer, my biggest problem with my online media has nothing to do with editing images, but organizing them first. I can click off several hundred photos of the family dog or a hiking trip, but before I even start tweaking colors of a sunset, I have a tough time even finding the right photograph. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 aims to help consumers with that common problem.

In Tuesday's edition of the Daily Debrief, I speak with senior writer and serious photographer Stephen Shankland about the new software released Monday. Retailing for $299 new or $… Read more

With Adobe Systems' release of version 2 of its Photoshop Lightroom on Monday night, the company no doubt hopes customers will be drawn by a number of new features in the software for sorting, cataloging, and editing photos.

But the company believes an external factor will also help the software: the booming sales of high-end SLR cameras. These high-end models are helping usher in many of digital photography's biggest changes, and Adobe is trying to intercept the trend with Lightroom.

From 2007 to 2008, digital SLR shipments increased a dramatic 41 percent to 7.5 million units, according to market researcher IDC. And though plenty of those cameras went to gadget-happy doctors or to snapshooters who won't exploit the cameras' full features, plenty of others went to the photography enthusiasts at whom Lightroom is aimed.

"Prices are coming down, so more people with entry-level SLRs are experimenting," said Tom Hogarty, the Adobe senior product manager in charge of Lightroom. "If you pick up the camera for the sake of creating an artistic thing and not just recording a family event, you've really taken the plunge into serious photography. Anyone at that level is an ideal Lightroom customer."

One significant feature common to SLRs is the ability to shoot "raw" photos--the images taken directly from the image sensors without the camera baking in its own assumptions about what's right.… Read more

Anyone who grew up in the era of Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill" knows the lasting educational value of a memorable ditty. If that little song could teach a generation about the progress of legislation on Capitol Hill, it's fair to assume that a rap number could do the same for Adobe Systems' Photoshop. That's the idea, at least.

Deke McClelland, author of a number of books and videos about Photoshop, is out with a music video called "101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes" in which he sings about image-editing software. … Read more

A service pack became available Tuesday for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 illustration and desktop publishing applications.

Corel's updates add support for more than 25 new camera RAW formats. The company also aimed to iron out some graphic design workflows.

"With this service pack for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4, we have focused on addressing the major feedback provided by our users," said Gerard Metrailler, senior director of Corel's graphics product management.

Users can obtain the updates automatically via the installed software, or by visiting Corel.com. A free trial of the suite is also available.

CorelDRAW Graphics … Read more

Freeware image editor the GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP to its friends, gets a bucketload of small tweaks and bug-fixes.

The freeware Photoshop analogue includes improvements for a wide range of features, but doesn't include anything new. Many of the changes fix tool errors. Curves, antialiasing, the Healing brush, TIFF loading and others received retouching. Several plug-ins and how the program handles them also got a boost, including Unsharp Mask, JPEG saving, Gaussian blur, and others. The full list of changes can be read here.

Adobe Systems is offering two-day trials of three beta applications from its next Creative Suite package.

The previews of Dreamweaver for Web design, Fireworks for image editing, and Soundbooth for audio editing became available Monday.

Trials expire after 48 hours for most people, but registered CS3 users get to keep using the CS4 betas until the final applications replace them.

Adobe hasn't publicly confirmed its planned shipping date or the name for the next Creative Suite, which we're nicknaming CS4. Adobe Creative Suite 3 was released in March 2007.

We took a quick test drive of the Dreamweaver … Read more

Users of the next Adobe Creative Suite may be able to mix and mash up the applications with online content and third-party tools.

In a bid to make workspaces more nimble, Adobe Systems is considering making parts of Photoshop and other Creative Suite applications available for users to manipulate within Flash widgets, according to a blog post Monday by John Nack, product manager of Photoshop.

The capability to bring tools from the Creative Suite to the desktop or the Web with Flash or Flex could lead to novel ways of exploring Adobe's expensive, hulking software. Users have mashed up … Read more

Adobe Systems said on Friday that it has fixed a bug that delayed a planned update of its Photoshop Express program this week. The software maker said in a statement that the updated version of the free, Web-based photo editing program is now available.

"We're happy to report we have successfully fixed the bug that slightly delayed our newest feature update for the Photoshop Express beta," Adobe said in a statement. "New updates are now publicly available. We appreciate your patience as we focus on delivering a quality experience for our users."

Adobe had planned … Read more