Crave

Adobe Systems on Friday introduced a new Photoshop app for Android users that lets them edit photos from their phone, as well as access their online photo collection on Photoshop.com.

The app comes just shy of a month after the release of the company's application for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users, which quickly became the top free application in the App Store and grabbed a million downloads within a week of its release.

The version for Android shares the same, simple editing UI as the iPhone/iPod version, both of which let users make edits by sliding their fingers across the screen and undo any changes made. It also features some very basic photo editing tools like crop, rotate, and image flip, as well as controls for adjusting exposure and tweaking color tint and saturation. Android users even get one new tool that iPhone/iPod users don't even have yet, which lets them straighten a shot against a grid.

Photoshop for Android looks similar to its iPhone/iPod sibling, but has a few less editing effects.

(Credit: Adobe Systems)

Here's the bad news though: Android users are getting a slightly-less featured version than those who use it on iPhones or iPods. The Android version is missing a whole menu full of filter effects, which can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of using the app. It's also missing the sketch tool, which can add a neat cartoonish effect to photos.

Snap this to jump straight to the app.

There is one feature that could make up for these omissions though, and that is the inclusion of an auto-uploader that can automatically send any photo you take on your Android device to Photoshop.com's cloud storage. Users just need to turn the option in within the app, and it will do it whether they have the app running or not. The only downside to this, is that just like on the iPhone/iPod version, you can only enter the Photoshop app's editing mode on photos that are stored locally.

Photoshop for Android can be found right now on the Android Marketplace. We've also included the app's barcode so you can hop right to it without having to type anything.

Adobe Systems released the first Lightroom 3.0 beta only last week, but already people are adapting the software for their own ends. In Sean McCormack's case, time-lapse video.

Time-lapse photography, for those unfamiliar with it, compresses a sequence of still images into a movie that appears to speed up the passage of time. It's how nature documentaries get those clouds scudding over the mountains and the sun racing across the sky.

Most of us use just a small fraction of what our software can do, but McCormack is one of those people at the other end of the spectrum who figures out how to push software well beyond the built-in feature set. In Lightroom's case he took advantage of its ability to export a sequence of shots as a video, a feature designed to let photographers create easily shared slideshows.

The Lightroom 3 beta will look familiar to current users, but there are changes under the hood. In addition, Lightroom catalogs can be synchronized with Flickr.

(Credit: Adobe Systems)

With the release of its first beta version of Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 on Wednesday night, Adobe Systems is trying to improve the heart of the photographic editing and cataloging software.

"With Lightroom 3, we're looking at a performance and image quality rearchitecture," said Product Manager Tom Hogarty. Those two goals are in opposition, since better image quality demands more computing horsepower. But Hogarty said the software is more responsive when moving among photos, and images look better with new noise reduction and sharpening abilities.

There are other changes, too, though: a revamped import process for importing photos into the software catalog; built-in connections to upload photos to online services and keep them in sync; a more flexible mechanism for laying out photos to be printed; new abilities for stamping watermarks onto photos; and the ability to export photos and music as a video file.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8: New features tour--screenshots

View the full gallery

Time again for Adobe's annual update of its consumer photo- and video-editing applications, Photoshop Elements (Windows | Mac) and Premiere Elements (Windows only). We're up to version 8 now, and while there's no killer must-have new capability--unless you consider automatic sync across multiple computers--the two products still provide solid mass appeal for their respective markets.

As in the past, you can buy the pair together for $149.99, which is a far more attractive buy for video-editing shoppers than Photoshoppers, and in fact the combination makes quite a nice bundle for home videographers. Independently, they're $99.99 each. Tack "Plus" to the name of the product for another $40 and you get an extra 20GB on the otherwise free Photoshop.com membership (along with ongoing new template and tutorial content), which will then cost you $50 annually to renew.

The latter becomes key if you plan to take advantage of one of the nicer new features, the ability to sync your videos, photos, music, projects, and PDF files across multiple systems using Photoshop.com as the hub. (In case you missed it, Photoshop.com rolled out video support last month in preparation for this release of Pre.) While Adobe doesn't make a Plus membership a requirement for doing so, you'll very quickly max out your free 2GB without it.

After allowing the product to languish for a while, with 8 Adobe brings the Mac version of Photoshop Elements up to parity with the Windows version and with the buzzy new features in iPhoto, including face recognition and geotagging/mapping. Unlike iPhoto, however, there's no direct upload to Facebook, though it supports a broader number of services, including Kodak EasyShare Gallery and Smugmug. Annoyingly, those choices are buried as More Options on the Share pane (likely because the interface decision was based on the technology used--implemented via an API rather than core program code--rather than where the user will look for them).

Like most current facial recognition implementations, Adobe's is only moderately accurate. For instance, in many photos it correctly identifies one person, but didn't detect others and thought inanimate objects were faces. The batch detection and labeling where you confirm different faces in groups of selected images is better, but still a little clunky.

Panasonic's GF1

(Credit: Panasonic)

Adobe Systems on Monday released Lightroom 2.5 and the Camera Raw 5.5 Photoshop plug-in, software updates that add support for two high-profile Nikon SLRs, Olympus' ambitious but expensive E-P1 compact camera, and in a minor surprise, the Panasonic's GF1 competitor to the E-P1.

As expected from the beta test, the new version adds support for the Nikon's high-end D300s and entry-level D3000. Also on the list is Panasonic's ultrazoom, the DMC-FZ35.

The downloads are available at Adobe's Web site.

Dealing with the raw formats from higher-end cameras gives photographers more flexibility and quality than JPEG, but it's a hassle for companies such as Adobe and Apple that must figure out the proprietary formats. Adobe doesn't yet support yet newer cameras such as Canon's higher-end 7D.

The updates also fix a problem that could afflict some cameras in the "demosaicing" step of converting raw images into more useful formats. "Camera Raw 5.5 also includes a correction to the demosaic algorithms in the raw conversion process for Bayer sensor cameras with unequal green response," Adobe said in a statement.

In an earlier statement about the green issue, Adobe said it was relatively minor: "Sony, Panasonic, and Olympus are among the more popular camera manufacturers affected by this change. But the demosaic correction provides only a subtle visual improvement to the processing of those raw files."

A blog post by Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty said the Lightroom update fixes an issue with the image-import dialog box on Windows. He also pointed out this sorry consequence of the complexities of global branding with the Panasonic FZ35:

"Note that in Europe and Japan this model is marketed as the DMC-FZ38. Unfortunately, due to a metadata difference between these cameras, files from the DMC-FZ38 will not be supported until the next Camera Raw and Lightroom updates," Hogarty said.

(Credit: Screenshot by Lori Grunin/CNET, photos by Lori Grunin, Michael Ricca/CNET)

Photoshop.com may be Flash-y and Air-y with photo-editing capabilities, but it surprisingly still seems to lag sites like Flickr and Facebook when it comes to various sharing features. For instance, only this week has Adobe launched video-hosting and group album capabilities (available for free accounts as well as paid), long available from its competitors.

There are some done-it-better aspects, however. For example, Adobe allows for larger videos: a maximum of 2GB vs. Flickr's 150GB/90 seconds. Of course, the more large videos you upload the closer it will push you to the 2GB storage maximum of a free account. As it's taking forever (it's up to about an hour and still hasn't completed) to process my short 177MB video, however--everything gets transcoded to Flash video--I shudder to think how long a 2GB file would take.

There are still a few UI kinks to work out as well. If you e-mail an invite to someone at an e-mail address other than the one connected to their Adobe ID, there's no way to link the addresses or even allow the person to reply to you with the correct address.

People you invite as Collaborators to Group Albums aren't automatically added as your friends. And while it notifies you via e-mail of updates to the album there don't seem to be other notification options, like posting Twitter, Facebook, or even an RSS feed. (Concurrently with the rollout, Adobe updated Photoshop.com's terms of service. There doesn't seem to be anything objectionable in the new terms. Yay!)

You can see how Photoshop.com's editing capabilities stack up against the competition in 15 online photo editors compared.

The new Nikon D300s is getting some raw-image support from Adobe.

(Credit: Nikon USA)

Adobe Systems has released a test version of its Camera Raw 5.5 plug-in so Photoshop can handle raw images from the Olympus E-P1 high-end compact camera, Nikon's new D3000 entry-level SLR, mid-range D300s SLR, and Panasonic's DMC-FZ35 ultrazoom.

Raw images are made of data taken directly from cameras' image sensors without in-camera processing, and they offer more flexibility and higher quality to those willing to put up with the hassle of converting them to JPEG or other more universal formats with software such as Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom, Apple's Aperture and iPhoto, or Google's Picasa. But first, that software must be updated to support each new camera, since raw formats are proprietary and differ for each model.

Adobe released the new Camera Raw plug-in release candidate at its Adobe Labs site. Although there's no corresponding version of Lightroom, software engineered specifically for handling raw images, Adobe also issued a release candidate for its DNG converter 5.5 that can transform raw files from the Olympus, Nikon, and Panasonic cameras into Adobe's more digestible Digital Negative format.

The new software also corrects a problem experienced with "demosaic algorithms in the raw conversion process for Bayer sensor cameras with unequal green response," the company said. Demosaicing is a central step in raw conversion. In it each pixel records only data for only a single color of red, green, or blue, is interpreted so each pixel has values for all three colors. The checkerboard pattern of colors is called the Bayer pattern.

Update 10:30 a.m. PDT August 20:: I asked Adobe about what cameras are affected by the green issue in the demosaic algorithm, and Tom Hogarty, Adobe's Lightroom product manager, had this response:

"Sony, Panasonic, and Olympus are among the more popular camera manufacturers affected by this change. But the demosaic correction provides only a subtle visual improvement to the processing of those raw files."

Some might be disconcerted to find that older raw images might look different when they're opened again with software that uses an updated algorithm. For those folks, I recommend exporting a JPEG or TIF to bake in your editing settings for raw images.

For the rest of us, this illustrates one of the advantages of shooting raw: new algorithms can make photos you took earlier look better than when you first took them.

Adobe also made a related change with the addition of profiles to its raw processing software; these can make photos more closely resemble results from camera settings such as portrait, landscape, or neutral, and I use them by default these days. Improvements to noise reduction algorithms is another area that springs to mind where new algorithms could take advantage of faster PC hardware to produce better photos.

Having the camera make these processing decisions when it creates a JPEG is convenient and fine for the vast majority of people, but for photo enthusiasts, raw shooting benefits from steadily improving software and hardware.

Adobe Systems, taking the same course with its forthcoming Creative Suite applications, will offer the next Mac OS X version of Photoshop Lightroom only on Intel-based machines.

Apple has chosen to discontinue support for Macs using PowerPC processors beginning with its next operating system, version 10.6 aka Snow Leopard, which is due to arrive in coming weeks. Adobe said last week that its next Creative Suite will follow suit. The CS family includes programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, DreamWeaver, and Flash Professional.

Lightroom, which is for editing and cataloging photos, isn't part of the suite, but it's headed the same route.

"The next full version update of Lightroom will not run on PowerPC-based Mac computers," Lightroom product manager Tom Hogarty said in a blog post last week. "Lightroom 2 updates will continue to support PowerPC."

Meanwhile, Photoshop Principal Product Manager John Nack, while fond of PowerPC, took a pragmatic tone on his blog: "By the time the next version of the (Creative) Suite ships, the very youngest PPC-based Macs will be roughly four years old. They're still great systems, but if you haven't upgraded your workstation in four years, you're probably not in a rush to upgrade your software, either."

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

It's probably time you said goodbye to your PowerPC-based Mac.

Adobe confirmed Tuesday that future versions of its Creative Suite will run only on Intel-based Mac computers. There will be no support offered for PowerPC-based systems.

The company's decision follows Apple's announcement in June that it was discontinuing support for the PowerPC in its new operating systems, starting beginning with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). With Apple's future development focused on Intel Macs, Adobe is aligning its resources accordingly.

According to Adobe, existing customers who own Creative Suite 3 and Creative Suite 4 will still be able to use the software on either a PowerPC-based Mac or an Intel-based Mac without having to make any changes. However, Adobe will provide support for these two suites only to address critical issues that may arise.

Creative Suite is Adobe System's collection of well-known industry-standard graphic design, video editing, and Web development applications. These applications include Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Flash, and many others.

While Snow Leopard has not been released yet, and the new version of the Creative Suite hasn't been announced, either, Adobe decided to announce these changes now so its customers will have time to plan their migration strategy accordingly. This means you should go get yourself an Intel-based Mac if you haven't done so already.

For more information on the discontinuation of support, check out Adobe's FAQ.