A high-powered programmer who'd left Adobe Systems to lead a Microsoft Windows interface design team is heading back after just over a year.
Mark Hamburg had worked on Adobe Photoshop since version 2.0 in 1990 and then was instrumental in designing its photography-specific cousin, Lightroom, which sports a radically different user interface.
Hamburg left Adobe for Microsoft in 2008 to become a "distinguished engineer" leading work on improving operating system usability. He called the job an opportunity that "was a little too interesting to turn down" because he found the Windows' experience "really annoying."
On Friday, Adobe's German public relations staff welcomed Hamburg back in a Twitter post. Added Lightroom programmer Troy Gaul, "Glad to have Mark Hamburg back at Adobe. Looking forward to his renewed impact on our products."
Jeff Schewe, a Photoshop consultant who knows Hamburg, said the Adobe engineer again will work in Adobe's digital imaging department.
"His decision to return to Adobe is more a statement of desire to again work on products in the digital imaging realm rather than a more research driven project," Schewe said in a blog post. Hamburg isn't expected to be working on Lightroom again, though, Schewe added.
I'm a big fan of Adobe Systems' camera profiles, which when editing the raw images that higher-end cameras can produce imbues photos with what I find to be more natural hues. So I was glad to hear camera profiles are moving out of Adobe Labs and into Photoshop and Lightroom.
I apply the "camera faithful" profile by default when I import photos from my Canon SLR into Lightroom. But when I tried to use the profiles on some photos I took with an Olympus E-3, I found I couldn't.
Now seemed a good time to find out exactly which models are supported, and Adobe obliged with a list.
All SLRs from Canon and Nikon, which dominate the SLR market, are supported in the profiles that ship with Adobe Camera Raw 5.2, and that's a good start. But things get thinner after that.
The Pentax K10D, K20D, and K200D SLRs also have profiles, as does Leica's expensive and somewhat exotic rangefinder, the M8. Only two compact cameras, Canon's PowerShot G9 and G10, have profiles.
There are no profiles for Sony, Olympus, Samsung, or Panasonic SLRs so far. No doubt Adobe is working on it, though. I'll update this post if I hear further details.
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.
Lightroom 2.0 is geared for editing flexible but complicated 'raw' images taken directly from higher-end cameras' image sensors. (Click image to enlarge.)
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)"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
Update 12:11 p.m. PDT: I added a comment from Adobe.
Mark Hamburg worked on Adobe Systems' Photoshop and Lightroom. Lightroom 2.0, in beta now, gets local editing abilities, shown above.
(Credit: Adobe Systems)Mark Hamburg, a programmer who worked on Photoshop since version 2.0 and helped lead development of the newer Photoshop Lightroom, has left Adobe Systems for a new job at Microsoft.
Martin Evening, a Lightroom expert and author, reported Hamburg's new job on his blog Friday, saying Hamburg will be involved in user experience work. A Microsoft representative confirmed the new hire but didn't share further details.
Adobe praised Hamburg but said there are plenty of other programmers to carry the torch.
"Adobe has reaped tremendous benefit from the leadership of Mark Hamburg and his active role on both the Photoshop and Lightroom teams," the company said. "However, we are confident that the team he leaves behind are equally as talented and innovative. It is really their hard work and effort that has brought us great success with the launch of Lightroom, and it continues with the current Lightroom 2.0 beta."
Hamburg was named inventor of the year by the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association in 1999 and entered the National Association of Photoshop Professionals' Hall of Fame in 2003.
Canon has released an update to the firmware for its new s designed to fix file format compatibility problems with some Adobe software.
Canon's midrange EOS 40D
(Credit: Canon)Version 1.0.3 of the firmware worked with Adobe's raw-image editing software such as Photoshop and Lightroom, but the version 1.0.4 that shipped with some newer cameras broke compatibility, according to photographer and consultant Rob Galbraith and forums at Adobe, DPReview and elsewhere. Version 1.0.5 of the firmware can be downloaded from Canon's Web site.
The new firmware also fixes some Spanish and Korean language issues, corrects a problem that could prevent printing, and sets the camera so review of photos resumes at the same point in playback when the camera wakes up from powering itself down, Canon said.
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