Candle Cannon??

Have you ever seen those "magic" ball-of-air cannons? You know, the ones that have a rubber diaphragm on the back of a largish conical tube - guaranteed to jam dirt and debris in your eyes at 20+ feet?

Here's a Much Bigger one.

This one was built to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of a sandwich shop, of course. What... you were expecting something relevant?

GoLive GoneDead

It appears that Adobe finally decided GoLive will no longer be developed, as of today. IMHO, GoLive was a tragedy from the start. Having used it only a few times, I never got the impression is was anything more than FrontPage by Adobe.

Folks who want to move to Dreamweaver, and have a current license for GoLive, will be offered a $199 upgrade path.

Expect a real press release from Adobe very soon.

FWIW, I'm glad they are rid of GoLive. Adobe is doing a great job at refining their tools and there is no need to have multiple tiers of web development applications, unless they choose to follow in Photoshop's footsteps and provide a light version for the hobby crowd. I would also expect them to leverage AIR/Flex to develop something similar to Photoshop Express, allowing online page development.

Wouldn't that be cool? Dreamweaver Express... it's not a leap to imagine something like this really giving Google's Pages suite a run.

You Suck at Photoshop - Behind the ...mask?

Time.com has an exposé on the guys behind YSAP.

So, it turns out to be an accidental viral marketing success story, and who can complain about that? I have to say that I didn't find the series interesting enough to watch beyond the first episode, but I did watch the blogsphere at large just go nuts over these videos.

It's like the Photoshop world also took great pride in being part of a sparkling meme that didn't involve journalists lying yet again, or counterfeiters (or counter-counterfeiters, ftm), or the office of the President, or instruments of graphic doom.

That aspect reminds me somewhat of the great Flash debates, where everlasting ass-wad and general fuqtard Jakob Nielsen claimed Flash was 99% bad. Anyway...

I suppose I owe it to myself to go watch the other nine episodes. If for no other reason than I can chat with other PS geeks at various gatherings.

Damn...

This kid is 17 or 18, has been shooting with a dSLR about 2 years, and has an amazing style and body of work. Meet Joey Lawrence.

Not only does he show an incredible eye for solid photography, he also apparently has a pretty darned good grip on using Photoshop. He's even got a DVD out, for $300, in which he expounds on his approach and technique. A little steep for my wallet, but I might be persuaded to go in with someone... hint...

The Lighting Journey

Here is an older entry from Strobist on finding your place on the lighting journey. The article talks about how photographers use light, and relates the amount of awareness and control to various levels of skill and creativity. It's a long article, but if you are interested in photography beyond the basics, this is a good bit of insight and metric to figure out where you are and where you want to go.

I'm somewhere between 4 (Experimentation) and 5(Bag of Tricks). While I do know what works for many situations, and if I am shooting for a client I can nail the essentials, I really do rely on experimentation when getting started. Plus, it's just fun.

Collection of Photoshop tutorials for eyes

This guy has a neat little collection of 8 tutorials for enhancing eyes in Photoshop. Some are kind of drawn out, but they are handy none-the-less.

Good blog entry on designing within limits

Sean Hodge has a nice article on working within limits for designers. Creatives sometimes have trouble narrowing down all the great ideas they have, which can be stifling, oddly enough. With too much freedom, it becomes difficult to choose quickly or effectively. Imposing some restrictions, like following a design methodology, can really speed up the process which can lead to some great results.

Book Cutting as Art...

Book cutting? Yep.

I've seen similar stuff done with paper sheets or even some stacks, and this seems like a logical step. I imagine this takes a lot of patience, and a little perversity to cut into a book (which I very nearly revere). Some of the works relate to the title directly, but others are just cool sculptures.

Be sure to follow some of the links around to find other galleries.

Don't Try This At Home

Some of my favorites:

DIY Home Photography Studio

I've started a series on building a do-it-yourself (DIY) some photography studio. The first article considers the concepts and introduces some of the terms I'll be using through the anticipated 5-part series. There are several sites out there that tell you how to build this or that, and many of them have great information.

What they lack is philosophy. Why do you want to build a home studio? How do you know what you need? When can you DIY versus having to go out and buy the real stuff?

My approach is to educate readers about the fundamental aspects of a studio setup. I am not going in to wiring diagrams, optical theory, or even shooting aesthetics. What I am going to do is give folks a set of tools they can use to evaluate their own needs and capabilities. More than anything, this will guide the enthusiast to making good choices about lighting and scenery, and help them balance elements that sometimes conflict, like reflection and detail, or efficiency and cost.

You can check it out at CommunityMX. There is a form at the end of the article you can use to send feedback or questions.

Future installments will talk about equipment and improvisation, and will go into more detail about how to approach building a home studio out of real-world, but non-obvious items. Find out how a USB hub can handle some tricky lighting situations!

JaguarPC offers unlimited hosting storage

Ok... not exactly a Photoshop or imaging thing, but I thought this was worth blogging...

JaguarPC has a great deal - unlimited space for web hosting. Start out with 50G and go from there. I've been hosting with JagPC for several years, and while I've had a few problems, I am still with them because of their willingness to help, and the speedy responses from support tickets. Plus, they are just good people.

I actually have a virtual private server, so I don't get this benefit. And I'm not set up as a reseller for them, so I get nothing out of posting this. Just so you know...

NewTek introduces Rendition for CS3 Extended

NewTek, the folks behind LightWave 3D, have introduced a new plug in for Photoshop CS3 Extended. Rendition appears to be aimed at industrial graphic artists, but could be useful for anyone doing composite digital stills work. It will cost you to get into the beta release, but the price is discounted until the commercial release happens, presumably sometime later this year.

It's a bit odd to see software listed as being in beta, but still have a price tag attached. It might be better labeled as "early adopter" or some such, which would also imply it becoming a standard.

Adobe will not ship a 64-bit version of Photoshop for Mac

John Nack (I seem to refer to his blog a lot...) just posted this information about the future of Photoshop as a native 64-bit application:

As you've probably seen, among the great features in the Lightroom 2.0 beta is its ability to run 64-bit-native on Mac (Intel, 10.5.x) and Windows (Vista 64). If you think it feels great to beat Aperture to the punch here, you're right. :-)

<...>

The Lightroom news naturally raises the question: What's Adobe doing with Photoshop? In the interest of giving customers guidance as early as possible, we have some news to share on this point: in addition to offering 32-bit-native versions for Mac OS X and 32-bit Windows, just as we do today, we plan to ship the next version of Photoshop as 64-bit-native for Windows 64-bit OSes only.

There is a lot of good information there about what 64-bit does and doesn't mean, both in general and for running Photoshop. In the end, it's about market, and Apple has decided to leave Carbon-64 in the trash heap. So, Adobe will be focusing on moving to the Cocoa way of doing things.

John brings up some good information for Mac folks, and also tries to head off any media-baited flame wars. However, I am willing to bet this will just spark a frenzy of armchair developers wagging fingers and charry-picking lame arguments. It's business, folks... take an objective step back and see what makes sense to all parties involved. Pay special attention to the 3 points made near the end of his blog entry.

Lightroom 2.0 now on Adobe Labs

Adobe has put up Lightroom 2.0 as a public beta. This version includes 64-bit support and some great tool enhancements. John Nack has a good intro to this version, and is updating his blog post with new information as he finds it.

If you own a current copy of LR, you can keep your beta install running until Aug 31. All others get a 30-day unlimited preview. Be sure to check out the known issues (pdf) because this is a beta, after all.

Virgle Pioneers Wanted!!

This is great! What else could you want from our generation than to see Mars colonized?

Apply Now!

be sure to check today's date so you don't miss the deadline. goofball - it's April Fools'day :)