In a case of perfect timing, Adobe today released Photoshop Lightroom 3 (Beta 2)—and it’s the first version of Lightroom that I really love!

If you’ve never used Lightroom before, come along on Wednesday and let me explain how—regardless of whether you’re a photographer or not—Photoshop Lightroom will change how you interact with your computer.

If you use Lightroom 2, or Apple Aperture, come and see how Lightroom 3 compares—and let us know what you think of it.

Lightroom 3 is exactly what Adobe Bridge should be. If you use Photoshop, then you will want this!

I’m really excited to see you all tomorrow—it’s going to be fun!

Lee.

Location: Meet in Room E019 (Phase 2) | Time: 12:40 — 13:20

We will be meeting in E019 at 12:40, as usual.

If you are new, and don’t know where E019 is, you will find us in the Drama/Fashion building—past the Arts Bar (it is the first door on the left on the ground floor). I have uploaded a QuickTime movie if you would like to see how to get there from B115, but it is 1.5MB, so I have not embedded it within this post. If you would like to see the video right–click here and download it onto your machine.

Jamie and I were thinking that it would be fun to take you step–by–step through the creation of an apocalyptic photo–montage this week. We’ll show you how to bring about the end–of–the–world—without having to go to the trouble of stepping away from your desk.

You might want to bring a canoe :  )

See you there! Lee.

P.S., don’t forget about the competition!

Location: Meet in Room E019 (Phase 2) | Time: 12:40 — 13:20

We will be meeting in E019 at 12:40, as usual.

If you are new, and don’t know where E019 is, you will find us in the Drama/Fashion building—past the Arts Bar (it is the first door on the left on the ground floor). I have uploaded a QuickTime movie if you would like to see how to get there from B115, but it is 1.5MB, so I have not embedded it within this post. If you would like to see the video right–click here and download it onto your machine.

This coming Wednesday is an important day. Why?

The competition:

Just to remind those of you who are planning on entering our Adobe Creative Suite 4 competition, the deadline for submitting your filter is Wednesday 10th March, and this is what we need from you:

• A Photoshop Filter: Your filter needs to be created in Filter Forge (whichever version you prefer to use). We might not be able to actually install the filter you create, so what we would like you to hand-in to us are screenshots of all of the connecting modules that your filter is made from with explanations about what each module does (and why it is where it is in the module chain). As we said before, if your filter is based on someone else’s that’s fine—as long as you can explain what everything does.

If you win, our sponsor Adobe will give you either Adobe Creative Suite 4: Design Premium; Web Premium; or Production Premium—entirely your choice.

To help you choose, take a look at this comparison page on Adobe’s website.

The very best of luck to all of you! Jamie and I are really looking forward to seeing what you produce.

Lee.

The Digital Shoebox: How to Organize, Find, and Share Your Photos is an invaluable guide to managing—and showcasing—your photo collection.

The introduction of this book is subtitled ‘This Guide Will Make Things Simple’, and it does exactly that—masterfully. Through a combination of beautifully clear advice, wonderful anecdotes, and fantastic illustrations, Sarah Bay Williams takes the reader on an enthralling journey through the often daunting world of digital asset management (DAM). Explanations are simple and easy to follow, but thankfully, never over simplified. This writing style results in the most approachable primer available on the principles of DAM.

This book is obviously written for those of us yet to begin taking control of our photography collections, and so whilst various specialised tools are discussed, the emphasis is firmly upon getting the maximum benefit out of the applications already installed on your computer (both Mac and PC solutions are discussed in detail).

For a book devoted to a potentially dry and technical subject, this guide is extraordinarily reader–friendly, and I would have no hesitation recommending it to even the most computer–phobic photographers.

I have read Peter Krogh’s The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers (which I also recommend—after you have read this) and therefore approached The Digital Shoebox assuming that there would be very little of value for me within its pages. I have been absolutely delighted with it. At 150 pages, it is concise enough to be read in one siting, and you’ll definitely want to—it’s that good. But, the fact that it’s a relatively slim volume (in comparison with most other computer books) shouldn’t put you off; everything you need to know, to bring order from chaos, is within its pages.

Sarah Bay Williams honed her system whilst working as the communications photography coordinator for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, maintaining an archive of hundreds of thousands of digital photographs. It is also obvious from the text that she is an avid photographer in her spare time. As you read (and follow) her suggestions, bringing order to your own image collection, it is reassuring to know that—for all of its simplicity—this system was forged in such unforgiving professional circumstances. It’s a system that you can trust to look after you.

The theme running through The Digital Shoebox is that of enjoying (and showcasing) your image collection; two chapters are devoted to sharing your photographs with the world at large—and contain some fantastic (and inspiring) advice.

Sarah Bay Williams has created what amounts to a gift. Not only will this book bring sanity to your image collection, it will also give you a sense of excitement; and the tools to enjoy your images as never before.

Thanks so much for joining us last week—it was great to see you all!

As I mentioned, I’m not going to link to the Mac–thing that we started the session with on this site. However, you can head over to our Del.icio.us bookmark list if you’re curious…

If you are excited about Flash Catalyst, you’ll find the application (free to download) right here.

We have found a few good sources of information to help get you comfortable with the application. The best places we’ve found (so far) are:

• Getting started with Flash Catalyst
• Getting started with Adobe Flash Catalyst, Beta 2
• Flash Catalyst Best Practices

Please add a comment if you find any other tutorials that you think are good.

Remember, if you’re entering the CS4 competition (recap details will be posted tomorrow, all being well), the deadline for submissions is next Wednesday.

Jamie and I are open to suggestions about what to discuss next week, so please feel free to let us know if you have any particular requests.

Cheers, Lee.

I’ve been a little late in getting this post online, so you may already know—Adobe Photoshop is 20 years old!

Huge congratulations to the Knoll brothers, and everyone involved with the application at Adobe! It’s an enormous achievement, and there are a number of things online that I wanted to point out to you all, that really show how much progress the application has made over the past 20 years.

• Celebrating 20 years of imagination never standing still
• Photoshop 20th Anniversary Event, hosted by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals
• A new show on Adobe TV celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Adobe Photoshop

There are also some fun things going on online, related to the event:

• A friendly Layer Tennis match, between Khoi Vinh, design director for the New York Times web site, and Nicholas Felton, life-chronicler of the Feltron Annual Reports. Commentary by John Nack (Photoshop Product Manager).
• A special edition of Martini Hour, featuring the John Nack Configurator drinking game!
• Finally, check out this 20th anniversary tribute by Giovanni Antico, created in Adobe Photoshop 1.0.7!

If you’ve seen anything else cool, please leave a comment, and let us all know.

Here’s to the next 20 years!

Hi everyone!

I’m going to be in London on Wednesday 17th, so our next meeting will need to be postponed until Wednesday 24th. It will be well worth the wait though—we are going to be exploring a great CS5 application, Adobe Flash Catalyst.

Not heard of it? I’ll let Adobe explain what it does:

Adobe Flash Catalyst™ is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code. Create interactive portfolios, product guides, microsites, site navigation, interfaces for RIAs and more.

For our purposes, it’s interesting because it enables us to design richly interactive websites in Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator—and take advantage of ActionScript—without requiring us to learn how to code!

At the moment Flash Catalyst is available here as a free public beta. It already allows us to create some pretty exciting interactive content. I’ll be showing you how to create a project (from start to finish) during the session. I hope to see you there…

In the meantime, don’t forget about our CS4 competition. We are going to be giving away a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium, Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium, or Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium—whichever you prefer. The deadline will be March 10th. I will write a separate post in greater detail, but just to remind you, Jamie and I would like you to create a filter using Filter Forge (any version). We would prefer you write the filter from scratch (but you don’t have to), and it can do anything you like. We might ask you to explain how it works, so if you are modifying an existing filter make sure that you know how it works! We are looking forward to seeing what you produce :  )

Cheers,

Lee.

There are more than 100 filters in Adobe Photoshop (I’m thinking that there are ~120, but I’ve not checked lately). The trouble is, only about 10 of them are worth using. What’s a Photoshop Ninja to do? Make your own of course! How? Let us initiate you into the secret world of Filter Forge.

It’s like alchemy, except you don’t have to poison yourself  :  )

Jamie and I are looking forward to seeing you,

Lee.

Location: Room E019 (Phase 2) | Time: 12:40 — 13:20

We will be meeting in E019 at 12:40, as usual.

If you are new, and don’t know where E019 is, you will find us in the Drama/Fashion building—past the Arts Bar (it is the first door on the left on the ground floor). I have uploaded a QuickTime movie if you would like to see how to get there from B115, but it is 1.5MB, so I have not embedded it within this post. If you would like to see the video right–click here and download it onto your machine.

For the curious, an interview with John Knoll — the co–founder (with his brother Thomas) of Adobe Photoshop…