News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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Adobe hason Tuesday officially released Photoshop Lightroom 2, a product that was first released as a beta in April 2008. Lightroom has many new features including being Adobe’s first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5.
Tom Hogarty, senior product manager for Lightroom and Camera Raw at Adobe, said that the Lightroom 2 beta was downloaded 130,000 times. The company received a lot of valuable feedback about the new features and some insight into how professional photographers were using the application during the beta process.
One of the ways that a photographer’s workflow is changing is with the use of Raw image format. Adobe is supplying default camera profiles that closely emulate the visual looks that photographers are used to seeing from their favourite camera.
This means that a photographer can use a profile to match what they see when they take the picture or build their own profile to suit their own preference. Profiles can be created by photographers using the DNG Profile Editor and Camera Raw 4.5, also being released today.
The Adobe Camera Raw 4.5 plug-in and DNG Converter 4.5 are available for download and support over 190 camera models.
Among the changes made in the new version of Lightroom is the ability to organise images visually across multiple hard drives. As more professional photographers use the Raw format, multiple hard drives are becoming the norm in the industry, making this an important feature.
New features like Suggested Keyword aim to make the mundane task of keywording images more intuitive. The application suggests keywords based on your keywording habits. For instance, if you go to the beach and always take your dog, when you enter the keyword “beach,” Lightroom will probably suggest “dog” as the next keyword.
Hogarty said that Local brush enhancements, library filleting tools and output sharpening refinements were major topics of discussion among photographers during the beta period.
Now, using the Develop module, the Local Adjustment Brush allows photographers to adjust color, exposure and tonal range of specific areas, without affecting other areas of the image.
A new Graduated Filter allows users to edit larger areas by applying gradually diminishing or increasing adjustment effects such as exposure, clarity, and saturation, alone, or in any combination, according to Adobe.
Other changes in Lightroom 2 include dual-monitor support, Library Filter Bar, and streamlined search capabilities.
Lightroom 2 is available immediately.
Adobe has released a slew of updates to key applications in Creative Suite 3, finally bringing Leopard compatibility to After Effects, in addition to some more general fixes.
Jim Dalrymple | Jan 24, 2008
The release of QuickTime 7.4 earlier this month had an unplanned side-effect for one of Apple’s biggest developers, Adobe. According to an Adobe product manager the QuickTime release breaks After Effects and Premiere. Apparently the issue is with QuickTime’s support of Digital Rights Management technology for downloaded movies in iTunes. QuickTime checks movies at regular intervals for DRM violations and since the Adobe products don’t write the headers until it renders the movies, this is seen as a violation.
Jim Dalrymple | Jan 27, 2008
Adobe Systems has announced plans to discontinue its Adobe Stock Photos service effective April 1, 2008. The service enables users of Adobe's Bridge software to purchase royalty-free images for use in their work. It was introduced in 2005 when Adobe rolled out Creative Suite 2. "Adobe has decided to concentrate its efforts in other areas," said the company in a statement posted to the Adobe Stock Photos Web site. The service will remain fully operational until March 3, 2008. From then through the end of March, comp images will still be available for download. Adobe has posted instructions for users interested in purchasing or downloading images after March 31, 2008. An image ID converter is being provided so users can purchase images directly from the image providers who have supplied content to Adobe Stock Photos in the past.
Peter Cohen | Feb 5, 2008
Apple on Wednesday released an update to QuickTime, version 7.4.1. Available for download from the Software Update system preference, QuickTime is also available from Apple's downloads web site. Separate updaters have been posted for Mac OS X v10.3, 10.4 and 10.5. The update "addresses security issues and improves compatibility with third-party applications," according to Apple. Apple provided no additional details about those changes in the release notes, but confirmed that this update addresses a previously reported incompatibility between QuickTime 7.4 and Adobe After Effects. According to a separately posted note on Apple's web site, QuickTime 7.4.1 also includes a security improvement that can prevent a malicious web site from causing an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.
Peter Cohen and Robert McMullen | Feb 7, 2008
