Postscipt to the Death of Photoshop?

Well you can't half tell that things have quietened down in this house. Three posts in one day!

So the Behemoth organisation that is Adobe has released a free workflow tool that allegedly competes with Apple's Aperture[more news here]. I've been wondering where Photoshop could go from here, basically as a photographer I use and need probably about 10% of the whole app.

Because of this my heavy duty app of choice is an application called Live Picture, I'm also experimenting with Graphic converter as well. Graphic Converter is super cheap and still does more than I need. Live Picture is elegant doesn't destroy pixels as it works, handles large files with ease on a minimum of ram, edits internally in 16 bits, the list is too long to mention here. While Photoshop has become some sort of de-facto industry standard it isn't the best tool for the job, it certainly isn't the cheapest and I know of at least one person who has discovered that it manipulates colour in a way that is contrary to our way of seeing, [as a consequence they built a tool to work around it].

Anyway while this new tool may be cheap i.e. free, it'll need to do a lot of other things well to sway me. To be honest I have half suspected this for the last version or two of Photoshop, these version upgrades were to say the least uninspiring and I'm not really using much in 8 that didn't exist in 5.5.

Some are speculating some sort of war between Apple and Adobe, to my mind I've always felt Adobe's business model too predatory for my liking, so I still intend on going with Apple's tool anyway.

Technorati Tags:-Aperture, Photoshop, Lightroom.

The Death of Photoshop?

Currently tinkering with Graphic Converter one of the cheap Macintosh alternatives to Adobe Photoshop. One of the awesome things it allows and handles at least two decimal point accuracy across the board.

Technorati Tags:-Photoshop, GraphicConverter

Nature V's Nurture

Taken prior to Christmas 2005, Wright St.Sunshine.

Technorati Tags:-Grey, digitalphoto, concrete

Kodak Changes its Logo

In a break with the past, Eastman Kodak Co. is introducing a new corporate logo designed to help the company forge a new image as a cutting-edge, 21st century innovator.

Kodak's new corporate symbol retains the company's distinctive red and yellow colors, but does away with the boxes that have contained the word "Kodak" for the past 70 years.

The logo change was introduced today during a sweeping speech by Kodak Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In his speech, Perez called on the industry to work together to make digital imaging and digital photography easier and more useful in the context of daily life.

The new mark, based on a customized typeface, is designed to give the company a contemporary look but be flexible enough to apply in new ways and new venues across Kodak's varied businesses --everything from tiny handheld digital cameras to computer software to the letters on Kodak buildings around the world.

The logo is one part of Kodak's larger effort to redefine its brand-name identity, through advertising, public relations, supplier and partner relationships and other in areas.

"We want to break out of the box, in a lot of ways," says Betty Noonan, director of brand management and marketing services at Kodak.

The announcement caps a busy week for Rochester's best-known company. Kodak late Thursday announced an important technology-sharing-and-marketing alliance with Motorola Inc. aimed at making imaging more widespread in electronic devices. Earlier, it unveiled what is believed to be the first digital camera with two lenses, and new software that combines Internet telephone calls with photo sharing.

From, The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle News

Technorati Tags:-Kodak, Logo

Meme on Flickr

Meme's come and go, but this on one flickr has some interesting merits. These are my top 20 images that are other folks favourites, thus proving they have impeccable taste like myself :)

How come common sense isn't so common?

Not that I'm likely to listen to a CD by a band like cold play, but I guess I will NEVAH be buying this one?

Resilience

A return to my roots—but with colour.

Edit 06.01.01
Now blogged elsewhere on the web, at urbannaturegroup.blogspot.com

Technorati tags:-urban, nature, digital-photography

Motion in the Ocean

No best-of's for 2005 here!

To quote U2, "You glorify the past when the future dies up!"

However, remember this?

Which then spawned this?

Well apparently it then spawned this?

Atget Re-Photographed though.

Time and Photography

Just added another gallery to my already growing number of galleries at flickr. This one looks at time and photography, inspired in part by a section of Stephen Shore's book, 'The Nature of Photographs' that deals with photography's ability to change our notion of time. Quoting directly from the book.

"A photograph is static, but the world flows in time. As this flow is interrupted by the photograph, a new meaning, a photographic meaning, is delineated."^§

The impetus to push it further started on the summer equinox, with a small series of shots involving the rising sun on a windy day and a clothesline. So given the ease that I can shoot multiple frames from a single viewpoint it seemed logical to expand on this idea. It is not the first time I've done this. I have in fact used this technique on and off over the last couple of years with digital cameras, but now it seems to make sense as an idea unto itself. I know the idea has been explored by others in the past, now though, we have huge networks of machines communicating over vast distances with each other enabling people to see and connect in ways unheard of. Allowing others to see our slices of time minutes after the happen.

Technorati tags:-photography, time

^§The Nature of Photographs ISBN# 0-8018-5720-1 pg 37

Post Humanity?

How Human are we in this Cyber World we live in?

This guy left a comment recently, I'm not sure if it was meant to be funny or not, but in checking his blog and trying to determine this I found a prolific writer, who either is really unwell or just a "sicko". I can see no reason why anyone would spend so much time writing so extensively if they were a "joke" or some sort of fabrication, but to where your heart on your sleeve in such a public yet anonymous way is obviously enormously therapeutic. How do you in this day and age of faceless and anonymous computer writing really get to know or understand a human being? All this adds to, is the further deepening of mystery that is the human condition I guess?

Normal programming to resume shortly :)

Beautiful Light - How Appropriate

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

Photo taken on 23rd Dec 2005

One of my favourite photography books

I bought this book in 2001. It is "The Nature of Photographs"by Stephen Shore.

According to my review on Amazon, "I stumbled across", it and and in the process gave it a rapturous review. Well now its worth $150.00, and that's US Dollars! I bought mine for the grand-sum of $18.00 Australian, in 2001, talk about investment very nice, and rightly so it's a great book and I pull it out every now and again and re-read it. Of course it doesn't refer to the huge revolution that digital/screen based photographic image-making has had on photography, but it's not meant to be a do all; and end all; kind of book, just a quiet gentle treatise on what photographic print can be or mean.

On holidays now for 6 weeks so postings here will frenetic or sporadic, depending on my mood. Also am planning on giving the Canon 350d a real test against my Nikon Coolpix 5400. Which in some ways is not a fair comparison, as they are 2 completely different cameras that allow the user to shoot in a particular way or not.

Photoshop tutorial blog Oi vey!

Technorati Tags:- Photo-Book, Photography, Photoshop.

Talk about the shallow end of the meme pool!

Boy meets Mom on blind Date! courtesy Yahoo news

Trippy Man!

Well the year is winding up. I'm happy with the way things have panned out on flickr, I've met some great folks and even seen some innovative uses of flickr itself. The Melbourne flickr crew got together for a X-mas do recently, here's some snaps, currently dealing with battery issues to get at the rest [my images], [MitchieGirl's]. Boy - ouch my head the next day! It was fun all round and I really liked the location, thanks to Scootie and Donina for organising it, will return camera in hand sans-alcohol for a revisit - one day.

Last week rationalised my archived images on CD, from 5 boxes to one using paper sleeves instead of Jewel Cases, and in the process have actually felt inclined to go back through my archives and start uploading some images. It's nice to know I can grab them all in one hit in a hurry know if needed, and lug them around or flip through them looking for a particular image quite easily.

This particular image I will never be able to reproduce, it's come about from a strange design feature, or is that fault, from my old Kodak DC260 camera. When the card started to get full it would compress the images and give them a whole new file name usually something like EX00000.jpg. Now also the battery readout on the LCD was notoriously inaccurate. So sometimes it would just die with out warning occasionally mid-processing of an image.

Meanwhile Elsewhere on the Web

I get a mention on Digital Photo of the Day, pretty happy about that, nice get to get noticed.

I need to re-edit this image it looks quite red in safari - too red in fact, compared to this one.

Movement over Water

I love this bridge.

Taken from the window of a moving train. Edited using Graphic Converter rather than Photoshop

Technorati Tags:-GraphicConverter, digiphoto

High Modernist Photography

Meanwhile normal programming resumes with an idea for a CD cover or interface design I want to start working on. I've always been a fan of high modernist photographers such as Paul Strand and Edward Weston, this object appeals to me as a consequence. Some editing in photoshop, but mostly in camera in my studio-shed.

digital-photo, photoshop

Treadmill Bikes & Bio-feotal-pigs!

Ok here's some goofy news that I doubt the veracity of, if somebody from the US reads this perhaps they can follow it up?

Ever wanted to take your treadmill outside and enjoy the geat outdoors, frustrated by the lack of mobility of this piece of gym equipment? Worry no more. The treadmill bike is here?

While I have no reason to doubt the veracity of this next story, you can just never tell on the WWW. Time based performace art reaches a whole new audience with the use of blogs and the interent.

Quoting the blog directly here.

We found these bio fetal pigs in our ceiling when we were changing the ceiling tiles. They were left by the previous owner Gael Bennett, in 1997 specifically for us ( or someone) to find later.

Like Music, like CG generated rock clips, thenyou'll love this webpage.

Insomnia has some advantages!

Technorati tags:-insomnia, treadmillbike, bio-fetal-pigs

Bonus Photoshop Workshops

Ok, just ran a weekend workshop. It went well - as usual ;) One attendee suggested that I run "catchup classes". So that is what I have done, set aside some dates for one photoshop catchup classes in January 2006.

Technorati tags:-Photoshop

Good Samaritan

I want to tell you a story

A story that is small yet significant, profound but simple.

To tell this story, I need to start at the beginning. It's mid-week, at the end of the fortnightly pay cycle. Generally my pay goes in late in the afternoon, sometimes early in the evening. This particular night I am on my way to the train station to catch a train to the "Last Supper", the final get together with the current bunch of second year students, who have just finished, their Diploma of Arts [Applied Photography]. When I got to the station the plan was to buy a ticket that I can re-use for 10 trips, useful for an irregular PT user like myself. They cost $29.90. I got to the station and tried to buy one of these tickets. I wasn't able to, the transaction was declined.It seems that my pay had yet to go in!

So here I am standing at the station, iPod blasting in my ears, staring off into the distance wondering where I could buy one close by - on credit. When a woman who was walking past stops and says something to me. Something I could not understand as my iPod was turned up quite loud. After quickly yanking out my earphones for my iPod, I heard the woman ask"Do you need a ticket?""My ticket is still valid, you can have it if you like."As if I'm going to refuse an offer like that. So I gladly took the ticket, and headed off to the party.

So thank you kind woman, you have proved to me once again that people are usually kind, and helpful.