Photographer Cameron Davidson is offering Aerial New York City, a 60-image iPad portfolio depicting the city from above, for free for a limited time. Lovely. [Via Ellis Vener]
[Irrelevant personal side note: I used to look out a window just below the “Y” in “York” on the opening screen. 20 Exchange FTW.]
Photographer Ryan Jackson strapped together four cheap GoPro video cameras into an interesting Frankenstein, shooting a cool 360-degree panoramic video. “The short version of this story is that I shot with four GoPros, extracted still images from video, stitched the stills together into panoramas then recombined them back into video. For the much more detailed and nerdy answer, read on.” [Via Manu S. Anand]
I’m delighted to report that Photoshop Express, Adobe’s free photo capture & editing tool that’s been downloaded over 15 million times (!), is now available in enhanced version 1.5 form via Apple’s App Store.
This release reworks the photo capture experience, adding support for batch capture of photos plus a highly useful review mode, and it includes full Retina display support. iOS 4.2 compatibility brings benefits like an improved ability to upload images in the background.
After going a bit quiet (publicly, at least) following the previous release, the Express team is now cooking with gas, and we have other cool enhancements queued up for the near future. In the near term, please let us know what you think of the new release, and what you’d like to see us do going forward. Thanks for your interest & support.
As always, good tutorials are making their way onto Adobe TV. Some recent examples:
• Photoshop Basics Series: Creating an image reflection
Presenter Dennis Radeke says, “Many times, I’ve seen great work that was somewhat spoiled by the fact that it employed a reflection as part of the design. Creating a reflection on any image is a fairly easy thing to do and in this episode we’ll look at some techniques to make a convincing and realistic reflection within Adobe Photoshop.”
• Sync Your Photos from Lightroom 3 to Your iDevices
In this episode I’ll show you how to set up the Hard Drive Publish Service to allow you to continue to manage your photos in Lightroom, but also sync them to your iDevices via iTunes without using iPhoto.
Every now and then it’s much easier to show someone than to try to explain it to them. After a few emails from Beau about how to use Mini Bridge? I just decided to make it the topic of this week’s Creative Suite Podcast.
• Adobe Lightroom 3: Needle in a Haystack
When you need to find a specific image among a huge number of images, filtering can provide an excellent solution. This jump-start will provide you with a sense of the power of filtering to find an image within Lightroom.
• Photoshop User TV – Episode 206
The countdown to the new set is winding down. In the meantime, check out this interview with Adobe’s Julieanne Kost.
Our friend/Adobe evangelist Julieanne has whipped up some great new Lightroom presets. You can view the whole list of presets on her blog, or use these links to jump right to those you find most interesting. Each entry includes an explanation & download links:
By very popular demand, Russell Brown has recorded & posted his tutorials on creating tablet-ready portfolios & great-looking (non-cheesy) HDR images. Enjoy.
Mobile portfolios:
HDR
The other day while using Instagram, it occurred to me: To really do proper retro photos, I need a way to obscure half the image with my dad’s finger. In that vein, how about an app that would fill your images with cliched errors? A few ideas:
Not quitting my day job,
J.
Carl Sagan reads a short excerpt from his book, “The Pale Blue Dot” in this lovely time lapse from filmmaker Michael Marantz:
[Via]
Ah, I’ve been waiting for this one for some time: Eye-Fi is enabling direct photo transfer from cameras to iPads–something I’ve heard photographers request over and over again. Now, if only I could get a WiFi-enabled card that would work in my 5D. (Eye-Fi strongly discourages the use of an SD-to-CF adapter.) [Via Sean Parent]
This is one of the most captivating, weirdly suspenseful short films I’ve seen in ages, and it’s essentially just one dude walking (or rather, sneaking) around New York City:
You can read more about these unsanctioned underground adventures in the NY Times and on NPR. [Via]
I dig the work of “liquid sculptor” Martin Waugh (see previous). Check out this behind-the-scenes segment from Time Warp:
“Super dizzying,” our man Finn might say–though oddly less so than you’d expect:
[Via]
This one goes out to all the East Coast peeps:
[Via]
Shinchi Maruyama creates amazing “sculptures” (see photo gallery) by tossing water & capturing the results with a high-speed camera:
[Via]
What’s an “epoch-making creative iPhone camera”? One that lets you do long exposure & paint with light, apparently. Magic Shutter looks pretty cool:
[Via Nic Couillard]
Tor Even Mathisen rocks it:
[Via]
Lightroom 3.3 (Mac|Win) and Camera Raw 6.3 (Mac|Win) for CS5 are now available as final releases on Adobe.com and through the update mechanisms available in Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3. These updates include bug fixes, new camera support and new lens profiles. Cameras added:
For a complete list of lens profiles added & bugs fixed, please see Tom Hogarty’s post on the Lightroom Journal.
Remember that if you’re using an older version (Lightroom 2.x, Photoshop CS4, etc.), you can use the free DNG Converter (Mac|Win) to save disk space (losslessly compressing your proprietary camera files) while making images compatible with your app.
Graeme Taylor pointed his inexpensive, high-speed Casio Exilim FH20 out a train window, then slowed down the results:
He writes,
The ‘trick’ is the camera collects images at a rate of 210 per second – but the film is played back at 30 frames per second. So, every seven seconds of footage that you watch corresponds to 1 real second. At least at the start, one real second is plenty of time for someone to move into, then out of, the camera’s field of view, but isn’t enough time for them to really do much: hence, the frozen effect. It breaks down towards the end not because I’m doing something clever with the frame rates (captured or replayed), but simply because the train was stopping!
[Via]
“Are you going to stuff me into the bird, Dad-O??”
“Absolutely, my boy!!”
Whether or not you celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I hope you had a great day today. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m giving myself a little break from daily blogging. Thanks for reading & for giving me the chance to do this job.
All the best to you & yours,
El Tryptophan
Not really newsworthy, but encouraging: A few months ago I wrote about the need for wireless tethering, whereby your camera could discover transfer photos right into a tablet or laptop. (Today’s setups–e.g. setting up a portable hotspot while on the go–are too neckbeard-a-riffic to get mass adoption.) The customer demand is so strong that I’ve assumed that a bunch of hardware manufacturers have been working on solutions. Now I see that the Wi-Fi Direct spec is apparently inching its way towards shipping products. I’m eager to see what results. [Via Sean Parent]
Speaking of beautiful time lapses, here’s another worth seeing:
Come on, who doesn’t love a Zeppelin? Other installments are at TimeScapes.org. [Via]
Alexandre Favre, Pierre Dumont, and David Mignot fire up the Beethoven in this bombastic tour of the city:
New York City – Timelapse from stimul on Vimeo.
[Via Rob Cantor]
“In the end, we shall all be dead!” Anyone who pairs a statement like that with cheerful astronauts on their marketing materials is my kind of weirdo. 🙂
With that in mind, I’m happy to see that Jeff Butterworth & the Alien Skin Software crew have started their own blog. Like mine it mixes product info with interesting bits about photography, design, and more (e.g. one involving iPhones, suction cups, and plane windows). I look forward to bogarting their finds like it’s my job.
Lightroom 3.3 and Camera Raw 6.3 are now available as Release Candidates on Adobe Labs, fixing bugs while adding new lens profiles & new camera support:
According to PM Tom Hogarty,
This release also introduces the Adobe Lens Profile Downloader. The Lens Profile Downloader is a free companion application to Photoshop CS5, Photoshop Lightroom 3, and the Camera Raw 6 plug-in. It allows customers to search, download, rate and comment on the online lens correction profiles that are created and shared by the user community.
See Tom’s entry on the Lightroom Journal for complete details.
Our friend & former Adobe Photo Evangelist George Jardine has published a new 15-video tutorial series on the Lightroom Develop module, giving special emphasis to features that are new to Lightroom 3, including the new sharpening and noise reduction controls, the all-new Lens Correction panel, and the new 2010 raw processing options.
[Previous: Asset management tutorials from George.]
If you’re a photographer who’ll be in NYC next week, you might want to check out Shoot NYC, an event running Thursday and Friday in parallel with PhotoPlus Expo. On Friday PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes will be presenting an Adobe Lightroom Review, 12:30pm–2:00pm on Friday. Check out the full session listing here.
[Update: Author & PS expert Katrin Eismann also notes that SVA’s Optic Nerve photography show will be running during the show, with a reception being held on Wednesday the 27th.]
Think you’ll go far for a shot? Not this far, I hope:
Elsewhere, NatGeo photographers get hammered by a wall of sand–and just keep shooting:Staggering power and beauty.
I’m pleased to say that I’ve just taken on product management responsibilities for Photoshop Express, Adobe’s photo capture, editing, and sharing app that’s been downloaded some 13 million times for iOS and Android devices. We’re excited about the interesting directions we can go with Express, and I look forward to sharing more details soon.
In the meantime, I thought I’d ask: What app(s) do you use for capturing images with your mobile devices? What’s missing, and what could be improved? (I’ll leave the question open-ended to avoid leading the witnesses.)
Thanks,
J.
Man, is it a great time to be alive or what? I can’t tell you how badly I wanted a radio-controlled helicopter as a kid. I think I would have sold myself into slavery to get something like this rig:
Check out HeliVideo.com for more details. [Via]
What a fascinating technique & beautiful result:
We use photographic and animation techniques that were developed to draw moving 3-dimensional typography and objects with an iPad. In dark environments, we play movies on the surface of the iPad that extrude 3-d light forms as they move through the exposure. Multiple exposures with slightly different movies make up the stop-frame animation.
For more info, check out the makers’ blog post & the resulting book.
Lovely work from Simon Christen. The zipping planes & moon nail it for me.
[Total non-sequitur counterpoint, aviation-wise: American Airlines wants eight bucks for the use of a pillow and blanket. Eight bucks, AA? Two words: Die screaming.]
Neat, and rather hypnotic:
[Via Jeff Tranberry]
Could photographers be clearer in wanting their images sent wirelessly & immediately to iPads and similar tablets, turning these devices into extensions of the back of the camera? I seriously doubt it.
At the moment you can kinda-sorta do some interesting things, as long as you have a traditional Mac/PC in the loop. Here’s a 3-minute demo from Brent Pearson:
More details about the setup are on Brent’s site. [Via]
Relying a regular computer largely defeats the purpose of using the tablet, of course. Photogs want to be shooting with a tablet-wielding assistant on the red carpet; checking lighting on set by reviewing raw image data; and just chimping on vacation. The whole point is to avoid lugging a 5-8lb. laptop & to carry a ~1lb tablet instead.
Here’s hoping that device makers are working on a Bonjour-like solution that’ll let cameras, computers, phones, and other devices in close proximity locate one another, then exchange data (stills, live video streams, etc.). If nothing else I’d stop wishing that my iPad included a camera for capturing raw materials for sketching, as I’d instead just use my phone as an extension of the tablet.