Think they could give me riddim? Fast Company explains:
During the synth intro, you see five sets of arms wiggle listlessly. When the beat kicks in, they pump with a bit more rhythm. But the faceless performers aren’t dancing–well, at least not of their own volition. Instead, they’re serving as a human visualizer, shocked into action (literally) by carefully placed electrodes.
Julieanne Kost writes:
If you or someone you know is in the early stages of exploring Photoshop, there’s a new learning destination that’s worth a visit. Photoshop for Beginners is a sub-forum on Adobe.com that is tailor-made for newcomers to the powerful but complex software.
Ask any question in Photoshop for Beginners and you’ll receive an answer that emphasizes visuals — including video how-tos — and steers clear of unnecessary jargon.
Seriously? Wow.
[Via]
I like this list from Gov.uk:
Check out the whole post for details & examples of each.
Adobe has posted a quick (7-question) survey to learn a bit more about your needs. If you’re doing interactive design work, please take a minute to help us help you. Thanks much.
“Half performance artist, half software engineer, Golan Levin manipulates the computer to create improvised soundscapes with dazzling corresponding visuals.” Well, that sounds about right. Kick off your Monday with some offbeat tech:
As you make the switch to Adobe® Premiere Pro, you’ll find many ways to get things done. What you may miss are some hidden gems you don’t know to look for. In this fast paced webinar, join Richard Harrington as he shares the advanced techniques that will speed up your workflow. This webinar is designed for experienced editors who want to jump in and get results.
Julieanne Kost writes,
Russell Preston Brown and I set off this weekend for the Adobe Eclipse Tour! We’ll be stopping in Korea, Singapore and Australia for a full day of Photoshop and Lightroom training. Click the links below for more information.
I try to keep self-congratulatory posts to a minimum, but it’s nice to see the momentum around Adobe Premiere Pro & other Adobe video tools. Streaming Magazine just announced a number of Readers’ Choice Awards:
Join Robbie Carman as he guides you through the essential aspects of making the switch to Adobe® Premiere Pro. Designed for experienced editors, this webinar will help you get more comfortable and to work faster–allowing you to implement your current editing knowledge quickly. Specific topics will include: starting a project, setting up sequences, accessing essential preferences and keyboard shortcuts, ingesting media, marking and trimming clips in the timeline, and adding audio and effects.
This is one of those things you’ve probably never heard of (nor should you have to), but that enables all kinds of cool experiences. If you subscribe to cable or satellite TV, there’s a good chance Adobe Pass helps you be able to watch shows on other devices:
Adobe Pass is now supported by more than 150 US operators as they deliver hundreds of millions of authenticated streams for major live events such as The Olympic Games […]
Approximately 98 percent of pay TV households in the U.S. are now able to view TV content via the Adobe Pass authentication service and consumers are pushing TV Everywhere adoption to an all-time high. Given the track we are on, we expect every major TV show to be available via a TV Everywhere app within the next two years.
Here’s a brief overview:
Congrats to the team! [Via]
MediaStorm is comprised of expert digital storytellers, pushing the craft especially through use of DSLRs. They write,
After seven years working with Apple’s Final Cut Pro, we have decided to begin using the Adobe Production Suite. We were early adopters of FCP 7 and considered making the switch to FCP X. In the end, we felt more comfortable with Adobe’s product than Apple’s FCP X. We know that many people in the industry are struggling with the same decision, so our producers have agreed to share their reasoning for the switch.
[Via Tom Hogarty]
NPR has put together interesting proof that human-powered helicopters are hard to build: Kottke writes,
A team at the University of Maryland are building a human-powered helicopter in an attempt to win the Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition. To win the $250,000 prize, the helicopter must fly for 60 seconds, reach a momentary altitude of 3 meters, and stay within a 10 meter square. This is surprisingly difficult.
I’d call it unsurprisingly difficult!
“It is simply better than anything else out there.”
Fantastic:
The original:
[Via]
Digital Shorts, fake commercials, and more are now going through Adobe Premiere Pro:
The turning point, says Epstein, came when Apple released Final Cut Pro X. “We thought, ‘Well, this just isn’t going to work at all.’ So much of what I do is After Effects-specific, so when CS5.5 came along with Dynamic Linking—definitely the killer feature for me thus far—we decided to try that out on a simple piece featuring Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrelltoward the end of last season. It went so smoothly that once CS6 came out, we decided to dial the full workflow in and make sure it fit our needs. So far, it really has.”
I’ve loved SNL’s ad parodies since I was little, so it’s fun to get an in-depth look at the crazy-quick way they all come together.
[Update: I should clarify that the article refers to editor Adam Epstein, not to all of Saturday Night Live. Sorry for any inadvertent confusion.]
I’m a fan of democratizing storytelling, and this event (2-5pm today) helps uncover otherwise hidden voices:
For its first public festival, the Bay Area Youth Media Network (BAYMN) will be showcasing youth-produced videos about social change with two specific categories on The 2012 Presidential Election and The High School Dropout Crisis on Saturday, October 13 at the Kaiser Center in Oakland from 2-5pm. It will be an afternoon dedicated to celebrate the great work of young people. There will be awards for the filmmakers as well as raffle prizes for the audience.
To attend the event, you must RSVP here.
[Via Matthew Williams]
Engineers: I’m part of a seriously cool new project at Adobe, working with a rather kickass team (brave talk, but you’ll see). If you have skills like these, we should talk:
Here’s the complete job listing. Ideally you’d work from Seattle, but we can discuss that.
Let’s do this thing!
[Update: Another server-savvy position is open in Creative Cloud engineering.]
Check out a rather brilliant creation from ad agency Achtung:
The Volkswagen BBQ-VAN is a full-scale model of a Volkswagen Transporter T1 that’s a specially-built barbecue pit. It has a grill under its roof and fits 10 burgers, and also has battery-powered headlights.
Sadly it’s a one-off created for a contest, so it won’t be driving around my back yard any time soon.
[Via]
Coming soon to Adobe’s San Jose HQ:
We will have two speakers for this meeting. One will be Sharad Mangalick, Lightroom Product Manager, talking about new features available in the 4.1 and 4.2 versions of Lightroom. These include tone mapping of 32-bit HDR images, new controls for eliminating chromatic aberration, new camera support, etc.
Our other speaker will be Jeff Butterworth, the founder of Alien Skin Software. He will give an overview of some of their products, such as Exposure 4, Snap Art 3, Blow Up 3, and Bokeh 2, including many before/after sample images. You can find out about their Photoshop plug-ins, along with lots of examples and videos, at www.alienskin.com.
Pizza and drinks start at 6:30, and the meeting will start at 7:00, in the Park Conference Room. To park underneath the Adobe building (345 Park Ave.), use the Almaden Avenue entrance, under the East Tower. If the security guard at the parking entrance asks for an Adobe contact, use Stephen Nielson’s name.
I’m kicking off a new project (so exciting; can’t wait to tell you more), and we need to make interactive iPad prototypes to test ideas. What tool(s) do you find effective for such work?
Adobe will be conducting research over the next several months, seeking to better understand students’ needs:
Adobe is looking to talk to teachers, professors and instructors to gain a better understanding about student assignments, software and technology use. This unique and fun opportunity will allow educators to work with Adobe and share how technology is being incorporated in the way students complete assignments in their classrooms. There will be several paid research opportunities. If you’re interested in these opportunities, please fill out a preliminary screener. You’ll be contacted if you are eligible to participate!
This wave of research is happening in the US only.
Let’s hear it for anything that helps independent artists sustain their craft:
More info is in the staff blog post.
I always love these things.
[Via]
At Photoshop World, Russell Brown & co. went from Wacom sketch to a real live monster.
Russell brought together a team of makeup artists to create a monster that would be part of the Adobe booth at Photoshop World in Las Vegas. The original design was sketched on a Wacom Cintiq by Rayce Bird and then the prosthetics were fabricated in LA. The team of artist applied the makeup in the Adobe booth, and the monster came to life. Finally, the monster was photographed in the Westcott booth and then attendees edited their photos in the Adobe booth with Lightroom 4 and Adobe Photoshop CS6. The final results were amazing.
As Russell Brown always says “There is nothing better then creating a cool monster and letting our users take great photos.”
Check it out:
Russell writes, “Special thanks to TEAM MONSTER for making this possible. Rayce Bird, Ian Von Cromer, Frank Ippolito, Brianna Bird Kirkham, Thomas Willeford, Aaron Grimes, Amber McCoy, Weston Maggio, and Joel Grimes.”
It’s off topic for this blog, but this three-minute celebration of teachers is too good not to share:
“It’s a bit of a tough concept to get across,” writes fxguide, “but once you have that ‘aha’ moment, you realize how cool the tech is.” Check out this in-depth interview with PM Michael Coleman. He talks about how the system keeps people unblocked (no lock-outs during collaboration; automatic background upload of footage; etc.), able to collaborate across locations, and more.
This is… I… what?? Play it (or jump) to the end, then notice that on the Vimeo page you can drive the performance via your keyboard. Insane.
FLAME SAX!!
(I’m watching a table full of people watch this clip, and now I wish there were a genre of reaction videos for it.)
Apropos of nothing, I’ve always loved the titles for HBO’s late & un-lamented John From Cincinnati. What a great evocation of time, place, and flavor. RIP Joe Strummer.
Is there any reason that, at age 37, I should find this horrible animal puppetry so hilarious? No, but I’m not letting that stop me; I’m pushing to the limit!
If the sheer scale & diversity of artistic expression going on here—from beatboxing to shredding to whistling on plastic bottles; from body-painted video to homemade animation—doesn’t bring a smile to your lips, well, I probably can’t do much for you, my friend. :- [Previously: Five people playing a single guitar]
[Via]
The San Francisco Photoshop Users Group will be meeting at Adobe SF Thursday evening starting at 6:30:
With the advent of Lightroom 4 a new Develop Module has been introduced with completely renamed sliders. Fine art photographer William Palank hopes to clarify some of these changes and propose a workflow completely different than in Lightroom 3 or its predecessors, bringing forth even more control with Shadows and Highlights on a single image.
Check out the event page for more details.
I’m not kidding when I tell you these things come along rarely. People really like staying on the Photoshop team, and one “new guy” just moved on after seven years. If you’re a smart, seasoned computer engineer who loves crafting tools & productizing cutting-edge research, we’d love to talk with you. Please read on for details.
Not long after I started this blog, a student design portfolio started making the rounds & generating lots of buzz. Dave Werner had skillfully combined illustration, music, and photography with video (still a novel feat as this was pre-YouTube) to do some solid storytelling. The site generated all kinds of responses (“Brilliant!” “It’s just Flashturbation!”), but I was very impressed.
Six and a half years passed & I never met Dave, but right before the Fourth of July he dropped me a line to say he was looking for a new gig (something more stable than perpetual startup-land). I was glad to hear of his interest, but offhand I didn’t know of any good fits. Two days later–and equally out of the blue–a team at Adobe reached out & told me about a really cool project they’re starting that needed design talent.
Long story short, Dave just accepted Adobe’s offer & will be starting shortly. Let’s hear it for serendipity! We can’t wait to get started working together.
Sorry for the late notice, but this event (starting at 7pm) should be interesting:
Our speaker for this meeting will be Brad Polt-Jones, from Future Light Digital Workshops. He has more than 20 years experience as a pro photographer and 10 years as a digital media artist. In addition to developing the Future Light workshops, Brad continues to teach digital photography classes for UCLA Extension and San Francisco City College.
Brad would like some input in terms of what topics he should cover in his presentation. These could include detailed workflows with the Content Aware Move / Patch, Adaptive Wide Angle, new tools in Camera Raw with Smart Objects, even basic Photoshop preferences and setup, or … you tell us!
“My philosophy is simple; I am passionate about the future of art and photography and want to bring the power and elegance of a new generation of tools to a wider audience. Digital photography allows everyone to participate in the image making process with an unprecedented ease of use and with total control.” –– Brad Polt-Jones
And, yes, There Will Be Pizza.
Over the last couple of years, the Photoshop team has had great success turning promising research projects (Content-Aware Fill, Content-Aware Scale, Puppet Warp, etc.) into practical, transformative features for everyone. They’d like your help in taking things further:
The Adobe Photoshop team is looking for a highly motivated senior engineer who will develop state-of-the-art imaging features for Photoshop. The successful candidate will be working with a very dynamic customer-focused engineering team and will be responsible for productizing research ideas. The position will be located in San Jose.
Check out the complete job listing for more info. We hope to meet you soon.
Efficiently converting PSDs into Web content can be an enormous time-saver*. Here Terry White shows how to put two great tastes together for HTML:
* Back in the day, to get a 20-layer PSD ready to animate, Flash required 168 steps. With LiveMotion we took that down to 2 steps. I’ll never let that one go. 🙂
My God, has anything ever been more in my wheelhouse than a Wire homage rendered in Lego stop motion? (Nope!)
[Via]
If you’re subscribing to Creative Cloud, you’ve got access to Web hosting powered by Adobe Business Catalyst. (Bet you didn’t know!) Check it out tomorrow in a live demo/Q&A at noon Pacific:
Build everything from stunning website to powerful online stores, without server-side coding. Learn about Business Catalyst’s tight integration with Dreamweaver CS6.
- Create and publish BC websites online right from within Dreamweaver
- Insert dynamic modules such as blogs, photo galleries and more, without server-side coding
- Customer lead capture with database integration, in just minutes
- Set up a a fully-featured online store with payment integration in a few clicks
- Easily host your site online with a few simple steps
This just drew audible gasps from Nacks age 4 to 40.
“Kinetic Rain” is composed of two parts, each consisting of 608 rain droplets made of lightweight aluminum covered with copper. Suspended from thin steel ropes above the two opposing escalators, each droplet is moved precisely and seemingly floating by a computer-controlled motor hidden in the halls ceiling. The drops follow a 15-minute, computationally designed choreography where the two parts move together in unison, sometimes mirroring, sometimes complementing, and sometimes responding to each other.
[Via]
David Friedman sat down with 90-year-old inventor Ralph Baer, creator of the pioneering Magnavox Odyssey video game system, to reflect on his life’s work & on why he’s still inventing to this day.
Incidentally, if the Odyssey gives you a taste for ancient computer fonts, check out this.
Ian Moss juxtaposed an interesting pair of vintage videos. First there’s “The mighty Quantel Paintbox with its custom hardware and 10 years of knowhow behind it…”
“…versus version 1 of Adobe Photoshop, running on a Macintosh Classic for a 10th of the cost.”
The second vid’s a bit misleading as it shows PS 1.0 running on Mac Plus (from 1986) “with 1-bit (black&white) display, 8MHz CPU and 4MB RAM.” Here’s Photoshop co-creator John Knoll re-creating his original Photoshop demo:
I find this ridiculously great: NBA rookie of the year Kyrie Irving spent four hours in make-up getting disguised as an old man, then headed to courts in New Jersey to devour the “youngbloods.”
[Via]
In 3 minutes Dave Cross demos the new “scripted fill” options that can apply an object randomly, symmetrically, in a spiral, and more:
[Via Andrew Kavanagh]
Adobe’s just-launched Creative Cloud is off to a tremendous start. Right now it offers access to Adobe’s line of desktop apps, plus 20GB of storage, Typekit access, and Web site publishing.
So… where to from here?
Right now I think most customers aren’t thinking “cloud” at all; rather, they’re thinking “a different way to purchase Photoshop et al.” That’s fine for now, but we could do so much more. For example, for the past—my God, eight?—years I’ve been pushing the notion of making one’s Photoshop “fingerprint” (preferences, brushes, etc.) portable & network-synced. Creative Cloud provides an architecture & business model to really make that possible. Similarly, it opens all kinds of possibilities for publishing (tablet publications & apps, video), commerce (photography, etc.), team collaboration, and more.
We have a ton of ideas on ways to make Creative Cloud even more compelling, but it’s critical that we get your opinion. Here’s a brief survey (which should take just a minute or two to complete), and we’d love to hear your thoughts via comments.
Thanks,
J.
Winston Hendrickson, the VP of engineering for Photoshop & Lightroom, along with Photoshop PMs Bryan Hughes & Zorana Gee, will be sitting down with Scott tomorrow at noon Pacific. They’ll be demonstrating tips & taking audience questions.
If you register in advance, you’ll have a chance to win Photoshop CS6 as well as a ticket to Photoshop World (Las Vegas, Sept. 5-7) or membership to NAPP or KelbyTraining.com.
“100% projected and filmed FOR REAL without CGI trickery, Speed of Light features an escaped convict, a determined cop and a fully armed police helicopter! Filmed on Canon 5d MkII + HD MiniCam,” then projected with MicroVision projectors.
[Via]
