Amidst all the positive, enthusiastic responses to the launch of Photoshop Express, I’ve seen some concerns about the terms of use.  This item in particular draws attention:

8. Use of Your Content. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

This afternoon I got the following note from the Photoshop Express team:

We’ve heard your concerns about the terms of service for Photoshop Express beta.  We reviewed the terms in context of your comments – and we agree that it currently implies things we would never do with the content.  Therefore, our legal team is making it a priority to post revised terms that are more appropriate for Photoshop Express users.  We will alert you once we have posted new terms.  Thank you for your feedback on Photoshop Express beta and we appreciate your input.

I’ll post an update when I know more. [Update: See the revised terms of service.]

Alongside Photoshop Express, Adobe has been quietly and vigorously building out some interesting online collaboration and sharing tools.  (“Watch Out – Adobe Is Slowly Building an Online Empire,” says ReadWriteWeb.) Here are a pair that can help you work with colleagues and clients–for free.

• "Brio" is the codename for the next version of Adobe Acrobat Connect (once known as Breeze), the screen/voice/document-sharing system that runs through the Flash Player.  Brio lets you
  collaborate in real time with up to two partners. Terry White writes,

  The only catch is that Adobe hopes that by trying this FREE version out, you’ll get so hooked that you’ll want more and you’ll want to step up to the full version of Connect Pro for your business or organization to get rid of the limits. However, you’re not obligated to do so. So you have nothing to lose. Account setup is painless and if you already have an Adobe ID, it takes about 1 minute to set up your BRIO account.

• "Share" is a free Web-based service that allows you to share, publish and organize documents easily.  According to the Adobe Labs site,
  

  Each document you upload to your Share account is assigned a unique website address. To share a document with someone, select the document you want to share, enter the person’s email address and an optional message, and set whether the files will be publicly accessible or restricted only to the recipients. Recipients will get an email with a link they can click on to download the document. You can also link to your documents, or embed rich Flash® previews on your own website, blog or wiki.

  On Entrepreneur.com photographer Danya Henninger says,
  "We use it to send large files to clients. We can deliver the product online. I just got into the Adobe Share beta. It worked out perfectly."

[Via Karen Tomlinson]

Alongside Photoshop Express, Adobe has been quietly and vigorously building out some interesting online collaboration and sharing tools.  (“Watch Out – Adobe Is Slowly Building an Online Empire,” says ReadWriteWeb.) Here are a pair that can help you work with colleagues and clients–for free.

• "Brio" is the codename for the next version of Adobe Acrobat Connect (once known as Breeze), the screen/voice/document-sharing system that runs through the Flash Player.  Brio lets you
  collaborate in real time with up to two partners. Terry White writes,

  The only catch is that Adobe hopes that by trying this FREE version out, you’ll get so hooked that you’ll want more and you’ll want to step up to the full version of Connect Pro for your business or organization to get rid of the limits. However, you’re not obligated to do so. So you have nothing to lose. Account setup is painless and if you already have an Adobe ID, it takes about 1 minute to set up your BRIO account.

• "Share" is a free Web-based service that allows you to share, publish and organize documents easily.  According to the Adobe Labs site,
  

  Each document you upload to your Share account is assigned a unique website address. To share a document with someone, select the document you want to share, enter the person’s email address and an optional message, and set whether the files will be publicly accessible or restricted only to the recipients. Recipients will get an email with a link they can click on to download the document. You can also link to your documents, or embed rich Flash® previews on your own website, blog or wiki.

  On Entrepreneur.com photographer Danya Henninger says,
  "We use it to send large files to clients. We can deliver the product online. I just got into the Adobe Share beta. It worked out perfectly."

[Via Karen Tomlinson]

I’m happy to report that Photoshop Express, Adobe’s new online tool for organizing, editing, and sharing images, has launched in beta form. Some highlights at a glance:

• Includes tools for applying spot healing, distortions, sharpening/softening, color tweaks, image filters, and more
• Offers 2GB of space for storing images
• Supports tie-ins to Facebook, MySpace, and Picasa
• Runs in any browser on Mac, Windows, or Linux using the Flash Player (v9) [Update: Sounds like there are some beta-ish glitches in some browsers]
• Will include an AIR-based desktop version (useful for editing images offline) and printing services
• Will remain free, with paid service adding more functionality

Adobe’s Terry White gives a great intro with screenshots, and you can jump right into using Express by hitting the “Test Drive” button on the right side of the landing page.  More info is in the press release, this CNET overview, and more stories that are popping up by the minute. [Update: Kelby Training has created an online learning center for Express.]

[Update 2: Here’s what Adobe SVP John Loiacono has to say about Photoshop Express, software as a service at Adobe, and more.]

Enjoy!

I’m pleased to report that Photoshop Elements 6.0 for Mac is now shipping.  The new release runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs & offers a wealth of new features.  As Macworld sums up the highlights,

New features in Photoshop 6 include “Photomerge,” which lets users create group shots by combining the best facial expressions and body language from an entire group of shots. The software has three edit modes — Guided, Quick and Full. Guided Edit mode is new, offering step-by-step help for users. New tabs provide access to many of Photoshop Elements’ features. Color to black-and-white conversion has been improved.

A new copy runs $89.99 (upgrade $69.99), available via the Adobe.com store.

• People are raving about Nik Software’s Viveza plug-in for color correction within Photoshop.  The tool uses Nik’s unique U-Point technology for placing a control element onto the document, then tweaking hue, saturation, contrast, etc. on the canvas. Here’s a quick video intro to the basics.  Scott Kelby loves it, and the plug-in picked up a Best of Show from Macworld at PMA.  It’s $249 diretly from Nik.
• onOne Software, publishers of tools like Genuine Fractals and Mask Pro, have announced Focal Point for selectively blurring images, adding vignettes, and more.  I’ve mentioned ways to simulate lens blur & tilt-shift photography using Photoshop, but Focal Point goes further in offering an interative "lens bug" widget for fine control.  The plug-in is scheduled to ship next month and will cost $159.95. [Via]

CommandShift3 (heh, great little Mac-nerd name) describes itself as "like Hot or Not.
Except, instead of clicking on hot babes, you click on hot websites."  In other words, screenshots of two sites are presented for your review, and you click the one whose design you prefer.  It’s fun to think about why certain sites are more appealing than others, and I’ve found myself clicking through to explore more than a few of the contestants.  Note the leaderboard that shows particularly strong sites from the week, month, and all time.

Ah, this new generation, always trying to one-up us:

[Claws, tail, and Gene Simmons-style tongue not included] 😉
And not that you asked (or that I need another blog to feed), but the sleep-filled life and times of the new guy are chronicled on my (or rather, his) site.

The following tips are a tad esoteric, but I’m passing them along in case they’re of interest/use:

• When you press F in Photoshop and enter Maximized or Full-Screen Mode with Menu Bar, the background surrounding the image goes to gray; press F again (taking you into Full-Screen Mode (no menu bar)) and the background will change to black.  Not long ago a customer who does retouching at a large magazine asked for the ability to change the background color in Photoshop windows.  In order not to pollute his color perception, he wanted to view images against a particular shade.

  It turns out the capability is already there: right-click (Win)/Ctrl-click (Mac) to set the background color to gray, black, or a color of your choosing; here’s a screenshot.  Alternatively, you can grab the Paint Bucket tool, then shift-click the background to make it take on whatever foreground color you have selected.  Each screen mode can have its own background color.  New to CS3 is the abilty to cycle through gray, black, and custom colors by pressing Shift-F.  This little trick gave rise to my CS3 Stupid Photoshop Trick: going "clubbing" in Photoshop by holding down ShiftSpace-F* while singing the "do-DE-do-DOO-do" riff from The System Is Down. (Trust me, you’re not missing out.)

• On the Mac OS you can drag the little "document proxy" icon in any document’s title bar (screenshot) in order to move the document around, provided you don’t have any unsaved changes.  Dave Girard from Ars Technica swears by this capability as a quick way to move files between Photoshop, Bridge, Maya, and other applications.  In this short video he shows a folder being revealed in Bridge, then documents being moved among apps without requiring a trip back to the Finder or Bridge.

*D’oh–sorry, I typed the wrong modifier; now fixed. I need to stop writing these things at 3am (no kidding).

According to an Adobe tech note, it’s possible that the Adobe Version Cue CS3 3.1.0 update won’t get installed correctly, leading to a damaged framework file that can cause Photoshop to crash.  To fix the problem, you can download this small updater and run it.  If you’re not able to run the script (e.g. you don’t have admin privileges on your machine), you can go into Photoshop preferences (Cmd-K), then go into File Handling and uncheck "Enable Version Cue." The tech note mentions other Adobe CS3 apps, but I’ve tried the fix only with Photoshop.  In any event running the updater is a good idea.

“‘Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
  He chortled in his joy.”

I could not be more proud (or tired!) in announcing that precisely 18 hours ago, my inimitable Margot launched
our greatest collaboration—one Mr. Finnegan Liggett Nack (“Finn” to future pals).  The wee master (a full 9lb, 7oz) stormed into town after a whirlwind labor—kicking off around 10pm last night, and stepping onto the world stage at 4:54am Pacific.  I promise not to turn the blog into JNack’s Kiddie Kavalcade, but a handful of photos are here in case you’re interested. [Update: The little man has his own blog now, too.]

Right now the small guy is practicing his nursing (c’mon, sucking isn’t that hard; just pretend you’re in marketing!), and this marks my first (but hardly last) blogging-at-crazy-kid-induced-hour post.  I actually did have the presence of mind to bank a few posts ahead of his arrival, but I expect my publishing schedule to be erratic for a while.  Now excuse me while I keel over in a happy, spent pile. 🙂

[Update: Wow, thanks for all the kind wishes!  What an amazing experience…

By the way, regarding his name, we freestyled on a lot of contenders.  Mashing up a lot of teammates’ names, we (okay, I) thought that “Seetharaman Narayanan Shig-Zorana Nack” would be pretty cool. 🙂 ]