Monthly Archives: October 2013

150+ new improvements arrive in Adobe CC video apps

Creative Cloud is about continuous innovation. Making good on that, today Adobe released a huge set of enhancements for the CC video apps that first shipped this summer. Among these:

Highlight features in this release include Direct Link integration between Adobe Premiere Pro CC and SpeedGrade CC, expanded support for 4K and higher resolutions and raw formats, new mask tools, a host of editing efficiency enhancements, including new monitor overlays, and a cool new detail-preserving upscale tool in After Effects. […]

Performance enhancements in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects mean you can work faster with powerful tools like the Warp Stabilizer and 3D Camera Tracker. New SpeedLooks and the SpeedLooks camera patches are now included with SpeedGrade providing a new way to match different cameras for a faster color grading workflow. Adobe Media Encoder now offers GPU processing for speedier rendering. Prelude CC has added the ability to export marker lists and printouts to keep the whole crew on the same page, and Adobe Story CC Plus can now import and export lists, such as set lists or character lists, for easier production planning.

Install the updates by clicking the Creative Cloud desktop app (which should appear in the menu bar on Mac or process tray on Windows). Enjoy!

A Fully Functional Nikon DSLR Costume

It’s from 2011, but it remains terrific:
Nikon Costume
PetaPixel writes,

For Halloween this year, photographer Tyler Card decided to made a giant Nikon DSLR costume. Not just any DSLR costume, mind you, but a fully functional one. The camera actually takes pictures when the shutter release button is pressed, and the photograph is displayed on the giant LCD screen on the back. The built-in flash also works, and the camera is even capable of triggering Alienbees strobes.
The giant camera body is made out of cardboard and a five gallon bucket. A Nikon DSLR was then placed into the camera and connected to the LCD screen and giant shutter button.

Check it out in action on Vimeo. [Sorry, the blog admins have screwed up my ability to embed vids for the moment.]

A Lexus that draws you as you drive

So vain that being seen in a normal luxury car makes you itch? Why not have your car lovingly draw & redraw your face in front of you as you drive? Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8cqJptwNVI

The IS 300h hybrid vehicle has a screen that uses special software developed for the Art is Motion project that measures the driver’s driving style, such as the ratio of hybrid and fuel use, and speed and acceleration styles, and converts that data into digital brush strokes to generate portraits. 

Maybe soon the car will self-drive you to a restaurant where they’ve got glass tables so you can watch yourself while you are eating.

[YouTube]

Automatic videos: Do you care?

Google today unveiled a new “Auto Awesome” feature that’ll stitch together video montages with zero effort from you. It’s said to work like this.

By coincidence, Magisto got another $13 million in funding today to do essentially the same things, and they claim to have 13 million users. Plenty of others (Ptch from Dreamworks, Qwiki from Yahoo, etc.) are playing in similar territory. 

My question: If this stuff is so great (and free), why don’t we see anyone creating & sharing it? (Or do we and I’m just old/blind?)

You can read studies—not that you need to—that list the top reasons people say they don’t share videos: Watching it takes too long, it looks bad (shaky, poorly colored), and it sounds bad. Unsurprisingly, services like Google’s go after these problems: Automate everything (no creation time commitment), chop it into short segments (lower viewer time commitment), slap on some color looks, blow away the recorded audio, and apply stabilization.

Are the results something you value? What would you care about more? (I know what I want, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.)

[YouTube]

USC's Annenberg School teams up with Adobe

Great news from down south: Students & faculty get Creative Cloud free of charge, and we’re talking about more ways to support their initiatives.

Using the Adobe Creative Cloud as the centerpiece, the literacy effort has big plans to make headway in the technology-laden field of contemporary communication and journalism.

“Students will be able to become certified professionals in Photoshop and other tools, and can add this on their resume. We are also setting up a ‘genius bar’ in our new building for students to get software and hardware questions answered.” 

I recently got to spend a weekend in the desert with USC’s Animation & Digital Arts students, and I’m excited about how the new tools we’re developing can be used in their curriculum. More on all that soon.

Demo: Using Lightroom on location

Good info from Julieanne Kost:

Julieanne demonstrates how to create a “template” catalog on the computer that she uses on-location. Then, she shows how to retain all of the edits made to images while in the field (including collections, virtual copies, ratings, saved output projects, etc.) by merging the on-location catalog with her master catalog upon return.

[Adobe TV]

Demo Thursday: How to make a great pitch trailer

Project Kronos is a documentary-style short film written and directed by Hasraf “HaZ” Dulull, following a mission to achieve interstellar space travel. 6 months later, it has been picked up for feature film development.

How did he get a green light? This should be an interesting talk (Thursday at 10am Pacific time):

Join HaZ to learn how he got his start in filmmaking, how he made Project Kronos, and how, as a first time filmmaker, he used the creative approach of pitch trailers to get the attention of studio executives and producers. Learn how to use Creative Cloud to create an impactful 2-minutes trailer that sells your idea, including:

  • Assembling your material and block out a pitch trailer.
  • Using After Effects to demonstrate the VFX ideas featured in the film concept
  • Using Speedgrade to create a finished Hollywood feature film look.
  • Using Adobe Premiere Pro to put it everything together, including additional secondary effects, and temp sound design

Would you do this? OKDOTHIS

Here’s an interesting app meant to provide inspiration/challenges and let you inspire/challenge others:

We call ideas “DOs.” Create your own DO and share it. Or, try someone else’s DO and see what happens… [A]ny photo you take can become an idea catalyst. And every idea can become an unlimited number of photos. 

Hmm—I’m intrigued. But will you actually do this? Will anyone? I can only guess (as can the creators, I’d imagine).

Last year I asked, “Would you go to the ‘design gym’ with me?,” proposing to challenge & reward people, helping them sharpen their skills. I still think there’s some promise there, but it’s easy to get quite wrong. It’ll be interesting to see how OKDOTHIS, well, does.

[Via Will Eisley]
[Update: Zero comments in 24 hours? I’m guessing that’s a “no.”]

A great talk from Cabel Sasser

“Man,” said Cabel, shaking his head when he stopped by last summer, “I had a ‘John Nack Moment…'”

I was at once flattered & horrified: I’ve become synonymous with something—and that something is total existential breakdown. Damn… was that my special purpose?

I really enjoyed Cabel’s talk about starting small, freaking out vs. selling out, and doing what you love. I think you’ll enjoy it, too. (The big-company sad trombone effect after the 14-minute mark alone is worth it.)

My wife notes, “I like that he rated his own meltdown scene as ‘1-star.'”[YouTube]

SpecKing helps with Photoshop measurement & markup

Yesterday I mentioned Specctr for facilitating designer/developer hand-off. Reader Rick Johanson suggested SpecKing as an alternative:

Making the design specs in Photoshop can be a real time consuming task. SpecKing simplifies this process and lets you instantly measure any sizes, margins, and font properties in any PSD file. Your design specs can be ready in an instant, with just a few clicks.

[YouTube]

Introducing Snap.svg: Open-source JS library for SVG graphics

“Flash, schmash: SVG’s clearly the future.”

That’s what I thought as I joined Adobe back in 2000 to build an SVG animation tool. Unfortunately we were 10+ years ahead of the market (specifically of Web browser support)—and as Marc Andreessen says, “Being early is the same as being wrong.”

Things have progressed, though, and once again Adobe is working hard to make SVG adoption more widespread. Check this out:

Today the Adobe Web Platform Team is announcing version 0.1 of Snap.svg, a brand new JavaScript library for creating SVG. Snap.svg provides web developers with an intuitive and powerful API for animating and manipulating both existing SVG content and designs generated with Snap. […]

Snap supports animation. By providing a simple [[link to example]] and intuitive JavaScript API for animation, Snap can help make your SVG content more interactive and engaging.

In the height of the Adobe-Apple conflict three years ago, I wrote, “Adobe isn’t in the Flash business,” and this is what I meant: We get paid to help you solve problems, and things like Flash, SVG, PDF, H.264, whatever are just implementation details—means to that end. The richer & more expressive we can make the Web, the better the tools we can build, and the happier, we hope, you and your clients will be.

Feedback, please: Making magic with video

If my career is doing society any good at all, it’s probably in democratizing access to magic—that is, helping more people get tools to express themselves beautifully & effectively.

Now that I work in Adobe’s video group, I’m thinking hard about what kinds of awesomeness we could bring to the world. Think “high-end effects for the rest of us.”

What do you want to do with video? What would get you excited, make you want to create & share more, help you blow your friends’ minds?

For example, I wish I could…

  • instantly render any combination of effects
  • motion-track any object with a couple of clicks, then do X
  • create incredible animated titles
  • shoot tons of clips, then find the interesting parts fast
  • apply gorgeous color looks
  • automatically match color across a range of shots
  • go JJ Abrams-crazy with lens flares (well, maybe not that much)
  • insert myself into a music video

…and on & on. Yes, things like this can all be done in high-end tools, but I want to make it drop-dead easy for anyone to do, on any device.

What sounds good to you? Dream big & we’ll dream with you.

Thanks!

Hoop dreams

I love the gorgeous, understated use of motion tracking (and nice titles & color grade too) in this piece:

A hula hoop floats amidst a stunning location of México city. As it moves, a dancer appears and plays with the hoop. Every movement creates lines, impressive shapes and lights that float in the space as if being drawn to gradually create an impressive sculpture in movement.

[Vimeo]

FAQ: Adobe apps & Mac OS Mavericks

Here’s the official word:

Adobe and Apple have worked closely together… All Adobe CC and CS6 products are compatible, but a few products require updates to the latest builds to work properly. Adobe Photoshop® CS5, CS4 and CS3 were also tested with Mac OS X Mavericks and there are currently no major issues known.

Notably After Effects requires an update (CC, CS6) to be compatible. If you see any weirdness, please let us know.
Update: If you see a message about “Adobe Creative Cloud” (the management/desktop sync app) being incompatible with Mavericks, you’ll need to reinstall it. [Via Keith Lang & Fergus Hammond]

Recent Lego excellence

 

LegoCal

[Vimeo] [Via]

Art View previews InDesign docs, fonts, more in Finder

This Quick Look extension sounds useful (sort of like Adobe Bridge being more built into Finder):

  • Makes Quick Look Compatible with Graphics Documents (including .ai, .indd, .ase, .fh11)
  • Works with Adobe Illustrator Docs Saved with or without PDF Compatibility
  • Display Fonts, Images and Swatches used in CS3+ Documents 
  • Reveal Font Files and Linked Image Files in Finder

It’s $25 in the Mac App Store. [Via]

Feedback, please: How do you want to work?

Let’s build you some better tools:

The Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator teams need your help! We’ve been thinking about some ideas that could benefit all of our customers, but before we can move forward with these ideas we need to know more about how you, our customers, are working with our products now.

We have prepared a short questionnaire (should take less than 5 minutes) that will help us gather the information we need to get started. We would greatly appreciate your time in helping us by filling it out! As a special thank you, you’ll be eligible for a $50 Amazon Gift Card for taking the survey!

Time lapse: Mauna Kea Lasers

Beautiful work from Sean Goebel:

This montage was filmed on three nights in April (I was observing on one of the telescopes and would walk outside when things got boring) and four nights during summer 2013. More information (i.e. “What’s up with the lasers?” “What gear did you use?”) can be viewed here.

Colossal notes, “The lasers you see are called laser guide stars and they help astronomers correct the atmospheric distortion of light by creating an artificial “star” to use as a reference point. ” [Vimeo]

Demo: What's new in Camera Raw 8.2

Good stuff from Julieanne Kost: 

In this episode of The Complete Picture, Julieanne takes a close look at the feature enhancements and refinements made to the Crop tool, workflow settings, and batch saving capabilities in Adobe Camera Raw. In addition she also covers improvements made to the Spot Removal Tool, Noise Reduction, Local Adjustment Brush, and Histogram. Note: For more information about the Features in Camera Raw 8.0 including the new Upright perspective correction, Radial Filter, and Spot Removal features please see “Adobe Photoshop CC: Favorite Features for Photographers.”

Seene: a "3D instagram"?

It’s easier seen (heh) than described, so just check it out. The Verge writes,

With less than 30 seconds of setup after installing the app, you can record and manipulate an object in real-time, and in 3D. It’s like iOS 7 parallax gone wild…

Even with poorly done Seenes, the app’s 3D effect is breathtaking since it uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to alter the perspective of the image accordingly when you move your hand. On the web, moving your mouse on an image alters its perspective.

[Via Tomas Krcha]

Photoshop CC Features Panel now available

You can now learn new features of the app right from within the app:

How do you learn what the new features are and how to use them? The answer is the Photoshop CC Features panel where you can access new tools and features and watch videos all within Photoshop CC.

To get the panel, launch Photoshop CC and then open the Adobe Exchange Panel by going to Window > Extensions > Adobe Exchange. You may need to restart PS in order to apply updates.

If you’d like to make a panel like this for your organization (e.g. to train freelancers on your processes & systems), grab Adobe Configurator 4.0.

Do an in-person Portfolio Review with the Behance community

Happening worldwide November 4th–11th, 2013:

Behance Portfolio Reviews bring members together at events in cities and towns around the world—organized by members, for members. Attend a Portfolio Review to present and get feedback on your work, hear from experienced professionals, and meet your local creative community.

  • Welcome & Spotlight (20 minutes): Short and inspiring presentation, curated by your host.
  • The Portfolio Reviews (60 minutes): Attendees break into small groups to have their work reviewed.
  • Mingle, Network & Drinks: Stick around to mingle and connect with your peers and industry leaders.

Tonight in SF: "Photography and the Real World in the Digital Age" with Stephen Johnson

Master landscape photographer Stephen Johnson will be presenting his work & techniques Thursday evening at Adobe San Francisco:

Steve will concentrate on digital photography’s capabilities as a set of tools to capture and decode the visual wonder of the real world. Photoshop will be explored as a tool of revelation of our camera’s light capture, using raw processing and Photoshop as straightforward photo processing tools rather than instruments of image alteration.

This talk concentrates on the tools within Photoshop critical to Photographers for straightforward photography. It is a great chance to explore digital photographic finishing with Steve, and his use of interpretive and editing tools, which he works hard to execute with restraint and finesse…

ALSO: We’ve got 2 copies of X-rite’s ColorChecker Passport as raffle prizes. So be sure to bring your business cards in order to get your name in the raffle. 

Mock executions, Notre Dame football, and "I'll see you in hell": My path to Adobe

“And you may ask yourself, Well, how did I get here…?”

And if you ask me, the answer will sound much like this podcast I did with Marc Edwards, Rene Ritchie, and Seth Clifford. I enjoyed wildly digressing with these guys about my semi-bizarre path to this gig, the challenges of building Photoshop & new apps, and more. I hope you enjoy it, too. Towards the end I talk about the possible mobile future of Photoshop & Lightroom.

Content-Aware Fill as… animation?

Invisibility cloak, engage!

From the project site:

Since Photoshop introduced the content aware fill tool, it has been familiar between several artists who used it to create different concepts. All what I had seen till now are pieces working through static images, but Zach Nader made in 2012 optional features shown, a 02:10 min video using the same tool over some commercial cars in which the texts, cars and people have been replaced by the content aware’s background. I find very interesting the glitchy movement over a constant and quiet background.

[Vimeo] [Via]

Catch live Lightroom training this weekend

Adobe’s own Julieanne Kost will be giving some great presentations this weekend:

On Saturday and Sunday, October 12-13th, I’ll be teaching a free, online, 2-day live course on creativeLIVE! We all know that Lightroom is the ultimate tool for managing and editing images, but getting the most out of this unique program depends on your ability to navigate it quickly and efficiently. In this workshop, I’ll show you how to save time every step of the way, from importing raw images to exporting expertly enhanced photographs — and everything in between.

We’ll take a look at how to streamline the import process, create a simple organizational structure, and edit a shoot efficiently and seamlessly. You will learn the key tools to enhance your photographs, correct color and tonal values, customize your color to black and white conversion, and even add special effects such as selective coloring, split toning, and vintage looks.

I will also demonstrate how and when to move images from Lightroom into Photoshop for further enhancements, and outline how to easily create slideshows, photo books, and templates for printing. By the end of this class, you’ll understand key tools and strategies for streamlining your workflow while creating stunning images.

Click here for more information and to enroll for this free 2 day class. [Via]