To upgrade or not to upgrade: that's generally the question when confronted with a new version of Photoshop.
And, at least for 2007, the answer is an emphatic "yes," if only because of several extremely useful new enhancements that should benefit most users, as well as improvements in performance to benefit all. Furthermore, if you traditionally use Photoshop for video postproduction tasks, 3D texture-map editing, or scientific image analysis, there's a whole new--and pricier--version of Photoshop for you, dubbed Photoshop CS3 Extended.
From loading to saving, Photoshop CS3 generally operates faster than Photoshop CS2. There is one performance caveat for the CS3 suites as a whole: it's the slowest, most painful installation I've experienced in years, and that includes bloatware like Microsoft Office 2007. Thankfully, you only have to do it once, maybe twice. Once you've snailed your way through it, though, it settles into the back of your memory like the 10 miles of construction that blocked your commute home for a few hours.
The improvement in start-up time alone may be worth the price of admission. A cold load under Mac OS X 10.4.9 (running on a tricked-out octocore--two quad-core, 2.66GHz Intel Xeon CPUs--system equipped with an ATI X1900 XT card, 2GB of RAM, and many hundreds of gigabytes of free hard disk space) ran about six times faster than CS2, and when I'd already launched and closed the app before in the same session, it seemed to cache pieces, making the launch more than 36 times faster. The Mac version shows exceptional speed gains across the board, as well. CS3 ran the CNET Labs Adobe Photoshop image-processing test almost 60 percent faster than CS2. Surprisingly, the Mac version ran CS3 significantly faster than Windows; it took more than twice as long under Windows Vista, and I estimate just under twice as long on Windows XP. I extrapolated based on previous CNET Labs' tests showing that Photoshop CS2 runs about six percent slower under Vista than under XP and on data we have for Photoshop CS2 on the same test bed running Windows XP. Take it all with a grain of salt.
Though there's little in Photoshop CS3 that you couldn't do before, enhancements to existing tools really streamline production work. These include Smart Filters, which apply the traditional Filters at render, rather than on the bitmap, resulting in nondestructive, re-editable effects; Refine Edge, which groups selection-edge tweaking options in a single dialog with various types of previews; and a Quick Selection tool which speeds up masking against certain types of backgrounds, such as patterns. In addition, enhancements to Bridge CS3, which Adobe bundles with both the standalone applications and suites, finally provide Photoshop with a decent media browser. Adobe updates its 32-bit high-dynamic-range imaging support with enhanced algorithms for its Merge to HDR capability, but it puts all the beefed-up HDR-editing capabilities in the Extended version.
There are, of course, a few new capabilities, though they'll probably be handy for only a limited group of users. You can export images for Zoomify, which deconstructs images into smaller tiles and creates a small Flash movie that you can embed into a Web page, effectively allowing you to zoom in on larger images. And the automatic Photomerge will probably be a hit with panorama constructors.
For users new to image editing, Photoshop's rather monolithic learning curve remains, and you're better off starting with an inexpensive application such as Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 or Corel Paint Shop Pro XI. One of those may be all you need. But if you've been waiting to take the plunge, Adobe Photoshop CS3 is as good as any version to dive into, and if you're a pro considering the upgrade, it's probably worth the $300 or so bucks it will cost you. As for enthusiasts, that difficult decision remains between you and your wallet.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Adobe Photoshop CS3 full package, Windows
Music Rescue 3.1.2
This iPod accessory enables you to copy the contents of your iPod to any Mac that has a FireWire port.
Specifically, it is useful for managing music and contacts. When copying music, Music Rescue will sort the copied files by artist and/or by album and can associate copied files with iTunes or any number of other MP3 player applications. When used to manage iPod contacts. PodUtil will scan the iPod you select for contacts and display them in a list. You can then edit or create contacts, which are saved automatically.
Version 3.1.2 identifies videos in the main track list, adds support for colored iPod Shuffles, and enhances playlist-creation features, among other changes and fixes.
Specifically, it is useful for managing music and contacts. When copying music, Music Rescue will sort the copied files by artist and/or by album and can associate copied files with iTunes or any number of other MP3 player applications. When used to manage iPod contacts. PodUtil will scan the iPod you select for contacts and display them in a list. You can then edit or create contacts, which are saved automatically.
Version 3.1.2 identifies videos in the main track list, adds support for colored iPod Shuffles, and enhances playlist-creation features, among other changes and fixes.
Canon EOS Rebel XTi - Digital Camera
Sticking with similar sensor dimensions allowed Canon to keep the same moderately compact design for the EOS Rebel XTi, though it weighs 4 ounces more than its 17.1-ounce predecessor.
With the small, exceptionally light kit lens, the camera felt well balanced in my hands. Attached to the substantially larger and heavier 16mm-to-35mm (25.6mm-to-56mm equivalent) lens or the Speedlite 580EX flash, however, makes the XTi feel a bit lopsided.
Although much of the design remains the same as the XT's--it comes in either black or metallic-silver plastic--there are a couple of key changes. The LCD display grew from 1.8 to 2.5 inches, which essentially squeezed the status/info LCD into the ether. On one hand, using the main LCD allows for an exceptionally readable, in-your-face method of monitoring the settings. However, the paper-white background gets distracting, and the automatic sensor--which blanks it when you put your eye to the viewfinder--makes it even more so. You can turn it off altogether, but the info in the viewfinder doesn't include ISO speed, white balance, battery level, and other useful settings that generally display on a status LCD.
Features of Canon EOS Rebel XTi (body only, black)
With the small, exceptionally light kit lens, the camera felt well balanced in my hands. Attached to the substantially larger and heavier 16mm-to-35mm (25.6mm-to-56mm equivalent) lens or the Speedlite 580EX flash, however, makes the XTi feel a bit lopsided.
Although much of the design remains the same as the XT's--it comes in either black or metallic-silver plastic--there are a couple of key changes. The LCD display grew from 1.8 to 2.5 inches, which essentially squeezed the status/info LCD into the ether. On one hand, using the main LCD allows for an exceptionally readable, in-your-face method of monitoring the settings. However, the paper-white background gets distracting, and the automatic sensor--which blanks it when you put your eye to the viewfinder--makes it even more so. You can turn it off altogether, but the info in the viewfinder doesn't include ISO speed, white balance, battery level, and other useful settings that generally display on a status LCD.
Features of Canon EOS Rebel XTi (body only, black)
For better--or sometimes worse--the feature set of the Canon EOS Rebel XTi remains roughly the same as the XT's. The kit version comes with the f/3.5-to-f/5.6, 18mm-to-55mm EF-S lens (28.8mm-to-88mm equivalent, thanks to the XTi's 1.6X conversion factor), which is a trifle too slow for frequent indoor shooters like me.
Most amateurs will find all the essentials: a handful of manual, semimanual, and automatic exposure modes; user-selectable nine-point autofocus, and AI Servo autofocus for moving subjects; and simultaneous raw-plus-JPEG capture.
To keep up with the camera Joneses, the CMOS chip in the XTi is now self-cleaning. Similarly to many other dSLRs, the low-pass filter layer vibrates when the camera powers off or on in order to shake dust away from the sensor; plus, there's an antistatic coating on the filter that repels dust. Furthermore, a bit of adhesive surrounding the sensor is designed to grab the dust, keeping it from flying around inside the camera chassis. In addition to dust control, Canon has split the low-pass filter into two parts, effectively placing whatever dust does settle beyond the range of focus.
Unfortunately, like the Rebel XT, the XTi lacks a spot meter; it supplies only evaluative, center-weighted average, and partial center-weighted metering. There is simply no substitute for a spot in tricky lighting situations. In fact, I couldn't avoid severe underexposures of a backlit subject with the available metering tools, which is inexcusable for a camera of this class.
Most amateurs will find all the essentials: a handful of manual, semimanual, and automatic exposure modes; user-selectable nine-point autofocus, and AI Servo autofocus for moving subjects; and simultaneous raw-plus-JPEG capture.
To keep up with the camera Joneses, the CMOS chip in the XTi is now self-cleaning. Similarly to many other dSLRs, the low-pass filter layer vibrates when the camera powers off or on in order to shake dust away from the sensor; plus, there's an antistatic coating on the filter that repels dust. Furthermore, a bit of adhesive surrounding the sensor is designed to grab the dust, keeping it from flying around inside the camera chassis. In addition to dust control, Canon has split the low-pass filter into two parts, effectively placing whatever dust does settle beyond the range of focus.
Unfortunately, like the Rebel XT, the XTi lacks a spot meter; it supplies only evaluative, center-weighted average, and partial center-weighted metering. There is simply no substitute for a spot in tricky lighting situations. In fact, I couldn't avoid severe underexposures of a backlit subject with the available metering tools, which is inexcusable for a camera of this class.
Cities turn to GPS to wipe out Graffiti
Global positioning systems, digital photography and computer databases are joining the humble paint can as U.S. cities battle to obliterate graffiti and catch its shadowy perpetrators.
"In the past, authorities had no way of keeping track of who was doing the damage in their city," said Tim Kephart, president of Los Angeles-based Graffiti Tracker, whose systems are being purchased by a growing number of American cities.
Paint it out as quickly as possible--that was the strategy. But you'll never be able to outpaint a tagger because what he can do with a $1 can of spray paint is far more than a big cleanup truck can keep up with," Kephart said.
Graffiti Tracker takes pictures of graffiti before it's painted over, using GPS cameras that record the date, time and exact location. The company analyzes the graffiti, for example checking whether it is gang-related, and stores the pictures in its database.
Police use the information to track or predict where a particular tagger will strike next. Once perpetrators are caught, law enforcement has evidence to prosecute them for a string of offenses.
Cleanup crews in Los Angeles County--where graffiti ranges from gang scrawls on lamp posts to walls of bold color regarded by some as underground art--painted over more than 40 million square feet of graffiti last year, according to authorities.
Kephart, a Los Angeles area criminal justice graduate, says 20 cities in California, Nevada and Nebraska have bought his system in the past 12 months and he expects to double that number in the next year.
Pico Rivera--a city of 65,000 residents east of Los Angeles--has made 60 arrests since buying the system nine months ago to boost its $300,000 annual anti-graffiti program.
Two teens convicted of felony criminal damage have been ordered to pay $22,000 in restitution to the city. "The word is fast getting out there that this is not a good place to tag because they are going to get you," said Bob Spencer, spokesman for the Pico Rivera police department.
Authorities attribute much of the graffiti to gangs. The city of Los Angeles alone has an estimated 720 street gangs with some 40,000 members.
Others say gang graffiti--used to mark territory, threaten rivals or commemorate dead members--represents only a tiny proportion of the tagging problem.
Whatever the source authorities regard graffiti as vandalism that brings down neighborhoods and angers law-abiding residents.
"Just because you have the talent and the ability to make it look really awesome," Kephart said, "doesn't mean it's legal when you do it on someone else's property without their permission."
Science beats fiction in Robot Hall
BOSTON--Real science is finally beating out science fiction when it comes to the Robot Hall of Fame.
Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday announced its 2007 inductees into the Robot Hall of Fame--comprised of both real and science fiction robots--here at its RoboBusiness 2007 conference. Three of the four robots selected by a jury of 25 leading roboticists were built by actual scientists.
"For the first time, the jury selected more robots from science in fact than science fiction," said Matt Mason, the director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon.
"Perhaps it's a trend that we are finally beginning to fulfill expectations," he said.
Lego Mindstorms, the robot building set intended to inspire children to build their own robots, was named as an inductee.
The Navlab 5 was also honored for its achievement in driving from Pittsburgh, Penn., to San Diego, Calif., steering itself 98 percent of the way in a program called "No Hands Across America" in 1995.
The Raibert Hopper, a one-legged hopping robot, made in 1983 and 1984, was also honored, though more for its breakthrough that inspired many of today's mobile robots.
"The one-legged hopper has stiff competition. I don't think the one-legged hopper would be interesting except that it has the DNA for later two-legged and four-legged robots," Mason said.
Representing the fictional side of robots, Lieutenant Commander Data, the robot played by Brent Spiner on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was inducted for its continual curiosity and philosophical questioning of the logic of humans and the rights of humanoid machines.
"Behind every great roboticist, there is a robot from science fiction that inspired that roboticist," said Don Marinelli, the executive producer of the Entertainment Tech Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday announced its 2007 inductees into the Robot Hall of Fame--comprised of both real and science fiction robots--here at its RoboBusiness 2007 conference. Three of the four robots selected by a jury of 25 leading roboticists were built by actual scientists.
"For the first time, the jury selected more robots from science in fact than science fiction," said Matt Mason, the director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon.
"Perhaps it's a trend that we are finally beginning to fulfill expectations," he said.
Lego Mindstorms, the robot building set intended to inspire children to build their own robots, was named as an inductee.
The Navlab 5 was also honored for its achievement in driving from Pittsburgh, Penn., to San Diego, Calif., steering itself 98 percent of the way in a program called "No Hands Across America" in 1995.
The Raibert Hopper, a one-legged hopping robot, made in 1983 and 1984, was also honored, though more for its breakthrough that inspired many of today's mobile robots.
"The one-legged hopper has stiff competition. I don't think the one-legged hopper would be interesting except that it has the DNA for later two-legged and four-legged robots," Mason said.
Representing the fictional side of robots, Lieutenant Commander Data, the robot played by Brent Spiner on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was inducted for its continual curiosity and philosophical questioning of the logic of humans and the rights of humanoid machines.
"Behind every great roboticist, there is a robot from science fiction that inspired that roboticist," said Don Marinelli, the executive producer of the Entertainment Tech Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
Google kicks offline Web Applications
Google engineers have enabled what Internet surfers for years have yearned for--Web applications that work offline.
The search giant on Wednesday launched Google Gears, a browser plug-in that will let people run Web applications when they're connected to the Internet or not.
The company released the source code for the Google Gears software in conjunction with Google Developer Day, a daylong conference in 10 locations.
The goal of Google Gears is to create a single, standardized way to add offline capabilities to Web applications, said Linus Upson, engineering director at Google.
The initial code is aimed at JavaScript developers who write Ajax-style Web applications. It runs on Internet Explorer on Windows; Firefox on Windows, Mac OS and Linux; and on the Safari Mac OS browser.
Google expects to have a consumer-ready release of Google Gears, which will be under 1 megabyte in size, "within months." It also expects to submit the code to a standards body so that it will eventually be built into all standards-compliant browsers, Upson said.
"It's been a long time since the Web has gained new fundamental capabilities. I think it's been about 10 years," said Upson. One of the key capabilities of Ajax development--XMLHttpRequest--came out in 1998 and took years to catch on, in part because of applications like Google Maps.
Google engineers took on the task of bringing offline access to Web browsers because customers of its hosted Web applications complained about not being able to work when disconnected, Upson said.
"One of the reasons we're doing Gears is that developers here at Google have really pushed the envelope on what can be done in the browser so engineers are hitting barriers harder and faster," he said.
The first application to have offline access through Google Gears is Google Readers, the company's RSS reader. Once people install the browser plug-in, they can read RSS content when they're offline and synchronize with the RSS feed provider when they get back online.
As part of the announcement, Google said Google Gears has been endorsed by the Mozilla Foundation, makers of the open-source Firefox browser, as well as Flash developer Adobe Systems and Opera Software, which makes the Opera browser.
Under the covers By releasing the Google Gear code, the company hopes to get feedback from developers before releasing a consumer plug-in.
The software itself has three components--a local Web server which runs in the browser, the open-source database SQLite for storage, and browser extensions that allow multiple JavaScript jobs to run in parallel.
With that architecture, end users will be able to run Web applications even if they have flaky network connections or if the Web server they are accessing is bogged down. Having a browser capable of running multiple JavaScript scripts, or threads, means that the browser is less likely to get locked up.
"What we wanted to enable was to make applications that essentially run off local data even when you're connected to the network because defining or detecting that (connection state) is very hard," said Upson.
The local SQLite database, while small in size, is capable of saving gigabytes of data, although Google intends to set up Google Gears so that Web application providers have to ask permission from users to store data locally.
Google engineers have already started work on adding full-text searching to SQLite, Upson said.
Other companies have taken on the challenge of making Web applications run offline before but there still lacks a generic, widely used method.
The company released the source code for the Google Gears software in conjunction with Google Developer Day, a daylong conference in 10 locations.
The goal of Google Gears is to create a single, standardized way to add offline capabilities to Web applications, said Linus Upson, engineering director at Google.
The initial code is aimed at JavaScript developers who write Ajax-style Web applications. It runs on Internet Explorer on Windows; Firefox on Windows, Mac OS and Linux; and on the Safari Mac OS browser.
Google expects to have a consumer-ready release of Google Gears, which will be under 1 megabyte in size, "within months." It also expects to submit the code to a standards body so that it will eventually be built into all standards-compliant browsers, Upson said.
"It's been a long time since the Web has gained new fundamental capabilities. I think it's been about 10 years," said Upson. One of the key capabilities of Ajax development--XMLHttpRequest--came out in 1998 and took years to catch on, in part because of applications like Google Maps.
Google engineers took on the task of bringing offline access to Web browsers because customers of its hosted Web applications complained about not being able to work when disconnected, Upson said.
"One of the reasons we're doing Gears is that developers here at Google have really pushed the envelope on what can be done in the browser so engineers are hitting barriers harder and faster," he said.
The first application to have offline access through Google Gears is Google Readers, the company's RSS reader. Once people install the browser plug-in, they can read RSS content when they're offline and synchronize with the RSS feed provider when they get back online.
As part of the announcement, Google said Google Gears has been endorsed by the Mozilla Foundation, makers of the open-source Firefox browser, as well as Flash developer Adobe Systems and Opera Software, which makes the Opera browser.
Under the covers By releasing the Google Gear code, the company hopes to get feedback from developers before releasing a consumer plug-in.
The software itself has three components--a local Web server which runs in the browser, the open-source database SQLite for storage, and browser extensions that allow multiple JavaScript jobs to run in parallel.
With that architecture, end users will be able to run Web applications even if they have flaky network connections or if the Web server they are accessing is bogged down. Having a browser capable of running multiple JavaScript scripts, or threads, means that the browser is less likely to get locked up.
"What we wanted to enable was to make applications that essentially run off local data even when you're connected to the network because defining or detecting that (connection state) is very hard," said Upson.
The local SQLite database, while small in size, is capable of saving gigabytes of data, although Google intends to set up Google Gears so that Web application providers have to ask permission from users to store data locally.
Google engineers have already started work on adding full-text searching to SQLite, Upson said.
Other companies have taken on the challenge of making Web applications run offline before but there still lacks a generic, widely used method.
Apple TV ties to download YouTube
Video Madness will soon be available through Apple TV, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced Wednesday.
Jobs revealed the partnership with YouTube during his talk at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Starting next month, Apple TV users will be able to select "YouTube" as an option from the device's main menu and view thousands of the most viewed and most popular videos on the site.
Apple TV is designed to connect a wide-screen television with content purchased or downloaded over the Internet by a Mac or PC. Until now, however, Apple TV users looking for content were mostly dependent on television programs or movies they had purchased through the iTunes Store. There's no browser inside the interface that would let users access other Internet videos, though they could move their home videos to Apple TV.
Now, Apple has designed a hook into YouTube that will let Apple TV owners access the most popular videos that have been converted into the h.264 standard, said David Moody, vice president for Mac hardware marketing at Apple. The full catalog of YouTube videos will be available later in the year, as YouTube converts the rest, Moody said.
Apple also announced that it will make a higher-capacity version of Apple TV available Thursday. The current Apple TV product costs $299 with a 40GB hard drive, but a version with a 160GB hard drive will now cost $399.
Jobs revealed the partnership with YouTube during his talk at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Starting next month, Apple TV users will be able to select "YouTube" as an option from the device's main menu and view thousands of the most viewed and most popular videos on the site.
Apple TV is designed to connect a wide-screen television with content purchased or downloaded over the Internet by a Mac or PC. Until now, however, Apple TV users looking for content were mostly dependent on television programs or movies they had purchased through the iTunes Store. There's no browser inside the interface that would let users access other Internet videos, though they could move their home videos to Apple TV.
Now, Apple has designed a hook into YouTube that will let Apple TV owners access the most popular videos that have been converted into the h.264 standard, said David Moody, vice president for Mac hardware marketing at Apple. The full catalog of YouTube videos will be available later in the year, as YouTube converts the rest, Moody said.
Apple also announced that it will make a higher-capacity version of Apple TV available Thursday. The current Apple TV product costs $299 with a 40GB hard drive, but a version with a 160GB hard drive will now cost $399.
Microsoft's Surface Computing - Virtual Realty
Microsoft one of the biggest leader in the software industry has just announced its Surface Computing technology, a project that has been kept under wraps for five years.
Using a giant table-like Display, that users are able to draw, interact with media, and use another new technology called Domino Tagging, in which a real-life object on the computer's surface is identified and becomes an on-screen object that can be interacted with.
Simultaneously this gadget also features the use of multiple user interference at a time.
Using a giant table-like Display, that users are able to draw, interact with media, and use another new technology called Domino Tagging, in which a real-life object on the computer's surface is identified and becomes an on-screen object that can be interacted with.
Simultaneously this gadget also features the use of multiple user interference at a time.
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