After 3 months I wasn't overwhelmed

 I’ve had an trial of the creative cloud suite for an extended 3 month period. It really does have a comprehensive set of programs. In comparison I have a number of different programs, from several different software companies, that I use standalone but use whichever is appropriate and have to swap files between each application. I was expecting that by now adobe would be well integrated. I was disappointed there is only some interchangeability but it is pretty much the same step, saving &/or exporting then opening working on the file, save again and back on the roundtrip merry go round, like plugins have pretty much always worked. Ok it all works but I don’t need to be in the creative cloud environment to do it like this.

  I was once quiet a fan of lightroom up to revision 5 when it got so slow. So I was keen to see how light room classic had progressed and it had. The facial recognition was nice (but not essential for me) the HDR and Panorama were also fine and the synch to lightroom mobile seemed to work nicely. I was initially impressed. However I still had the strong impression that behind it all was the one person one catalogue, one spot to file your originals was underlying this all (the shared images just being smart previews). So I was a little underwhelmed here compared with tools I already had.

  I had decided to spend a fair bit if time learning Photoshop in detail, and it started well, I was particularly interested in layers and blending. I must admit it does do these tasks well, However things kind of fell apart after that there are so many menu, tabs, icons,  sliders and even different terminology for much the same process that I found trying to consume the actually well put together training material to be brain numbing. I did step down to Photoshop Express and that was useable straight away (I do have an old version of Adobe Photoshop express on my main machine, it came with my Wacom tablet, but I actually haven’t used it in 3 years. The new express is certainly update but again a bit disappointing.

  Illustrator wasn’t as hard to pick up and I made a couple of fun things with it, however when I tried doing a couple of cartoons I was a little shocked at how few graphic tools I commonly use I could actually find.

My final foray into the creative cloud world was video. I’m not very experience with video but interested and have been making a few experimental shorts. So I then dove deep into premiere pro,  The training material is good but stopped short of what I wanted. The wealth for a menus, tabs, sliders and icon and number of track types was a bit confusing. I reckon Davinci Resolve is easier to pickup. (that’s not a compliment by the way)  So after some time back down to Premiere Express (its ok easy and much quicker to get things done), then finally Rush.  

 Now Rush does about 90% of what I was after and sort of quickly and had a nice set of options including schedule upload to YouTube. Its very heavily aimed at social media influencer wanna-bees. So I actually used that for a few weeks to recorded a set of quick tips for watercolourist. This might be the one program I would miss when the trial ends. I’ve since discovered a few stutters in the videos on YouTube that are not the same as renderings on my computer (but I’m not totally off-put, it may have been easy to avoid.)

The ongoing rental (aka subscription) and its price, have always been a stumbling block for me. I can’t find any strong reasons for me taking up an subscription (and no discount was offered). I did however registered for Adobe Max, which is free for those with Adobe ID just before my trial version ran out. Maybe the blue sky of features yet to come might keep the adobe flame burning, but its nearly gone out for me.

Last of Autumn Start of Winter

This was taken with my new android phone during a break in the rain. It was taken using HDR Camera+ and then lightly adjusted to soften the colour a square crop and add the ragged frame using Adobe’s Photoshop Express for Android. Photoshop express was one of the early photo editor apps I used on my previous Android phone so I am roughly familiar with its basic operation. By the way the controls are nothing like other adobe photo editors, At first impressions it has more in the common format of small filter icons to pick the effect you want from a scrollable ribbon underneath the phone giving the impression of a one-click fix. However if you look a bit deeper on the icon on the bottom line there are a number of useful tools for basic edit. The key is the several filters can be used cumulatively on the one image. The first three overlapping circle control cropping tool, which bring up the filters related to colour with a horizontal slider bar to increase of decrease the effect. Next is a small icon with two overlapping l shapes which is the cropping took. Then a simplified icon of two sliders to control exposure, and many tonal and sharpening/noise options. The eye is for red eye reduction and the small frame icon is for adding a frame or fancy edge. Finally there is a band aid to remove blemishes. All in all most of the edit tools you might want to use.

Before Photoshop

Lynda has put together a really wonderful tribute to 25 years of photoshop by presenting the photographers tools as they were before they had photoshop. For someone who learnt photography with those tools this is beautifully nostalgic, but it also puts in context the power of digital post processing. For me that is with lightroom, picasa and a few other tools rather than photoshop.

I feel this is a better way to pay homage to 25 years of photoshop

Dream On… Photoshop

Someone at Adobe has put together a slick YouTube video to celebrate 25 years of Photoshop

YES that’s right Photoshop is 25 years old this month! It is both seen as the gold standard of photo manipulation and the very essence or trickery and the fake (“its been photoshopped!”). This video probably won’t change that notion, The reality as I see it (noting I don’t have photoshop) is it has a long learning curve, that’s why there’s a whole aftermarket of many expensive courses and thick book to learn it Experienced users can certainly do magical things, but that might take some time and skill. Finally photoshop is now only available via a subscription, you can’t buy it and own it you just rent it

Perhaps I’m not as optimistic for its next 25 years as Adobes seems …Dream On

The Anatomy of (an older version) of PhotoShop Elements

Adobe have released a new version of Photoshop Elements, version 13, surprising as boxed software (not as part of their subscription service!). I must admit my version (7) has languished in the seldom used category and is only running on my studio laptop, and supposedly where I connect to creative cloud). Whilst photoshop elements tends to be looked down on by the purists, it has always struck me as a better way to get most of the features of Photoshop with a much simpler learning curve and a much more affordable price. The new version looks a lot different in terms of the User Interface, so what I am showing here is not likely to be immediately beneficial to a new purchaser wanting to learn how to use the software (and version 13 is clearly aimed at the new user) However I have chosen to show it before my look at the lightroom workspaces because it helps put in place the abobe concepts (and work flow) Organize –> EDIT (FIX) –> Create –> Share and how they have become separate workspaces.. The significance of these “workflow-centric” concepts still pervades adobe’s software offerings.

The screen is laid out in several blocks. There is the conventional Menu Bar at the top and a second tools bar of handy context related tools, depending on what is displayed in the main workspace and which module you are in. The are two extract useful keys with drop down menus. The first controls the display formats (which can include a folder views, which takes away from the space available for the main workspace, full screen view, side by side comparative view etc) There is also a quick edit to access the main edit features. Once you selected and image by double clicking on it, that single image files the workspace and you can work on that images and/or take it into the other modules.

The Fix (aka Edit) modules is where you do most of the refinements and retouching, Each of the buttons on the panel on the right-hand side takes you into a separate tool (or set of tools) to do that task. Several of these begin with Auto and these are essentially wizards that attempt (they are not perfect) to correct or enhance specific aspect of your photo. For any one new to photography they are probably wonderful but more novelty that long term tools. at the bottom are three keys that bring up a separate edit window with the serious edit tools.

There are many edit tools and filter options but the simple icons and small thumbnails on the filters make it easy to understand what they do, so the system is easy to pick up. The big feature that photoshop elements offers that few other inexpensive photo editors do is layers (a topic that requires more detail that I should spend now). The layer controls are simple but are really focussed on copying part or all of the source image and allowing a good range of blend modes between them (ie they are very useful but you probably need to know what you are trying to achieve).. I suggest they require a bit of understanding of how layers and blends work before they become useful to a new user (ie this is one area I trust the new version of Photoshop elements has refined)

There are two more modules, which I seldom have used, but they are likely to be very helpful. However since I have never used them I got a bit lost trying to figure out some basics and that is  when I discovered the on-line help no longer works (See notes at the bottom of this post). I suspect the back ends for the photo book and Online albums may no longer work. An area that many novices get into difficulty is email images, particularly images from larger DSLR cameras, is emailing.They tend to send the full resolution image, which is way to big to display of computer or photo screens and very large to send). The email tool support outlook and resizes the photo to suit viewing in any email browser. (there is a slider to further adjust the image size id necessary)

So whether you spend most of your retime in the organizer windows and use the auto wizards or dive into the more photoshop-like edit windows you should find photoshop elements a well though through image management and processing system, delivering a significant number of features that the full photoshop reputation is based on.. It is clearly marketed as an introduction for new users and is likely to be a great stepping stone towards photoshop. Having said that many would probably be quiet satisfied with it as their only software. Thus selling this as a standalone box software does make sense, at a time when adobe is moving towards subscriptions for its higher spending users

Somewhat interestingly you can only get help on-line, (which is what you get is you press the help key) back to version 11 of photoshop elements.  Don’t despair the user forums have a list of various useful archive references files, covering most things back to version6).

The truth is out there

I not sure how many times I have heard good photography (including my own) dismissed as faked in Photoshop. Further I’m also not really a fan of a lot of the on-click Artistic apps around. However there is definitely a place for intelligent post processing, in the whole process of art  –> graphic art–> photography. By example is you shoot RAW it is almost certain that you must undertake some post processing to get an acceptable image. It is just unfortunate that fakery seems to dominate people perceptions and photoshoped has become such a disparaging adjective for a photo.

The cartoon is a golden oldie by Aaron Johnson, and his work a quite photocentric you can see more of the duck here.

Source : As seen on PetaPixel, via Mosaic Lightroom Newsletter

One Duck Done Six Ways

Picasa :: jpeg I’m feeling lucky	Google+ :: jpeg AutoEnhance & Vignette/Blur
AfterShot Pro :: RAW Perfectly Clear & Vignette	Photoshop Elements :: RAW Spotlight Effect
Lightroom :: RAW Tonal Adjustments, Noise Reduction & Vignette	Perfect Photo Suite 8 :: RAW Perfect Enhance, Magic Erase Brush & Vignette

A couple of ducks wandered into the front yard late this afternoon it was overcast and getting foggy so I had to use a high ISO just to get an acceptable exposure with my telephoto lens. While keeping a high f-stop to avoid over narrow depth of field. The resulting images has a lot of digital noise and was just a little flat, but with potential, Giving me the perfect opportunity to see what my many software mistresses might be able to do to lift this shot. I’m not trying to compare the packages for equivalent features, more trying to play to their strengths.

An insight into (unobtainable) beauty

This story and blog project called Before & After by Ester Honig, a journalist has done the rounds on various social media (I found the original links through Google+). Much has been made about the cultural significance of how beauty is conceived, I feel this might have been overplayed and stereotypically discussed so I will jump over all of that and bring the focus back on using photo post processing to create unobtainable extremes in the name of beauty (or trickery)

 

Ester’s Objective was -

“In the U.S. Photoshop has become a symbol of our society's unobtainable standards for beauty. My project, Before & After, examines how these standards vary across cultures on a global level.”

Have a look at the results and see if you agree with me. Some of wonderful, gorgeous tweaking and enhancement of  natural potential. Others are clearly over the top and not appealing. The underlying issue is how can we tell what is authentic? When most people believe every photo captures reality how long will it take for them to become very cynical. How will this effect the perception of those that want to use post processing to be creative rather than for trickery?

Adobe Hack Worse than originally reported

News about Abode Hack isn’t getting any better. Apparently the number of users whose information was stolen is now closer to 38 million, not 2.9 million as originally stated. More confessions on what was “illegally accessed” trickle out, at least part of the source code for Photoshop was also amongst the items taken. This is probably adobe’s core product and thus a bit risk for them. However checking their website, there is very little about the hack and it looks like business as usual and full steam ahead on the subscription model. That creative cloud is still looking very stormy where where I sit.

My favourite sub-story was the fact that some security “experts” where able to find the stolen information on-line and do some analysis of the most common passwords.Can you believe 1.9 million adobe customers have “123456”.
Even is you password is not in this list, if you have (or had) an adobe account it is time that you changed your password. Further if you use the same password elsewhere change those as well.

Photo Importing Times

I decided to try out the loading times for some common photo management software (ie packages I have and am familiar with from my many mistresses project). All photos where loaded from the same memory card, a Lexar Platinum 4GB with a 4 speed rating. There where 24 images ( 12 photos of clouds with both jpeg & raw versions saved) with a combined file size of 225MB, taken over two days. All where loaded onto an older computer (running windows Vista) which I knew would be slower but that would give more a better chance to more accurately record and compare load times. Finally the loads followed my normal procedure to upload the photos and delete them from the card (ie I had made a copy of the cards contents and restored them between each test). In lightroom I used no extras, no keyword/exif updates and minimal preview render.

Package	Load from SD card	Smart previews	Comments
Picasa	8 secs
System Copy	11 secs		Drag & drop from card
System Move	14 secs		Drag & drop from card, set to move rather than copy.
Windows Live Photo Gallery	13 secs		* Did not load some RAW files
Synkron	17secs		** Does not include setup time
Lightroom LR5b	18 secs	27 secs	Does not catalogue matching JPEG but did load them
Photoshop Element PSE	-		knew better than to try it!

(**) I have been experimenting with using file synchronization to move my photos around my LAN and I have added using synkron as a photo import function. So I had to set up a customized synchronization task to move the photos to a folder based on the date photographed and verify the copy before deleting it

I was actually a bit shocked by these times. Whilst I already knew picasa would be the fastest I didn't realize it was faster than a file copy at system level? I now have a lingering doubt that picasa may not verify the copy before deleting the original on the card, However you do see the thumbnails of each image being created from the folder on the hard disk, which does give immediate feedback and some confidence that the file load went ok. Windows Live Photo Gallery was also fast, again as I expected, however it was disturbing that it had chosen not to load some RAW files(*) while it did load others, and there was no message about this at the import time.

All packages correctly loaded the data into two separate folders based on date taken. However there was quiet a variety in the actual names, so they all loaded into different folders in practise! This could become very frustrating.

My current preferred procedure for loading into lightroom or photoshop elements for that matter, is to only import the photos from the hard disk location after they are loaded via picassa (ie from the two directories Picasa had set up). So the following table has two times, because there are two folders, 14 photos in the first sub-directory and 10 in the second)

Package	Import From folder	Smart previews
Lr4.4	4 secs 3 secs
lr5b	3 secs 2 secs	16 secs 15 secs
PSE	6 secs 4 secs

These results are consistent with the general discussion about the new lightroom 5beta, it is somewhat faster than lightroom 4.4. The interesting outcome is that excluding the time lost swapping packages and selecting two different folders. It is clearly faster in elapsed load time to import from the cards into picasa (8 seconds) then import into lightroom (4.4->4+3=7 total 8+7=15seconds, or 5b->3+2=5 Total 8+5=13seconds). The creation of smart previews actually took longer, which is a bit of a puzzle. For a few photos this difference may not amount to much but for a full card or several full cards the time saved will be significant and measured in minutes! I am not surprised that the photoshop element was the slowest, my version 7 organiser is showing its age, and hopefully the organiser has been performance tweaked in more recent versions, I just keep PSE around for the few occasions I want advance manipulation and perhaps layers, although I usually prefer to use Corel Photo Paint in such situations.

So really I have just confirmed what I had already chosen. Picasa is my favoured mistress to load photos from camera cards and to do the preliminary organisation and weeding of my photos. Then I later import only the ones I want to keep into lightroom, my favoured mistress to finesses my raw photos, but from the date based folders created by picasa. Thus the story of more than one mistress continues … ...

Selective Colour through masking in Photoshop

I actually don’t have photoshop (I do have Photoshop Elements, which i don’t use much) but I though I needed to include reference to using photoshop and layers to achieve a similar colourization to the post yesterday. The basics are very similar, desaturate the image and in this case using masking bring back the selected areas of colour you want.

There are dozen of YouTube videos describing this process but this one is simple and easy to follow. So like yesterday it is time for you to have fun, follow the proces in the video to start but experiment and be creative.

New Windows Live Photo Gallery (Beta)

The new Beta is available for Windows Live essentials (its kind of hidden away so here is a link to download it now). One of the new items is a revamp of Live Photo Gallery. One thing I noticed straight away is that it is extremely fast (compared with Picasa & Photoshop organiser) and I mean lightening fast. Maybe I just haven’t loaded enough photos into it yet! Ok while writing this, I got live gallery to scan this PC and external USB Drive for photos, it did it in less than 10 minutes, around quarter of a million images, that’s really good (two hours faster than PSE organiser)  and it is still fast.

So “Is it a good Photo Manager?”

Certainly YES. Window Live Photo Gallery has all the basic editing functions (plus a decent noise reduction filter) It supports organisation by Date/Time (the default), People (but a manumatic face recognition) General Tags and Geotags, it even keeps track of what you have “published” to the web and where. It has tags, captions and a 5 star rating system. It also has nice features to appropriately resize for emails, to publish directly to facebook & flickr and even makes maintain backups and shareable albums on you own personal Sky Drive. It has a very simple easy to use camera import facilities and seems to handle of  the image and Video format I have tried. I did have to download some extra Codec for my Raw files (BTW the Pentax Supplied Codec only work in Vista or windows 7). So if you have a microsoft Vista or Windows 7 based PC, a new digital camera and/or a camera phone you should consider downloading it now, its free!

Is it as good as Photoshop?

Well NO, but… Photo shop has way more features,  PS & PSE are expensive and spoken of with great reverence by many bloggers and expert photographers. However I can also let you into an unspoken truth, the Photoshop family of photo editors, perhaps with the exception of lightroom are blotted, chronically slow and can be extremely tedious to learn and use efficiently. Yet PhotoShop can do some magic in the right hands and make other packages look ordinary in comparison. So for the vast majority of new camera user who don’t want to spend hours tweaking their photos or don’t already have Photoshop and one or more of those many glossy How to Photoshop books, Live Photo Gallery is much easier to use software to start with and its free.

Ok then “Its it a Picasa Killer App?”

Probably NOT. It doesn’t have a lot of the feature Picasa offers, like automatic face recognition, printing large posters, collages, HTML web galleries, screen savers, making movies from still images, backup & Gift CD/DVDs and the nice integration with the On-line Picasa Web Album, with its well thought out security/collaboration options. I’m sure there are more features I’ve overlooked, Picasa is an established and well liked application, something I would still highly recommend to a new digital camera owner. The one thing loyal picasa users are complaining about in all the forums at the moment is how slow picasa is getting, and I agree. The integration of Sky Drive into Live Photo Gallery gives you a personal place for photographic albums & archives in the Cloud, this is possibly its best and most important differentiating feature.  Live Photo Gallery does have a nice Panoramic photo stitcher built in and good integration with Photosynth.  So I think this upgrade to Live Photo Gallery is very timely and it has some great potentials and I for one will be running it on my desktop PC in parallel with picasa for a while to come.

Movie Maker, Live Mail and Messenger have also had decent overhauls and Live Writer, which I am using to make this blog post now has the new office style ribbon. So do they all. I’m not really sold on the Ribbon, I was quiet happy back in the office XP/2003 style menus.

Did I mention Live Photo Gallery is fast?

Rawing Still Life

This almost painterly image came about as a the comparing the processing of some of my RAW files using different software. One of te packages i was “testing” was a trial version of the latest Photoshop Elements. There beside the image on the right hand side is a filter dialogue box and it is set to Artistic (the alphabetically first option) and there is a nice looking apple  and if you move your mouse pointer over it you see it called paint daubs. To temping for me and the image above is the result.

Ok back to the actual comparison, well to be honest there is very little in it. The original photo, artificial flowers taken with strong natural light backlighting, in the top left is the version my camera also creates when I take a RAW image (because I told it too). I liked the lighting and think is is a good image for a comparison of RAW capabilities. The next three are the results you get when you run each piece of software using it auto process or fix option. All three RAW converts have less distinct noise in the background and from there the differences are subtle. Raw Therapee is by far the simplest and fastest to use. The Pentax Lab result is still the one I like best but the Photoshop Elements version is pretty much the same, just slower and a two step process to reach (and the luminosity noise fix is not part of the default).

I am still not totally convinced the extra load for “processing or converting” RAW version is really all that justified in routine snap shot stuff. For difficult exposure, like low light or really special subjects and fleeting moments I now usually hit the RAW button but for the rest of the time I am still likely to be taking JPEG, getting a lot more photos on my memory card and I doubt most folk will even notice.