dSLR Dad

Last year it was Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. This year, Amazon is again offering Adobe Photoshop CS4 Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 for half off on Black Friday. Click here on Friday, November 27th between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. PST to see the deal. Remember, this deal is only going to be for one hour, so make sure you tell a fellow dSLR Dad.

Moose Peterson, wildlife and landscape photographer extraordinaire, has produced a video on digital Black and White photography techniques.  In the video, he covers not only how he converts all of his images using NIK Software’s Silver Efex Pro, but also how he pre-visualizes the B&W effect while in the field.  You can watch this very informative video on his MooseNewsBlog.

Adobe has released downloads of Camera RAW version 5.3 (Mac OS and Windows).  Support for the following cameras has been added from Camera Raw 5.2 to 5.3:

• Nikon D3x
• Olympus E-30

As always, you can visit the Adobe Camera RAW file support page for a complete list of supported cameras.  The Camera Raw 5.3 plug-in is not compatible with versions of Photoshop earlier than Photoshop CS4, versions of Photoshop Elements earlier than Photoshop Elements 6.0, or versions of Adobe Premiere Elements earlier than 4.0.

Nicole Young has created a great little instructional video over at TWIPPhoto explaining how to create a © copyright notice and apply it to your images in Photoshop.

As a side note, anytime you want to add the © copyright symbol, just type Alt + 0169 in Windows or Option + G on the Macintosh side.

Adobe has released downloads of Photoshop Lightroom 2.1 (Mac, Win), Camera Raw 5.1 (Mac, Win) and DNG Converter 5.1.  Newly Supported RAW File formats includes:

• Canon Rebel XS / 1000D
• Canon EOS 50D
• Fuji FinePix IS Pro
• Kodak EasyShare Z1015 IS
• Nikon D700
• Nikon D90
• Nikon Coolpix P6000
• Pentax K2000D
• Sigma DP1
• Sony Alpha DSLR-A900

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.1 update includes many other performance and bug fixes.  Those details can be found listed in the Read Me (pdf link) associated with the download page.  You can also learn more at the dSLR Dad Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Resource Guide.

Adobe will introduce the new Creative Suite 4 as a live video webcast on September 23, 2008.  You can register to watch the entire event at Adobe.  The following are the available times for viewing:

• Europe – 11 am CET
• North America – 9 am Eastern
• North America – 9 am Pacific
• Australia – 4 pm AET (9/24)
• Singapore/Hong Kong – 2 pm (9/24)
• India – 11:30 am IST (9/24)

Thanks to Scott Kelby for the heads up.

Adobe has finally posted their revised the X.4 release of Camera Raw. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.4.1 download is available for for Mac and Windows. Camera Raw version 4.4.1 can be found here (Mac, Win). Both updates support the following new Raw file formats:

• Canon EOS 450D (Rebel XSi/EOS Kiss X2)
• Fujifilm Finepix S100fs
• Nikon D60
• Olympus SP-570UZ
• Pentax K20D, Pentax K200D
• Sony Alpha A200, Sony Alpha A300, Sony Alpha A350

Lightroom 1.4.1 includes corrections for the following issues:

• Lightroom 1.4 incorrectly modified the EXIF time date field of images that had a metadata update applied. This incorrect modification does not appear in Lightroom or Bridge and is only viewable through third party EXIF tools. This error has been corrected in Lightroom 1.4.1 and all files in a Lightroom catalog that have been incorrectly modified will be corrected on their next metadata update. (Metadata can be updated by selecting the files in the Library grid view and choosing Command or CTRL + S to save and update the metadata.) This has also been corrected in Camera Raw 4.4.1.
• Olympus JPEG files could render incorrectly in Lightroom 1.4, displaying an artifact in the exported file. This has also been corrected in Camera Raw 4.4.1.
• Any conversion to DNG in Lightroom 1.4 (Windows Only) would cause the DNG file to become unreadable by Lightroom’s Develop Module or Camera Raw 4.4 in Photoshop. The issue has been corrected and files can be converted to DNG again in order to resolve the issue for existing files. Returning to the original native raw files is not necessary. The affected DNG files can be selected and converted again using the DNG Converter 4.4.1 available at www.adobe.com/dng/. This process is not required but recommended to ensure that a correct validation value is stored within the DNG files.
• Lightroom 1.4 provided degraded import performance relative to Lightroom 1.3.
• The Lightroom team apologizes for the inconvenience caused by the issues presented in the initial Lightroom 1.4 update.

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 Critical Update (2008-3-16):  Adobe has yanked the Lightroom 1.4 and Camera RAW 4.4 downloads.  Lightroom users who installed 1.4 should uninstall that update and install Lightroom 1.3.1 (conveniently posted at the 1.4 download page).  There are instructions for dropping back to 1.3.1 at Lightroom Journal. The following major errors are occurring:

• EXIF Time Stamp Error
• DNG Conversion Error (in Windows only).  Something that freaked me out after converting 16GB of RAW files over the weekend.
• Olympus Conversion Error
• There are also reports that certain plugins are broken.

More details are available on the Adobe Lightroom Journal  blog here.

For all of you Adobe Camera RAW and Lightroom dSLR Dads. Adobe has released Camera Raw 4.4 (download available for Windows | Macintosh) and Lightroom 4.4 (Windows | Macintosh) updates.

Both updates support the following new Raw file formats:

• Canon EOS 450D (Rebel XSi/EOS Kiss X2)
• Fujifilm Finepix S100fs
• Nikon D60
• Olympus SP-570UZ
• Pentax K20D, Pentax K200D
• Sony Alpha A200, Sony Alpha A300, Sony Alpha A350

Update for Lightroom 1.4 (Windows | Macintosh):

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.4 update is available for both Windows and Macintosh. It includes corrections for the following issues:

• Compatibility with legacy printer drivers on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has been updated.
• Previous camera profiles identified in the Calibrate panel of the Develop module may have displayed poor results at extreme ends of the temperature and tint ranges. A new camera profile identified as Camera Raw 4.4 is now available and will be applied by default to all images without existing Camera Raw or Lightroom settings. The creation of new default profiles will also include the updated Camera Raw 4.4 profile. Images edited in Camera Raw or Lightroom with earlier profiles will retain the earlier profile value and visual appearance.
• In previous grayscale conversions the Color Noise setting was disabled and this could result in an image with excessive noise when grayscale channel mixing is applied (which is why I desaturated all of the colors to make a black & white). Both the tool and effect have been enabled in Lightroom 1.4 providing the ability to reduce noise in grayscale conversions. In order to return to the prior visual appearance, Color Noise reduction can be set to zero.

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Jeff Schewe over at PhotoshopNews has a retrospective on the history February 19th in Adobe lore. He shares his thoughts on the beginnings of Photoshop, Lightroom and Camera RAW. You can read the entire article over at PhotoshopNews.

This is a great deal for any dSLR Dad who has owns a license of Adobe Photoshop Elements. You can now move up to Adobe Photoshop CS3 for only $299! That’s more than half off the full price of $649! For those of you are thinking but I don’t have a copy of Elements? Well, you’re in luck, because Amazon still has Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 in stock and it’s only $35.

The fine print:

Of course this is a limited-time offer, but it runs the entire month to February 29. It’s available only to licensed users of Photoshop Elements 1.0–6 and Adobe Photoshop Elements plus Adobe Premiere Elements bundle who purchase the full version of Photoshop CS3 directly from Adobe (available here).

Plus, Adobe has and additional promotion where you can save up to $150 when you buy Photoshop Lightroom together with Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop CS3 Extended. This is a great chance to get two excellent pieces of software at a great price.

Update (2008-2-8): Some of you are having issues with the promotion code taking hold in the Adobe Store. If that’s the case, here is the link to the main offer page. You may have to call in the order on the telephone. I know, I know, that’s soooo 1995….