Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Photoshop
So you thought you'd always be a member in good standing of the Photoshop Club, simply by upgrading every second or third version? With the recent announcement of mandatory Creative Cloud subscriptions to Photoshop and the other applications that once formed a part of its Creative Suites, Adobe has effectively shattered that illusion. So welcome to the new world, in which you'll be shelling out each month and every month until the next millennium for the right to run Photoshop. And if you stop subscribing? Good luck opening your files with a third-party application.
The Apple iPhone Domino Effect
Apple's transition to a post-Jobs era has to date been a difficult one, marked by a slowing of innovation, a tanking stock price and this week's recent quarterly report marked by the firm's first drop in profits in a decade. On the other hand, Apple is sitting on a cash mountain, iPhone and iPad sales remain strong, iTunes continues to dominate music sales, the App Store is booming, the sales in Apple retail operations are off the charts, and so on.
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April 22, 2013, 4:30 AMWhy Don't We All Love Adobe?
After all, designers and developers spend most of their time creating the experiences made possible by Adobe tools, which has been the case for a very long time. On a shelf a few feet away from me sits a battered cardboard sleeve in which rests my first purchase of Photoshop, the classic version 3.0 from 1994. Marking the arrival of layers, it instantly transformed image editing. But by then Adobe had long set in motion the digital publishing and graphics revolution by creating the PostScript language, which turned the 1985 Apple LaserWriter into a magical publishing machine for everyone.
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March 29, 2013, 9:44 AMAttack of the Giant Drone Logos
Well, in this case just one, but I'm sure more are on the way. The use of our little flying "friends" to promote goods and services became instantly clear when light-emitting drones were summoned to perform at last year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Check out the clip below, if you missed this the first time around.
I'm Buying an HTC One for the Wrong Reasons. And I Don't Care!
I'll admit I'm not a very intense phone user. So until this morning my aging HTC Desire was everything I needed in a smartphone. Or so I thought. It worked reliably, felt good in the hand, had a simple but elegant interface. But now I can't wait to dump it. What's changed, you ask? Well, this morning I had the misfortune to stumble across HTC's new flagship phone, the One. And now I can't stop thinking about it. So you can chalk me up as just another digital sucker, dazzled by the latest gadget.
The Darwinian Evolution of Photoshop
Now well into its third decade of existence, Photoshop does indeed seem to incarnate Darwin's theory of evolutionary adaptation by natural selection, as put forward in On the Origin of the Species. And while Photoshop's rise to dominence has been inexorable one has to sometimes wonder — is it in our best interests that there is no viable alternative? Something to ponder while scrolling through this nicely-done Photoshop timeline.
Paperman: When CGI Meets Hand-drawn Animation
The days are long over when Disney rested on its animation laurels and for some years now it has been successful in releasing a stream of movies that for the most part have been well received at the box office. This has been thanks to the firm continuing to surprise audiences with its technical prowess, while sticking to its tried and true formula of banal, feel-good plotlines.
Adobe 2012 Design Achievement Award Winners
Adobe recently announced the winners of its 12th annual Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) during a ceremony held at the DesignThinkers 2012 conference in Toronto, Ontario. The event honored students and educators whose winning projects were selected from 41 finalists out of nearly 5,000 total entries from 70 countries. Student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists were invited to submit individual or group projects created with Adobe software. Winning students were recognized in 13 categories encompassing interactive media, video and motion, and traditional media; educators were recognized in three categories celebrating innovative teaching methods. All the 2012 winners are shown below, with all the finalists also on display on the ADAA site.
November 8, 2012, 4:34 AMAdobe's Change the World Challenge
Beyond simply developing tools that enable people to harness their creativity to communicate across print and digital media, Adobe has a long track record of championing the value of creativity itself. So it's no surprise that this week the firm released a study that supports this. Based on interviews with 1,000 full-time salaried workers aged 25 and older having at least a four-year college degree, Creativity and Education: Why it Matters, provided as a PDF, makes for some interesting reading.
November 2, 2012, 10:59 AMThe 2012 animago Awards
The animago awards have been spotlighting great work in the digital media production and visualisation domains since 1997. The 2012 awards were revealed last week, chosen from a field of 950 entries submitted from more than 50 countries. I've included all the award winners here, with some being teasers and others the entire work. Above is the launch trailer for Mass Effect 3: Take Earth Back. Created by Digic Pictures, Hungary, it snagged Best Post Production. You'll find some great work here. My favorites? The Chase, for its relentless action and amusing finish, and the sobering Ending Fishing. Although, the Cartier clip is visually stunning. Okay, okay, I liked all of them. Well, all except that weird Jury's Prize winner. Someone explain that to me.
October 24, 2012, 4:14 AMDrawing with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2
One tends to think of Apple devices as being the only ones suitable for drawing, but even a humble Android phone can get the job done, it would seem. The clip above is a speed drawing of a character created on a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile. the author is Gérémy Arène, who is self taught and has simply always liked to draw. Gérémy has tried the iPad but finds that the Wacom digitizing technology embedded in the display technology of the Galaxy Note 2, coupled with the fine tip of the S-Pen stylus and 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, provide him with a more responsive drawing experience. In contrast, the Pogo Connect stylus delivers just a few hundred levels of sensitivity when used with the iPad version of Sketchbook.
Chris Dickman
Editor, Graphics.com
Discovering Art the Art.sy Way
The first time you visit the Art.sy site you might think that you've stumbled onto a modest labor of love, created by those with a passion for art. In this you'd be only half right, since it turns out that there's some serious horsepower behind the initiative, which has no less of a mission than "to make all the world's art freely accessible to anyone with an Internet connection."
The Watery World of Photographer Markus Reugels
German photographer Markus Reugels has been creating a striking series of high-speed photographs made with just water and ink — image manipulation with Photoshop plays no role in the process. I've shown some favorites here, with many more displayed on Reugels' site.
September 26, 2012, 5:36 AMAdobe Returns to its Typographic Roots
Decades ago, Adobe was a champion of the use of professional-quality digital fonts, not only by creating its own library but by playing a key role in the development of font formats and fully supporting OpenType within its Creative Suite applications. That initiative had been put on the back burner in recent years, so it was good to see that with its purchase of the Typekit web fonts service last year it was back in the game. Typekit has been a significant part of Creative Cloud subscriptions since Adobe launched its membership-based service in May. This week the Typekit offering received a major upgrade as part of Adobe's rollout of its Edge Tools and Services. The clip above is an extract covering just the typographic announcements.
September 18, 2012, 5:39 AMA Colorful Glimpse of the Past
There's something undeniably compelling about the first works created in any medium, which in the domain of film go back to the turn of the 20th century. In this category I'd include the animations of Émile Cohl and the fantastic films of George Méliès. You could go even further back and watch the films shot by the Lumière brothers in 1895. And now we can watch the first color films, created in England between 1901 and 1902.
