Another weekend has come and gone and I’m sitting here trying to remember just what it was that I did for the past couple of days.  One thing I do remember doing was watching tropical storm Hannah dump a lot of rain and wind in my area.  No damage to report but I know that all that rain is going to inspire my grass to start growing again.  Guess what I’ll be doing next weekend.  One thing I do remember doing was installing Lightroom 2.0 on my laptop.  I have been using the 2.0 beta for some time now and just didn’t want to make the switch to the final release until I had to.  Well this weekend my beta expired so I guess it was Adobe’s way of telling me I had to.  The install went smoothly and I updated my LR 1.4 catalogs for 2.0 but my problem is now trying to find my beta catalog to see if I can have it added to the current version.

I had limited use of the newly installed version but my first impressions lead me to understand why some folks are less than pleased (see my post from last Friday).  Everything worked as it should but I did notice an appreciable slowdown in image processing.  Perhaps this was because LR2 had not finished digesting all of the new images I added from the catalog update but I never saw any indicators that LR was processing anything that might have accounted for the slowdown.  I will add some new images this week and see if it starts behaving itself as well as the beta version which I truly grew to love.

I also spent some quality time in Photoshop processing a bunch of family reunion photographs that I had let slip to the back burner.  Of course most of you that are photographers know that it is your familial duty to take all family reunion group shots.  Such was my task, which I happily did back in July.  The big problem isn’t taking the photos, it’s distributing them to family members that are spread across the country.  This year I decided to try something new.  The Photoshop Guys are always raving about MPIX printing services so I decided to check it out.  They have redesigned their website and navigation is very simple.  First I registered with the site and created a personal account.  Then I created a new album and uploaded my family reunion photos.  Finally, I used their Share function to send emails to all my family members so they could review the photos and order their own prints.  The prices are very reasonable (8×10 E Surface prints are only $1.99 each) and MPIX uses flat shipping rates so there are no surprises when ordering.  I am going to order a few 8×10s and I will let you know what I think once they arrive.

Yesterday I came across a new website that is really starting to buzz amongst Adobe product users.  The site is called Dear Adobe and its whole purpose is to give dissatisfied Adobe customers a place to voice vent their spleens.  The site has a blog but the real action is in the gripes and Top 100 sections.  The Gripes section allows you to vote on a current gripe or list your own to add to the list.  The Top 100 is pretty self-explanatory, its a compiled list of, you guessed it, the top 100 gripes.  You can also check out the top gripes by application.  I thought I would take a look at and give comment to the two applications that I am most familiar with, Photoshop and Lightroom.

Photoshop Gripes -

1. Stop creating new features and make your software fast, stable and straightforward.

From what I saw at the last Photoshop World, this has been Adobe’s main focus.  I hope they continue that course with CS4.

2. For the next version, please could you stop adding features and work on performance and stability instead?

Just like number 1, Adobe seems to be focused on improving current tools instead of adding new ones.

3. Why does Photoshop cost as much as a pre-owned small car? Drop the price please!!

I have to agree with this one.  It’s painful to keep reaching into the wallet every 18 months, especially when you add Lightroom to the mix.  The fact that they raised their upgrade prices didn’t help.  And forget buying the Extended version.
4. Make my 2009 Photoshop faster than Photoshop 3.5

I think that’s an overstatement.  At least from a photographer’s point of view, as image sizes keep growing from a few MBs to 40+MBs, it’s hard to expect the software to react as quickly.  That’s a lot of pixels to push around.
5. Better font browser in Photoshop, please?

Boy, did they ever nail this one on the head.  Those little, tiny font samples in the drop-down are no way to select a font.
6. Enable auto-recover for Photoshop, so when it inevitably crashes for the 9th time today I can get back to the corporate schlock I was working on.

While this sounds like a nice feature, I can’t really say that I have that many problems with Photoshop crashes.  It is usually one of the most stable applications I run, Mac or PC.
7. Please either make the vector tools in Photoshop work like completely like Illustrator, or just leave them out. Their half-assedness is aggravating.

Thankfully I don’t have to work with vector tools so this isn’t really a problem for me.  Having used some other Adobe apps, I can say that there is some inconsistencies with like tools between apps.
8. Please make photoshop give my ram back when I quit.

Once again, I am happy to say that I haven’t suffered from this particular problem.  I am thinking that it would really suck to be a programmer though.
9. Let me change the opacity on multiple layers at once!

You can do this, sort of, if you place the layers into a group, you can lower the opacity of the group.  What you can’t do is select multiple layers and lower them all at once without grouping. 
10. Why can’t Photoshop be a drag n’ drop install on OS X, like most other apps? Too much garbage that no one uses anyway.

I’m all for this one.  Installing and uninstalling Photoshop on a Mac is a royal pain.  I know they can do better than this.

Lightroom Gripes -

1. Please rationalise you prices around the globe. $99 to update to Lightroom 2 is not 99 Euros. Be fair to those who use your products outside the US.

I would have to agree with my European friends on this one.  99 Euros is about $142.  That hardly seems fair.  

2. Why do you take so long to get started?

I have also noticed an extreme lag in start-up time.  I would like to see some improvement in this area.  I know that Bridge starts much faster than it used to and since Lightroom is essentially a database, I think there is much room for improvement.

3. Why the hell do I have to pay again for Lightroom 2.0 the same price I had to pay for 1.0? Why cannot I upgrade my Educational license for heavens sake !!!!

I’m not sure about the whole reason behind this unless they aren’t giving a decreased price-break on an update version for educational license holders.  If they are going to give an educational price-break for the full version, why not for the upgrade?

4. The performance of Lightroom 2 is a freaking joke. Fix it please.

I don’t have any performance issues with the exception of the slow start-up times.  Perhaps they aren’t using multiple catalogs which do tend to drain performance when you get too many images in them.

5. Make lightrooms localized adjustments faster. and while you’re at it, localised color would be nice to be applied before wb,toning and all the other ‘global’ adjustments. ok, one more, you’ve asked for it: build a database for lenses and cameras to automatically reduce vignetting/abberations/distortions/..

I like the lens database idea although it would be a nightmare to keep up with all the lenses out there and build profiles for them.  Perhaps allowing for custom lens profiling that could be saved and applied automatically would be nice.  I think that the localized color is getting a little silly.  Now you are trying to do local adjustments which is what Photoshop is for. 

6. F*****g drop the “Photoshop” from “Photoshop Lightroom”. It’s simply ridiculous.

While I don’t necessarily agree with the choice of language, at least in a public forum, I do agree with the sentiment.  Do we really need the Photoshop moniker attached?  I think it actually creates confusion against novices.

7. Fix those scrolling issues in Lighroom with multi-monitor systems!

I wish I had this problem.  Sadly I am using just one monitor, and usually my laptop.

8. Lightroom rocks. Thank you!

Wow, nice to know there is a little love out there for such a great app.

9. Lightroom is not $100 better than Aperture. Price it accordingly.

Lightroom is about $279 as opposed to $199 for Aperture.  I seem to remember Apple launching Aperture for about $500 fo what was a pretty pathetic application at the time.  Aperture has made great improvements but I don’t think it is better than Lightroom.  That being said, I think they are both over-priced.

10. Love Lightroom, but 2.0 crashes, has partial UI failures, hangs for twenty seconds, … for all the features, it can’t have seen more then ten minutes of beta test. Give me a 2.0.1 that corrects the things that weren’t broken in 1.4.1 ASAP, then start looking at how to actually take advantage of Beta programs.

Actually, Lightroom has gone through months of extensive beta testing.  I know this because I was a beta tester from the beginning.  I have yet to have any crashes with my system and Lightroom 2.0 so I can’t attest to the crashes that some are experiencing.  I do know that Adobe will probably release a fix pretty quick once they identify the issue.  I say this after watching them address bugs in the beta with great speed.

So there you have it, the Top 10 for each product.  Some of them I agreed with and others, not so much.  I do know that Adobe has taken notice (as witnessed in John Nack’s blog) and they are conversing with the site owners to look at all the issues being raised.  This could be because they are a very conscientious business that is concerned about their end-user satisfaction or simply that they don’t want bad press on the eve of their CS4 roll-out.  I would like to think it’s the former.

If you would like to check out the entire list for every Adobe app you can start reading here.

• I read a great post today from Atlanta photographer Zach Arias.  You might know Zach from his great series on shooting with white seamless backgrounds.  However this post has nothing to do with photography techniques.  What it is about is photographing your loved ones while you still can to capture their spirit and likeness to keep their memory alive.  It is an excellent and thought provoking read that you should definitely take to heart. (click here)

• Adobe just announced the release date for the new Creative Suite 4.  On Sept. 23rd, Adobe will host a live webcast to announce the release and show off all of the great new benefits in this new release.  I have been using part of the suite in beta form for a while now and, while I can’t divulge any of the new features, I can say that it is going to bring some fantastic new tools to improve your creative process.  If you would like to subscribe to the webcast, follow this link and get yourself signed up.

• If you’ve ever created a slideshow with a mask, you have no doubt seen the name Ken Burnes.  He is the creative mind who helped Apple develop the trademark panning and zooming effects that give motion to still images.  If you would like to find out about the man behind the effect, you need to check out this story over at Presentation Zen which discusses the Ken Burns effect and also has a link to an interview with the man himself. (click here)

• Brian Auer over at Epic Edits was stirring the hornets nest this week when he wrote a post about his 3 reasons why he would not use Lightroom.  Well, it seems that the masses were in fact stirred and a lot of conversation was generated as well as some pretty passionate responses.  As a Lightroom user, I have seen the program grow to become much more in its second iteration than I ever thought possible.  One thing that was left out of the discussion that I find to be so extremely valuable in Lightroom is the ability to create virtual copies for alternate processing.  I can create color, black & white, and numerous other possible creative versions without having to make new copies which take up precious hard drive space.  Because the copies are virtual in nature and exist only as small amount of data and not actual pixels, I can feel free to experiment without bogging down my storage. For more on this discussion, point your browser here.

Today is the day that all of my friends are on their way to Las Vegas for a jam-packed 3 days of Photoshop goodness.  I, sadly, am not going to be in attendance.  I try to limit myself to one PSW a year and this year I chose Orlando.  If you have never been to Photoshop World, you really should put it on your calendar of “must attend” events.  It is by and large the best 3-day training conference I have ever attended.  No where else will you find a more dynamic group of industry leading instructors than those that are assembled at PSW.  Another great feature is the diversity of subjects that are available to all creative needs.  Along with the diversity of the curriculum is the free-form scheduling which allows you to move from track to track as you see fit.  It’s this ability to create your own schedule and then change it on the fly that really makes it such a great learning environment.

So not only will I be missing out on all of that but there’s also the trade-show which is growing larger and better with each conference.  Scott Kelby told me the other day that this will be their largest trade-show floor yet.  And unlike a lot of the trade-shows these days that are geared towards the corporate suits, this show is all about the attendees.  There’s also a ton of training that goes on right on the show floor.

Okay, so the instructors are first rate, the classes are excellent, and the trade-show is right up my alley, but missing all those things isn’t really what is giving me the blues.  It’s the fact that I am not going to be hanging with all the great people that attend PSW.  I have made some great friends over the past years and I will miss not hanging out and catching up.  I am going to miss the After-hours party with Scott, his lovely and talented wife, and all of the other great members of the band as they completely ROCK the House of Blues.  I am going to miss sharing my hopes for the upcoming football season with my favorite Skins fan, Scott’s lovely and talented personal assistant, Kathy Siler (seriously, if there is a bigger Redskins fan, I have yet to meet them).  And finally, I am going to miss one of the most hilarious, side-splitting, donut eating, t-shirt grabbing events of the entire week…Midnight Madness, where the moto is “We promise that you will learn absolutely nothing about Photoshop“.

So my advice to you is; if you haven’t been to Photoshop World, start clearing your calendar, saving your spare change, and making plans for the next event.  I guarantee it will not disappoint.