If you're a digital photographer and you're not using Adobe Lightroom to organize and edit your photos, you're working too hard and missing much of the fun that the creative process offers. (Opinionated? Me?) Adobe's $120/year program for photographers probably has more value than a new $600 lens because it provides access to all of Lightroom's organizational, editing, and sharing features as well as all of Photoshop's pixel-level manipulations.
The recently released 2015 version of Creative Cloud for Photographers provides even more ways for photographers, whether amateurs or pros, to realize their creative visions. Let's look.
The week that Adobe released CC 2015, I described Lightroom's new Dehaze function, saying that it doesn't add any capabilities that Lightroom didn't already have, but it provides a way to make -- with a single adjustment -- a common correction that would previously have required modifying several controls.
This is arguably a pretty lousy photograph. It's one that didn't make even the first cut several years ago when I visited Prairie Oaks Metro Park. It does exhibit some early-morning haze and that's what I needed.
Sliding a single Dehaze control cuts through the haze. Note, though, that the remaining fog in the distance has a decidedly greenish cast. We'll revisit that in a moment. Bear in mind, too, that this is a haze remover, not a fog remover. If you have a picture from San Francisco's Coit Tower on a foggy day, don't expect the Dehazer control to provide a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge (or even the closer Oakland Bay Bridge).
It's possible that your artistic vision for an image with a slight amount of haze would be to have even more haze. Well, the Dehaze control works in reverse, too. Just slide the control to the left.
Reducing the green cast in the remaining fog brings back some of the darkroom training I had when work was actually done in dark rooms. We were given a simplified version of the color wheel. For photographers, the primary colors can be thought of as red, green, and blue and you can think of them as occupying 3 points of an equilateral triangle.
Now figure out what the colors should be on the sides of the triangle. Yellow is the result of mixing 100% red and 100% green, cyan is green plus blue, and magenta is blue plus red. About now you're probably thinking of a drawing you made with crayons in kindergarten and remembering that blue sky plus yellow sun equals green. True, but crayons use a different color model.
So if you have an image that has an unwanted green cast, there are two options. Find some way to remove green or add magenta. Well, Lightroom makes is possible to add a color to a gradient filter.
After adding some magenta to the top part of the image, I made some additional changes that enhanced contrast and detail at the bottom because I like the grungy look for this image. (Have I mentioned that it's really not a great image?) Here's the final result.
If I wanted to use this image for something more than just a demonstration of Lightroom's new capability, it would need some additional work, starting with cropping. So this photo that previously was a reject actually could have some usefulness as a background now that it's been adjusted.
The graduated filter, radial filter, and adjustment brush receive some welcome new controls in the 2015 version. Users have more precise control over the brightest and darkest parts of their photos thanks to the addition of white and black controls. These are in addition to the existing set of powerful controls that make it possible to paint on temperature, tint, exposure, and contrast modifications as well as subtly changing clarity and saturation, and applying corrections for sharpness, noise, moiré, and color fringing.
Many people start working with their photos in Lightroom because of the application's ability to organize photos and make initial enhancements, then open the image in Photoshop for precision edits. Those who have established procedures that use Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop may prefer to continue using that workflow.
Because Camera Raw and Lightroom are identical under the hood, new features in Lightroom are also new features in Camera Raw. So Adobe Camera Raw 9.1 has the ability to remove or add atmospheric haze to photos and it also provides more precise control over white and black levels for local adjustments.
Most of the new features in Photoshop will appeal to professionals.
The Linked Assets function of Creative Cloud Libraries mean that changes made to what Adobe calls "an asset" in Photoshop will be available in other applications, including the mobile applications available for Iphones, Ipads, and Android phones. And vice versa. Changes made on portable devices will be available on the desktop.
And the ability to add artboards to Photoshop is something designers have been dreaming about for years. Having multiple artboards on a single screen would allow designers to mock up variations of a website for client review, to show mobile and desktop versions of a website side by side, and to work on projects such as the design of business cards, letterhead, and envelopes.
Being able to lay out the various components within a single document and see them all at once is valuable to the designer. Text and art can be shared between artboards, the artboards may be named, and when the work is complete, the work can be exported individually or in groups.
Here an envelope, letterhead, and business card all share the same graphic, but the graphic has a different interpretation on each of the items: Rotated counterclockwise on the letterhead, rotated clockwise on the business card, and converted to a watermark on the stationery. (Note: I am not a designer, nor do I play one on television.)
Adobe likes to show off the new features and program enhancements that have been added over the years and they do so with a chart that goes all the way back to Creative Suite 3.
Adobe continues to hit home runs with Creative Cloud for PhotographersThe $10/month Creative Cloud Photography plan includes both Lightroom and Photoshop. It's hard to imagine a better value for photographers because the applications play so well together. Lightroom is an outstanding digital photo organizer and it handles most of the image adjustments that can be used to improve the vast majority of images. When a photo needs pixel-level editing or adjustments that call for multiple layers, opening the image in Photoshop is a snap.
Additional details are available on the Adobe website.
Google and Facebook are two of the most used services on the Internet. Both of them have extensive privacy settings that allow users to control who sees what. Although many people complain about the lack of security and privacy, few take the time to work their way through the options for Facebook or Google.
One fact is important to understand from the outset: If you post something on the Internet, you should assume that anyone on the planet can see it. After all, that's the primary reason the Internet exists.
Another important fact is this: Google and Facebook are in business to make money. Because you don't send money to Google or Facebook every month, you must be paying for the services in some other way. Occasionally a message pops up on Facebook asking if I would still use Facebook if I had to pay for it. The question illustrates the ignorance of the person asking it. I am paying for Facebook, just as I pay for "free" radio. Just as I pay for "free" television. Advertisers pay radio and television stations for the ears and eyes of listeners and viewers. You are not the radio station's or television station's customer: The advertiser is the customer and you're what the customer is buying.
It's the same with Google and Facebook. Both provide a service that millions of people use. To pay for the employees, the hardware, and the Internet connectivity required to provide the service, Google and Facebook (and others) sell access to your eyes and ears. That's the way capitalism works.
You do have some control, though. All you need to do is take the time to understand what you can control and then adjust the "free" application so that it works the way you want it to.
Google knows more about you than the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, Russia's FSC or SVR, and England's MI5 or MI6 -- combined! But Google also allows users to determine how people connect to them, set what is automatically shared, configure what is visible on their Google+ profiles, manage shared endorsements, control what they share on YouTube, and make ads more relevant or even opt out of interest-based ads.
The easiest way to get to Google's security page is to go here: https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup. If you're not currently logged in, you'll need to log in.
Take the time to work your way through Google's Privacy Checkup. You can enable or disable any of the settings. One of the options shown on the main page is Edit Your Google+ Profile. Be sure to follow this link (it opens in a new tab) if you use Google+.
By default, Google will help people you are connected with find your phone number. If that's a problem, disable it.
By default, Google will keep all of your liked videos and saved playlists private. It will also keep all of your video subscriptions private. You can modify these settings if you wish.
By default, Google saves certain information about your use of the Internet. Although this information is visible only to you, advertisers have access to it: Web & app activity, location history, device information, voice & audio activity, YouTube search history, and YouTube watch history. You can change any of these.
The section that most users will probably want to examine is called "Make ads more relevant to you." According to Google, "You can change the types of ads you see from Google when you adjust your interests, age, and gender, or opt-out of ads based on your interests. Please note that you will still see ads after opting out — they’ll just be less relevant." Also please note that by "gender" Google actually means "sex". The important takeaway here is that you can't eliminate the ads. Given that, I've left interest-based ads active. If I must see an ad (and I must), then it might as well be something that has some chance of being interesting.
People share stories or photographs on Facebook and they say they're annoyed because other people can see their stories or photographs. Maybe I'm missing something here, but what's the point of posting something on Facebook if you don't want people to see it? And, to go back to my original point, regardless of your privacy and security settings, if you post something on the Internet, you should assume that anyone on the planet can see it. After all, that's the primary reason the Internet exists.
You can specify who can see every post you create, but there's also a default option. To restrict access to your past and future Facebook posts, click Privacy in the left pane of the Account Settings. Then choose Limit Past Posts under Who can see my posts? and click the Edit button at the right of Who can see your future posts? A warning will appear if you choose to limit access to previous posts overall instead of changing the setting on a per-post basis.
The options under Who can contact me? allow you to limit friend requests and also filter the messages you receive. Additionally, you can restrict who can find you by using an e-mail address or phone number, who can find your timeline by name, and whether your timeline will link to search engines.
Some Facebook apps request more permissions than they really need. This may include access to your information and the ability to post photos and status updates "on your behalf". To review the permissions apps have, click Apps in the left pane of the Account Settings window, choose Edit to the right of the app's entry, and then change the app's visibility in the drop-down menu or eliminate the application using Remove app if you no longer want it. There's also an option to report rogue apps so that you can tell Facebook about apps that spam users, are inappropriate, or that request more information than they need.
The FBI and law enforcement agencies in Europe and South America, have arrested more than 60 suspects in connection with an investigation of an identity theft ring called Darkcode.
According to KrebsOnSecurity, Darkcode is an online market for criminals who want to buy and sell ransomware programs, drive-by exploits, spamming services, botnet tools, and the like. The site reportedly has been under surveillance for the past 4 months.
The FBI, Europol, Brazil's Federal Police, and other law enforcement agencies arrested 62 suspects in 18 countries.
A Brazilian news report says those arrested in Brazil are suspected of participating in Internet fraud. They are accused of extracting money from bank accounts by planting malware on victim's computers.
One of the suspects in Brazil is accused of operating a botnet with more than 25,000 computers.
The FBI says that the "Darkcode forum", which was password-protected and open only to accepted members has been the focus of an investigation involving law enforcement agencies from the US, the UK, Germany, Brazil, Latvia, Romania, Nigeria, Israel, and about a dozen other nations. Code-named Operation Shrouded Horizon, the investigation has identified some 300 members of Darkcode.
Maybe they should have held the event on a day that's a prime number, like Monday (13) or Friday (17) instead of Wednesday (15). Stupid math jokes aside, Amazon's Prime Day didn't quite live up to its advance billing.
"Lame" is a word commonly used by consumers to describe the one-day sale commemorating Amazon's 20th anniversary. Only Amazon Prime members ($100 per year) were eligible to shop for the special prices.
Countering Amazon's online advertising blitz, BestBuy and WalMart both announced special one-day sales that were open to everyone and also featured "free" two-day shipping for orders above a certain value.
Retailers with stores are feeling pressure from online retailers, particularly Amazon. Between 2010 and 2014, Amazon's revenue grew 31% while WalMart's increased less than 2%.
Amazon was apparently hoping that Prime Day would attract new customers for its Prime Program. Perhaps it did that. Existing Prime members, though, weren't impressed. Those who signed up for the program this week get a 30-day free trial of the service. But WalMart is considering it's options, too. In May WalMart said that it plans to test a $50-per-year program that will offer free three-day shipping.
Microsoft Corporate Vice President Nick Parker, who heads the OEM Division, will deliver a keynote at IFA 2015, a global trade show in Berlin. IFA is the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) and the annual event occurs in early September.
Parker will show new devices that run Windows 10, including tablets, hybrid devices, power notebooks, gaming devices, and all-in-one computers.
IFA Executive Director Jens Heithecker says that Windows 10 offers new capabilities and experiences for consumers and businesses. Microsoft hasn't played a big part in this event for several years. Windows 10 is generally seen as what might colloquially be called a "game changer".
Nick Parker, as head of the OEM division, is in charge of worldwide sales, marketing, and licensing of pre-installed Windows operating systems and Microsoft applications and services on mobile and embedded devices, personal computers, servers, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
