Fall is my favorite time of the year, in part because that's when Adobe's annual conference occurs. It's called Max and this year it was in Las Vegas. Some 12 thousand people attended and they came from more than 60 countries. There's a lot that's new this year and, although Max attracts a mainly professional audience, there are advances for those of us who have more modest talents.
Being in Las Vegas two weeks after an attack on another large event killed nearly 60 people led Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen to call on creatives to be a force for good in the world. He then handed the stage over to Bryan Lamkin, who made a valiant attempt to describe all of the changes in brief.
As you might expect, I was most interested in the changes that are in store for photographers and Maria Yap described how photography has changed over the years to what we have today -- the ability to capture high-quality images on mobile devices.
Five New Mobile AppsMobile is big, whether it's for those who use IOS devices or those who use Android devices. Adobe has introduced 5 new apps, some of which have been in beta for more than a year.
Lightroom (LR): Of all the changes, this is possibly the most dramatic. Lightroom is being split into "Lightoom Classic" (computer based) and "Lightroom CC" (cloud based). Lightroom CC is designed as a cloud-based ecosystem of apps that are integrated and work seamlessly across desktop, mobile, and web. Lightroom Classic has a file/folder work-flows that is well-established and some users will prefer to stay with that version. Lightroom Classic will focus on the strengths of a file/folder based work flow and Lightroom CC will be a cloud/mobile-oriented work flow.
Lightroom and Lightroom ClassicAdobe has continued to offer Lightroom as a perpetual license, but development will end. Lightroom 6 will still be offered with a perpetual license, but Lightroom 7 and future versions will be available only to Creative Cloud subscribers. New camera support will be added to Lightroom 6 until the end of the year, but that will be the end of the line.
That won't be a big deal until you buy a camera that's no longer supported and then only if you shoot raw images. If you shoot only jpeg images, Lightroom 6 will still work as usual. But if you shoot raw images and want to continue to use Lightroom, you'll have to sign up for the $10/month photography plan or the $20/month plan with 1TB of storage.
Or maybe not. It appears that Adobe will continue to offer the free application that converts proprietary raw images to the standard DNG format. That will allow you to continue using Lightroom 6 with new cameras, but you won't get any new features that are introduced in later versions.
So there will be a lot for photographers who use the Photoshop applications to work through and anyone who uses any of the other Adobe applications will also have changes to review, analyze, and manage.
Anyone who creates training videos has undoubtedly at least heard of Camtasia and, based on instructional videos posted to YouTube, probably use it. The most recent major upgrade standardized the application for Windows and Mac, but retained different version numbers -- 9 for Windows and 3 for Mac. The latest minor upgrade comes without cost and brings 3 new useful features.
If your job requires that you train users how to use any computer based application, having Camtasia in your tool box will make the process a lot easier. A training video can be as simple as a video clip that shows a process, or it can be much more complex with titles, narration, music, and on-screen highlights and call-outs. If you need just a simple video clip, TechSmith's screen-shot program, SnagIt, will suffice; but those who need to document a more complex process will want the additional features that Camtasia brings.
When you're recording, Camtasia can capture the full screen, a window on the screen, or a region. During the editing process, it's possible to add video titles, text near the bottom of the screen for branding (video pros refer to this as "lower third"), music tracks, narration instead of or in addition to computer audio captured during the recording, and picture-in-picture video from a web camera.
Version 9.1 (3.1 on a Mac) adds 3 new features that may not sound important, but they can add to the visual presentation.
So TechSmith's developers have been concentrating primarily on making previously difficult procedures easier.
TBWW - Forwarding an Email from Bill Blinn on Vimeo.
During the recording process, Camtasia keeps track of where the mouse is on the computer screen and the resulting video can be set to zoom in on the important part of the screen. By tracking the mouse, the program also makes it possible to highlight the mouse for better visibility and to add a mouse-click sound to the resulting video.
SnagIt, allows trimming unneeded video from the beginning or end of a track, but Camtasia is more like a full-featured video editor. Links can be created within the video to a website or another video and those who use the program in an educational setting can build in a quiz.
Camtasia adds the name and version number of the application being captured so that viewers will be able to see when the video was captured, on what operating system, and with which application. Although this might not be important for many users, software developers use Camtasia to document program bugs. In that case, this information is essential.
TechSmith's powerful screen documentation application is now even better.Camtasia Studio is essential for anyone who needs to create training videos and those who have the current version should make sure that they install update to gain access to the new features. Those who need just occasional video clips should take a look at SnagIt, which has a much lower price tag.
Additional details about both applications are available on the TechSmith website.
Just about everybody has to send a file to somebody else at least occasionally. If the file is small, it can just be attached to an email message. Larger files may need to be uploaded to a sharing system. Both of these have problems.
Email usually isn't encrypted. More accurately: Unless you have jumped through several complex hoops, any email you send travels across the internet in plain text or in a data stream that's easily read by anyone along the way. Encryption should be easier, but it isn't, so if you're sending information that you'd prefer to keep private, email isn't a good option. Instead, perhaps you place the file on a file sharing site. Some of these are password protected, but the files are probably not encrypted. Again, unless you have set up encryption on your computer and exchanged public keys with the person who will receive the file, the file will be easy for anyone to access.
Of course, you could compress the file and add a password, but -- depending on the compression application you select -- the password will be only a minor impediment.
Microsoft and Adobe allow users to password-protect files, so you could use those. They provide a comfortable, but completely false, sense of security.
There's a new option, though, that encrypts files during transmission, encrypts them on the server where they're stored, encrypts them during transmission to the person who picks the file up, and then deletes the file from the server after a single download. How much would you have to pay for this service? Currently, it's free. Firefox Send is a Mozilla Test Pilot program. Currently, the service can be used regardless of which browser you choose, but it may eventually be built in to Firefox. Mozilla describes how the Test Pilot program works on its website.
Send lets you upload and encrypt files up to 1GB in size for sharing on-line. After the file is uploaded, Send creates a link you can send to the receiver. These links expire after 1 download or 24 hours and then the file is deleted from the Send server.
So that users can see the status of their uploaded files or delete them, information about uploaded files are stored on the user's computer. This information includes Send's identifier for the file, the filename, and the file's download link. This information is deleted if you delete the uploaded file or when you visit the Send site after the file expires.
In the old days (back when we computers had slow mechanical disk drives and an old fashioned BIOS), booting to safe mode when you needed to was easy. On most computers, pressing F8 would halt the boot process and display a list of options, one of which would be Safe Mode -- handy when something was causing the computer to crash and you wanted to start the computer with only the most essential drivers. If you've tried that recently, you found that it didn't work. You can still get there, but you have to know one of the secret handshakes. Well, I know some of them.
If the computer crashes when it boots, just keep rebooting. It's like baseball in that if the computer crashes on boot three times, the fourth time Windows will automatically offer Repair Mode. Once you have that screen, just select the Advanced Options, choose Troubleshoot on the next screen, select Advanced Options from that menu, then Startup Settings and Restart.
The computer will boot a fifth time and this time you'll be offered the old familiar boot options, including Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Networking.
Your computer probably didn't come with installation media. That just isn't done these days, but you can make your own when the computer is running by burning a DVD or a bootable thumb drive. When the computer is having a problem, boot from the DVD or USB drive.
You'll see a setup screen, so click Next. Then one of the offered options will be Repair Your Computer. This will look familiar: Select Troubleshoot and Advanced Options, but then select Command Prompt. Type bcdedit /set {default} safeboot minimal and press Enter.
Close the Command window and reboot. The computer will start in Safe Mode.
This option works only if the computer boots. If an application repeatedly crashes and you want to see if it works in safe mode to determine whether the problem is a driver. Press the Windows key and type msconfig. At the top of the list of applications, you'll see System Configuration. Click that.
Open the Boot tab, click Safe Boot and then choose the Minimal option. Click OK and choose Restart. The computer will boot to Safe Mode.
If the computer is able to display the logon screen, hold the Shift key down, click the Power button, and choose Restart.
When the computer boots, you'll be offered several options. We're back in familiar territory here: Troubleshoot, then Advanced Options, Startup Settings, and Restart.
The computer will boot and you'll be offered boot options that include Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Networking.
If you're still running Windows 7 or an earlier operating system on a computer that doesn't have a solid-state boot drive and also doesn't have the newer unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI) BIOS, pressing F8 might still work. Might. But it probably won't. When you're satisfied that it won't work, try one of the other options.
