One of the nicest features of the latest round of OS X image editors like Pixelmator and Acorn is their use of GPU acceleration. They use your Mac's graphics processor to radically speed up various image tools like filters and transformations, etc. Now it appears that the big boys are finally getting ready to play.
TG Daily is reporting that Adobe recently previewed the next version of Photoshop (CS Next / CS4) with GPU acceleration. And as expected it made for an enormous improvement in speed. They they observed "the presenter playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it was a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core [Intel] Skulltrail system."
There was no specific mention of the Mac version (the demo seems to have been done on a Windows machine) and also no discussion of if and how the 32-bit limitation of CS4 on the Mac might affect this GPU assisted performance boost. Nonetheless, the addition of GPU acceleration is a big deal, and perhaps will push Apple into getting more high performance graphics cards into its systems.
We've all seen our fair share of Photoshop, whether we know it or not. The PhotoshopDisasters blog, however, is compiling the most bizarre (and funny) examples of extra limbs, flipped text, and heads that don't belong to their associated bodies. Not that I'd know anything about that.
Right after announcing the release of 64-bit support in the Lightroom 2 beta, Photoshop Senior Project Manager John Nack dropped a little bombshell on his blog, announcing that the next version of Photoshop (CS4) will be available in both 32- and 64-bit versions for Windows, but only a 32-bit version for OS X. The reason: Photoshop on OS X is written with the Carbon API. Last June Apple decided to kill 64-bit Carbon, forcing all future 64-bit application development on the Mac to Cocoa. Adobe had originally planned to ship a 64-bit CS4 as a Carbon app and port to Cocoa for CS5, but now the 64-bit version will have to wait for the CS5 Cocoa build.
The (relative) good news is that this will primarily affect users working on "very large files on a suitably equipped machine." The average speed bump "due to running in 64-bit mode is around 8-12%" when not "using a large data set." The bad news is that it is precisely those professional users who buy Mac Pros maxed out on RAM that will likely get penalized. It'll be a sad day when the Photoshop jockeys have to run in Boot Camp to get the most out of their Mac Pros.
This is good news for me, as my old copy of Elements 3 won't work on Leopard at all (I know, I'm a cheapskate). Some of the new goodies in version 6 include a new Quick Selection tool and tabs for quickly jumping between different functions. This version also makes it super easy to create photo books, greeting cards and more.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 runs on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (so PowerPC-users aren't left out in the cold). A single license will cost you $90US, though registered owners of older versions can upgrade for $70US with an in-box, mail-in rebate (or via adobe.com).
A while back reader Michael Coyle was nice enough to send us this write-up on how to customize Leopard's Guest account, and just recently he sent along another guide that you might not need right away, but will come in handy when you really need it. He's got an in-depth look at how to create a custom menu style when authoring a DVD in Toast Titanium 8.
As he says, the default styles that come with the application are a little less than formal, so if you want to create a professional menu for the DVD that fits your needs, this will show you how. As far as I can tell, the style is just a Photoshop file with various layers for the DVD to use as a menu (selected, frames for videos and the border around them, and so on); so the trick is finding the right layers to edit and leaving everything else alone (so nothing breaks).
If you've got some DVD authoring in your future, and plan to use Toast to get it all done, there you go.
Adobe announced this week that Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac is available for pre-order. Do you prefer to try before you buy? If you're going to be at next week's Macworld Expo, visit the Adobe booth. They'll have a demo version running for you to play with.
I'm a fan of PS Elements. I'm no artist or photographer, so Elements does everything I need (and it's a heck of a lot cheaper that Photoshop).
Elements 6 will require Mac OS 10.4.8 or higher, and is priced at US$89.99
This story is more interesting for what it doesn't say than what it does. Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen recently told Reuters that "CS3 hasn't fully been tested under Leopard" but that "If it doesn't work, we will make the necessary adjustments." He also apparently said that Adobe had not received a final copy of Leopard for testing purposes.
Something doesn't smell right here. Why would Adobe's CEO go out of his way to tell a news agency that they can't guarantee CS3 will work properly with Leopard? I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume Adobe has an ADC membership and so has access to the so-called feature complete beta that Uncle Steve released at WWDC (or rather the subsequent builds). While it may be strictly true that Adobe hasn't received a gold master, neither has anybody else as far as we know. Nonetheless, can't they have "fully tested" CS3 with the builds that they presumably do have? In fact lots of people already have Leopard, so it can't be that big of a mystery whether CS3 is compatible.
My guess is that this is another flare up of the increasingly tense relationship between Apple and Adobe, and that Adobe is just trying to publicly remind Apple that a lot of people will hold off on Leopard until they can be sure that Adobe's products are fully supported. In other words, this is a little bit of breast beating on Adobe's part and the implicit message to Apple is that for a lot of pro users our stuff (CS3) is more important than your stuff (OS X). Particularly given the rise of iWork '08 (and the implicit slight to Microsoft it represents), I'm sure Adobe wants to make sure Apple remembers what's important vis-a-vis third-party developers. Whether Apple will take kindly to the message is something else entirely. What do you think?
Posted Sep 10th 2007 9:20AM by Mat Lu Filed under: Software
Okay I admit it; I was fooled. Last week Gus Mueller posted an "interview" on his blog with a "fellow Pacific Northwest developer" about an exciting new app to be released today. While I had figured out it was probably an image editor, I did not figure out that Gus was talking to himself! In any case, Flying Meat software (of VoodooPad and FlySketch fame) today announced Acorn, an image editor "built for the 21st century." Much like Pixelmator (with which I expect Acorn to be compared once Pixelmator finally ships), Acorn takes advantage of your GPU to speed up its operation. It has the normal assortment of editing tools, including layers (with filters), vector tools, as well as a built-in Python and Objective-C plugin system. The latter is particularly exciting as it will allow third-party developers to extend Acorn in potentially interesting ways.
I've long thought that there was an obvious hole in the market for a reasonably priced image editor that was powerful enough for most user but much cheaper than Photoshop. Since Adobe is taking its sweet time releasing a Universal version of Photoshop Elements, it's good to see smaller developers like Gus Mueller and the guys behind Pixelmator stepping up to the plate. It'll be interesting to see how each of them make out in the long run.
Acorn is $39.95 (intro price) and a demo is available.
Reader John L kindly dropped us a tip that Other World Computing has upped their Mac mini memory upgrades up to a whopping 3GB of RAM. And in fact, if you really want a Mini that flies, they'll even squeeze 4GB under the hood, even though they say the Mac Mini can't really handle that much.
The performance testing they did just completely confounds me, however-- in situations where lots of memory was needed (the "RAM Hog" setup), 4GB clearly beats everything else. In fact, in most of the regular testing-- the Photoshop test and the "Stress Test" the memory runs exactly how you'd expect: more memory means quicker processing. But in the last two tests, the Halo test and the Xbench test, the mini actually ran faster at just 1GB (which is what it ships with) than the 3GB, and almost as fast as the 4GB. The reasons for that are probably technical (too technical for me, although I'm sure our talented commenters have some answers), but it seems that in some situations, extra RAM just doesn't help.
Still, in situations that ask for a lot of memory, having more will definitely give you a nice bonus in speed, and it looks like the mini can now hold more than ever. When I buy mine (in October when Leopard drops, assuming Steve lets it live that long), I'll probably just double it to a reasonable 2GB. But if you want that extra power, it's good to know it's there.
The day is finally here. After an introductory video back in May and a more in-depth teaser earlier this month, the Pixelmator crew have begun sending out the private beta downloads and I just took it for a spin, creating the image in this post. It is indeed a sexy app - the UI is a gorgeous translucent black, and it really does offer a lot of functionality and innovation aimed squarely at Adobe Photoshop or, perhaps more appropriately, Photoshop Elements. While Pixelmator is still very much a beta and too buggy for shop or casual work, I am able to play with most of the promised features, including snapping pics from an iSight, the iPhoto browser and all the powerful color and manipulation tools.
Thankfully, Saulius and the Pixelmator crew gave me permission to write up some initial thoughts with screenshots, so check out a preliminary Pixelmator gallery I've put together of some handy features and clever details, and read on for more of my first impressions of this highly anticipated image editor.
Back in May we scored a short intro screencast of Pixelmator, an upcoming image editor that looks to give Photoshop a run for its money. Incorporating open source software and some of the great image tools that Apple provides to developers in Mac OS X, Pixelmator looks like it could very well bridge that massive gap between powerful editors like Photoshop that operate in their own realm and all the handy toys in your Mac, like the iPhoto media browser and iSight camera.
Unfortunately, Pixelmator got delayed a bit (hey, it's software, it happens), and according to the development blog, a private beta is scheduled to begin August 16th. Since we all have to wait a bit longer to see more of Pixelmator, we figured it was about time to score another exclusive video of Pixelmator in action - and score we have! Embedded in this post is a three minute Pixelmator demo screencast that covers a lot more features in action than we've ever seen before. Selection tools, a unique gradient tool, text, transformation, adding layers and moving images from one document to another, the photo browser that allows access to your iPhoto library, snapping a pic from iSight, color correction and some wild, wild filters and effects - all in this video that even WWDC attendees didn't see! If you've been waiting to see some more meat of what Pixelmator will be capable of, you owe it to yourself to press play above.
Needless to say, I'm pretty darn excited for Pixelmator, especially since it'll only cost $59 once released, and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy for review as soon as the team is ready.
The wait has been a long one, but Flickr superpowers have finally arrived for Photoshop in the form of FlickrShop. As you can see, most of the basics are all available, such as tagging, adding to existing photosets or creating new ones, setting privacy and even specifying dimensions so you don't have to do any of that heavy lifting with the Photoshop file itself. The plug-in seems to work pretty well, though you can only upload one image at a time due to Photoshop's single document UI.
Still, FlickrShop is a free plug-in from PixelNovel so it gets a thumbs up from me. Two versions are available - one for Photoshop CS2 and another for CS3.
If you've ever wanted to edit or customize an Application icon in Photoshop, creativebits has a nice tutorial that shows how easy it is to import your icons into Photoshop as a PSD file. Basically, the trick is to open the application's icon in Preview (as was pointed out in the comments, you can most easily do this just by copying it in the Finder and selecting "New from Clipboard" in Preview's file menu), then save it in Photoshop (PSD) format. Now you can open it in Photoshop and get access to the image for editing, including the alpha channel. Once you get that far you may want to check out the nice Photoshop icon tutorial we mentioned back in February.
The moment I saw John Gruber link Pixelmator - a powerful new Core Image-based image editor with support for layers, a wide variety of tools, iLife/iPhoto, Automator and more - I had to get a closer look. I remember the days of Apple hyping Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and all the power of Core Image, and then never seeing a formidable editor make use of them. Sure there are a few apps that make use of Core Image in one way or another, but nothing really struck me as truly leveraging all there was to leverage in Apple's Core image.
While Pixelmator may technically be vaporware according to Gruber, I managed to snag an exclusive demonstration video of the app in action from its developers, brothers Aidas and Saulius Dailide (who you might be interested to know also founded Jumsoft). The demo showcases some impressive Pixelmator features, including working with multiple layers and objects, opening Photoshop files and moving layers from one image to another, taking a picture with an iSight camera and embedding it into the current working image, and even some slick blending modes.
From what I see here, I can definitely say 'wow', especially since Pixelmator is expected to ship in late July for only $59. Stay tuned for more info as soon as we can nab it.
I have rekindledmylove for Automator and all things automation lately. If you can find any way to fit these tools into your workflow, I highly recommend exploring your options - including Ben Long's just-updated Photoshop Automator Actions pack. This collection of 86 actions has just hit v3.5, bringing support for Photoshop CS3 and a fresh batch of new features, such as:
New Auto Color action - executing Photoshop's Auto Color command which puts the control in Photoshop's hands, but allows you to pass the image(s) along to another process without interacting with any kind of dialog or making manual adjustments by hand
Add Watermark can now center and rotate watermarks
Saving TIFF files now includes all the standard compression options
bug fixes and more
Mr. Long also notes that he hasn't included new actions for any of Photoshop CS3's new features - those are coming in a future release.
The beauty of this pack of Automator actions is that they bring Photoshop's automation abilities into the rest of Mac OS X, allowing you to create workflows that pass anything you do in Photoshop on to another app. For example: you could build a workflow that grabs a folder of 200 images, auto-color correct them in Photoshop, add comments and metadata, import them into iPhoto, upload a copy to Flickr and then archive them all to a CD or DVD.
All with a mere double-click.
Ben Long provides his actions as donationware and asks for a very basic set of optional information to help gauge his audience and where he should take development.
One of the nicest features of the latest round of OS X image editors like Pixelmator and Acorn is their use of GPU acceleration. They use your Mac's graphics processor to radically speed up various image tools like filters and transformations, etc. Now it appears that the big boys are finally getting ready to play.
We've all seen our fair share of 
Right after announcing the release of 
After a 
A while back reader Michael Coyle was nice enough to send us this write-up on how to 
Okay I admit it; I was fooled. Last week Gus Mueller 
Reader John L kindly dropped us a tip that Other World Computing has 
If you've ever wanted to edit or customize an Application icon in Photoshop, creativebits has a nice 
I have 
