Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 Review

Photoshop Elements 11 available now

Today, Adobe is announcing the newest version of their consumer imaging software, Adobe Elements 11.  With the new version comes the usual number of refreshed and all-new effects, guided edits, and workflow tweaks, but it also brings some major changes as well as a completely overhauled interface.  Read on to see what’s new as well as my opinion on the importance of this upgrade.

Freedom from (activation) Tyranny

A few months ago, I attended a journalist's training session at Adobe's San Jose, California, headquarters.

During that three-day event, at which Adobe covered airfare, hotel, and other expenses, a constant litany of positive comments about the Adobe Creative Cloud was met with skepticism and "what if?" questions, especially regarding activation and ongoing "check-in" status by each Creative Suite program.

Adobe representatives assured the most vocal of us, myself included, that our worries' about readers' potential activation issues when abroad or off-line were either unfounded or--at least--too much worry about scenarios that would never arise.

When I posited about an issue of going offline for a month, as was similar to a trip I took to Africa in late 2011, I was told the Internet connectivity requirement would only be an issue at the initial use of product. adobe stated that a seven-day grace period would ensue, after initial activation, and that it would be thirty days AFTER activation before another check occurred.

I was skeptical then, even after two separate in-depth discussions, because it's too much to expect that the team creating the "piracy abatement" solution of applications "phoning home" every 30 days could think of every use case.

Today, I got bit, hard, by the very issue I raised.

After downloading and activating on a Mac Mini before leaving the US on June 25, I launched Photoshop while online to confirm it would work. It did.

I then disconnected the machine and hand-carried it to Ossenzijl, a small town on the Friesland province border in the northeastern Netherlands. No Internet connection at the rental house, in fact no open network anywhere within a three-mile radius, and that connection is on a street corner across from the only grocery store.

Opened Photoshop yesterday and it worked with fine. No warnings or errors.
Opened it today and was met with this message: cannot activate, you need an Internet connection to activate.

Seriously, Adobe, what are you thinking?! Three weeks of work opportunity shot to hell because of a draconian policy. Give me the real applications, not this Creative Cloud bait-and-switch crap.

Guess it's time to go back to iPhoto and iMovie.

Tim

Does Apple's elimination of the optical drive in the MacBook Pro spell the end for pro video Mac lovers?

Following Monday's announcements from San Francisco regarding refreshed MacBook Pros, it will be a wonder if Apple doesn't run off the rest of it's dedicated professional video audience.  With Final Cut X's big flop in the pro-video world last year, it would seem that Apple decided that they really don't care about appealing to anyone but consumers and themselves anymore.  The decision to eliminate the optical drive in their high-end portable computer is another slap in the face of all those that helped Apple displace Avid as the number one video editing software among smaller studios and individual producers.  Let's look at what Apple has accomplished by making this choice.

SAVED WEIGHT

The MBP now weighs in at a little over 4.5 pounds.  I am the first to admit that my 2010 MBP is a hefty piece of machinery.  Since I use it primarily for stationary editing with a Cinema Display, that's not much of an issue to me.  If I wanted a super-light, ultra-portable, I would buy a tablet or ultrabook like a Samsung Series 9 PC.

SAVED THICKNESS

At .71 inches, the new MacBook Pro is no-doubt a thin machine.  I'm not accustomed to squeezing through narrow passages whilst holding my laptop, but if I was running for my life and had to squeeze through a narrow fence, this extra .25 inch could possibly make all the difference.  Thin is nice, but it is not a deal breaker for me.

SAVED BATTERY

Of course an optical drive with moving parts will eat more battery life than no drive at all, so the unplugged time of the new laptops should be exceptionally better.  I don't find myself using my optical drive much when I'm away from a desk, so I'm not sure how much practical gain there is to this.

Apple still threw a bone to the pros that haven't already jumped ship on Final Cut by announcing that all of the pro apps will be made retina-ready to look their best on the new hi-res screens.  They have still made life harder to be a video producer that uses Macs by now forcing you to buy an external optical drive if you choose to upgrade.  I'm sure many pros out there have already done so just so they are able to author Blu-ray disks.

Even the big Mac Pros were barely given so much as a spec bump today.  It's probably only a matter of one to two years before they follow the optical drive into the annals of Apple history.  Let's hope that Mr. Cook and Mr. Ive will look beyond the kids buying iPods and iPads and see that there is still a huge customer base that needs professional software and hardware in order to do their job.  If they don't, then companies like Adobe will be all too ready to eat their lunch.

Contest entry video for Bobby McCoy

Last week, I was asked to create a two minute video for one of the assistant pastors of our church.  He is a quadriplegic who uses an accessible van with special hand controls to get around.  His van and specialty equipment is badly in need of replacement, and this month is National Mobility Awareness Month.  The National Mobility Equipment Dealer's Association (NMEDA) is sponsoring a contest that will award three "local heroes" a new accessible van.  A friend of Bobby's asked me to a take his essay, convert it to a script, and shoot an accompanying video.

AirTurn BT-105 review

The AirTurn BT-105 hands-free page turning system

Earlier this year, I posted a review of AirTurn’s first hands-free page turning system, the AT-104. The 104 operated on RF technology to “turn” digital pages on a connected computer or tablet. AirTurn has now released the BT-105 which uses Bluetooth technology as the model name suggests. The company has taken an already inconspicuous and useful product and shrunk it down to make it even more appealing. You’ll find my review of the AT-104 at this link, and I’ll refer to that article for much of the duplicate information. Continue reading to find out how the BT-105 differs from its predecessor.

Hardware

The BT-105’s profile could hardly be any more svelte. Since your chosen device, be it tablet, laptop, or desktop, already has a Bluetooth radio transceiver inside, there is no need for the USB dongle required by the AT-104. The BT includes two custom-built pedals and the BT transmitter/battery assembly. I was skeptical of the custom pedals when I received the unit in the mail, but was quickly impressed by the build quality and performance. The pedals are made of an extremely durable plastic or resin material, which makes them light and flexible. They are flexible enough to bend and press under your foot, but strong enough to not crack. I can only imagine it would take an elephant with a tuba to damage these during normal use.

The brain of the unit, which includes a non-removable, rechargeable battery, is smaller than the pedals and fits between them. It is mounted securely to the pedals’ base with Velcro. There is a tri-color LED indicator light, two 3.5mm ports for pedal input, a mini USB port for charging, and a small multifunction button. The button acts as power, BT profile change, and pairing toggle all in one.

Function

The BT-105 simply works. It is as responsive and accurate as its predecessor, so there’s really no reason to elaborate on how it performs. The pedals are broad and extremely easy to depress. Finding them with your foot without having them in view is no problem. What’s changed with this model is more on the software and interface end than anything else.

Interface

Since the BT-105 does not have any software included like the AT-104 did, the software side is dependent on whatever application you use on your interfacing device. For my review I used an Apple iPad 2, which is AirTurn’s suggested device. I chose a supported app from the App Store, where there are many compatible options to choose from. After powering on both the iPad’s Bluetooth and the AirTurn device, I was paired and connected within seconds. The app that I downloaded included some public domain music files, so I was up and running with minimal setup.

The only trouble that I had with operating the BT was interpreting the LED indicator. As I said before, there are three colors, amber, red, and green. This makes the possible combinations of indications high. And the BT-105 uses quite a few of them. The manual lists several light patterns, but correlating them to the code that it gives you is every bit as difficult as you might imagine. One example is changing the Bluetooth profile. The BT-105 comes setup for iPad use, but it must be changed to one of the other three profiles to be used with alternate devices. I tried changing it from iPad to PC/Mac mode. The process is described in the manual this way:

“To change to the PC or MAC profile (Profile 1), turn off the BT-105. Then, holding down the foot switch plugged into Port 1-2 (the port closest to the red power switch), turn on the BT-105. Release the foot switch as soon as you see the LED blink. The LED will then blink red, then green, then red, indicating that the profile has been set.”

The process worked as described when I attempted it, but many musicians that aren’t so tech savvy may be intimidated by this process. If you are one that may frequently change devices, this could indeed become very tedious.

Battery

Another advantage that the BT-105 has over the AT-104 is the inclusion of a rechargeable lithium polymer battery. This allows for longer use time and reduces the maintenance cost of the device by not having to endlessly replace alkaline batteries. Despite my initial delight over the battery type, I was alarmed when I first read the following in the operating manual:

“Note: If you fail to charge your battery when it is blinking red, you risk running it down completely which will require a factory replacement.”

Several AirTurn representatives reassured me that this is a warning to users who may neglect to charge the unit even when the LED indicator tells them the battery is almost dead. I was also told that most regular users charge their units weekly and have no trouble. They claim that 99% of units with dead batteries are recoverable when plugged into a wall socket to recharge, but the possibility of totally killing the battery is there.

Summary

With the introduction of the BT-105, AirTurn has delivered another powerful product that will help thrust music performance into the future. All of a musician’s digital sheet music can now be quickly accessed with the swipe of a finger, and it can be effortlessly played through with light taps of the feet. Being made in America, it is great to see a quality product that delivers as advertised while still maintaining a reasonable cost and excellent customer care.

Also posted here.

Extron Institute for Emerging Technology

My partner Tim and I just came back from last month's class on Emerging Technology from the Extron Institute in Anaheim, CA.  The class was divided up into six categories taught over three days:

• ·      Streaming Technologies
• ·      Configurable Control
• ·      Digital Systems
• ·      Fiber Optic Design
• ·      Multi-Image Processing
• ·      Power Amps & Pro DSP

I learned a lot of new information, got up to speed on how things have changed over recent months, and was able to get refreshed on some topics that I had gotten rusty on.

Streaming

If there’s any topic dear to the hearts of Tim and I, it’s streaming media technology.  We were not disappointed during Wednesday’s discussion.  The course instructor gave a succinct overview of historical and current streaming tech also taking time to explain the ins and outs of some of the engineering behind it.  Significant time was spent on comparisons between the ubiquitous H.264 and Extron’s proprietary codec called Pure3.  The Pure3 codec is intended for use in mission-critical application environments where lossless image re-creation and minimal buffering and latency are required.  The side-by-side comparison of Pure3 and H.264 was very interesting.

Pure3 provides a 4:4:4 color space allowing the highest quality imaging to be streamed.  H.264 has a limit of 4:2:0.  Pure3 utilizes Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) compression while H.264 uses Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT).  DWT looks at 32x32 pixel blocks and allows for a more efficient compression over DCT.  Pure3 also uses a technique called Error Concealment to compensate for lost packets.  This causes discreet portions of the image to be temporarily shifted out of place.  Packet loss with other error correction generally results in macro blocking.  Satellite television subscribers see this kind of artifacting frequently during heavy rainstorms.  The final difference between Pure3 and H.264 is that Pure3 does not utilize GOPs.  Each frame is individually processed much like a still image compression like JPEG.  This results in higher quality streams and lower bandwidth usage when still frames or images with static backgrounds are present.

HDCP

High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection.  You may not know the term, but you probably have it in your home.  HDCP is the tech that attempts to prevent things like Blu-Ray disks from being copied.  HDCP utilizes a set number of “keys.”  Whenever HDCP-compliant devices are connected, the devices communicate the presence of these keys among each other to determine if and how the content will be displayed.  There was some discussion of the so-called HDCP “master key” that was leaked out several months ago.  Just last month, several researchers in Germany were able to use that master key to easily bypass HDCP using less than $300 worth of electronics.  This anti-piracy technology has its place, but it is causing headaches for AV professionals.  Allow me to elaborate.

Since each device has a set maximum number of keys allowed (no more than 127), HDCP-compliant devices are limited to that many devices that they can interface with.  Also the number of keys that a given device may have is not always spelled out.  If a project requires more keys than a device can send, the additional displays will be stuck showing a green screen with no content.  Since large-scale installations, such as universities, hospitals, and airports, can often have more than 127 displays, this limits the types of devices that may be used in those situations.  The newer Ultra-Violet encryption technology was not discussed in the course, but it presents an even more foreboding and Draconian future for AV professionals if it takes hold on the market.

Any Extron Institute class presents a fire hose of information, but this three-day class was paced well and peppered with some enlightening discussions among the attendees.  There were some sharp men in that room that really knew their stuff and weren’t afraid to take the instructors to task if they thought they were off on something.  However, I don’t recall him being proved wrong on any major point.  As always, we were treated and fed like royalty, even getting a tour of their main office building and manufacturing process.  Extron is one of an elite group of electronics manufacturers that still makes most of their products in America.  They have an automated facility in Anaheim that solders the boards while assembly personnel put together larger components and prepare packaging for shipments.  Clearly this hasn’t hurt the company as they are building an additional six-story headquarters building in Anaheim for their new West US headquarters.  Their US East HQ is constructing a nearly identical building in Raleigh to house their operations as well.  My hat is tipped to Extron for helping to keep more jobs on US soil when they’re needed more than ever and for having the quality customer care to invite us out for their world-class training.

Adobe Elements 10 Review

The Adobe Elements 10 Organizer interface

Adobe Elements 10 is now available for Mac and PC.  With this tenth release comes a bevy of new features for hobbyist photographers and digi-scrappers to enjoy.  Having used and reviewed the Elements software since version six, I have an easy time telling whether a new version provides significant improvements over its successor or not. During the Elements 10 preview that Adobe presented, there were some definite “wow” moments.  With loads of new features to explore, I’ll allow you, the user, to experiment and find which ones are best for you. Following are some of my top features.

Easy type on paths

Typing on paths is super-simple in Elements 10.

Calling this “type on path” does not do justice to what you can do with text in Elements 10.  Drawing any shape or path can quickly be typed on by simply using the new text tool options available.  You can draw a custom shape, selection, or path. Any of these can then be “committed” onto your document and immediately typed on.  Didn’t get it right the first time?  No problem.  Simply use the appropriate tool again and adjust the points to just what you want.

Visual search

Adobe has answered a request that many people have been asking for to be able to easily locate images that contain more than just people.  The solutions are called“object search” and “visual similarity search.”  The names aren’t necessarily exciting, but the power behind them is.  Object search can be used to find anything included in images such as animals or visual landmarks like houses or monuments.  Once you select the object to be found, Adobe will rapidly search your library and bring up best matches for the item selected.

Setting up to do an "object search"

 

The object search results

Visual similarity search results

Visual similarity search can be used to locate images with similar colors or shapes.  A slider appears that you can adjust towards either color or shape depending on the subject matter.  For example, if you’re looking for sunset images to use for a background on a family Christmas letter, move the slider towards color to find those rich golden hues in other images.


Special effects

As usual, Adobe has added a few new special effects to their guided edits in the Elements editor. Picture Stack makes a popular effect easy by turning one image into a 4,8, or 12 image collage.  The pictures are given borders and canted and rotated to create a three-dimensional“stack” of photos.

Along the lines of the Lomo effect introduced in Elements 9,the Orton effect is now easy to apply. Michael Orton is known for his distinct style of photography involving three things: overexposure, soft focus, and camera motion.  The Orton effect quickly allows you to apply these filters to your image and tweak the results.

Bugs

As with any new release, there are some problems to contend with.  I’ve had one issue with images imported from my DSLR not showing up in the Organizer library.  I had a screen-sharing session withAdobe reps in California and India where I replicated the issue for them.  They were not aware of this issue, but are saying that it stems from the fact that my startup disk partition is different from the partition that I installed Elements on.

The other issue caused the Organizer to create out-of-date folders for images taken on the same day. The second issue is already acknowledged by Adobe, and a fix is in the works.  With time, hopefully Adobe will squash the bugs.

Version 10 of Photoshop Elements provides some very compelling reasons for users to upgrade or buy in for the first time.  If you’re using the software that came with your camera to edit and organizer your images, do yourself and favor and invest in this product.  The new features introduced are helpful especially for those looking to add a little more spice or distinction to their images.  As always, Elements provides easy paths for users to make their images look better than ever.