As most of you will know, Adobe release its latest Creative Suite (CS5) a couple of days ago. Personally, I only use Photoshop and Dreamweaver. For the casual photographer, the CS2 or CS3 version of Photoshop is probably more than you ever need. So are there reasons for upgrading (or reinstalling)?
First, Adobe doesn't really support the older versions of Photoshop anymore, or the operating system you run at this moment has some issues with an older version. So an upgrade will happen sooner or later. But apart from compatibility issues with the OS, there are some new features available for the (casual) photographer. The following features are the ones I'm most interested in;
- Easier ways of doing complex selections
Basically a tedious job in every earlier version, so I have my reservations on this feature.
- Content Aware Fill
Create-photos-in-Photoshop-instead-of-by-using-a-camera feature.
- HDR Imaging
Let's see if it beats Photomatix Pro.
- Automatic Lens Correction
I now use PTLens on the photos that need the correction.
- 64bit support (!!!!)
A feature that's long overdue.
- Better Black and White conversion
I mostly use Nik Silver Efex Pro at the moment.
In this post I'll be evaluating Photoshop CS5 on some of the points I mentioned above. Others will become a separate blogpost later on. For the moment, I'll be starting with 'upgrading' from CS4 to CS5, and see if that goes well (after I've cloned my MacBook disk with SuperDuper! to make sure I can always go back if things go sour).
Another thing that I need to check out is compatibility with earlier versions of Action scripts, and (older) plugins. Just check the CS5 or Photoshop tag for all the related posts about Photoshop CS5.
Oké. Day 2. After the successful installation and configuration of CentOS with Adobe Coldfusion, I needed to install MySQL as a database. So, I started the virtual machine, and found out why Linux will (probably) never cut it as a common desktop environment.
X11 - No DesktopYesterday I (properly) shutdown the system (which had the GNOME Desktop), and today it started with some back to the 60's desktop. Every icon gone. All that I'm left with was a terminal window, clock, and a FireFox window. This environment is the basic X11 desktop.
Inspiration for creating (blockbuster) movies can be found in books. There are hundreds of books which have been turned into movies. Some successful, others not so successful. There's no real formula to determine if a movie is gonna be successful or not. Having the right producer(s), director, a large budget, and a star cast doesn't guarantee a good movie (with lots of money)..... but it might help.
James Hetfield of Metallica by Guillaume Raisonnable, on FlickrMy photo of James Hetfield (lead singer of Metallica) won this years photo contest at the local cameraclub (out of 51 other photos).
The photo was taken this year at their concert in Ahoy, Rotterdam [1, 2], and this image felt right from the beginning.
Rammstein @ GelredomeOn Sunday December 6th, we saw the Rammstein 'Liebe ist für alle da' tour in the Gelredome in Arnhem, the Netherlands. The evening started with the support act Combichrist. These guys use drums and synthesizer to generate lots of noise. Music/rhythm; good, vocals; bad :-). Definitely not my cup of tea.
Just after 8 o'clock Rammstein started with the song 'Rammlied' from their latest album. Probably the best song for opening their show. And a great show it was. The show was filled with enough pyrotechnics to provide a small village in Siberia with warmth for at least a year.
;)
