Ever find yourself performing the same Photoshop edits on image after image after image? Automate that tedium with the Actions feature and handy batch-processing.   Oh, the myriad photos you can edit with batch processes! Difficulty Level: Easy What You Need: > Photoshop CS3 or CS4 (We used CS4, but there’s no difference as far as this how-to is concerned. Photoshop CS4 is $699 at www.adobe.com , or it comes with any Creative Suite 4 bundle.) > A bunch of photos in need of an identical editing process You know the story: After a whirlwind vacation around the world, you have too many photos to color-correct, resize, and publish to the web. Though numerous photo-editing apps can batch-process files with basic tasks, none are as customizable as the Actions feature in Adobe Photoshop. Actions is perhaps one of the most useful Photoshop features, allowing you to record and automate a customized sequence of commands that can be drawn from most of the app’s image-manipulation tools. These prerecorded macros perform monotonous tasks for you so you can step away while your Mac does the image-editing dirty work. We’ll show you how to record your own actions in Photoshop and help you prep your photos for viewing in less time than it takes to get over your jet lag.   1. Getting Started   Open an image file in Photoshop.

View post:
Automate Photoshop Tasks with Actions

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 10, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh iWebThemesPark has launched ten new iWeb Themes for Apple’s iWeb. In addition, a free iWeb Theme has been released for all iWeb users. Brand new, amazing and supreme quality iWeb Themes from iWebThemesPark are the perfect way to create or update a website. Some iWeb Templates are recommended for building business websites, so everyone can find a perfect theme for any kind of website. The package of ten themes for an unbelievably low price is most likely to be the best offer ever. iUseMac has announced that it will be featuring the innovative image identification software PhotoBrain at 50% off on Wednedsay March 10th and Thursday March 11th. PhotoBrain is an advanced software for image identification and photo matching, it’s the first image search engine on the local drive to use image identification technology. iUseMac offers popular Mac applications at reduced prices for limited time periods. This offer will start on Wednedsay March 10th and will end 48 hours later. Intego has announced VirusBarrier X6 Dual Protection , featuring the latest version of its acclaimed anti-malware and network security software together with BitDefender Antivirus 2010 so Mac users can protect their Windows installations. The latest version of Intego’s anti-malware and network security program includes new threat-detection techniques, improved methods of detection, combined detection protocols, proactive behavioral analysis, and a full range of defensive functions. Bambooapps today announce Quiet Read Pro , an important update to their popular link management application for Macintosh. Quiet Read lets you save any link for later, and is an unobtrusive, easy to use application that features a clean interface. Quiet Read Pro features a comfortable and simple user interface, providing support for bookmarklets, syncing with MobileMe, short URLs, with list searching and filtering capabilities. Eltima Software has announced the release of Folx 1.0 , a free download manager for Mac OS X

Go here to read the rest:
Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 10, 2010

The rumors of Adobe being bought by Apple come up every so often. Apple could easily afford such a purchase and the results would be interesting. I would love to see Adobe restructured by a company like Apple. Adobe has many applications that are the gold standard but it seems to lack focus. These are my thoughts on what Apple could do with Adobe’s biggest apps and make everyone’s life a lot easier. Video Adobe’s video market could be trimmed down. Anything that can already be done in Final Cut Studio should be gone, including Premiere and Soundbooth. I’m not sure if After Effects would even be worth it in the end. Most believe that Final Cut is a very nice video suite on the Mac platform and in the PC world, AVID holds the crown. Why is a program like Premiere needed? It’s not quite AVID but way better than Windows Movie Maker. Now throw Sony Vegas in there and it’s starting to get crowded. Apple could create Final Cut for the PC or forget about them altogether. This would come down to money in the long run.

Read more from the original source:
Why Apple Should Buy Adobe

Watching the iPad’s first television spot on the Oscars Sunday night, I got giddy all over again in anticipation of getting my hands on this hot new product. Though it’s still a few weeks away , I’m even more excited for the applications that will be coming to the platform. Here’s my top 10 list of apps that I want to see developed for the iPad. Coda As a graphic designer and web developer, Coda is a staple in my workflow. It features a built-in FTP system, which could be problematic to port to a mobile device, considering there isn’t a traditional file structure to store data. However, perhaps the iPad’s new file storage system will provide an adequate solution. Regardless, as someone who codes, it would be awesome to sit next to a client and modify code and push changes to a site all from my iPad while they load and test the revisions on their own desktop. Photoshop Before you laugh, remember that Adobe has already released Photoshop Mobile for the iPhone, and all things considered, it’s not such a bad application. A larger iPad version could allow support for opening and manipulating native Photoshop files as well as working between multiple files. CS4 introduced a new tabbed approach to viewing multiple documents at once. A similar setup could easily be implemented on the iPad. Katamari Damacy What’s a fun touchscreen device without a fun game? Katamari already exists as an iPhone app so it’ll scale up decently on the iPad. But given the advanced graphics of the iPad and the larger screen, a native iPad version is a must.

The rest is here: 
My iPad Wish List: 10 App Requests

Don’t get us wrong, we appreciate tasty eye candy like Avatar. But documentaries tend to be the films that really amaze us. The impact of the right story told by an artist compelled to share it tends to stay alive in our hearts and heads long after we’ve forgotten whatever passed for a plot in the big blockbuster productions. And our fondness for documentaries and independent film makers was deepened this year when we found out that nine of the ten Oscar nominated documentaries in both the "Documentary Feature" and "Documentary Short" categories were made using Apple’s Final Cut Pro software. Some of the 2010 documentary nominees kindly took time out of their busy Oscar weekend to talk to us about their films and how they made them.   Credit: Errol Webber Music by Prudence Director: Roger Ross Williams The story of Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Prudence Mabhena, 21, who was born severely disabled and has struggled to overcome poverty and discrimination What made you want to make this film? Roger Williams: I was very interested in making a film in Africa, yet I didn’t want to make a film about struggle, war, or aids.

Read the original post: 
Oscar Nominated Documentary Film Makers Talk About Their Films and Final Cut Pro

Filed under: Cult of Mac , Apple , Developer I love these bits of art by Anders Clauson featuring iconography from the old Aqua OS X interface — obviously it’s not a straight representation of the actual interface, but instead, it’s kind of a weird deconstruction of the scrollbars. There’s one that’s just a random desktop screenshot, and another that shows the interface actually opened up in a Photoshop document. The overall effect is that the artist isn’t just showing off the parts of the UI, he’s also deconstructing the actual process of creating and using a UI as well. Good stuff. It’s also interesting to me to think that with the coming of the iPad, we may be seeing the end of interface widgets like this. When all you have is a touchscreen and gestures, you don’t really need to deal with buttons and widgets — if you want to close a window, just swipe it to the side, or to expand it, just pull two fingers apart. Of course, it’ll probably be a little while before the iPad and its interface fully replaces the more traditional UI, but I think it’ll happen at some point in the future. Aqua scrollbar art originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

Read the rest here:
Aqua scrollbar art

What are you going to do on your Mac today? The usual–emailing, updating your enemies list, removing the geotag data from all the photos of your secret underground lair? That all sounds pleasant enough, but to really flex your world-domination muscles, we found two turn-based strategy games that ape the classic gameplay of Risk. So whaddya say, after lunch we try to conquer the world?   Lux Delux   Hyperaddictive Lux Delux is different every time thanks to its staggering number of maps. The game starts you off with 10 built-in maps, then its Plugin Manager provides another 600-plus others for download–and more are coming out every day. Most of the maps are made by developers using Sillysoft’s Java-based SDK, but Lux Delux also has a built-in map editor so you can roll your own with no coding required. It’s hard to imagine ever getting bored. This keyboard-shaped map is a good example of the creativity in Lux Delux’s map selection. In each game, you can battle up to five opponents drawn from any mix of players using the same Mac, network players, and computer-controlled players.

See the original post:
Lux Delux & iConquer

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can keep the new 14.6MP Pentax K-7 down–tight weather seals and low noise at high ISOs ensure that if you have the chops, this camera will deliver no matter what the conditions. The K-7 retains much of the great feature set of its predecessor, the K-20 (5 out of 5 stars, Dec/08), with a few additions. It now sports a brilliant 3-inch LCD viewscreen, 5.2-frames-per-second continuous shooting, 1/8000-second shutter speed, and a whisper-quiet shutter. Its innards are protected by a weather-resistant body, and HD video capture has been added. All fine improvements. Redesigned (and repositioned) controls also make the camera handle like an ergonomic dream. Most are now logically grouped to the right of the LCD. Playback and delete buttons have been moved below the mode dial, where they’re within easy reach of the left thumb, and the Exposure Value (EV) compensation button is now next to the shutter-release button (for lightning-fast, forefinger access), instead of being buried in the camera’s back. We frequently used the EV button to improve image quality by varying exposures on extremely dark or bright scenes. While you can set the camera to bracket exposures, using EV compensation is faster and more precise. In its new location, we could now easily access the EV button–thumbing the control to change values without removing our eye from the viewfinder. Pentax’s K-7 offers weather seals and an ultrafast 1/8000 shutter speed. The K-7 draws power from a new, more powerful Li-ion battery, and we took nearly 900 shots (about a quarter of them with the camera’s built-in flash) before it required recharging. Up to and including ISO 1600, image quality at all megapixel settings–14.6, 10, 6, and 2–was virtually noiseless with excellent color accuracy. Output up to 13×19 inches on an Epson R2880 was also sharp and clean

See more here: 
Pentax K-7

Section: Mac Software , Graphics / Design , Writing / Publishing , Reviews Provides: Desktop Publishing Format: Digital download Developer: c:four, Ltd. Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger or later, G4 800MHz processor or faster, 512MB RAM, 35MB free disk space Processor Compatibility: Universal Price: $49.99 ( discount rates available ) Availability: Now Version Reviewed: 1.2 Desktop publishing is in many ways a growth field, as more and more job descriptions include it as part of the deal. We all want to do well on our tasks, but in this area, one thing may stand in your way. That thing, of course is trying to use your standard word processor—such as Pages—to complete the task. In this review, we are going to look at one of your alternatives: iStudio Publishing. When you open this program, you immediately get the idea; it’s as if Pages and Photoshop decided to make a digital baby. Inheriting its easy to use interface from dad and a few advanced features from mom, this offering manages to mostly hit the mark in its current incarnation. Controls are clearly labeled and easy to use. Much more importantly, iStudio gives you the ability to do things in multiple ways. You can use the visual menu in the panes that the program provides, use the menu at the top or use a combination mouse and keyboard shortcuts to get the job done. These options are good for systems with multiple users and people with unusual working patterns. When you first open a document you get a wide latitude for shaping it.  In addition to margin and orientation, you can choose from a wide variety of page formats: letter, standard, 4A, 5A, Tabloid, extended tabloid and #10, DL or Choukei 3 envelopes. You can also define custom sizes as well.

More:
Appletell reviews iStudio Publisher for Mac OS X

I’m always on the lookout for photography tools that are easy-to-use and help me turn good photos into great ones. Nik Software’s Sharpener Pro 3 ($199.95), a plug-in for Aperture, Lightroom and Photoshop, does just that, which is probably why I find myself utilizing it pretty much any time I do a photo shoot. With two sharpening

Continued here:
Nik Software’s Sharpener 3 Pro Is Essential For Photographers [Review]