I Leave for a Week!
I leave for a week to go backpacking (and photographing … as much as one can while being exhausted), and Adobe goes and releases Lightroom 2! What a treat to come back to! My favorite reviews here and here.
My favorite new features:
- filter bar
- localized corrections
- it's a localized correction, but the graduated filter wasn't in the beta, and is AMAZING
- keywording interface
There are of course other new features too!
Oh, and photos of the trip coming soon.
I Know What I Want!
attn: John Nack
Black Stroke!
Oh, and by the way, lest I forget: yes, we’re changing the default stroke color to black. Just thought you’d want to know.
-Photoshop Insider » It's Guest Blog Wednesday Featuring: Photoshop Senior Product Manager, John Nack
Thank god! That red stroke is just plain annoying.
(Yes, that is a forum topic about the stupid red stroke default on a site dedicated to people who typically complain about broadband speeds. That choice is clearly unpopular.)
The quote ends an article that is an interesting read if you're curious about the direction Photoshop is developing.
It's written by one of the top dogs in the Adobe world, John Nack (sorry couldn't find a wikipedia page), who has a blog of his own, which is interesting reading in its own right.
Nack's article argues that Photoshop developers know what users want better than themselves. He uses the classic example of the history palette and history brush coming out of the comparatively simple user request for multiple undos.
Adobe, what's wrong? You sick?
Yet, he also protests Adobe's finite set of resources,
Much to my eternal frustration (and probably yours), we’ll never have enough time to implement even 10% of the good ideas that come our way.
…and that his team puts in a lot of backend work which doesn't immediately benefit the average user.
These things take a while. (I’m reminded of the line, “It might look like I’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level, I’m really quite busy.”)
I'm perfectly willing to grant that Adobe can't hire every developer in the world. I also grant that backend coding is a lot of hard work. And, I certainly am not going to argue that, "what customers say they want and what they actually need often differ." (By the way Mr. Nack, that "cellular level" line is used to refer to lazy people who actually are doing nothing.)
Yet, Adobe should be leading the image editing development sphere, not slowly adopting it's technology. 64-bit apps are not a new thing, Apple's Aperture has had the ability to leverage the GPU from it's first launch, Carbon is on it's way out, and Photoshop is facing all sorts of problems because Adobe hasn't ported it over yet.
What happened to the desire to lead the way? Remember when the Healing Brush was introduced in Photoshop 7? That was an awesome new feature. It also came with the shiny new file browser.
...Which is where we start to get into trouble, the file browser was poorly implemented, and its successor, Bridge, is still slow. And, It's not like a file browser is a radical new idea. It's a pretty basic thing that Adobe has only managed to get right with Lightroom.
It seems like every creative I know is on a Mac or, like most people I know, switching to one. I can't remember the last time I even saw Photoshop on a Windows box. If you're spending so much time under the hood, why can't Photoshop CS4 be 64-bit on the Mac?
Some Cough Medicine
My complaint is this: Adobe, I don't care what resources aren't available to you. You're the top dog in this market by a long shot. If you don't have resources, get them. Not having competition seems to have made you lazy, and operating at the cellular level isn't enough.
Enough with the excuses, you've proven that you can produce a great 64-bit, Cocoa, app that intelligently employs Smart Layers, utilizes the GPU, has a fast file browser, and is capable of implementing user feedback. Lightroom.
Your ability to improve upon user feedback is important, keep that up. Yet, the following disturbs me a bit:
It’s interesting that faster performance didn’t rate higher on the list. [of top ten requests] On the one hand, I’d like to take this as a good sign that our work in CS3 to speed up Photoshop’s launch time, take advantage of multi-core systems, etc. has paid off & that people are happy. On the other, there’s no such thing as “too fast,” and quicker performance is the best possible feature: there’s nothing to learn. Therefore I think all the muscle we’re pouring into R&D to leverage graphics hardware acceleration & 64-bit computing will make folks happy.
Mr. Nack, I do indeed want Photoshop to be as fast as possible. It does need to go 64-bit, it should be able to use the GPU, it should be a Cocoa app. But I expect all of this to happen without a cost to the user. Adobe via Mr. Nack seems to be resistant to adopting all of these technologies.
I hesitate to say that Photoshop is 'fast enough,' but if you're creating a list of priorities, speed isn't in the top 10. Lightroom's technologies are (7 of the 10 features in the top 10 list). A real noise filter is.
Oh sure, I want speed. I want the 3.5 gig RAM limit removed (you need 64-bit for that), but these are all things that I expect from any company that is keeping pace with technology. I also expect that once you've developed technology for one application, it can appear across all of your apps. Don't sacrifice one expectation in the name of another. They both need to happen concurrently.
Go back to surprising us with cool new features. Stay ahead of the curve instead of slightly behind. We want more surprises like the Healing Brush. We don't want to be told why waiting to get what we want is a good thing.
Adobe, you're doing better now than you ever have before. Just because you have a virtual monopoly, you don't get to slack off. There are companies biting at your heels.
Things aren't that bad…
Sure, that top 10 list wasn't a scientific sampling. Yea, it was probably weighted down by non-profesional users of Photoshop. Still, it's sampling of the market, and Adobe attention is warranted.
Photoshop is still best in class software. I still prefer Lightroom for my photo workflow needs. Adobe's efforts with Flash are highly appreciated. InDesign is my goto app for all layout work. I'll even use Bridge in a pinch.
Adobe products are fantastic, but I'm discouraged. I feel like Adobe needs a Canon.
Update:
It seems that Adobe's Acrobat Reader 9, which has just hit the wild, is a good example of Adobe getting lazy.
Mark Hamburg Leaves Adobe – LightroomNews
I don’t think one can downplay the significance of Mark’s departure because the contribution he made to the development of Photoshop and Lightroom has certainly been enormous and it goes without saying that his presence will be missed at Adobe.
-LightroomNews » Blog Archive » Mark Hamburg leaves Adobe
I've heard of Mr. Hamburg before, and know him to be a prime instigator behind a lot of Adobe's success.
As for what Mark is going to do next, it is known that he is now going to Microsoft in Seattle, and that his future work there won’t involve digital imaging, but instead be focussed on the “user experience”. So remember Jeff’s advice and be careful what you wish for!
That I didn't know (unsurprisingly). All I can say is… godspeed Mark, may Redmond treat you well. (though I have my doubts).
UPDATE: I re-read this post the morning after I wrote it.
NOTE-TO-SELF: Proofread at least twice before posting when you're tired.
Real UPDATE: Further news from photoshop news. Apparently, Mr. Hamburg is going to be working on revolutionary new OS interaction methods. Seems like this is the hot field for programming geniuses to be in nowadays. And it makes sense. The last/only great evolution we've seen was the mouse/desktop analogy paradigm. I'm not sure if Microsoft will be the company to come up a new way of interacting with a computer, but here's to Mark's efforts!
Adobe Releases Lightroom 1.4.1, Camera Raw 4.4.1 Updates
Sweet. Adobe finally corrects their mistake(s). 'bout time.
NEWS! - Adobe Releases Lightroom 1.4.1, Camera Raw 4.4.1 Updates
Lightroom Journal: Lightroom 2 Beta Available
Lightroom Journal: Lightroom 2 beta Available
There's a beta of Adobe's Lightroom 2.0 out!!! Whoopee!
Update: Here's a pretty good feature summary/review of the new Lightroom.
Update2: The above article combined with Adobe's own warnings have convinced me not to adopt this is my primary workflow software yet. (huge bummer) The fact that metadata almost certainly won't carry over and the inability to support LR v1.x libraries is a huge pain. Plus it's not been guaranteed that libraries created in a beta of version 2 can be carried over to the shipping release. I'll just have to wait for beta 2.
LightroomNews » Blog Archive » Adobe Yanks Lightroom 1.4 & Camera Raw 4.4
The Lightroom 1.4 update for Mac and Windows has been temporarily removed from the Adobe.com web site. Those Lightroom users who have installed Lightroom 1.4 should uninstall the update and install Lightroom 1.3.1.(Mac, Win) until a further update can be provided.
LightroomNews » Blog Archive » Adobe Yanks Lightroom 1.4 & Camera Raw 4.4
Ouch. That's no good. There's a bug that affects only Windows users and DNG. There's an Olypmus processing bug. But the killer is a bug in the EXIF timestamping that will modify an original RAW files. Ouch. Get this fixed quick Adobe!!!
