Adobe announces Photoshop and Premiere Elements 9

ADOBE ANNOUNCES NEW VERSIONS OF ELEMENTS PROGRAMS 
Version 9 of Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements Offers Much!

Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 9 BoxThe latest Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements software deliver the same powerful features for PC users and Mac’s users in Version 9 announced and available today. The Consumer programs for the Digital Photo and Digital Video enthusiast make it easy to manage, create and share both media types to friends and family through social networking and personal storage at Photoshop.Com Read More on our Website at http://www.techtalkradio.com/articles/adobeelements.html

Photoshop World 2008 Photos Posted

We had a great time in Las Vegas with the Photoshop World 2008 Conference at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. The trip up to Las Vegas in the 2009 Ford Flex was an awesome ride and the accomadations at the Tahiti Village rocked! Be sure to take a look at the Photos we have posted on our site at http://www.techtalkradio.com/photos.htm

We have a few hours of Video we will also be editing and place on our Site. Feel free to check them out on our Video page as they are uploaded.

Photoshop for Photographers and the Brown Potato

I always love going to these Photoshop seminars… Not for the freebies but to see what exciting things they are going to teach about Photoshop and to bring it back and learn it!

A couple of days before the class I kept thinking… I’m not a photographer, am I actually going to learn anything from this class? Ben Willmore totally “WOWED” me today! I went into the class expecting to gain some BUT not as much as I did.

I was so excited and wowed by the seminar today that I actually joined the NAPP!! Everytime we go, I say I’m going to join and never do and the number one reason… don’t have the money… but this time I thought… I’ll just make it up because it is totally worth the $99 to join. In reality, I only paid $29. They gave me a “free” DVD of my choice. I picked the one I would most likely get the most use from, Adobe Photoshop CS3 & Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 – Creative Integration. A $69.99 Value! With the $99, not only did I get the free DVD, BUT I also got a year’s subscription to Photoshop User, access to NAPP’s members-only online community, discounts on just about everything, and Photoshop Tech Support!! Wow! What an extra-ordinary value for only $99 for 1 year! If I could’ve joined for two years, I would have. With the two year subscription, you received a free DVD AND a free book of your choice, PLUS all of the above.

What I learned the most out of the class today was how to take a “background” image out of a photograph in a couple of simple steps. If I would have known how to do it the way Ben Willmore showed it today, I could have saved myself “hours” of time. Ben also taught me how to bring out the “colors” in a photograph in a variety of different ways.

The hour and a half drive too and from Phoenix for the Kelby Training class was well worth it!! Even the “brown” Potato I got at Wendy’s for dinner. Well, okay, now I’m pushing it. THAT was not worth it! Hey, aren’t Potato’s supposed to be “white” on the inside? I know you’re all answering “yes” to my question. Sooo… How come my potato was BROWN inside? Can you answer THAT one?!! AND the second potato was not that much different from the first one I sent back… That’s right TWO brown potatoes. Where do they get their potatoes from? I was afraid to ask them… But hey, if I get sick tonight, can I sue Wendy’s (j/k)… I’ll definitely know why though!!

All in all it was a great road trip and a relaxed “break” from the daily routine and I came back with more knowledge than I had before…

Next road trip… Anyone?

Adobe Creative Suite 3

Web Premium

So I finally decided to install the Web Premium Creative Suite 3 package I received a couple of weeks ago. The complete installation took about 4o minutes. What you get in the suite is One (1) complete DVD with Adobe Bridge, Adobe Contribute, Adobe Device Central, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, Flash Video Encoder, Illustrator, Fireworks, Acrobat 8 Professional, Version Cue, Stock Photos, Adobe Connect, PLUS a bonus Video Training Workshop and all the help documentation with all the products.

Once I started installing it, I was anxious to find out what new features came with the product.

Here are some of the new features I got a chance to look at:

Adobe Bridge CS3
In the new Adobe Bridge CS3 program they’ve intergrated “Adobe Connect”… Essentially what you can do with this is “Start a Meeting”… which allows you to quickly solve design issues on your screen with colleagues and clients, you can easily collaberate on any design document, across platforms and applications, and enhance the creative process by engaging virtually anyone at any time through online collaboration. This new feature cost $39.00 a month, but if you’re a business owner, or designer, it is well worth it.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended
In the new Photoshop, one of the nice features they’ve added is you can now set your workspace area to what you are currently working on… For example, if you are working on “web design”, you set your workspace to “web design” and the palettes which you are most like going to use appear on your workspace such as, color, styles, swatches, layers, etc. Some of the other workspaces include, “Automation,” “Color and Tonal Correction,” “Image Analysis,” “Painting and Retouching,” “Printing and Proofing,” “Video and Film,” and “Working with Type,” plus you have your “basic” and “default” workspaces.

The feature that I found most exciting to work with was “3D Layers”… With the new Photoshop, they’ve added some “Goodies” you can use… You can place some great “3D Models” in the document you are working with. You can manipulate that 3D model by rotating it, rolling it around, dragging it, sliding it and scaling it… You can also change the texture of the model by opening up the “texture” layer and changing it to a new “texture”. Once you change the texture to what you want, you save it and it applies it to the model. You can also “view” the 3D model from different directions like the left, right or bottom. You can change the appearance of the model by adding light to it such as blue lights, day lights, red lights, cube lights, etc. You can also “cut” the 3D model in many different ways with a feature called “cross section settings”.

Below is a “box” image I created with the Techtalkradio logo. All I did was change the “texture” of the box, changed the light a bit and added an “orange” outline around the lid of the box…
Another one I created looks like the CD is coming out of the CD cover… I used the “cross section setting” feature in Photoshop to “slice” the CD so that it looks like it’s coming out of the cover..

Photoshop has also integrated some “animation” into it’s product. You can open up an image in Photoshop and animate it. When you open the image and unlock it… Photoshop automatically creates a “timeline” for you in the Animation window. There you can “manipulate” your image and apply animation to it. You can also take the images you created and “import” them into “flash” to animate them.

Photoshop has also added another tool on the “tools” palette called “quick selection”… This allows you to quickly “paint” a selection using an adjustable round brush tip. As you drag, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows defined edges in the image. You can quickly select a section of your image and manipulate that section.

The intergration between all of the Web Premium products seems fairly easy to use as well… Once I get a bit more familiar with the new features, I’m sure I’ll be utilizing all the products together.

In conclusion, I rate the Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium package an A+. Even though I haven’t had a chance to utilize all the new features, so far, I like the new features that I have been able to use and have some fun with.

Thumbs Up for Adobe!!