How are we doing this?

For discussion’s sake the Android tablet we will be looking at is the Motorola XOOM. This one was chosen as our Android platform because it is considered to be the top-of-the-line of the current Android tablets.  Now I want to start off by saying that I do not consider myself an Android fanboy. I love Apple products and have always felt their industrial design is generally second to none. My wife and daughter have MacBooks, most everyone in the family owns an iPod, and my wife has an iPad. One the other hand, we all own Android-powered phones. Hopefully this gives me enough credibility and experience to be able to give a solid rundown of the differences. So let’s get started.

Size Differences

In physical size the XOOM and the iPad are very similar although the XOOM has a slightly larger LCD display. Even though the iPad’s screen is 1/2” smaller than the XOOM, the iPad is physically larger due to having more bezel around the edges. A half-inch increase in screen size isn’t a complete win for the XOOM since the smaller bezel actually makes it more difficult to hold without touching the actual screen. If size is really a consideration here there is no clear winner based on size.

Horsepower

When it comes to raw processing power, both the iPad 2 and the XOOM are outfitted with quite powerful processors. The high-end Android tablets such as the XOOM are also outfitted with the nVidia Tegra2 video chips providing amazing 3D graphics ability. Not that the iPad is a slouch when it comes to graphics, but the Tegra2 is certainly the top of the line at this point. If you are looking at a tablet as a gaming platform, the games developed for the iPad 2 are sure to please, but the games that are possible on the XOOM can have slightly better and faster graphics. As a gaming platform, I am going to give a slight edge to the XOOM.

Ease of Use

Let’s face it, Apple can take a powerful device and make it so dead-simple to use that many older people who would never carry a laptop around are seen carrying iPads. Apple spends a tremendous amount of effort on documentation and guidelines to ensure that iPad applications have a very consistent look and feel and all conform to very strict user interface guidelines. Since Apple tightly controls the apps in the Apple Store, if your app doesn’t conform to the strict guidelines, it simply won’t be approved. This is actually a double-edged sword. One one hand you get solid consistent apps but on the flip side this makes it more difficult to develop applications and may prevent some applications, as good as they might be, from ever getting published.  I am really torn on how to call this one. The iPad clearly wins on ease of use but there is a hidden cost to keeping things as simple as Apple requires. Still, this is the one huge benefit of the iPad, it only takes a few minutes to master the interface and understand how to do most tasks.

Customization Ability

Where the iPad is exceptionally simple to use, one of the main reasons is because you cannot customize your user experience outside of moving icons around and having folders with current iOS versions. While this lack of customization is what ensures the iPad user experience is always simple and consistent, it is also the biggest differentiator to the Android experience. If you are a power user and want to customize your experience, than the Android platform may be a better choice. Shown here are the home screens of my wife’s iPad and my XOOM. Her iPad looks basically the same as every other iPad, 20 icons per screen and 5 permanent icons on the bottom, nothing special, but certainly easy to navigate.

iPad Home Screen

Customized XOOM Screen

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the home screen from my XOOM. I have replaced the stock Honeycomb interface with a different “launcher” that provides additional functionality. The Android’s ability to use screen widgets, I have quick glance access to recent emails, upcoming calendar events, and weather. I also have placed my most commonly used shortcuts on the home page so I don’t need to scroll through a list of icons to find them. There is also a hand Pandora widget that allows play, pause, thumb-up, and thumb-down without having to switch to the full application. For this category, and admittedly this is purely a subjective opinion, I am giving the win to the XOOM. I want to be able to personalize my user experience the same way I do on my computer systems. If this feature is not important to you, then that is a completely personal preference and it is not for me to try to convince you otherwise.

Notifications

Android Notifications

While many iPhone/iPad users are quite content with the notification system within iOS, I think it actually fails on a number of levels. The only notification system within the i-Devices is a simple pop-up dialog box, the Android notification system is quite robust. Being able to see a list of recent notifications, selectively act on or clear specific notifications is a clear win….if you use the tablet as a productivity device. If you only use a tablet as a media consumption device (web browsing, music, video, etc) then you have no real need for notifications at all. On the other hand, if you are using your tablet as more of a desktop replacement with email, instant messages, scheduling, and social interaction (Facebook and twitter) than a much more robust notification system can indeed be very valuable. Here at Dojo Central, my wife uses her iPad mostly for reading books with the Kindle reader (her iPad replaced her original Kindle), checking email and facebook. She doesn’t care about notifications as she uses her phone or laptop for that. On the flip side, I use the XOOM much more as a productivity device and notifications are extremely useful for the way I work and use my tablet.

Design Goals

I actually feel like the design goals between the iPads and the Android tablets are quite different. I like to consider the iPad to be a media consumption device. For web browsing (the lack of Adobe Flash not withstanding), checking email, listening to music, watching videos, reading books, the iPad simply excels.  using iTunes to manage your media is fairly simple and works well. With its simple interface the iPad can be picked up and used by kids to senior citizens and everything in between.

On the other hand, the Android tablets seem to be geared towards productivity and more general computing tasks. Granted, many applications are available on both platforms so one device doesn’t necessarily have a huge advantage over the other. There are also apps on each platform that people with the other platform wish they had so it goes both ways.

Summary

Is there a clear “winner” here, the answer is “it depends”. I realize that this may be a cop-out to some people but as I have tried to outline here, both platforms have strengths and weaknesses. There are also other features that may be important to you such as the XOOM’s expandability with an SD Card slot and USB port for easy access to manage files, connect external devices or the iPad’s assortment of accessories. The iPad also has a more mature software base especially with Apple software such as iMovie and GarageBand being great examples.

If you have an iPhone and absolutely love it, than you will probably love the iPad. If you have an Android phone and you love it, then you will probably love an Android tablet. But, as even witnessed here at home, my wife has an Android phone but wanted an iPad and has absolutely no regrets about her choice.

If you are considering a tablet, I highly encourage you to fully investigate both platforms and try to make as informed of a decision as possible. It’s really hard to go wrong either way, its really a matter of features and abilities are important to you. Also keep in mind that an iPad is an iPad, there are no cheap crappy versions of iPads. There is only Apple made iPads.On the other hand, since the Android operating system is open source, virtually anyone can create an Android tablet and there are cheap, crappy Android tablets on the market, many under $150, there is even a cheap Android tablet available Big Lots (formerly Pic-N-Save). So if you are shopping for an Android tablet, be careful of those inexpensive devices as they are underpowered and usually do not even have access to the Android Market for you to install new apps.

onOne Software Announces Availability of Perfect Resize
for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture

The next generation of Genuine Fractals includes new features to optimize image enlargement quality and time saving interface enhancements to help photographers quickly create high quality images.

Portland, OR- December 9, 2010 – onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative, timesaving solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers, today announced the immediate availability of Perfect Resize, one component of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® and Apple Aperture. The next generation of Genuine Fractals technology, Perfect Resize adds new features for achieving sharp detail when enlarging images, new gallery wrap and tiling options, and interface enhancements for photographers who want to make the highest quality prints. Perfect Resize supports Photoshop CS5, CS4 and CS3 and can now be used directly from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture without the need for a separate host application.

“We are very pleased to introduce Perfect Resize and the new capabilities that build on Genuine Fractals, the industry standard for image resizing,” said Craig Keudell, president of onOne Software. “For photographers who print for themselves or their clients, continuing to improve image detail in their enlargements and to quickly create popular Gallery Wraps is critical for their business. We are dedicated to continually offering added value and improving on our best in class tools to help photographers achieve outstanding results quickly and easily.”

“I have had a chance to try out Perfect Resize 7 and I am blown away by how awesome it is! I recently resized a 30 inch print to 90 inches tall and the image quality is amazing”, said Elizabeth Carmel, Nature and Landscape photographer. “The new smoothing slider and the sharpening options are key features that make a huge difference by providing incredible detail and smoothness in the enlarged print. I love this new upgrade and thank onOne Software for helping me produce the highest quality prints possible. Plus, having the canvas wrap fill in the corners is a major time saver.”

New Features in Perfect Resize, the next generation of Genuine Fractals:

NEW Smoothness Control: Designed for the demanding photographer, the new Smoothness control allows users to adjust the smoothness of curved edges to minimize artifacts. This new feature is very useful when resizing images and is especially valuable when working with lower resolution source files or when an extreme crop is required from a higher resolution source file.

NEW Loupe Tool: With the new Loupe feature, photographers can get an instant 1:1 or 100% magnified preview of enlargement quality while still seeing the entire image with the Loupe function of the Navigator.

NEW Presets: Photographers can now achieve consistent results in less time by saving commonly used settings with the new Presets feature. Photographers who routinely send images to labs will benefit by creating a preset that allows them to resize the image, apply a specific sharpening amount and apply a gallery wrap all in one step. Stock photographers who need to resize batches of images before submitting them will also benefit from this new feature.

NEW Sharpening Methods: Two new sharpening methods allow photographers to sharpen small details without causing halos on larger, distinct edges. The first sharpening method targets out-of-focus images and the second method adapts the sharpening amount automatically to the size of image details.

Work Directly with Lightroom and Aperture: Perfect Resize now integrates directly with Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture and no longer requires a host application to get amazing results when enlarging an image. Of course, it still works within Adobe Photoshop as well.

Improved Gallery Wrap: Photographers can now preview the Perfect Resize gallery wrap results in real time, allowing them to quickly fine tune their settings for the perfect gallery wrap. Additionally, gallery wrap corners are automatically filled in with matching image detail from the surrounding area. While it may not sound like much, the improvements to this feature alone will save photographers hours of time when assembling their gallery wraps.

Improved Tiling: The Tiling feature now automatically saves each tile as new file. This makes it much easier to save and print individual tiles especially when sending these tiles out to a print service provider. Additionally, because each tile is its own file, it is now easy to create canvas diptychs, triptychs or mosaics with the improved gallery wrap feature.

Batch Processing Enhancements: Easily work with images of mixed size, type and orientation with more batch-processing engine options. Save time by batch processing images from the Export dialog inside of Lightroom.
Misc Improvements: Additional enhancements include presets for common printer resolutions, improved progress indicators, improved film grain simulation, and the additional document size presets for panoramic and no-crop sizes.

Availability

Perfect Resize is available immediately as a standalone product and as a part of the new Perfect Photo Suite 5.5. Owners of Genuine Fractals 6 or earlier can upgrade to Perfect Resize for $99.95 or to the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for $349.95. Owners of Plug-In Suite 5 are eligible for a free upgrade to Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, which includes Perfect Resize 7, and can find the update at: http://www.ononesoftware.com/suite5update/.

Users who purchased Genuine Fractals 6 on or after September 27, 2010 will receive a free upgrade to Perfect Resize 7 and will receive an email from onOne Software with instructions for redeeming their free upgrade.

Owners of Plug-In Suite 1, 2, 3 or 4 can upgrade to the Perfect Photo Suite for $199.95. Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 is available to new customers for $499.95; purchased separately the 7 products would normally cost $1460. For more information on upgrade options visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/upgrade/.
For more information on the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/.

About onOne Software

onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative software tools for photographers, develops time-saving software solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers. onOne Software solutions have been created to help photographers spend more of their time behind the camera taking pictures instead of the computer workstation. Such solutions include a wide range of easy-to-use applications and plug-in enhancements for Adobe® Photoshop®, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, Apple Aperture, iPhone and iPad applications. Founded in 2005, onOne Software is a privately held company located in Portland, Oregon. For additional information, visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/ or call 1-888-968-1468.

onOne Software Blog: www.ononesoftware.com/blog
Facebook: www.facebook.com/onOneSoftware
Twitter: www.twitter.com/onOneSoftware

onOne Software Announces Availability of Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture

Portland, OR- December 2, 2010 – onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative,
timesaving solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers, today announced
availability of Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® and
Apple Aperture. Tackling specific problems within a photographer’s preferred workflow, the Perfect
Photo Suite 5.5 offers simple yet powerful solutions for color correction, image resizing, masking and
professional photographic effects in one affordable package. With support for Photoshop CS5, CS4
and CS3, the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 includes FocalPoint 2, PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.6, PhotoTools
2.6, MaskPro 4.1 and Perfect Resize 7 (the next generation of Genuine Fractals). The Perfect Photo
Suite 5.5 will also include the recently announced Perfect Layers, which will be available in early
2011.

With this new version of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, photographers now have more options for where
they use many of the onOne products. For the first time photographers will be able to use FocalPoint 2,
PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.6 and Perfect Resize 7 directly within Lightroom and Aperture without
the need for a separate host application. In addition, owners of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 will receive
Perfect Layers when it becomes available next year. This completely new product provides
photographers with the ability to create layered files directly from within Lightroom and Aperture that
are fully compatible with Photoshop for later editing.

Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 continues to include full support for Photoshop CS5, CS4 and CS3. Mask Pro
4.1 which allows photographers to replace backgrounds and make selections and PhotoTools 2.6,
which allows photographers to leverage the power of Photoshop to enhance and stylize their images,
continue to function directly within Photoshop and do not run as stand-alone applications.

Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 includes full versions of the following onOne Software products:

Perfect Resize 7 – The next generation of Genuine Fractals – Based on the same proven and
patented algorithms as Genuine Fractals, the newest version of the industry standard for image
resizing introduces new Smoothness and Sharpening controls to achieve the highest quality results
when enlarging images. In addition, Perfect Resize adds features that make printing easier and faster
including the new Loupe Tool for an instant 1:1 magnified preview. The upgrade also adds the ability
to save custom Presets, a new Gallery Wrap preview with Auto Corner Fill, and Image Tiling
improvements. Perfect Resize 7 now enables those who prefer a Lightroom or Aperture only workflow
to resize a single or batch of images directly within those applications.

PhotoTools 2.6 – PhotoTools 2.6 adds a dozen new effects to the highly acclaimed Photoshop plug-in
that allows photographers of all skill levels to maximize the full power of Photoshop with its ability to
preview and combine Photoshop Actions in a single, intuitive interface. Designed by photographers
for photographers, PhotoTools 2.6 includes the MaskingBug control, based on the FocusBug control
from the award-winning FocalPoint plug-in, to selectively apply effects to images. PhotoTools 2.6
now has a total library of close to 300 effects that photographers can easily browse, preview and
combine to create images that truly stand out.

PhotoFrame 4.6 – With PhotoFrame 4.6, you can add the perfect finishing touch to your images and
layouts with new backgrounds, borders, layouts and adornments. With over one thousand design
elements like film edges, borders, textures, backgrounds and adornments, PhotoFrame 4.6 even has
complete layouts where users can simply drop an image in and they are done. It is the easiest and
fastest way to add an authentic darkroom touch with a film edge or to create beautiful albums or
scrapbook pages. Photographers can now use PhotoFrame 4.6 directly within Lightroom and Aperture.

FocalPoint 2 – Like bringing the camera lens inside Photoshop, FocalPoint 2 gives photographers the
best way to add realistic depth of field and selective focus control to any image. Photographers now
have an incredible amount of flexibility and control over the look of the blur with the new blur
algorithm, FocusBrush, Lens Presets and multiple FocusBug features. Photographers can now use
FocalPoint 2 directly within Lightroom and Aperture or on its own.

PhotoTune 3 – PhotoTune 3 uses patented technology to optimize the dynamic range, color and
sharpness of images so that they look more true-to-life. The Wizard offers fast color and tone
correction in as little as two steps while giving pro users direct access to advanced and innovative
controls. SkinTune, which represents two years of research and analysis of thousands of skin tones,
offers one-click color correction of portraits and the option to correct just the skin in an image.
Photographers can now use PhotoTune 3 directly within Lightroom and Aperture or on its own.

MaskPro 4.1 - When a subject needs to be quickly extracted from a photo, Mask Pro 4 provides a
color-based method that helps photographers easily remove unwanted backgrounds. Mask Pro’s unique
Color Decontamination technology allows users to get realistic results by maintaining transparency in
hard to mask objects like hair, smoke and glass in a fraction of the time using traditional tools.

Perfect Layers 1 (New!) – The newest product in the onOne Software line-up provides a fast and
easy way to bring a layered workflow to Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture. For those using a
Lightroom or Aperture workflow, but not yet using Photoshop, Perfect Layers introduces the ability to
create and edit multi-layered Photoshop files. With Perfect Layers photographers can combine
multiple images into a layered Photoshop compatible file, adjust layer size, position, blending mode
and opacity and use the built-in masking tools to blend multiple layers together. Perfect Layers will be
made available at no cost to current owners of Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 as a free upgrade when it
becomes available in 2011.

Availability
The new Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 is available immediately to owners of Plug-In Suite 5 as a free
upgrade at http://www.ononesoftware.com/suite5update. New users may purchase Perfect Photo Suite
5.5 for $499.95. Purchased separately the products would normally cost $1,460. Existing owners of
Plug-In Suite version 1, 2, 3 or 4 can upgrade to the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 for $199.95. Customers
who own one or more of the products in Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 can now upgrade as well by visiting http://www.ononesoftware.com/upgrade/. For more information on the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, please
visit http://www.ononesoftware.com/.

About onOne Software
onOne Software, Inc. a leading developer of innovative software tools for photographers, develops
time-saving software solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers. onOne Software
solutions have been created to help photographers spend more of their time behind the camera taking
pictures instead of the computer workstation. Such solutions include a wide range of easy-to-use
applications and plug-in enhancements for Adobe® Photoshop®, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop
Lightroom, Apple Aperture, iPhone and iPad applications. Founded in 2005, onOne Software is a
privately held company located in Portland, Oregon. For additional information, visit
http://www.ononesoftware.com/ or call 1-888-968-1468.

The Need For Speed

Much of the interface changes with Snow Leopard are minor at best and casual users may not even notice the changes with the exception of the Quicktime 10 player which does have a new distinct look.

Now I don’t have the fastest Mac in the world (Apple, if you read this, I will accept sponsorship from you), I am running on a 24″iMac 2.8ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4gb RAM which is probably a fairly typical machine for most people so I wouldn’t expect my experience with Snow Leopard to fit well with a lot of people.

Unlike pretty much every version of every operating system from every company since DOS 1.0, has added more and more features and more and more bloat to the system. With many of the optimizations made, and the removal of support for non-Intel based systems (yes, sorry PPC users, this is Intel-Inside only from now on) the footprint of the operating system has been REDUCED by 7GB!! While in today’s world of  terabyte drives, this sounds insignificant, it does allow for a lot of optimizations not possible when trying to support two completely different hardware platforms. Many of these subtle optimizations are found in the Apple system tools.

The most obvious speed improvement is in the Preview application.  I grabbed 32 high res jpeg files totaling about 263mb and opened with Preview, they were completely loaded in just a hair over 1 second.  This is about a 2x speed improvement in an app that many photographers use on a regular basis.

Another area that is a noticeable difference is in file compression. While not as dramatic as Preview, tests typically show a 30-40% speed increase.

What you are not going to see right away is a speed improvement in third-party applications until they are re-written to take advantage of some of the new programming tools. While an application like Photoshop may actually load a little faster, running actions or filters is not going to be any faster initially.

Gizmodo has some nice benchmarks on this that compares Leopard to Snow Leopard on a variety of tasks.

Another task that Gizmodo points out as an improvement is backups with Time Machine.

Macs for Business

At heart I am an IT guy and one of the most annoying things to deal with was your basic corporation running Microsoft Exchange and some yahoo wants to use a mac so they are stuck with substandard tools or the “lite” version of the web interface.  Since I do use Exchange for one of the businesses I am involved with, I wanted to see how well this worked. I loaded up the Mail application, put in my email address and password, and a few seconds later all of my Exchange email was on the Mac. Expanding the Inbox showed all of my folders and browsing through messages was extremely fast, significantly faster than Outlook 2007 on my quad-core Windows XP system. The Exchange functionality extends to iCal and Contacts as well.

To See Me Is To Love Me

Let’s just say I am not a big fan of video chatting. I crawl out of bed and sit down at my desk at 6:00am every day. This is NOT something you want to see until I take my lunch break around 10:30 or so and get “cleaned up”. So as long as you are calling someone else, you may be happy to know that iChat has been improved nicely. In previous versions of iChat, a 640×480 resolution chat would take 900kbps, pretty much killing most home broadband connections. With Snow Leopard, that same chat only needs 200kbps. So like some of the other Apple applications, smoother, faster, cleaner is the mantra with iChat as well.

Getting Your Google On

Normally I use GMail for my day-to-day business needs and Google calendars syncs with pretty much every device I have, and putting my wife over on GMail allows her to see my schedule so she can plan those amazing weekend getaways when I have nothing scheduled (well, thats the plan anyway, I just need weekends with nothing else scheduled). Syncing to the Mac from Google or Yahoo! is now supported in iCal. It’s always nice to have native support for something like Google Calendar without having to resort to hacks or third party tools.

Color Me Tickled Pink

Snow Leopard takes a step forward for graphic designers and photographers by supporting Gamma 2.2. Since Adobe RGB also supports Gamma 2.2, this should make it easier to do calibration across your devices and get the final result from looking different when printed than it does on your screen.

Gamma 2.2 is enabled by default on installation or upgrade so there is nothing you need to do to adjust this or turn it on. Not that Gamma 1.8 was a problem, but improving on something good doesn’t hurt.

Finders Keepers

A nice, much requested feature is adjustable thumbnail sizes per folder. A slider at the bottom of the window when you are in icon mode allows you to scale your thumbnails up to 512×512 pixels. This is great when previewing images since that size is big enough to check for basic focus issues.

Another little trick up the Finder’s sleeve is that if you have a video in the folder, a play button will allow you to play the video right from the thumbnail without launching the full Quicktime player.

To Sum It Up

So long as you are using an Intel-based Mac, I certainly see no reason not to jump on the Snow Leopard bandwagon. Just freeing up 7gb of disk space is awesome, especially for people on limited systems such as the Macbook Air. Having a faster user experience with the promise that as third-party apps take advantage of new programming tools, that we will see improvements in the other tools we use every day is well worth it. For most people, this upgrade is going to set you back a few cents under $30 ($25.00 plus free shipping via Amazon), and for machines bought since June, the upgrade is only $9.95.

While there are dozens of other new tweaks and enhancements, and there are lots of great sites with a plethora of stats, graphs, and benchmarks, I wanted to just see how Snow Leopard was going to affect my every day work, and even while some of the new features are minor, together they add up nicely.

To yourself a favor, make sure you have a good backup before installing a major upgrade like this. While everyone I know has had a great experience, there are some anecdotal comments around that have mentioned problems during the upgrade so just be safe with your data.

What exactly is this colorspace stuff anyway? Basically its the amount of color that is contained in the file when you save it. The three most common colorspaces are Adobe RGB, sRGB, and ProPhoto RGB.  As my friend Rick Miller puts it, you can relate gamut to containers of beer. With sRGB being a 12oz can of beer, Adobe RGB would be a pony keg, and ProPhoto RGB being a full kegger.

The image shown here (courtesy of Cpesacreta) shows the relative sizes of the different colorspaces.

The difficulty here is knowing when to use which colorspace. Who would take a 12 ouncer when they can have a whole keg right? You would think, but the problem is that not all devices can actually display the larger colorspace  which can cause even more problems when it comes to viewing the images, add to that the lack of color management in most applications (like web browsers) and you will often get dull or washed out colors when viewing the images.

Wait a second, huh? If you use a colorspace that allows MORE colors, than why would the images look WORSE when viewing them? The answer that since almost no devices can actually display Adobe RGB, you wind up with an intepretation of the image causing it to look dull.

Effects of Color Space

Does all of this really make a difference? Let’s take a look at some images that were shot in RAW (thus no colorspace recorded on capture) and then saved as both Adobe RGB and sRGB using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Adobe RGB

sRGB

Adobe RGB

sRGB

Adobe RGB

sRGB

Adobe RGB

sRGB

In all of these cases, the images saved as sRGB should appear more vibrant in Internet Explorer and Firefox since they are not color managed applications. Apple’s Safari browser is supposed to properly display Adobe RGB files and Firefox is supposed to have color management in upcoming versions. However, until everyone is using a browser you should avoid Adobe RGB in order to provide the best images to the widest audience.

What about ProPhoto?

ProPhoto offers the widest gamut of the available common color spaces so should have a place somewhere right? Well yes it does. The best use of the ProPhoto is to use it within your workflow to preserve the largest amount of color in your images and then only do a final conversion to sRGB when saving your images as jpegs.  This is quite easy with Photoshop and Camera Raw while Lightroom uses ProPhoto RGB internally (Geek Note: Actually, Lightroom uses Melissa RGB which uses ProPhoto RGB chromatisity values working in linear gamma, named after Melissa Gaul, one of the Lightroom engineers).

Should you shoot in Adobe RGB or sRGB?

This is another tough question that different people will answer differently. The simple answer is niether. Shoot in RAW and convert to the colorspace you want during your workflow process. If you want to shoot in JPEG then you have to make the choice. The best thing to do is actually experiment with your equipment and software to determine what gives you the best results. Some people think you should shoot in Adobe RGB and then convert to sRGB if the file is for the internet, while others think you should shoot in sRGB so no conversion or translation is applied, thus you should get more accurate color representation.

In the end, you have to make up you own mind as to what works best for you, but you do need to be aware of the differences and some of the issues you can run into based on your choice.

Author: Kerry Garrison

References used in this article

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sRGB-AdobeRGB1998.htm
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm
http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorner/October_2006.html
http://www.smugmug.com/help/srgb-versus-adobe-rgb-1998

If you would like to see or hear more from Sara, be sure and check out her upcoming Aperture DVD that will be available for purchase from http://photographymentor.com.

Too see what Sara is up to, check out her websites at:

Sara’s Website

http://www.sarafrancephotography.com

Sara’s Blog

http://www.whereintheworldisfrance.com

Sara’s Store

http://shop.sarafrance.com

Go|Bee Bags
http://www.gobeebags.com

Show Hosts

Kerry Garrison (http://kerrygarrison.com)
David Esquire (http://esquirephotography.com)

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Kerry’s Picks

• Lensbaby wide angle lenses (link) (Discount link)
• Vanguard tripods (link)
• California Sunbounce (link)
• Spyder Cube (link)
• SensorKlear (link)

David’s Picks

• Sandisk USB card (link)
• Flip Video (link)
• Apple wireless keyboard (link)
• Photovision digital calibration target (link)

Show Hosts

Kerry Garrison (http://kerrygarrison.com)
David Esquire (http://esquirephotography.com)

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Mike talks about the possible future for plugins and for OnOne Software and hints at possible tools for the Apple iPhone and for dealing with video from new cameras such as the Nikon D90 and the Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Mike also is giving away a copy of the Plugin Suite 4 which contains the following plugins:

• Genuine Fractals 6 Professional Edition
• PhotoTools 1.0 Professional Edition
• Mask Pro 4.1
• PhotoFrame 4 Professional Edition
• PhotoTune 2.2
• FocalPoint 1.0

This is a $499.95 value!! To be entered to win we have a little scavenger hunt to solve. First off, go to http://ononesoftware.com and find the page for the Plugin Suite 4, Figure out why you need plugins, and from there, find the 10 word slogan. When you have found it, send an email to contest@cameradojo.com with the subject “OnOne Software Contest” in the subject and the answer and your name in the body of the email. Entries must be received by 5pm on Friday the 13th of March, 2009 and will be announced on the podcast that airs on March 17th.

Be sure and check out the OnOne Software blog (http://www.ononesoftware.com/blog/) and the OnOne Exchange (http://www.ononeexchange.com/)

OnOne Software: http://ononesoftware.com

Show Hosts

Kerry Garrison (http://kerrygarrison.com)
David Esquire (http://esquirephotography.com)

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

The Adjustments Panel

Working with adjustment layers has always been a serious tool for hardcore Photoshop geeks, now this has been made much simpler with a new adjustments panel. This can be used to easily adjust Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, Vibrance, and more. New On-Image controls allow you to adjust colors in the image without the guesswork of trying to match a complex color. The panel features a wide range of modifiable presets for each type of control and more than 20 preconfigured, customizable starting points are included.

New to the masks is the concept of Density and Feathering to control how much of the mask is used. This is a huge improvement from before where deciding you wanted more or less effect would require constant redrawing of the mask.

Improved Dodge, Burn, and Sponge Tools

If you are a big fan of the dodge, burn, and sponge tools, one of the big issues in the past is that they could sometimes affect the color underneath in odd ways. The new versions of these tools work in a much more natural way and help you to make the adjustments you want while retaining tonal quality.

Improved Image Aligning and Panorama tools

CS3 has some really good photo merge tools and panorama tools, but CS4 takes these tools to all new levels. The improved algorithms improve blending, vignetting, and geometric distortion which results in much better final images. The blending tool can take multiple images of the same shot using different focal points and combine them into a single image with a greater depth of field.

Content Aware Scaling

Ok, this is some wicked cool sh** right here. What happens when you want to scale an image that has people in it? The people can get severly distorted ruining the new image. With content aware scaling, you can size an image and retain the original sizes of key elements like people. Using this you could change a horizontal image to a vertical image and the people or key objects in it will look the same while scaling the remaining parts of the image in a very natural and usually undetectable way.  When you see this in action, you will simply be amazed at what it can do.

Fluid Canvas Rotation

If you use a Wacom tablet or just need to view the world a little differently, you can now easily rotate the canvas around to make it easier to work on a it. Rotating the canvas does not affect the rotation of the actual image, this is simply a tool to make it easier for you to work on images by being able to look at it from different angles.

Smooth Pan/Zom and Flick effects

Some people may think that the new smooth pan/zoom and “flick” effects are just for show, but as you begin to use them you will see how much nicer it is to smoothly zoom in and out of an image and be able to toss the image around as if “flicking” it with your finger. The built-in physics engine makes this new way of dealing with images much more natural.

Bridge

I have always hated Bridge, I’m not afraid to admit it, it was slow, real slow, painfully slow to start up and slow to use. Even on my new quad core system with a nice video card, I still didn’t like Bridge. But get ready you fellow Bridge haters, Bridge is one sweet tool now. Not only is Bridge faster, but it has been improved in a number of areas. There are several new views such as Carousel view which makes working with large numbers of images signifigantly faster. Bridge now also has a PDF-based contact-sheet creator and preview along with web gallery tools. Bridge has certainly grown up and is more integrated into the majority of the CS4 tools besides just Photoshop.

Camera Raw 5

Take the Develop module tools from Lightroom 2.0 and put them all into Camera Raw and you now have Camera Raw 5. And I do mean virtually all of the tools like port-crop vignetting, the gradient filter tool, and the local adjustment brush tool. Unfortunately, Lightroom Develop presets are not available in Camera Raw.

Smarter Smart Objects

Smart Objects were introduced with CS4 and made a huge impact on how you dealt with new objects. With CS4, Smart Objects can now accept perspective transformations.

64 Bit Support (Windows 64 ONLY)

As a HUGE shocker to long time Macintosh users, the advantage this year goes to 64 bit Windows systems. Apple changed a bunch of things without telling Adobe and thus Adobe had to pull 64 bit support out of the Macintosh version. Are Mac users going to have to switch to Vista 64? Not really, only the heaviest of users is going to see much of a performance difference according to sources at Adobe.

Live Preview for Clone Stamp and Healing Brushes

As cool as the cloning tool and healing brushes are, the results have always been somewhat black magic, you just never really knew what you werew going to get. The new versions of these tools provide a live preview for easier and more precise cloning and healing results.

Availability and pricing
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended is now available in North America for an estimated street price of US$999. Adobe Photoshop CS4 will be available for an estimated street price of US$699. Both can be obtained directly from Adobe or through Adobe Authorized Resellers.

To order directly from Adobe, visit the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com or call
1-800-833-6687.

Licensed owners of Photoshop CS3 Extended, Photoshop CS2, or Photoshop CS can upgrade to Photoshop CS4 Extended for US$349.

Licensed owners of Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS2, or Photoshop CS can upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS4 for US$199.
Licensed owners of Photoshop 5 or 6 can upgrade to Photoshop CS4 Extended for $899 or Photoshop CS4 for $599.
Licensed owners of Photoshop CS3 Extended, Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS2, or Photoshop CS are also eligible for special upgrade pricing to certain editions of Adobe Creative Suite 4.

Apple Releases Camera Raw 2.2
Adobe Releases Camera Raw 4.6 Release Candidate
Leica M8 Firmware 2.00
Sony Alpha Firmware

Lightroom 2.1 Available on Adobe Labs
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Lightroom_2.1

Lightroom Web Gallery Module
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/23/lightroom-web-gallery-modulelightroom-web-gallery-module/

Canon EOS 5D Mk II
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/16/canon-announces-eos-5d-mark-ii/

Canon Powershot G10 IS
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/16/canon-powershot-g10-is-camera-announced/

Canon Powershot SX1 IS
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/17/canon-powershot-line-in-sx1-is-with-1080p-video/

Sunny 16 Rule
http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/18/the-sunny-16-rule-in-photography/

Guest on the Digital Photography Show
http://digiphoto.thepodcastnetwork.com/

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

New plug-in for Photoshop® and Aperture™ incorporates
U Point® technology for precise selective sharpening

Las Vegas, NV — September 4, 2008 (Photoshop World, Booth #321) — Nik Software today announced the latest version of its popular Sharpener Pro photographic plug-in for use with Adobe® Photoshop® and Apple® Aperture™. Designed for professionals and photo enthusiasts, Sharpener Pro 3.0 is the most advanced and powerful sharpening solution for photographers, eliminating the guesswork typically required for achieving superior and consistent results.

Now featuring Nik Software’s patented U Point technology, Sharpener Pro 3.0 enables photographers to selectively sharpen objects within their images. U Point powered Control Points are easy to use and offer precise control over sharpening intensity without the need to create complicated selections and layer masks.

“Sharpener Pro 3.0 has been dramatically improved with a range of new features, including powerful creative sharpening tools, a soft proofing option, and integrated U Point technology,” said Michael J. Slater president and CEO of Nik Software. “This new version of Sharpener Pro offers the most comprehensive tools for optimally sharpening images for any output device while also offering photographers the complete control they expect,” Slater concluded.

Key Features

• New U Point Powered Control Points—Enables precise, selective sharpening control
• Updated Output Sharpening—Provides the ultimate control to create perfectly sharpened images on all devices and media types such as display, inkjet, continuous tone, half tone, and hybrid tone
• New Creative Sharpening—Enhances fine details and textures with new structure, focus, and local contrast tools for drawing attention to desired areas within the image
• New Industry-First Sharpening Soft Proof—Allows detailed inspection of sharpening results on screen before printing, eliminating costly test prints
• New Output Presets—Enables custom settings to be saved for consistent, professional results
• Updated RAW Presharpener—Retains and enhances sharp details within images without amplifying noise and other artifacts
• Updated Powerful Selective Tool (Photoshop only)—Enables the use of Photoshop’s brush tools to paint in sharpening selectively
• New Smart Filter Support (Photoshop only)—Provides compatibility with Adobe Photoshop’s Smart Objects enabling adjustments to sharpening after Sharpener Pro has been applied
• New Multi-Image Support (Aperture only)—Provides compatibility with Aperture’s multi-image support, allowing photographers to easily copy and paste settings between images to maintain consistency

Pricing and Availability

Sharpener Pro 3.0 will be available in September for electronic delivery directly from Nik Software (www.niksoftware.com) in four languages (English, French, German, and Spanish) and will be available through specialty camera retailers in October of 2008. A complete list of resellers may be found at www.niksoftware.com/resellers.

The suggested retail price of Sharpener Pro 3.0 is $199.95. Upgrades from any previous version are available for $99.95. Sharpener Pro 3.0 installs as a plug-in for either Adobe Photoshop or Apple Aperture 2.1 and is available for Windows and Macintosh operating systems, including Vista and Leopard. For more information about Sharpener Pro 3.0, including video tutorials showing the software running within Photoshop and Aperture and a free 15-day fully functional trial version, please visit www.niksoftware.com/sharpenerpro.

About Nik Software

Nik Software, Inc. is a privately held company that develops software solutions for the growing digital imaging and photography markets. Established in 1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic filter development and produces award-winning technology and software products for digital photography and imaging professionals including U Point® technology (www.upoint.com), Dfine®, Viveza™, Color Efex Pro™, Silver Efex Pro™, and Sharpener Pro™ software.

Links from the podcast:

Apple iPhone
http://apple.com

Lightroom Enfuse
http://timothyarmes.com/lrenfuse.php

Think Tank Photo
http://thinktankphoto.com

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