Turn 2-D images into 3-D masterpieces!!

(from Episode #76 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

Have you ever seen one of those movies or a still image that appeared to be in 3-D when you wore special red and blue glasses? It’s easier than you think to make one of those images. In fact, I’ll show you 2 methods to achieve this effect. The first one requires you to take two pictures of a stationary subject and merge them in Photoshop. The other will take an existing photo and convert it to 3-D.

First, I should explain how 3-D images work. We view the world in 3 dimensions because our two eyes see things slightly differently and our brain interprets the two pictures our eyes see as being 3 dimensional. We unconsciously calculate depth, width and height based on the similarities and the differences between those two pictures. It just happens. We don’t even realize we do it.

These artificial 3-D images we’ll be creating, called anaglyphs, simulate in a 2-D image the 2 pictures our eyes see when we look at actual 3-D objects. The red and blue lenses of the 3-D classes block out certain information in the 2-D image allowing the blue lens only see the red channel of the image and the red lens to only see the blue and green channels. This allows a single 2-D image to hold the 2 slightly different images our eyes need to see in order to perceive 3-D information.

Here are a few methods you can can use to make one of these images:

The 2 picture/1 camera method (this method works on stationary objects)

With a digital camera affixed to a sturdy tripod, take a picture of the stationary subject. Carefully move the camera and tripod 2.5 and 3 inches to the right and take another picture.

What you have effectively done is taken a left eye image and a right eye image.


Open both images in Photoshop. Using your first image (your “left eye” image) open the Channels palette and click the Red channel (Ctrl-1 on PC or Command-1 on Mac). Select all (Ctrl-A on PC or Command-A on Mac) and copy (Ctrl-C on PC or Command-C on Mac).

Now go to the second image (your “right eye” image) and click the Red channel (Ctrl-1 on PC or Command-1 on Mac) in the Channels palette. Paste the Red channel from the “left eye” image in Red channel of the “right eye” image (Ctrl-V on PC or Command-V on Mac).

Click the RGB composite channel in the Channels palette (Ctrl-~ on PC or Command-~ on Mac) and put on your 3-D glasses (make sure the left lens is red and the right lens is blue).

The 2-D to 3-D conversion method

The problem with the 2 picture/1 camera method is that you can’t capture action. No pictures of your dog jumping to catch a frisbee. No 3-D pictures from the airshow. None of that.

The 2-D to 3-D conversion method allows you to alter an existing 2-D image and make it 3-D.

I’m going to start with this image of Dr. Tiki and Leo on the set of The Lab…

What you need to do is select the frontmost item in the photo and save the selection as a channel. Then select the next most foreword item and save that as a channel and so on and so on until you reach the background. How detailed you want to be is up to you. I have selected Dr. Tiki’s face, then his body, then Leo’s arms and camera, then Leo, then the column behind Leo and then I left everything else as the background. Here’s what my Channels palette looks like:

Now, create yet another new empty channel and fill it with white. In your Swatches palette, select 20% Gray, load the back-most item in the Channels palette as a selection (in my case, “Alpha 5″ in the screenshot above) and then fill the selection with 20% Gray in the new channel. Continue to select progressively darker shades of gray and use the color to fill the selections of each increasingly more foreground channel in our new channel. So, for my image, I’ll make a selection of Alpha 4 and fill with 40% Gray, then make a selection of Alpha 3 and fill that with 60% Gray, then Alpha 2 with 80% Gray and Alpha 1 with Black. Plan out your selections and grays so that you can make a smooth progression from the background in White to the foreground in Black. Here’s what my channel looks like:

I know it looks scary–bear with me.

Go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur… and use a setting of 10. Click OK. This with blend the levels a bit. Now we need to expand the coverage of the different levels of depth a bit. To do this we will use a Filter called Minimum which shrinks the coverage of the lighter areas of the affected image.

Go Filter>Other>Minimum… and plug in a value of 10. Click OK.

Select All (Ctrl-A on PC or Command-A on Mac) and Copy (Ctrl-C on PC or Command-C on Mac). Create a new Photoshop document and Photoshop will automatically plug in the height and width of the image held in the clipboard’s memory, so you need only click OK.

Paste the funky channel in the new document (Ctrl-V on PC or Command-V on Mac) and save this new document as a Photoshop (.psd) file and save it somewhere where you will easily find it again. Close this new file and direct your attention back to the main document.

Click the Red channel in the Channels palette (Ctrl-1 on PC or Command-1 on Mac) and activate the “eye” icon next to the RGB composite channel in the channels palette (just activate the “eye” don’t select the RGB composite channel itself). It should look like this:

You should see the full color image in the document window but what you’re about to do will only affect the Red channel.

Go Filter>Distort>Displace… and enter 20 in the Horizontal Scale field and 0 in the Vertical Scale field and click OK.

And that’s it! It’s in THREEEEEEEEEEEEE-DEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Still need more 3-D stimulation?

Check these anaglyphs on Flickr.

Do you just need to buy some 3-D glasses? I bought mine here.

May the Force be with you! Release your Jedi spirit!

(from Episode #79 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

“If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine…”

These were Ben Kenobi’s words of warning to Darth Vader in the original Star Wars film. Until the sequel, us fanboys really weren’t sure what old Ben was prattling on about. But in The Empire Strikes Back we were led to believe that to be a freely roaming, blue, glowing spirit was the utmost power any Jedi on either side of the dark/light spectrum could achieve.

Hmm….

Well, now with the aid of Adobe Photoshop, you too can add your ghostly form to any of your digital photos. Here’s how…

Step 1: The Photo(s)

Ideally, you will be using two images: one of you looking masterful and wise and hopefully on a background that you can easily separate yourself from and another of the setting in which you will be placing yourself. We will want your Jedi spirit to be translucent and that will be much more difficult if we must first remove your opaque, live and living self from the photo. I’m not going to spend time explaining how to remove yourself from the photo. If you take the 2 pictures you need, you don’t need to worry about this procedure… this is not the tutorial you are looking for… you may go about your business… move along…

So I have one image with without me in it and I also have another photo that was taken at about the same time that does have me in it. This is the photo I’m going to use as my source image for me as a dead Jedi (aka Darth Yaeger).

Step 2: The Chosen One

Working on the photo “with you in it” and using Adobe Photoshop CS3′s Quick Selection tool (or the Extract Filter or whatever means you feel most comfortable), select yourself and Copy (Ctrl-C on PC, Command-C on Mac) yourself. You can now close this image (the one WITH you in it).

Go to the photo “without you in it” and Paste (Ctrl-V on PC, Command-V on Mac). Position yourself in the picture, scale, rotate, skew, etc. until your image is in the exact part of the image where you want your Jedi spirit to materialize.

Step 3: A Disturbance in the Force

Ctrl-Click on PC or Command-Click on Mac the thumbnail of the layer in the Layers palette that represents the image of you. This will create a selection.

Create a new layer (Shift-Ctrl-N on PC or Shift-Command-N on Mac) and fill the selection on the new layer with black. (You can first reset your foreground and background colors by hitting the D key the hit Alt-Delete on PC or Option-Delete on a Mac and the selection on your layer should fill with black) You can deselect now (Ctrl-D on PC or Command-D on Mac)

You will need to add the Jedi Styles.asl file that I have provided for you. To do this, click the flyout menu on the right side of the Styles palette and choose “Load Styles…” and navigate to where the Jedi Styles.asl file is located on your hard drive and click “Load”. With your new black silhouette layer active in the Layers palette, click the “Force Distort” style in the Styles palette (hover your cursor over the styles to have Photoshop show you the names).

Your Jedi should look like the picture above. If the “ripples” inside the silhouette don’t cover enough of the body’s shape or if they cover too much, go Layer>Layer Style>Scale Effects… and adjust the effect until it more closely matches what I show here. Don’t stress too much about this.

Create a new layer and drag it below the silhouette layer. Fill this new layer with white. Then, Select All (Ctrl-A on PC or Command-A on Mac) and Copy Merged (Ctrl-Shift-C on PC or Command-Shift-C on Mac) –this will copy the current state of the selection as if it had all of its layers flattened without requiring you to flatten the image.

With the merged copy still in the clipboard, create a new Photoshop document. Photoshop will automatically plug in the height and width of the image held in the clipboard’s memory, so you need only click OK.

Paste the merged silhouette in the new document (Ctrl-V on PC or Command-V on Mac). Now save this new document as a Photoshop (.psd) file and save it somewhere where you will easily find it again. Close this new file and direct your attention back to the main document again.

Back in the main document, click off the “eye” icons next to the silhouette and white layers–we’re done looking at them.

In the Layers palette, duplicate the layer containing your original “without you in it” image and drag the duplicate to the top. Go Filter>Distort>Displace… and enter in these settings:

Click OK and Photoshop will ask you for a file to use as a displacement map. Point Photoshop to the file you just created using the silhouette layer and click Open.

See what happened? Photoshop displaced the image using the silhouette shape and those ripples we made.

Go Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels… and match these settings:

Then, when the Levels dialog comes up, match these settings and click OK:

Now Ctrl-Click on PC or Command-Click on Mac the thumbnail of the silhouette layer in the Layers palette. This will create a selection. Keeping that selection, click the thumbnail of the displaced layer to activate it. Go Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal Selection.

If you dig Predator movies more than Star Wars movies, you may be tempted to quit now. This is an example of how one tutorial can teach many effects: you just created the cloaked effect from the Predator movies.

Let’s proceed, Photoshop Padawan….

Step 4: More powerful than you could possibly imagine…

Near the bottom of the layers in the Layers palette, you still have your Jedi. Drag the Jedi’s layer to the top of the palette. And make sure this layer is selected in the Layers palette.
Now click the “Dead Jedi” style in the Syles palette and you’re done!

Step 5: Your training is complete…

Well, it can be if you want. But here a little “extra” if you want to create the Hologram effect from the Star Wars movies:

With the layered file we’ve been working with up until now, click off the “eye” icon next to our displaced layer in the Layers palette. Now, create a new layer and drag it to the top of the Layers palette. Go Edit>Fill and copy these settings:

Next, go Filter>Sketch>Halftone Pattern…Â and match these settings and click OK:Â

Now, go Filter>Noise>Add Noise… and give it the settings shown below before clicking OK.

Now, in the Layer palette change this layer’s blending mode from Normal to Screen. Go Layer>Create Clipping Mask and you’re Jedi is now a hologram! Help me Leo-Wan Laporti, you’re my only hope!

May the Force be with you.

Build iPhone-style icons in Photoshop with IconBuilder

(from Episode #124 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

With IconBuilder, you use Photoshop (version 7 to CS3), Photoshop Elements (version 2 and up) or Fireworks (versions MX and CS3) as your icon editor and then export your artwork as icons for your system or even your web page.

Icon Strategy

When going about making an icon, you have to consider the size at which it is going to be viewed. Mac OS X allows users to view icons at any size but, most often, people will be looking at your icons at around 32 pixels wide… not very big. At that size a lot of detail will be lost, so you have to be creative in how you try to get the message of your icon across; you have to do it in the simplest way that you can. IconBuilder also lets you build icons for your computer’s list view (16 pixels wide), so you should consider how your icon idea will translate at that small a size. With the addition of CoverFlow in Leopard, icons can now be viewed at sizes in the neighborhood of 512 pixels square, but still have to tell their story at 16 pixels square.

Even though you have to be aware of how your icon looks at smaller sizes, the main art should be built at at least 128 pixels square—512 pixels square if you intend for them to look good in CoverFlow.

Building Icons in Icon Builder

Since IconBuilder comes with thorough documentation, I won’t duplicate it here. The trouble I find with learning new software is sometimes you need a project to work on in order to give the documentation some context. So, what I’m going to do is show you how to build a 512 pixel size “iPhone-like” icon to get you started on creating your own icons.

Start with an RGB document in Photoshop that is 512 pixels square with a transparent background.

Set guides at the center going horizontally and vertically (one 256 pixels down from the top and another 256 pixels in from the left)

Using the Rounded Rectangle Tool set at a 45 pixel radius, create a shape layer by clicking in the intersection of the 2 guides and, holding Alt+Shift on a PC or Option+Shift on a Mac, drag out a Shape Layer 440 pixels square.

Set the color of the shape layer to your choosing (mine will be red).

Add a Drop Shadow Layer Style as seen below:

And an Inner Glow:

Next add a symbol in white on its own layer. The easiest way to do this is to use type. Use letters, number or symbols or, better yet, grab something out of a digbat font like Zapf Dingabts or Webdings.
I have used the obligatory @ symbol on a text layer at 410pt in white.

Add a Drop Shadow style to the text layer:

Now for the highlight. Create a new shape layer by drawing another rounded rectangle as we did before; this time use a radius of 40 pixels and a size of 420 pixels square. It doesn’t matter what color it is—see?

Set its Fill slider in the Layers to 0%. Add a Drop Shadow Style:

And then a Gradient Overlay going from transparent to White:

It should look like this:

Now, using the Direct Selection Tool (it’s the hollow arrow), select the bottom 4 nodes of the path that forms the shape layer…

We’re going to Transform these to make the concave curve on the underside of our highlight. Go Edit>Transform Points>Flip Vertical. Now, drag these 4 points together until the lowest 2 touch the horizontal guide you made midway down the icon.

Still using the Direct Selection Tool, select the 2 points on the middle of the lower arc we just made and go Control-T on a PC or Command-T on a Mac. We are going to bring these points in toward the center a bit and we’ll use the Transform feature to make sure they are even.

Hold down the Alt key on a PC or the Option key on a Mac as you scale the width of the Transform box to look like what I have shown you below:

Click Enter/Return to apply this transformation, and your icon artwork is done.

You should save this file as a layered PSD so that you can make more icons by simply changing the background color and the symbol. Use Save As… to save each icon design as a flattened transparent PNG that you can then paste into the Expanded Preset that comes with IconBuilder to create your icons masterpieces. Resize and adjust the icon to look good in all of the sizes in which your icon is likely to be used and seen.

To jumpstart the process, install the IconBuilder Assistant Action that comes packages with IconBuilder. Place your 512 pixel creation in the 512 pixel icon area of the Expanded Template that comes with IconBuilder and open the Actions Palette in Photoshop. Select the Generate Expanded actions and click Play. Boom! You have most of your icon resources already created (probably all the resources you are likely to need).

Enjoy your new icon creating abilities and share your creations with us!!

Adobe loads their site up a bunch of CS4 demos

Have you updated to Adobe Creative Suite 4 yet? Yeah, me neither. Who has that kind of scratch laying around in this economy?

In the meantime, Adobe has posted a few CS4 demos to get you hooked on these apps while you save up to purchase them.

• Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro

• Adobe Illustrator CS4
• Adobe Flash CS4 Professional
• Adobe After Effects CS4
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
• Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
• Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
• Adobe InDesign CS4
• Adobe Fireworks CS4
• Adobe InCopy CS4

And if you’d rather your postal carrier deliver your CS4 demos rather than downloading them yourself, Adobe offers trial DVDs of both the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium (USD$10.99) and the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection (USD$15.99).

Note:

Adobe cuts a deal for registered users of older apps to upgrade to CS4

According to this post on the Creative Solutions PR @ Adobe blog, for a limited time Adobe is offering a special introductory offer that allows those with older qualifying versions of CS products to upgrade at the same discount as those upgrading from CS3.

So, if you skipped the CS3 upgrade the last time around and are still working with CS2, you can upgrade to CS4 for the same price as if you had kept up with the CS3 Joneses.

Don’t believe me? Under the question “Why is Adobe offering tiered upgrade pricing?” on Adobe’s Creative Suite FAQ Page, the second paragraph reads:

As a special introductory offer, customers with earlier versions of Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Studio, and Adobe Production Studio software can upgrade for the same price as those moving from Creative Suite 3–up to a USD$200 savings! This offer ends on February 28, 2009, in North America.

Note:

Adobe unveils its Creative Suite 4 apps, bundles and their new features

Today, Adobe announced the component new features of the component applications for its Creative Suite 4 (CS4) family. Adobe is offering their “all new” applications as standalone apps or as parts of their bundles. Those bundles include:

Design Premium USD$1,799
InDesign CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, Illustrator CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Dreamweaver CS4, Fireworks CS4, Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Bridge CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Version Cue CS4

Web Premium USD$1,699
Dreamweaver CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Photoshop CS4 Extended, Illustrator CS4, Fireworks CS4, Acrobat 9 Pro, Soundbooth CS4, Contribute CS4, Adobe Bridge CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Version Cue CS4

Production Premium USD$1,699
After Effects CS4, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, Flash CS4 Professional, Illustrator CS4, Soundbooth CS4, Adobe OnLocation CS4, Encore CS4, Adobe Bridge CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4, Dynamic Link

Master Premium USD$2,499
EVERYTHING!!

Whenever Adobe makes a CS announcement, they essentially update every software title they sell. Some apps change drastically, some barely change at all. Below is a list of the main apps and their top new features. I realize that just posting the titles of the new features isn’t going to give you a full understanding of what they do, but I post them here to show the degree to which each app has changed while also giving you a bit of a teaser for each change. Follow the links to the individual apps for more information.

Adobe InDesign CS4 USD$699

• Live Preflight
• Customizable Links panel
• Conditional text
• Cross-references
• Interactive document design with SWF file export
• Smart Text Reflow

Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended UDS$999

• 3D painting and compositing
• Adjustments panel
• Masks panel
• Auto-blending of images
• Auto-alignment of layers
• Extended depth of field
• More powerful printing options
• Integration with other Adobe software
• Improved Adobe Photoshop Lightroom workflow
• 3D object and property editing
• Fluid canvas rotation
• Smoother panning and zooming
• Content-Aware Scaling
• Enhanced motion graphics editing
• Better raw image processing
• Industry-leading color correction
• File display options
• Extensibility

Adobe Illustrator CS4 UDS$599

• Multiple artboards
• Transparency in gradients
• Blob Brush tool
• Gradients exposed
• Integration and delivery
• Enhanced user experience
• In-panel appearance editing
• Refined graphic styles
• Clipping masks demystified
• Separations Preview

Adobe Flash CS4 UDS$699

• Object-based animation
• 3D transformation
• Procedural modeling with Deco and Spray Brush
• Metadata (XMP) support
• Authoring for Adobe AIR
• XFL support
• Inverse kinematics with the Bones tool
• Motion editor
• Motion presets
• H.264 support

Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 UDS$399

• Live View
• Code hinting for Ajax and JavaScript frameworks
• Related Files and Code Navigator
• Adobe InContext Editing (prerelease)
• CSS best practices
• New user interface
• HTML data sets
• Adobe Photoshop Smart Objects
• Subversion integration
• Adobe AIR authoring support

Adobe Fireworks CS4 UDS$299

• Adobe AIR authoring
• PDF export
• Customizable and reusable assets
• Improved performance
• New user interface
• Enhanced type handling
• CSS export
• Styles panel upgrades
• Workspace improvements
• Adobe Kuler integration
• Adobe ConnectNow integration

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro for Creative Professionals UDS$449

• Package documents in dynamic PDF Portfolios
• Embed content created in Adobe Flash
• Easily create, manage, and analyze forms
• Easily collaborate using synchronized document views
• Set up shared PDF reviews easily on Acrobat.com
• Detect differences between document versions
• View how elements interact with Overprint Preview
• Preview, preflight, correct, and prepare PDF files for print
• Make minor text edits in a PDF document more easily
• Launch Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro faster

Adobe Soundbooth CS4 UDS$199

• Multitrack support
• Adobe Sound Document (ASND) file format
• Volume keyframing
• Automatic volume correction
• MP3 Compression Preview
• Editing capabilities
• Adobe Creative Suite integration
• Looping tools
• Organizing and accessing scores
• Improved Soundbooth Score workflow
• Speech Search

Adobe Contribute CS4 UDS$199

• Collaborative publishing
• In-browser editing
• Adobe Dreamweaver compatibility
• In-context shared reviews
• Enhanced CSS support
• Content expiration notification
• Dynamic website editing
• Rich media support
• More secure editing with Auto-Save
• Visual blog configuration
• Site root–relative links

Adobe After Effects CS4 UDS$999

• Live Adobe Photoshop 3D layers import
• Searchable timelines and projects and easier nested comp navigation
• Compositions exported as layered projects
• Integrated workflow for mobile device authoring
• Numerous interface and workflow tweaks
• Dynamic Link between Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Soundbooth
• Independent keyframing of x, y, z values, plus 3D compositing improvements
• Cartoon effect
• Mocha for Adobe After Effects from Imagineer Systems
• XMP metadata for asset intelligence

Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 UDS$799

• End-to-end metadata workflow
• Speech Search
• Tapeless camera support
• Dynamic workflow with other Adobe tools
• Faster, customizable SWF output
• Batch encoding in the background
• Redesigned Adobe OnLocation CS4
• Editing efficiency
• Industry-leading Blu-ray Disc authoring
• Resource Central

All prices shown here are the “full price” from Adobe, upgrade pricing is also available based on what you happen to be upgrading from. The apps and the bundles are available for pre-order now with English language versions expected to ship by late October 2008. French and Spanish language versions are expected to ship by mid-December 2008.

Note:

Adobe releases Photoshop Lightroom 2

Adobe has announced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, their application for managing, adjusting and presenting galleries of digital photos. The new edition includes dual-monitor support, advances in non-destructive localized image correction, and slicker search capabilities, Lightroom 2 is also Adobe’s first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel processors and provides improved memory performance for dealing with large scale images.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 is available now through the Adobe Store for USD$299 for new users with an upgrade price of USD$99 for registered users of qualifying Lightroom customers. Recommended system requirements are Macintosh OSX 10.4, 10.5: 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or G5 or Intel based processor, 1 GB RAM and a 1024×768 resolution screen.

Note:

Switchboard controls Adobe CS apps via AIR

I’m still trying to fully grasp what this is about, but Adobe has announced SwitchBoard which they bill as a new technology for controling and automating the Creative Suite family of products using Adobe AIR. Switchboard and its SDK are available now from the Adobe Labs.

Dr. Woohoo explains,

With SwitchBoard (SB), the AIR applications we create can now establish two-way communication with applications within Adobe’s Creative Suite like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. I simply can not stress enough how significant this release is: if you are like me, prior to this release you had to hack and hack away in order to get your AIR applications to communicate (in)directly with the target Adobe Creative Suite application of your choice… but now…it’s as easy as writing an ExtendScript to communicate with Photoshop, Illustrator and/or InDesign assuming you’re comfortable using Flex Builder or the FB SDK.

Personally, writing scripts and code scares the bajeezus out of me, but if that appeals to you, SwitchBoard might also.

More from the press release:

SwitchBoard brings together the power of the automation in the Creative Suite applications with the potential for third parties to extend the creative process with new applications produced using AIR. The result is an extensible, powerful, cross-platform environment that can quickly adapt to today’s rapidly changing creative workflows.

Again, SwitchBoard is available now in the Adobe Labs.

Note:

Adobe announces public betas of CS4 apps Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth

Adobe is giving a sneak peek at three applications from the next release of Adobe Creative Suite. The company released public beta of new versions of Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Soundbooth as free downloads on Adobe labs. Once downloaded and launched, the betas will be active for 48 hours after which time only Creative Suite 3 customers will have an extended ability to use the betas until the next release of Creative Suite becomes available.

The Dreamweaver beta for web design and development, the Fireworks beta for “prototyping”, and the Soundbooth beta for audio creating and editing, demonstrate the direction that Adobe Creative Suite is taking with features and technologies that will aid design and development workflows across all media. The betas also offer users the opportunity to give Adobe feedback for further product development.

The Dreamweaver public beta includes a new Related Files Toolbar and Code Navigator feature that allows users to dive deeply into complex pages that include HTML files, links to JavaScript documents and integrated XML data. Users can see related files in the Related Files Toolbar and with Code Navigator make changes to code that appears in various parts of a document with one update. The update to Dreamweaver also features a new Live View Mode, which is based on the open source rendering engine Webkit. It enables users to see content in real-world, real-time environments without having to leave Dreamweaver to preview in a browser. This feature also gives users the ability to freeze JavaScript language to debug interactive pages as well as view and interact with Flash content.

New features in Fireworks beta include a new user interface that is now consistent with other applications within the Creative Suite making it easier for users to switch between applications that now have a universal look and feel. In addition, Fireworks beta now allows users to export design comps as high fidelity, interactive, and secure Adobe PDF documents for enhanced client communication. Fireworks beta is also now compatible with Adobe AIR, HTML, Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex Builder so users can create their design once and deploy to whichever application platform is required by clients.

The Soundbooth beta showcases a host of new features for creative professionals to complete their audio production tasks more efficiently, including the new multiple track support which allows users to edit multiple audio clips on a number of tracks, and the new ability for users to match volume levels across audio files. Also included is the capability to preview MP3 compression settings before saving them and a new speech recognition technology that lets users create transcripts of dialogue tracks quickly and search them for words and phrases within a timeline.

Dreamweaver and Fireworks betas run on multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista and Mac OS X version 10.4.11 or later on PowerPC G5 or Intel-based Macintosh systems. The Soundbooth beta runs on all those systems except for PowerPC-based Macintosh systems.

Note:

Adobe announces Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Public Beta at Photoshop World 2008 Keynote

Adobe has announced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 beta, a public preview of new and improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release. Lightroom 2.0 beta will feature enhancements such as dual-monitor support, localized dodge and burn correction and will be the first Adobe application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Intel Macs and Microsoft Vista 64-bit operating
systems.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 beta will be available as a 30-day trial for free download on Macintosh and Windows platforms. Existing Lightroom 1.0 customers will be able to test the beta for an extended period until Aug. 31, 2008 and can invite friends to take part in this trial period. Recommended system requirements are Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5, 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or G5 or Intel-based processor, 1 GB RAM and a 1024×768 resolution screen.

Note:

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