Posted 09/24/09 at 04:49:45 PM by Mark Edward Soper

This week, Adobe announced its eighth generation of Photoshop Elements for both PC and Mac, and this time Mac users need to wait only a month for the latest version.

Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows and MacOS includes a number of new photo-editing goodies including Photomerge Exposure,  Recompose, and better quick fixes for common photo problems. For more about what's new, why MacOS users won't mind waiting a bit longer for their version, and how to try PSE8 for free, join us after the jump.

Adobe's new Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows adds a number of features for easier photo editing, including:

Photomerge Exposure, which builds upon the powerful Photomerge feature in earlier versions of PE to enable you to combine the properly-exposed areas in two otherwise-identical photos into a "single, perfectly-lit photo." The example Adobe demonstrates uses two photos of friends posing in front of a floodlit building, one with and without flash. It'll be interesting to see how Photomerge Exposure does with a pair of RAW images optimized for bright and dark areas.

Recompose, which allows you to intelligently stretch a photo to fit in a particular frame without distorting the main subject. The example Adobe uses converts a landscape-format photo into a square photo, but inquiring minds (like mine) are wondering about converting 4:3 photos into 16:9 photos (and vice-versa).

Smarter, faster quick fixes for exposure, teeth whitening, bluer skies, contrast, and more with better previews.

Read on to find out what else is new in Elements 8.

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Posted 10/17/08 at 06:19:38 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Adobe began shipping its Creative Suite 4 (CS4) this week, and perhaps the most significant new feature from a typical Maximum PC reader's point of view is the support for GPU acceleration in Photoshop CS4 and other components, including Bridge CS4, After Effects CS4, Premiere Pro CS4, Acrobat 9, and Flash Player 10.

Photoshop CS4 uses OpenGL 2.0 GPU acceleration for the following features:

• Smooth Display at ALL Zoom Levels
• Animated Zoom Tool
• Animated Transitions when doing a One Stop Zoom
• Hand Toss Image
• Birdseye View
• Rotate Canvas
• Smooth Display of Non Square Pixel Images
• Pixel Grid
• Move Color Matching to the GPU
• Draw Brush Tip Editing Feedback via GPU
• 3D Acceleration
  • 3D Axis
  • 3D Lights Widget
  • Accelerated 3D Interaction via Direct To Screen

To learn more about which GPUs make the grade, and the role memory size plays in performance, join us after the break.

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Posted 07/15/08 at 10:39:10 AM by Mark Edward Soper

Pingdom AB, a Swedish-based website monitoring firm, recently studied the uptime of the update sites for the three most popular desktop operating systems, Microsoft, Apple, and Ubuntu. During the second quarter of 2008 (April-June), Pingdom reports (2) that Windows Update was up 100% of the time, compared to Apple Software Update's 99.9% uptime, and Ubuntu Archive's 98.64% availability. During the period, Apple's update service could not be contacted for a total of 2 hours, 34 minutes, while Ubuntu's update service could not be contacted for a total of 1 day, 5 hours, and 45 minutes.

It sounds like a clear win for Redmond, but a closer look at how update sites work suggest the story isn't so simple. For more, join us after the jump.

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Posted 07/04/08 at 01:23:24 PM by Mark Edward Soper

 

Data Robotics, the creators of Drobo, "The World's First Storage Robot" and DroboShare, which adds network capabilities to Drobo, have taken Drobo to the next level. Endgadget reports that Data Robotics has opened Drobo+DroboShare up to developers through its new Drobo Developer Community (DDC) and SDK program.

To understand why the network media server category has just gotten even bigger, catch me after the break.

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Posted 06/27/08 at 04:35:09 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Maxtor, Seagate's home storage brand, is set to centralize home network storage with its new Central Axis network drive. In a world of other network attached storage devices, what makes it different than the competition?

Read on to discover how Central Axis is designed to "play nice" with today's diverse network configurations, and how much it will cost to add it to your home network.

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Posted 10/19/07 at 11:59:14 PM by Mark 'Marcus Soperus' Soper

Get your hands on the latest goodies for Windows (and MacOS!) from Microsoft, including Flickr support for Windows Live Photo Gallery, refreshes to DirectX, a new version of Virtual Earth 3D, and support for playing Windows Media files in MacOS QuickTime.

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Posted 10/10/07 at 11:26:33 PM by Mark 'Marcus Soperus' Soper

Version 6, that is. Find out what's new in the surprisingly powerful photo editor for "casual" photographers, Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.

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