As usual, the UK price is almost 2x the price of the US price. The joke being the UK software is byte by byte identical to the US and when you download it, it comes off the US servers.
So, we’ll be buying ours in the US, and getting it shipped over again.
And for those without that ability, there are US postal box services which look like a normal address, so you can get it purchased off amazon.com etc.
It’s essentially buy one get one free compared to the UK, and if for some reason it doesnt work, then you can flog it on ebay. But online registration etc hasn’t failed to date.
Yes its bad enough having to deal with the forced 18 month cross-suite upgrade that all the Adobe engineers seem to to be forced to comply with. Add to that the wholly unjustified UK and Europe markupÂ… to be honest its very tempting to just go Bit Torrent
Yes its bad enough having to deal with the forced 18 month cross-suite upgrade that all the Adobe engineers seem to to be forced to comply with.
Forced? In what way? Does your copy of CS3 quit working when CS4 ships? If you are referring to the Camera Raw update, again you aren’t forced to upgrade…if you have a camera that was not made at the time YOUR version of Photoshop was released, you can convert to DNG and use that DNG all the way back to Photoshop CS and Camera Raw 2.4.
If you are feeling "forced" you might need to do some soul searching…
Yes its bad enough having to deal with the forced 18 month cross-suite upgrade that all the Adobe engineers seem to to be forced to comply with.
Forced? In that way? Does you browser insert words into other peoples sentences? If you are refering to the above quote, and you choose to read it, it does not mention you are forced to upgrade…if you read it, you will see that it does not mention the USER at all, it speaks about the 18 month cycle that Adobe seem not to stray away from.
If you are feeling confused, you might need to do some better reading…
But, never let the truth get in the way of you jumping the gun when anyone posts anything you think should get your heckles up.
No, I thought what I’d written was clear. I meant that the engineers are obviously under pressure to produce a new version a lot quicker than is healthy. I’m certainly not forced to upgrade.
These 18 month interface tweakgrades don’t help the quality of the product: I know in my job if I have an impossible deadline, theres a lot more chance than that I will make errors of judgment, or be forced to take shortcuts which I will regret.
The real move forward in CS4, which as far as I can see is really about using the graphics card to render. Sweeteners and little tweaks like brush resizing, and clone preview are useful but are not going to affect me professionally enough to justify me in the UK paying for an "upgrade" in the present economic climate.
Thanks to its early development Photoshop is clearly unsurpassable. All in all I think we are lucky that the present team still quite obviously have a conscience about what they do that they don’t let it slip completely, but get an impression thats its a struggle. There’s continual push to change things which are already pretty spot on, thats the worry.
I can assure you that CS4 Bridge and ACR 5 are a lot more than "little tweaks" — and so are the new Photoshop features and, particularly, the new GUI.
All versions of all apps should be rock solid. That should be a given.
To be forced to shell out money just to achieve stability smacks of Al Capone’s ways.
Photoshop 10.0.1 has been stable enough. The incentive for me to upgrade would be a decent-enough version of Bridge, but that should have been fixed in a free update to Bridge 2.x.
MO there are probably some room for an .01 update, I would not know myself but I will assume you are correct but from what I have seen of it it will save the heavy user a lot of time in handling files.
But keep in mind that you might be a good printer but you and I both know that every time you place a job on press it does not roll off that press perfect it never has and it never will.
I am older and more experienced then you in every way and deal with a higher quality of everything and so you can’t tell me this is not true. And besides we all know better.
So true you re probably correct but PS CS 4 is very solid, very versatile and offers features that will save the user time even if it might appear not to be so.
When I was first shown this application and the improvements I said to myselfÂ…What theÂ…but then sat down and played with it for a while and was amazed that I like it and it was naturally easier for me to use these features.
Now remember MO I am very sensitive so be careful about how you respond. 8)
Wade – Unless you sit in my chair and SEE almost every possible situation with respect to how people build files and how people’s skill sets or lack of them AND the feverish pace at which things break EVERY time a new release happens, then you have no place to tell me what is and what is not correct. Age has nothing to do with it, it has everything to do with life expericnece and what you are exposed to.
I am a very opened minded person and do study a lot as well as formulate workflows to circumvent the retardness that is either created by the application or user or both.
So unless you are ready to go head to head with me go and have a seat and wait for the results.
No matter how experienced you may be, or how solid the appropriate applications may be, we still have to deal with clients who range in ability from extremely savvy to clueless.
It’s been said many times before, but it still holds true: "’Foolproof’ underestimates the dedication of fools."
"’Foolproof’ underestimates the dedication of fools."
I like it.
I am pretty good at dealing with many people with many different opinions at one time on the same project or projects. I can keep track of some pretty foolish stuff and still make it right but as you know and I know even the best are no match for the dedicated fool.
How ever I am game, but right now I am very busy and often traveling to Europe but perhaps in the winter.
How do you like this I often have to go to ParisÂ…you’re right it is a dirty job but someone has to do it. And now maybe Milan!
Put your words where your big mouth is – laughing out loud.
I dare you to endorse me and get me into the Alpha play pen. Let see who is closed minded Jeff. Prove to me that I am wrong in what I have been saying for 10 plus years when it comes to workflows and peoples habits and how screwed up things are.
How big are your balls Jeff?
as Bon Scott always said – he’s got the biggest balls of them all.
I dare you to endorse me and get me into the Alpha play pen.
I’m not sure that your mouth would serve you well in the alpha environment…you need to have the ability to explain to engineers, WHY something should be a certain way…simply yelling in a loud voice or telling them "you would do this if you had the balls" won’t get you very far.
I’m pretty sure your point of view is clouded by all the crap you been forced to deal with over the years…and while Adobe and Photoshop does try to make working with the various apps BETTER, I’m also pretty sure there’s no way to make them idiot-proof unless they change the entire nature of the industry and make getting a license to Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign more difficult and requiring a test to pass (kinda like the Secretary of State motor vehicle licensing requiring passing a driving test to get a license).
Kinda hard to do with software…(would be fun to watch the tests though :~).
Why Jeff, you do know something about how a mouth can or can’t serve someone well. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
So Mike why don’t you just come out a spell it out all your concerns about how Adobe doesn’t get it. I’ve been reading your posts off and on for the past six years on this subject and each time I keep coming back hoping for a detailed explanation or solution, I get Bupkis.
Since I got out of prepress ten years ago, you’ve been the guy in the so called prepress trenches that I hoped would enlighten all us prepress cowards on how it should all work.
I use Bridge infrequently at work. When I do use it, it’s for cataloging or POD’s for the closing of a job.
At home it’s much different where as I’m organizing images for my personal photography.
Basically two different environments for two different purposes.
Tim –
I HAVE spelled out some of what needs to happen in Andrew Rodney’s Color Management for Photographers book, but that is old data at this point. Some of it is still valid, but it’s 2 or 3 releases old. Just like anything that is of worth, concepts and ideas evolve as well as trying to come up with a better solution to capture a wider range of users and users habits, good and bad. I have given out information on how to go about making things better. I have spewed ideas all over these forms for so long, I’m sick of hearing myself talk to be honest and am just about ready to throw in the towel.
I don’t know anyone who has put forth as much energy as I to convey how screwed up things are and what needs to be changed to better all user experiences. I don’t know anyone else who has put forth as much energy as I to eliminate their own job. If that is not dedication to making things better, I don’t know what is…
Search for my name and read into the sunset until you turn blue.
And Jeff –
Yelling and screaming to get a point across is only the catalyst to awareness and not the message of intent nor is it the correct approach to solving and discussing issues. Showing people that have the ability for change is often difficult due to their perspective and life experiences. YELLING gives importance to the issues Jeff. YELLING is not the solution, talking is. Apparently Adobe employees have problems speaking to the public in this forum – unless it’s behind a pseudo name or when a release is made. Pretty sad ideology in my book.
General users – most of which is Adobe’s client base, don’t see their errors because they are just addressed as they come up when the work is out of their hands and they really don’t see what went wrong until after the fact. At that point, they usually put forth little effort to understand and correct their process and therefor these issues go un notice and never are really divulged to the people that need to see what went wrong. Furthermore, by Adobe not cleaning up the glitches in specific workflows that go unreported due to the above observation only compounds the problems with every release of new features. A lot of things that I bitch about seem to not be a priority and this is because the people such as me just deal with them. This is why the yelling started in the first place… If you can’t see the problem, maybe a voice pounding on you will…or not.. Point is, something had to be done.
I don’t know how many times I get asked every month for the TIL layer adjustment tool that the print environment uses to put a file back together or to repurpose it for some other output. The ability in CS4 to have device links will help, but it’s still a band aid approach to trying to address the bigger problems. Yes, Jeff, Adobe needs to think in global organizational terms and not patch fixes. Patch fixes are useful, but solving the workflow problems is a far greater calling that is needed.
Printing is such a small problem to the big picture that I speak of.
Everyone needs ONE default RGB working space that preserves the color appearance when an imported file is inserted into the working space of another document. This is a far greater problem that creates a lot of wasted time and money. The workflow needs to change Jeff. People don’t give a shit about color manglement until it bites them in the ass and even then, the mistakes still re occur. Expecting the user to educate themselves has proven to be a noble concept that was trumped by industry professionals. I just sat back and just laughed at that idea because I knew it would fall flat on its face. I knew long ago that the graphics industry needed smarter software so I went about putting forth a lot of energy to come up with a better way of addressing a wide range of user abilities in a multi user environment. I think I got it Jeff.
And no, I don’t think my vision is clouded by all the crap that I deal with. Actually it has helped me have a broad understanding of what needs to change.
You were not addressing me but let me ask you another question or two or three.
But before I do this we are on the same page about color management. sells a lot of books.
So here is the first question.
Most users know not much about color management as you suggest including professionals so say one created a color work flow wizard that ran automatically and at each stage it asked if they saw a match between certain known elements do you think that there is a way that those known elements can be established?
If so do you think without a calibrator that one can then define a known set of corrections to correct that so the viewer can easily see which adjustment work even taking into consideration ambient light?
The final question is if this was possible and it worked do you think that if it were 85% effective that would be acceptable, 90% effective as acceptable or 95% effective as acceptable that such a wizard was a worthwhile feature for the prepress so as they could talk back to the clients in a way that their clients did not feel like idiots.
One more question if there were in connection to this wizard a preview equivalent to a viewing table and it worked do you think most of your clients could or would be able to understand the purpose of such a feature?
I ask the questions as i think I want to make a feature request which I think is long over due. I think the user professional or novice should be able to hand a repress person something that is reasonable good condition so as not be totally messed up and that the prepress specialist can easily correct the small differences required for a successful out put.
I agree with you there should be a standard RGB and on out put that rgb would be adjust according to the intended use that the document would then control the display without effecting the file in such a way as to change the output intent.
What we have now is better but still a bit of a mess.
In general, I don’t think a wizard workflow is the solution for the simple reason that it adds an additional step for the consumer to deal with. Good design is one that is transparent and effective. Forcing the user to walk them through a series of steps to assure something is just irritating and I feel it shall be snubbed at.
Good color management workflows will aid the novice in following a path of success as well as give the flexibility to a power user to explore and modify if need be. It’s a tall order and it can be filled with the correct implementation. I just don’t think having another knob on your joy stick is the solution, but I am willing to listen to your ideas.
YELLING is not the solution, talking is. Apparently Adobe employees have problems speaking to the public in this forum – unless it’s behind a pseudo name or when a release is made. Pretty sad ideology in my book.
No, the "public" has a hard time dealing with the engineers–you know as well as I do that the Photoshop engineers are not "normal people" and don’t take "crap" all that well so they tend to be very careful in these forums. You can blame the forum members more than the engineers for that. And, as I recall, you aren’t all that far from San Jose…ever do a road trip? As for talking with Chris (who would be the person to talk to) you’ve got his email in his forum profile…what’s holding you back? You’re not shy are you?
Yes, Jeff. I have taken a road trip to San Jose and have been waiting for an additional 3 years to see if anything comes about. Well, nada… I am the one offering informative change and insite. Why do I have to break my back for someone to contact me? I expressed desire and it was like a fart in the wind. You tell me what’s going on… What’s in it for me? I’m the one that is giving…
Normal is a subjective and an objective term. I have yet to meet anyone normal in life. It kind of keeps things interesting, but yes, people have a difficult time conveying their intentions and ideas at times. Clear speak is often difficult for most and engineers don’t have a lot of time to waste, but talking things out helps feed ideas on what can and can’t be created for whatever reason.
But if users don’t know what the concepts are 2 or 3 versions down the road – and by having the engineers EXPLAIN their logic in WHY they are doing such things would only help them in getting the users to communicate better. From my experience and beta testing, it’s alot of one way communication with little affirmation of right or wrong. I almost call it lazy on Adobe’s part…To me, that in itself is broken logic.
Is Chris the only person that speaks? Seems kind of strange to me…
I am the one offering informative change and insite. Why do I have to break my back for someone to contact me? I expressed desire and it was like a fart in the wind. You tell me what’s going on… What’s in it for me? I’m the one that is giving…
Your attitude? If you want to help, help…do whatever it takes to get your point of view across. That’s what being an alpha tester is all about.
3 years ago? Your timing was terrible…they were in the middle of of the Macromedia takeover, then tied up with a major friggin’ effort to figure out to compile something with 4 million lines+ of code on a crappy compiler and now would be a REAL GOOD TIME to do a followup…instead of moping around thinking they are ignoring you–which they are because you simply have not done enough–what, you’re waiting for an engraved invitation? If you want change, bring about change. But it’s up to you to drive it…nobody is gonna "hand" you anything (you know that bud).
Is Chris the only person that speaks? Seems kind of strange to me…
No…you could try talking to Thomas Knoll (who did most of the post Photoshop 5 color management) but I suspect the trip to Ann Arbor would be a bit more difficult (not to mention Thomas is otherwise engafed). No, if you want to have an impact, you really need to get Chris onboard. He really does understand this stuff (not all the engineers do). You know where he is…at the moment, he’s even got enough time to hang around in the forums for a bit. Make your case (again if need be).
As for taking trips to San Jose, heck, I’ve been there 20 times in the last three years (and I live in Chicago). I would say you haven’t tried hard enough…
Can you just bring us up to date by explaining one of the biggest gripes you have with the way things are with Adobe products besides integrating client submitted problem files with current workflows?
In similar discussions the subject gets talked around about with no specifics like the MacGuffin in a Hitchcock movie.
Workflows can vary from simple concepts to full blown ideologies so I kind of need to know in what specific terms are you asking about? What subject specifically?
I need your help Jeff. Really. I ask that of you. Bruce helped. Andrew helped. Can I count on you? Besides that. You need something to write about for the next 12 years.
Not really. Until I have an NDA if that even happens, I can pretty much talk about whatever I feel like.
The biggest issue in all of this mess is having a way to cross check what someone else did to files or for a single user to know for themselves what they did. I don’t know how many times I ask people – can you supply the original capture? No we can’t. The files came from an ad agency in New York and they have been edited by the Photographer for some reason. Or, they have been converted a few times already for some other output, but here are the files we have – just deal with it…
Adobe needs to build a more reliable way for users repurpose files with greater success. I propose one RGB working space to start off with – minor changes to the existing architecture. We need to ease the change in and not force fit fixes.
Implementing the other modules for CMYK device independence is going to be a much more difficult quest.
Color space standardization and logging of the workflow would benefit folks from file creation through production and print. Good luck in making some inroads here!
Well at least Prophoto 16 bit but we actually need a much wider uniform space for future development. We need a working color space that can capture the inkjet gamut. I know there has been talks internally at Adobe for a one color space provision, but has not come about because people can’t agree on what space to use.
So to answer your question, the space has not been developed yet.
What the heck can a "pro" photographer do to an image that creates problems on your end?
I mean everyone, even hobbyists, know by now what an image should look like on a calibrated display. There’s no mystery in this. What kind of screw up can a photographer edit into an image even he should know doesn’t look right on his calibrated display?
Can you post a sample image showing these screw ups that require you to know what the photographer did upstream in order for you to fix them on your end?
What kind of screw up can a photographer edit into an image even he should know doesn’t look right on his calibrated display?
I can give one answer that’s quite common – the photographer converted the image to CMYK. Because he/she was told by the ad agency that that’s what the printer requires. Then the ad agency did some "colour correction" and hands it off to the printer, who says "this is crap and will never print well," and they have to have their in-house prepress (or outside source), to wrestle with a final CMYK image with reversed shadow areas and a gradient that’s banding, that you can’t easily select to fix because they threw type with a drop shadow on top, and the image has been flattened, and there’s no time to call up the client for the original layered file because by the time they are contacted and retrieve it from their archives it will be too late, and besides, the salesman doesn’t want the client to know that there’s any problems with the job so they never even bother to call the client anyway. All of this lost time, productivity and possibly crap end product because of a lack of process control from the outset.
It’s not necessarily what they have done intentionally to make my life more difficult. A lot of times in the design cycle of a project, things change course and sometimes dramatically. If a file has been worked up for a specific output and you need to repurpose that image for some other need, then you have only a few choices if you are so lucky and not much is guaranteed.
Some Examples:
You are lucky to start with the original RAW, ACR or high res TIFF. If not, you will be somewhat lucky to have a good RGB file that you know for sure is the correct color space that the ICC tag is telling you. Lesser then great would be an untagged RGB image whereas you have to guess what color space represents the actual data in the image the best. The worst case situation is being handed CMYK files that have been smashed for some custom press output and you need to make fine art Epson prints as one example….ugh…
What I am trying to propose here is a better way to back track the files history to TRY and make better images for all. And it’s not just me that can do it, it’s everyone involved in graphics.
Tim –
You assume far too much when it comes to users and their habits. Hey, I myself am guilty of screwing up jobs. I make mistakes. I am human and not perfect. I need the ability to know where I or someone else has made a mistake so we can fix it. This is not color science guys, this is common sense.
You assume that the person handling the files is competent to do so. You assume that a photog’s’ monitor is calibrated. You assume they have the ware with all to tag the image with a color profile. Heck, some selfish people purposely remove the ICC tags as some kind of self serving worth to try and control the images. There are all kinds out there in this World Tim.
And this is just a small fraction of the workflow. We have not even discussed PDF issues yet. File process control is a HUGE problem.
The software has to become smarter for many reasons, most of all it’s because we are human and make mistakes. A lot of times now days, I see more and more unqualified people in charge of decisions that have no business making decisions due to their job requirements. You assume that everyone has some general understanding on how things work in the geeky world we cherish.
So it’s the same ol’ shit that’s been goin’ on even before digital workflows. I thought it would’ve improved by now, but if even high end guys as yourselves are having these kind of issues, I guess I got out at the right time.
I couldn’t hack it even doing low end stuff in mom and pop operations cuz it’s just too much complexity to keep in my head on top of everything else you have to deal with including personality conflicts and politics with salesman and other less knowledgeable prepress coworkers.
Maybe a license having anything to do with computers including handing off image files SHOULD be required because common sense isn’t enough to qualify anyone even now.
My question is how is Adobe going to come up with a software solution that anticipates and corrects for human error? That’s going to take quite a bit of late night round table sessions coming up with a real and useable solution for something that complex. And who’s liable if it doesn’t work or makes things even worse if not more complicated?
It’s about time Adobe tries process control at the file stage to assist users in higher file reliability and integrity. I totally have a up hill battle from here…
Couldn’t Adobe come up with a way to record and embed all edits performed on an image be it a raw file, a scanned tiff or manipulated jpeg within the file itself and prevent such data from being erased or stripped? That way no matter how it’s copied, edited or transferred to different media at least the number and severity of pixel changes is known about the image and communicated as one file.
Or maybe find a way to compress the original untouched pixel data associated with any digital image no matter if and how it’s converted from one compressed format to the other including preservation of original layers ( compressed as well? ) if need to keep the file size down?
I like the Idea of keeping an unedited version of the file in the file. that would stay RGB even if the the file was converted to CMYK. That way even the newbies who save over their files would be protected.
What good would it do if you had a history of the state of the file without some way to getting it back to that capture state?
Well, Smart objects can retain the source of an image as well as destination. Having the ability to flattened Smart Objects is a HUGE issue along with the functionality of said ideology of SO’s.
Not my favorite flavor of implementation, but I need to work within what is already developed at this point.
Couldn’t Adobe come up with a way to record and embed all edits performed on an image be it a raw file, a scanned tiff or manipulated jpeg within the file itself and prevent such data from being erased or stripped?
You can already do that…turn in History logging in Photoshop’s preferences and "embed". The the history follows everywhere the file goes. Course, some left-wing privacy pundents would freak out because everything done to the file would be visible in the metadata. So, Adobe has it off, by default.
MO is hoping for a "magic bullet" which will never happen…sure, Photoshop COULD be made to NEVER strip out an RGB profile and FORCE Photoshop to respect (use) the embedded profile. Photoshop COULD force a specific workflow on its users…and while it certainly could mitigate some idiotic moves that some people make…but the fact is that there is nothing Adobe can do to keep people from doing idiotic actions.
The fact is that what we need is for the graphic arts industry (and the design industry) to actually be educated. Part of that education is for companies to just say no. No, you can’t take a web graphic from a web site and turn it into a friggin’ poster. No, you can’t take a low wage worker with MSFT Publisher or Word make company brochures and have a commercial printer make anything useful out of it.
Graphic art and design is much harder to do well than most graphic artists and designers can possible understand because they are under the delusion that this stuff is "easy".
Sure, Adobe is at fault for trying to make it seem like this stuff is easy…but that’s not the responsibility of the engineers. Nor is it the fault of Photoshop…which is a really big, complicated application and very hard to learn how to use well.
Me asking Adobe to not strip out the tag from an image is just as idiotic as you asking for people to become educated Jeff.
I’m not asking for a magic bullet. Im asking for a higher degree of reliability. I’m not unrealistic in my requests.
If you pull the tag out – there is nothing I or you can do about it. But if you had the ability to undo a color space conversion, the tag quite possibly may be moot and this is my point.
….and asking people to just say no to bad files and stupid people – you will be out of business soon…
Mo and Jeff – You’re both right. Better education and better files.
I don’t think Mo is asking for a magic bullet, because it will never happen. You can’t prevent an idiot from slamming his hand in the door.
But I can imagine a file format that would allow a savvy practitioner to go back to the beginning; back to the original mondo-mega RGB color space from which all others spring (or are "tweened" as Mo likes to say.) Look at the DNG format – it allows you to embed the original non-DNG RAW file plus all the metadata you want in one neat package. How much of a leap is it from there?
but the word tweening is a term used for translating from a device intependant CMYK color space into the final destination output space. Different topic.
This is a very complex subject and there a 2 if not 3 schools of thought on how to address the CMYK issues. In general, it’s an idea that is geared towards repurposing and editing images that are actually RGB but reference a synth CMYK color space. Then tweened for output. It’s a lot to swallow…
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