In November, Adobe announced that CS3 and CS4 users would not be able to upgrade to CS6 at a discounted rate. Because of the uproar by customers, Adobe has now changed its stance on their upgrade policy.
… we’re pleased to announce that we will offer special introductory upgrade pricing on Creative Suite 6 to customers who own CS3 or CS4. This offer will be available from the time CS6 is released until December 31, 2012.
For many, including myself, the extended offer will save a lot of money and ease some of the tension. CS6 is expected to release the first half of 2012. I would expect it to release the 2nd quarter of 2012 since Adobe is offering 20% off upgrades to CS5 until March 15th.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this particular line of cameras by Canon, they sit just between the Point-and-Shoot and the DSLR camera range. The new G1X boasts an image sensor almost as large as some DSLR cameras at ~1.5″ (18.7 x 14mm), a 3″ rear swivel screen, up to 9x more light sensitivity than previous models, and over 14 megapixels. With the G1X now housing Canons DIGIC 5 processor, canon says users will be able to shoot with higher speeds in lower light at higher resolutions than ever before in a point-and-shoot. With ISO speeds up to 12800 for awesome low light performance, f/2.8 aperture that allows a shallow depth of field, full HD 1080p video recording and 14-bit RAW support, this camera is starting to look more like a DSLR than a point-and-shoot. So if you’re looking for more power from your camera but don’t want the cost or size of a DSLR, this may be the camera for you.
Although there are many people that are color blind, but does everyone else see colors the same way? The BBC created a tv program called “Do You See What I See?” in search of an answer. The results of the experiments are quite surprising.
In the episode, they tested Himba people in Namibia and found they could quickly pick the color that is different than the others in the circle below. On the flip side, it took them much longer to pick out a blue square surrounded by green squares.
As many have heard, Adobe changed their pricing on upgrades for CS6 when it is released in a few months. Users will not be allowed to upgrade to CS6 at a discounted price from anything except CS5. If you have Photoshop CS4 or lower, you will not be able to buy the upgrade to CS6 at a discounted price and instead will have to pay full price for CS6. Adobe has added 20% off all upgrades to CS5 until 12/31/11.
Note: when looking at the terms for the upgrade 20% off, it says that the standalone packages discount expires 12/31/11 but the discount on the Suites (Master Collection, Web Premium, etc) will run until 3/15/12 which could change without notice.
If you have a standalone Photoshop and will want to upgrade to CS6, it is probably cheaper to upgrade to CS5 now for the discounted price then upgrade to CS6 instead of paying the $699 for a new CS6.
Most people are not aware that there is an underground facility in Pennsylvania that is home to over 15 million original negatives and photos. The facility is owned by Corbis, Bill Gates’ imaging licensing company. CBS recently took a tour of the maximum security cold storage facility and it is an interesting video.
Plug-ins are the name of the game for those that do not like to spend hours in front of a computer editing photos, or do not have the ability to adjust photos like they want. One of the most common names out there is Topaz Labs and they have released the plug-in Adjust 5.
NEW Adjust 5 Highlights
* 107 new presets for an even faster and more creative workflow.
* Edge-aware selective brush used to dodge, burn, smooth and brush out effects.
* Ability to stack presets and effects via the new “Apply” button.
* Transparency Slider which controls overall strength of applied effects.
* Preset Collections which organizes default presets; includes a user collection.
* Integration of the new histogram and curve tools.
* Finishing Touches Tab with tools for diffusion, grain, borders, vignettes, tone adjustments and more.
For current users, the upgrade is free and to buy the stand alone plug-in it is $35 until the end of the month with coupon code “adjustme”. For more information and a 30 day free trial, visit Topaz Labs.
The U.S. Department of Energy has approved funding for a 3.2 gigapixel camera. The camera will be installed at the $500 million Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project in northern Chile. To achieve the 3.2 gigapixels, it will be comprised of 189 CCD sensors that are sensitive to ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light.
Each night, the LSST will take more than 800 wide-field 15-second exposures, each covering 49 times more sky area than the moon. It will photograph the entire visible sky twice a week. Although it will weigh 650 tons (including 60 tons of optical components), the LSST will be nimble enough to move between its image-aiming points in just five seconds.
Each night the LSST will produce more than 15 TB of raw astronomical data. Over its 10-year operating lifetime, the LSST will produce the world’s largest public data set: a 22-petabyte database catalog and a 100-PB image archive.
It will be quite interesting to see the images that this massive telescope will produce.
