Tip Tuesday – 08/10/2010

Time for another Tip Tuesday! It’s all about image sharpening, and the improvements made to Lightroom 3 & Adobe Camera RAW 6. Check it out:

UPDATE 08/12/2010 – I’ve been getting some questions about sharpening in Lightroom vs sharpening in Photoshop. There is an excellent article over at Brett Edge Photography where Nat Coalson details the differences between “capture sharpening” & “output sharpening”.

Adobe Software Updates – Illustrator CS5 15.0.1

Adobe released an update to Illustrator CS5 which addresses several known issues – Download Mac Update or Download PC Update

Be sure to visit Adobe’s website for a complete list of all available software updates.

As listed in the Illustrator CS5 Read Me file:

Problems specific to running Illustrator on Mac with RAM exceeding 4 gb.
This update resolves a problem Illustrator had running on high Ram Machines. On some systems, after opening large complex files, certain operations would fail. This could range from shortcut keys no longer working, rulers disappearing, files not opening, to in some cases, application crashes.

Glyphs panel failing to insert stylistic alternatives for glyphs.
This update includes a repair to the Glyphs panel, which was failing to insert stylistic alternates. The panel now works as expected.

Crash caused by fonts with bad FOND resource file. (Mac only)
This update fixes a problem where problem fonts with bad FOND resources could cause the application to crash at launch.

Illustrator crashes at launch with some non-default system preferences (Mac Only)
When some system preferences, like “Number Thousand Separators” were changed to non-default settings, Illustrator was crashing when launched. This no longer occurs with this update.

Illustrator Crashes when the application is quit immediately after launch (Windows only)
This release resolves a crash that occurs if the application is closed immediately after launching, before the application bar is fully loaded.

Illustrator crashes on Quit immediately after signing into or signing out of CS Live or CS Review (Mac only)
Several Mac only issues regarding services were addressed in this update. Crashes could occur when you either sign-in or sign-out of CS Live or CS Review and Quit Ai immediately, while the sign-in/sign-out process is still underway.

Copy from Illustrator and Paste Special as EMF into other applications not working.
There was a problem where copying within Illustrator, then pasting special as EMF in other applications, such as PowerPoint or Excel, stopped working. This has been resolved with this update.

Horizontal Lines appear on gradient mesh objects after rasterization.
During rasterization, either from the Object>Rasterize menu, saving to a raster format or printing to a bitmap printer, horizontal lines could appear on objects. There were many scenarios where this was an issue. Most of these issues have been addressed in this update.

Illustrator crashes when traversing a Dataset of a Variables Library which contains linked images.
After importing a Variable library with linked images, traversing through the dataset was causing Illustrator to crash. This has been addressed in this update.

Illustrator crashes when launched on XP SP3 if automatic scheduled task creation is disabled.
Illustrator was crashing at launch on XP machines with Service Pack 3 for specific domain configurations if automatic scheduled task creation is disabled. This has been resolved in this update.

Be sure to visit Adobe’s website for a complete list of all available software updates.

RAW vs JPEG – Practical Use for Designers & Photographers

Last week Firgs opened up her Designer Roundtable discussion with the topic RAW vs JPEG and whether it matters to designers. I responded in the comments that designers could simply use the JPEG provided to them or take advantage of what RAW has to offer for more creative post-processing.  She followed up with a question about practical things designers need to know about using RAW vs JPEG. With that here are my Top Five Things to know about RAW vs JPEG:

1. White Balance.
When using Adobe Camera RAW or Lightroom, you have the ability to change the image white balance without affecting image quality. In fact, the white balance settings will reflect the available features in camera, e.g., Daylight, Fluorescent, Tungsten, Flash, etc. You can also choose “As Shot” or let the program Auto white balance. When creating a custom white balance you can read & adjust the color temperature of the RAW file.

When using a JPEG file  you can adjust white balance, but it’s not the same as changing the settings. Adobe Camera RAW & Lightroom only give you three choices–Auto, As Shot or Custom. When creating a custom white balance setting you make a +/- adjustment without seeing the color temperature.

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