NAPP | Page 2 | A.J. Wood

March 26, 2009 by A.J. Wood

Quick Links – Thursday

It’s late (or early) so I’ll just throw out some links for you to visit:

NAPP – You should already be a member if you have any interest in Photoshop. Really. Other people who know Photoshop will heckle you if you’re not a member. They’ll be like, “There goes that person who thinks they know more than Scott Kelby AND all his friends.”

Why NAPP? Why now? Well, yesterday NAPP members got access to an exclusive Watermark panel that can be downloaded for CS4. That alone is worth the $99 membership fee for some folks. So go join. Now.

Wacom introduces the Intuos4. This was all the buzz yesterday during the Photoshop World keynote, maybe due to a few folks winning the tablet. Brought to you by the leaders in pen tablet tech, it’s worth a look.

AppStorm – I have Erik to thank for pointing out this website. For new & experienced Mac users, here’s a place to go to find app reviews. Sure there are more apps for Windows, but I’m starting to focus on quality in my computing experience not quantity.

Alright, I’m out. A bit of sleep before the day really kicks off.

March 11, 2009 by A.J. Wood

Quick Links Wednesday

Morning all. It’s a light blog week. Need to think about getting me some guest bloggers over here, drum up some interest. Here are some links from around the interwebs:

NAPP Twitter Folks – @mitzs put together a list of about 112 NAPP members who also use Twitter. Just another way for you Photoshop enthusiasts to connect.

50 Tips for Frugal Living – with all the doom & gloom in the economic forecasts, you might consider reigning in some of those frivolous expenses.

17 Gmail Tools – if you live in Gmail (and who doesn’t these days?) then you might already be familiar with some of these apps.

Pixelmator – if Pixlr wasn’t enough for you last week, or if you want an offline app, you might give this image editor a spin. Mac OSX only.

Periodic Table of Adobe Shortcuts – I had to use Firefox zoom to get a good look at these. Certainly wouldn’t mind a larger image size.

Viveza for Lightroom Review – Matt Kloskowski gives a quick review of Nik Software’s Viveza plugin now available for Lightroom.

November 19, 2008 by A.J. Wood

Linky Love aka Social Net 2.0

Dear readers, I’m posting a blog entry for the second night in a row. OMG! WTF! CYFBLI? Before we begin, let me just say that I’ve already thought about the conversation with my daughter, you know, the one where I tell her she shouldn’t text the Lord’s name in vain. Wait for it…

OK.

Yesterday I threw up a post about the Bloggers I linked to in a previous domain. Today, I’m throwin’ up some mad links for new folks. In no particular order, here goes some link love:

Bernskiold Media – I have a feeling that if I had any idea what I was doing when I was younger, I would have been Erik. His website easily surpasses anything I ever did with Azarok.com, and it’s much more relevant to the times. Make his blog a daily read, and buy his photographs.

Design by Firgs – This site is a few days old, in its infancy and already has 119 subscribers. That tells you something about the power of Twitter, and the appeal of content. And really, who doesn’t love free stuff for Photoshop? You better hurry up and comment before she starts chargin’ for the party.

Pursuing Photoshop – Mitzs reminds me why I love teaching Photoshop so much. No matter how many times I demonstrate the same features over AND over again, for beginners each lesson is a creative discovery. Tell me Mitzs, do I dazzle you?

Janinealogy – Just discovered the blog via Twitter, but I’ve seen Janine’s work at Landailyn R&R. Just across the way in Ft. Worth, I’m always happy to promote local Photoshop services around the metroplex.

Sage Family Studios – Lisa just hopped on Twitter today, which is groovy because more people need to know about her excellent portfolio.

If you checkout the Photoshop User website you can see the NAPP Portfolios of Erik, Firgs, Mitzs, Janine & Lisa. You’re sure to be impressed, and certainly inspired.

UPDATE – I missed a couple of sites. Color Me Badd. That’s what happens when I blog two nights in a row.

My Home Sweet Home – I missed Dawn at Photoshop World this past September, which was funny given she was twittering about the event just like me. Dawn recently debuted her first screencast on her blog. Be sure to check it out and give her some feedback.

Antique Mommy – Dawn’s friend Tina writes some good stuff on her blog, and I was especially fond of her Bailout entries. This is a blog I read, and hope to read more often.

in Adobe / Arts/Media 4 comments

September 7, 2008 by A.J. Wood

Photoshop World 2008 Recap

Recovering today from the event that was Photoshop World 2008. Arrived home in the late evening (due to time change), and a week of no sleep has finally caught up to me. This was my fourth time out to PSW, and it never fails to be a worthwhile experience. Some highlights from my trip:

Just met a ton of people, including Twitter peeps Nancy, LeAnn, Dorothy & Jeff. This was really the best part of the trip for me. Not only did I make new business contacts, I had a great time with folks sharing our interests in photography and Photoshop.
I won a copy of the CS3 Master Collection my first day at the pre-conference. (This would ultimately doom me the next day)
I was a Photoshop Guru Award top three finalist in the Photo Restoration category. (I would have gladly traded out my CS3 prize for the Guru award)
I had a chance to chat with Scott Kelby, and had him sign his book for a friend back here in Dallas.
Afterparty at the House of Blues. Probably the largest showing I have seen this particular event. The club was packed, standing room only. I posted a Flickr photostream of Scott Kelby and the band.
Tweeting live from the event. I didn’t get as much posting done as I had planned, but a few folks commented on tweets. I’ll have a better plan of attack for next time.

You can click the thumbnails to see the TwitPics.

NAPP reminds me of the employee culture at Southwest Airlines. I’ve yet to meet a NAPP member or employee who doesn’t think the world of the organization. That’s truly a testament to the company that Scott Kelby has built. Twice a year they put on this conference, and it only gets better. If I would have changed anything it would have been some cooler announcements from Adobe, Canon or Nikon. Really, with a captive audience of 3000+, I expected some insider info, not confirmation of rumors learned two months ago.

The only regret I have is I didn’t take any pictures after the House of Blues event. There I was with my new iPhone, twitpicking away, and not once did I grab a photo of the cool peeps I met at the conference. Oh well, next time…

in Adobe / Events 4 comments

August 28, 2008 by A.J. Wood

Dallas Photo Walk Winner

I’m sure many of the city leaders will blog the same opinion, but to say choosing a city photo walk winner was difficult is an understatement.

I hope to NEVER choose a winning photo ALL BY MYSELF ever again. There were a number of excellent photos, and it was not an easy decision to pick just one. Truly, it was not. Picking winner = Not fun. There were over 450 total photos that I went through, and I could have easily made a tie between several (if that were a choice).

At exactly 11:55PM after spending most of my day, and all evening wrestling with a decision, the winning photo came from Bradley Atchison.

If you’re looking for a great way to view a lot of photos on Flickr or any photo site, I highly recommend Cool Iris, a web browser plugin for Firefox. http://www.cooliris.com/ Not only does it render images beautifully (the upsizing of small photos is amazing), it has an image search function. I was able to pull in all 450 photos, without needing to navigate 20+ web pages.

UPDATE Aug 31, 2008 – Scott Kelby posted his choice for the Grand Prize Winner. You can also view all the city winners on the Photo Walk site.

in Adobe / Events 0 comments