If you just downloaded Lightroom from my post last week, apologies, but Adobe just released version 4.1 of the software and it’s ready for download now. No new features that I can see only bug fixes. A list of the bugs fixed can be found here if you’re so inclined 
If you’re looking for more ways to extend your photoshop (or any other Adobe product) then you’ll find some really quite useful stuff at the Adobe Exchange. This might look familiar to anyone who used to use Macromedia products; Macromedia used to have a site called exchange where users and companies used to exchange plugins and all sorts with each other. I’m figuring since Adobe purchased the Macromedia companies that this is the same deal rehashed for Adobe products.  Anyway, lots of good stuff, go dig around see what you can find!!
I’ve finally got around to putting my concert and gig images up online. There’s not many there yet, but I’m adding more as time allows, it’s a slow process, so let’s hope I can keep up with the pace that I generate new images over the coming months. I have a few interesting gigs and concerts lined up for the new year already, as always I’ll keep everyone posted. In the meantime I’d love feedback on the stuff that’s already there, as always constructive critique is always appreciated.
This weeks Photoshop TV Episode 51 just posted. Just remember, if you snooze, you lose, publication of this weeks episode means that all of last weeks yummy goodness isn’t avaialble now unless you buy it. On this weeks show (lazily pasted from the site)
There it is in all its glory .. Go get some
Just a quick Sunday post. For those of you looking to increase your Adobe skills, Adobe publishes a PDF e-zine called Adobe Proxy. It has article, tutorials,etc well worth taking a look at.
Every year the British Journal of Photography holds an even, this year Vision 2006 is held on Friday 10th November between 10am and 5pm at The Bridge, Weston Street, London SE1. They have a bunch of stuff going on, seminars and tutuorials, lectures, etc. But one of the more interesting things for me at this event is the ability to get your portfolio reviewed by some highly regarded Pro’s at the top of their game. Also Present, Anders Petersen - a famous Swedish photographer comes to London apparently for the first time in 25 years (which is odd considering how cheap air travel is these days 
). Brian Griffin - Britains leading (according to the BJP) portrait photographer talks about his surrealist approach behind his style, and lastly Fabrica.
Entry is £8 and portfolio review is £2 per portfolio. Don’t forget, if you get your portfolio reviewed and the feedback isn’t good, doesn’t mean it’s a bad portfolio, nor does it mean you’re a bad photographer, you’re simply asking someone to give their subjective opinion on a body of your work (of course the converse is also true!)
If you can make it, it’s probably with a look.
P.S. I forgot to mention, one of the event’s major sponsors is Venture photography and judging from their latest campaigns they’re on a big recruitment drive right now, which may or may not affect your decision to go.
Just got an email because I promised I’d point someone at some Photoshop Actions but haven’t gotten around to sorting it out yet, so, here it is. Photoshop Actions are essentially a way to automate processes in photoshop, the most common reasons for wanting to do this are speed, simplicity or regularity. If you’re applying the same actions to images day after day as a part of your workflow, it makes sense to automate the task, and if you’re using it really frequently assign the action to a key combination.
A great place to start, and a great place to find some “free” photoshop actions is at ActionCentral - The Photoshop Action Exchange which is a fantastic site but can be a little bewildering at the sheer numbers of actions available. Be aware that there are many crap actions mixed in with the gems that can be found, and I can’t even begin to say which actions are great for other peoples workflow. But take a while to look around and be selective, a few well chosen actions that are easy to access are far better than a thousand rubbish actions that confuse. Take a few seconds to look at one of my favourites “Kent’s B&W Selective Color 4.0” which is a fantastic B&W converter. There are some great tutorials on the site too
It’s also worth taking time, once you’ve found a good set of actions to take some time picking them apart, and really understanding what goes on behind that magical click of the mouse, it’ll help you understand photoshop in a far better way than simply relying on others.
Lastly, for the Apple users amongst you, there is another site called “Complete Digital Photography” run by a guy called Ben Long, he goes to a great deal of effort combining photoshop actions along with Apple’s OS X Automater, to produce so truely fantastic workflow management options. The actual Photoshop Action Pack can be found here, which is currently at version 3.0 at the time of this post.
Both of the sites rely on donations, so if you’re making money from your work and use these sites or their actions on a regular basis, please take some time to recognise these guys for their hard work and knowledge, give em a donation, which will help to ensure that their fantastic work continues. There ends my sermon!
OK, this isn’t really new news, since it’s been around for nearly a week now, but for those of you that weren’t aware, Adobe has released the latest beta of this wonderful software. Now if you don’t already have a DAM (Digital Asset Management) soution, you could do worse than to check this out. Additionally it allows you to work on RAW files in a similar way to Photoshop RAW, but in a non destructive way. Interface looks cool and the program is pretty quick.
If you don’t already have a solution give it a whirl.
Photoshop TV has been updated (October 9th) this weeks show is about 45 minutes, and topics include:
Don’t forget these shows are only available for 1 week, until the new episode is released, after that they’ll cost you $2 from the shows online store.
I have several friends / acquaintances / colleagues, who regularly get emails from me about new worthwhile resources I find related to photography, and I figured rather than send out a bunch of emails regularly, as I find these useful links and resources I’d update the blog. These posts will included weekly updates of shows and podcasts, and give an idea of what’s useful within them.
This will also give me the opportunity to post stuff a little more often 
Watch this Space
