Aperture vs. Lightroom: What do the pros use?

It's been exactly two years since Apple threw its hat into the professional photography ring with the introduction of Aperture. Adobe responded shortly thereafter with the introduction of Lightroom. So, how does the pro photography market look now?

InfoTrends recently surveyed 1,026 professional photographers in North America to determine which software they used for raw file processing. Here's what folks reported:


66.5% using the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in
23.6% using Lightroom
5.5% using Aperture

To be fair to Aperture, it might be helpful to remove Windows users from the equation for a moment. Even after doing so, Lightroom's usage among Mac-based pros is still nearly double that of Aperture (26.6% vs. 14.3%).

It's also worth pointing out that photographers haven't started to abandon Photoshop as a result of using tools such as Lightroom. (Photoshop usage overall remains in the 90% range.) The vast majority of photographers seem to understand pretty clearly the different nature & roles of the apps, and they continue to view Photoshop as a must-have part of any serious arsenal.


Lightroom is clearly off to a tremendous start, and everyone here is really pleased & grateful to the photography community for such a warm welcome.

JPEG 2000 - Do you use it?

As you may or--as seems overwhelmingly likely--may not know, Photoshop ships with a plug-in for reading and writing JPEG 2000-format files. Compared with the regular JPEG format (technically known as JFIF), JPEG 2000 offers advantages such as support for higher bit depths, more advanced compression, and a lossless compression option. Adobe developed the plug-in in anticipation of cameras entering the market with native JPEG 2000 support on board.

The thing is, that hasn't happened, nor have we seen other widespread adoption of the format in places we know Photoshop is being used. Therefore with Photoshop CS2 we made the call to stop installing the plug-in by default, but to continue making it available via the product CD. What's probably not obvious is that existing features keep consuming resources to maintain & test, even if no features are added to them. As we plan for the future, we need to retire features that no longer make sense & focus instead on capabilities that matter.

So, do you use JPEG 2000? If so, please give a shout and let us know how & why you use it.

PS--Note that support for JPEG 2000 as a file format by itself & support for the compression options it offers are two separate things. PDF supports JPEG 2000-compressed images, so we wouldn't remove that support. I'm just trying to gauge the value of supporting standalone JPEG 2000 reading and writing.

Photoshop Tutorial: Chocolate Lion

(il risultato è migliore se abbiamo una immagine con degli angoli tondi e netti con ombre e luci già definite, come per esempio delle statue o affini)

1 si duplica il livello di sfondo e si fluidifica per creare lo scoglimento
opzioni di ricostruzione > metodo sciolto

2 una volta fatto, si colora di marrone tutta la sagoma in un nuovo livello
(il colore poi si puo' anche variare in un secondo momento) impostando il metodo di fusione luce intensa

3 si crea un altro livello vuoto e si pennella di bianco sulle luci con il metodo sovrapponi

4 si crea un altro livello vuoto e si pennella di nero ma questa volta sulle ombre sempre con il metodo sovrapponi

5 ultime pennellate bianche su un ulteriore livello per dare ancora piu riflessi cioccolatosi

il tutto poi andrà regolato con opacità

idem per i flussi: opacità dei pennelli durante la lavorazione in base ai gusti personali e al risultato voluto

infine maschere di livello per correggere eventuali imperfezioni

Photo of the Day 28-04-2008

The extraordinary image, a world exclusive, was taken in Borneo on the island of Kaja, where apes are rehabilitated into the wild after being rescued from zoos, private homes or even butchers' shops.

This individual had seen locals fishing with spears on the Gohong River.

Although the method required too much skill for him to master, he was later able to improvise by using the pole to catch fish already trapped in the locals' fishing lines.

The image is part of a series taken for a new book, The Thinkers Of The Jungle, which also includes the first photograph of an orangutan swimming.



courtesy cellar.org

Photo manipulation using Photoshop

Photo of the Day 27-04-2008

This highly unusual cloud formation was likely formed from the exhaust of a rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California roughly an hour before this capture

Links

new site availeable

http://flaviogironi.co.uk/