Monday, January 14, 2008

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 - MAC


Take a look over on Terry White's blog for a great video (45min.) preview of Photoshop Elements for the Mac. It has been available on the PC for a while but now it is being released for the Apple platform with native support for both Power PC and Intel processors. Check out the video.

THANK YOU SCOTT

Just like every other photographer out there I have been on the seemingly never ending quest of finding the perfect camera bag. Initially I went with a backpack style bag to hold all my essential gear (including my laptop). While this solution offered an advantage when packing I didn't factor in one important factor...weight. When I load all my gear into a bag like that it becomes insanely heavy. Secondly, I had room for my camera gear, room for my laptop and it's power supply and that is about it. No Wacom tablet, no external hard drives, nothin'. A few months back Scott Kelby—who is easily the coolest gear head and photographer I have ever been exposed to—reviewed a bag he had been putting through the paces. The LowePro Pro MAG 2 AW camera bag. He raved at the perfect size, construction, etc. You can check out his original review here.

Initially all I had to go on where photos online because my local camera shop didn't have one in stock.  Normally I don't order something like that before physically seeing it; however, because Scott has never steered me wrong in the past I decided to go for it ... well in reality my family decided to go for it because they purchased it for me for Christmas.  Looking back I am actually glad that I didn't see it before owning it.  On a shelf it appears to be a bit large.  Since the point was to go with a smaller bag I was not super stoked about carrying something big and bulky.  However, once I got my gear in the bag and carried it around for a few days I am sold.  It has easy access from the top to get at your camera—the backpack was a pain because any time I needed something out of it I had to take the bag off and lay it out and open it up, this shoulder bag makes so much more sense.  It can be configured in about 90 ways so you can store tons of different combinations of gear based on what you are shooting.  Now when I fly or travel in any way I have all my essential gear in my shoulder bag and my laptop, Wacom, mouse, hard drive, etc all in my trusty Targus backpack that I have used for years (once you find a good bag that is great to cary hang on to it!)

I have a wedding next weekend and I am stoked to try this bag out.

A few weeks back I mentioned a new book by photographer Joe McNally that should be at the top of your list. I am not normally an advocate for re-publishing what is found on another Blog; however, this is just too good. This video gives some insight into Joe's book that should stir the photographer in all of us.

NOTE:Because I don't want to be a pirate - I originally found the video on Dave Ziser's blog.