Do I use Curves or Levels first? O'Reilly author Ken Milburn got an email from a reader asking about his magically layer-creating action for Photoshop that he describes in the second edition of his book Digital Photography Expert Techniques, and I thought everyone might like to share. You can apply this action to any file you've just opened for...

The prevailing theme of the InDesign Conference Master Class in Seattle last week was definitely "taking control." Not that the attendees weren't talented creative types, but this group seemed to be particularly concerned with how to work as elegantly, efficiently, and painlessly as possible. Sessions on .INX, XML, and scripts were where it was at. InDesigners have clearly taken...

I'm in Seattle for the InDesign Conference Master Class; coming to you from the Adobe campus this morning, in fact. In preparation for this week, I spent some time catching up on the coolness at InDesignSecrets.com. (ID Secrets guy, David Blatner is the Conference Director here.) Thought I'd start the week by sharing a cool InDesign tip I discovered there---the...

A report from my intrepid boss, Executive Editor Steve Weiss, who's at PhotoPlus in NYC this week: The 2006 O'Reilly Photoshop Cook-off Awards ceremony took place last night, held at Javits Center in NYC, as part of the PhotoPlus Expo. Many thanks to a long list of generous co-sponsors, who donated prizes totaling in the tens of thousands of dollars,...

While I was packing for my recent trip to Ireland, I mentioned to Derrick Story that I had three fully charged (proprietary) batteries ready for my Canon point-and-shoot. When he asked if I'd packed my charger, I said I thought that three batteries should be enough, but he insisted I take it. (His words, I believe were, "Wrongo.") I'm writing...

O'Reilly author Stephen Johnson did a lively, compelling presentation based on his book Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography Tuesday night at the SFDIG meeting. At the outset, Steve told the audience of 100 or so photographer-types he was going to base his two-hour talk on the book. (I admitted to Steve later that this made me a little anxious...

[Note: Mikkel couldn't get this blog entry up from Prague, so he asked me to post it for him---cw] Cologne, Germany--I'm winding up a week at Photokina, the world's largest photographic trade show held every two years here in Cologne. I spent a good deal of the week as a guest in the Adobe booth, talking up our Adobe Lightroom...

Forget iTV, I just discovered something way scarier. Something much more threatening to my productivity. Something nefariously free and therefore not even held in check by my tech-gadget budgetary concerns. Something that doesn't even require any configuration or physical set-up. Doesn't require $1.99 per episode. ABC runs recent episodes of Grey's Anatomy directly from their website. Thing is, I try...

Here's one of my favorite tips from one of my favorite books, the Digital Photography Pocket Guide: "Don't forget to take pictures of signs and placards. It's a lot easier than taking notes about locations, and the information comes in very handy when recounting your travel experiences." Lately, I've been observing variations on this theme all around. Instead of taking...

I've recovered from Vegas enough to think about writing a wrap-up here. Here were the highlights of my week at Photoshop World: Eddie Tapp's induction into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. Eddie was gracious and kind as usual in his acceptance speech, and I've never had the opportunity to meet an author's parents before. (Turns out charm and kindness are...