If you've got a Photoshop CS2 license, you will soon be able to download the Mac CS3 beta. Details here. John Nack of Adobe states the beta should be available within the next 24 hours. FAQ is here. Update: Download is now available here. You'll need to generate a serial number for the CS3 beta by entering your CS2 serial...

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...

In case you missed the news, a few months ago Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) split into two groups. The digital group moved to the Presidio facilities in San Francisco under the ILM banner, and the physical production group stayed at its home port in San Rafael & was subsequently renamed Kerner Optical. I recently visited a colleague of mine...

The new 1.10 firmware update for the Edirol R-09 WAV/MP3 recorder reportedly makes it the world's first SDHC- (SD High Capacity) compatible stereo field recorder. (See our review.) SDHC memory cards break the 2GB barrier and offer increased data transfer speeds. Roland has certified the new Panasonic RP-SDR04-GJ1K 4GB cards for use with the R-09. 8GB cards are expected...

Here's a chance for you to learn from my mistake. I was out shooting last Thursday night at my local airport just to work on my low light (or no light) technique. I was shooting with my Canon 30D and my 100-400mm IS L lens which is not what we call a fast lens (f/5.6 @ 400mm). So I set...

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've got an amazing dentist who I've been seeing for about twenty years -- his name is Dr. Meng Syn. Meng has also become a close friend over the years, so I actually look forward to going to see my dentist if you can believe it. Meng is not only an extremely talented dentist, but steeped as a technologist as...

Harris Fogel sits down with O'Reilly author Deke McClelland at NAPP Photoshop World Las Vegas to talk about Photoshop Elements, InDesign, and his new training videos. You can tune in yourself by going over to Mac Edition Radio and downloading the podcast....

You can catch Chuck Joiner interviewing digital photography pioneer Stephen Johnson on the MacVoices podcast. (O'Reilly Media recently published Stephen's latest book, On Digital Photography.) In the interview, Stephen talks about his philosophies of taking and manipulating images, the future of digital photography, why his approach to photography is to capture light and not objects and more....

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...