Photoshop

I use and enjoy Flickr. But with each passing month it worries me more that when I visit a photo page on the Yahoo photo-sharing site, it looks essentially identical to when I first started using it four years ago.

Flickr has typical online photo site abilities to upload, share, and print photos. What sets it apart, though, are features that make Flickr a community: discussions in comments below photos, groups for like-minded photographers to share their work, and social networking attributes that let people stay on top of their contacts' doings.

Flickr revamped members' home pages starting last September, … Read more

Adobe Systems is discontinuing Photoshop Album Starter Edition, the lowest rung on its ladder of image-editing software products, and the company is nudging its users toward the online Photoshop.com site.

Adobe launched Photoshop Album Starter Edition in 2003 as a free, bare-bones image cataloging and editing package. Adobe discontinued the line, though, and support for it ended June 30.

So what's the alternative? In a customer note, Adobe puts its online service front and center.

"As part of our commitment to providing customers with a free photo-editing solution, we have created Photoshop.com, an exciting new online … Read more

A high-powered programmer who'd left Adobe Systems to lead a Microsoft Windows interface design team is heading back after just over a year.

Mark Hamburg had worked on Adobe Photoshop since version 2.0 in 1990 and then was instrumental in designing its photography-specific cousin, Lightroom, which sports a radically different user interface.

Hamburg left Adobe for Microsoft in 2008 to become a "distinguished engineer" leading work on improving operating system usability. He called the job an opportunity that "was a little too interesting to turn down" because he found the Windows' experience "really … Read more

We asked for submissions from our fans for the podcast art that would be attached to the MP3 file for episode 1,000. We received a number of awesome submissions, but alas, there could be only one winner. Here is a slideshow with the winning submission, as well as the rest of the pack.

Congratulations to Emmanuel from France for such a creative (and nerdy) take on the BOL logo for episode 1,000. And as always, thanks to EVERYONE for taking part in this.

Last month, a plane sometimes used as Air Force One was flown low over the Hudson River for a photo op, costing more than $300,000 and evoking for people on the ground memories of September 11.

On the heels of that failed presidential plane publicity stunt, we decided to test our readers' public relations chops. Keeping our focus on technology in mind, we asked them to submit recession-friendly publicity shots of Air Force One flyovers (with a little help from their favorite photo-editing tools).

Needless to say, our readers' images caused less panic among New Yorkers and were produced … Read more

Update 1:10 p.m. PDT: If you tried sending an image to the e-mail address provided earlier Monday and it bounced back, please try sending it again to my e-mail address, provided below, while we straighten out our e-mail kinks.

You probably don't have your own Air Force One, or the $328,835 to spend on a fancy New York photo shoot like the United States government, but with a few basic Photoshop skills and an Air Force One press photo, we're betting you can make some pretty convincing images of Air Force One flyovers, without sending … Read more

Marguerite Reardon talks about two technologies, WiMax and LTE (Long Term Evolution), that will shape the way we access the Web in the next few years.

Also in this podcast: Google is hoping to join an antitrust fight in Europe objecting to Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows; Steve Wozniak joins a start-up that hopes to make breakthrough solid-state drives; and Adobe rolls out a fix that addresses some crashing and slowness issues in Photoshop. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Today's stories:

Google wants to join EU case against Microsoft

What does Woz see in solid-state drives?… Read more

Adobe Systems released an update to the flagship CS4 version of Photoshop to squelch a number of bugs that could crash or slow down the image-editing software.

The 11.0.1 update (downloads available for Windows and Mac OS X) deals with the following issues, according to Adobe:

• A number of issues that could cause slow performance have been addressed.

• Pen barrel rotation with Wacom tablets now works correctly.

• Photoshop now correctly recognizes 3D textures edited by a plug-in.

• The quality of the results of Auto-Blend Layers (Stack Images) has been improved.

• A problem that … Read more