There’s a lot under the hood, but in basic terms it allows you to make your own palette windows in Photoshop CS4, that can contain pretty much whatever you want. Tools, menu items, actions, even training videos embedded right in to your own little (or big) panel. They look exactly like the built in pallets. They even dock with them.
The best part is you don’t have to be a programmer to make custom panels. You open the Configurator, then drag, drop and export. I really think this is a breakthrough. This level of customization is going to change the way we work.
Our official Photshop CS4 review is coming soon, but Configurator looks so cool that I felt you should know now.
by Gavin Seim:I had a call recently from a photographer who lost all her preferences, settings and actions because of a crash. For some reason Photoshop lost all it’s preferences and went back to default. The thing is, PS is not meant to hold all our settings permanently. You need to have them backed up. The key is being prepared so when something’s lost, you can take it in stride. Today I’m going to tell you how to do it. Remember that once you’ve stored these settings, re-loading them is as simple as double clicking the file. Click the images to get larger illustrated views as we go along.
1: Give Them A Home: First, decide where you’ll be backing up your settings. Be it a folder on your hard drive, a CD/DVD or an offsite storage service. Wherever it is find a consistent place that will be separate up from your main computer should you have a total crash.
2: Archive your actions:
Photoshop is not a place to store actions. When you download a new action don’t just load it in the actions palette and expect it to stay there. PS will retain the actions so long as the preference to keep it loaded remains. Also deleting an action in PS does not actually delete the file, it just removes it from the action palette. As long as you have your action files safely stored you’re good. But, if you load an action, and then delete the file expecting PS to retain it forever, your doom is sealed.
I like to make a “favorite actions” set that I store with my other actions. This way all my commonly used actions are in one set that I can load fast. I keep it in PS all the time, but it’s backed up should I have a crash. My other actions are nearby as well, but I load them only occasionally since all my favorites are in one set. You can do this by making a new action set (folder) within PS, then drag your favorite actions into it from other sets, then save your favorites set in a safe place.
Notable Time Indexes:
3:55 News & General Talk
52:33 Scott & Adina on selling Weddings & Portraits
1:04:06 Paul on Pet Photography
1:14:25 Erik on the Nature business
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Adobe Creative Suite 4 is officially available for ship and download orders. There’s not a ton to say yet other than to let you know. We’ll see when we get it in our hot little hands on it, whether it’s an upgrade worthy of our money. According to the poll (currently) on the right, it looks like about half of you are upgrading in some form or another.
Sadly Adobe has not opted to simplify the lineup, so there’s still six versions of the Creative Suite none of which come cheap. If your just a PS user you can of course upgrade that alone. From the looks this seems evoluationary, nor revoluatiary but itv does look to hold some really cool updates just the same.
We’ve worked out a deal with Nik and you an save 15% on any of their products with promo code PPS.
I finally got a chance to play with Nik’s new Silver Efex Pro. It’s a Photoshop/Aperture plugin for making Black & White images from color one’s. Here’s the straight scoop! The interface follows Nik’s fairly clean and simple window style that graces the rest of their plugin’s. When it open’s you’ll be greeted by your image; a sidebar on the right that gives you control over the effects being added; a sidebar on the left with some easy preset effects, and a few other tools around the screen that control the preview, etc.
Overall I liked the plugin. It suffers the the problem I find with most PS plugins, that causes me to stick with actions and presets for most images. When you open an image in the plugin you have to wait a few seconds and then use the tools in another window. Essentially PS goes away for that time, and when you commit those changes you are returned to your regular work environment. There’s nothing really wrong with this, it’s just not great for a workflow with large quantities of images, but more designed for those great images you want to spend extra time with.
I did find what’s inside to be simple and effective. There’s various preset options for making B&W images fast. You have color tones, film type, color filters etc to give you full control over making a nice piece of art. There’s also the ability to add some great looking grain effects is so desired, and the plugin; like many Nik products includes the U Point option that allows you to easily control effects on specific portions of the image (See Viveza)
BOTTOM LINE: I won’t be using Silver Effects for my everyday B&W images, because presets in Lightroom and actions in PS do most the the B&W effects I need, with more speed. I can also get most of the effects that the Silver provides by using the built in tools that PS provides (though with a bit more work)
All this said I think Silver is a good tool for getting great B&W effects on those images you want to spend some extra time with. It’s also great for trying out various effects with a lot of control and precision. I knocked off a half star because, Silver, at $199.00 costs twice what it probably should. Still if you have 199 to spare, and want a great tool for really fine tuning B&W images then pick it up (you can of course try Nik’s short 15 day demo).
: Nick Brandt
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