Adobe Customer Service – On the mend? Time will tell.
August 31, 2009 by admin

Adobe has officially done it.

It is a big step for a large public company to take, to admit that things are wrong. To apologize and to explain the steps being taken to correct a problem that has gotten out of control.

Such is the case with Adobe’s customer service. While customers have complained with increasing frequency in industry forums, and even Adobe’s own user communities and blogs, little has been done, or so it seemed.

Until now.

Lambert Walsh, Adobe’s Vice President of Technical Services, has issued an open letter to Adobe Customers (link opens as a pdf). In his letter, Mr. Walsh attempts reparations for the decline in the quality of customer service, explains some of the reasons for the slip-ups, and offers hope that the root cause of the problems is being addressed, while offering some additional contacts for help should any customer feel they are not being cared for as expected.

Additionally, John Nack, Adobe’s Principal Product Manager for Photoshop, has posted a blog entry on the subject, and that entry is seeing some lively conversation in the comments. John is to be commended for being very visible on the front lines and for taking quite a few shots from disgruntled customers via his blog comments.

Will Adobe get their service back on track? Only time will tell. Making a visible public statement and admitting the problem is certainly a positive first step. Follow through and eventual improvement will be a tougher, longer term challenge for the company.

In the meanwhile, Adobe’s executives can take a lesson from Mr. Nack – every Adobe person in sales, marketing, product development, and quality assurance should be required to spend a fixed time – say, 1-2 hours each week – supplementing the technical support telephone lines and talking with customers. Let them use the phone systems, the troubleshooting databases, and all the call management systems used by the customer services representatives we’ve loved to hate. I daresay the experience would be eye-opening!

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Protect Your Images with Copyright Metadata (Part 3)
August 24, 2009 by admin

Today we’re going to have a bit of a convergence.

This is the third part of an ongoing series of tutorials about working with metadata to add copyright data to your images. It is also the first in a series of explorations into the inner workings of Adobe Bridge, the “Swiss Army Knife” of the Adobe Creative Suite. In this exercise, we’ll look at various ways of using Bridge as a tool to modify and apply metadata to your images.

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Software Security – Weekly Recap
August 19, 2009 by admin

Have I mentioned before the importance of keeping up to date with your software, and keeping track of the security issues that crop up almost like weeds in the summer? Here’s a summary of the updates that we’ve noted within just the past week. If you haven’t updated, please do so as soon as possible! We need to stay a step ahead of the bad guys!

Just check out this major laundry list of updates this week:

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Typography – 5 Quick Tips to Improve Legibility
August 17, 2009 by admin

All too often, it seems we are faced with difficult typographic design choices. While some people are more tolerant than others when it comes to reading type against a busy background, there are some techniques you can employ, with relative ease, to improve the readability and the impact of your designs.

We’ll look at some tricks that you can accomplish easily in Photoshop, and I’ll wrap up with a list of pointers to some great resources for further reading.

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Avian Photography – It’s For The Birds!
August 15, 2009 by admin

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I’ve been an amateur bird-watcher – or “ornithologist,” as we like to call ourselves when we feel a bit snooty – since I was in my teens. My original copy of Birds of North America (Golden Field Guide) is still with me after 35 years of birding, and although it is dog-eared and faded, and is now accompanied by numerous other guides, it is still my favorite go-to when I’m trying to identify birds quickly.

As I developed into a photographer, it seemed only natural to translate my enthusiasm for birding into an enthusiasm for bird photography. Alas, until the digital age, I never had the resources (read: money for film and developing) to hone my art. While my early attempts with film were (in my memory) quite good, digging the photos out of the old albums shows that I was still in the early stages of my education…

Once digital photography became widely available in the late 90s, I again turned to bird photography, and have embraced it with a renewed enthusiasm. I enjoy the process as much as the results, being outdoors and in touch with nature is a beautiful way to spend your time. Turn off the cell phone, unplug the computer, grab your camera and go! But, before you head out, I’d like to share some tips that I’ve learned over the years. I hope you benefit from some of these ideas, and if you do, I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment for me, or write to me at “artist (at) hoffmanartdesign (dot) com.”

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Adobe Bridge – The Swiss Army Knife of the Creative Suite
August 13, 2009 by admin

In my role as moderator on the forums at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, I read and field many questions on Photoshop, as well as other applications in Adobe’s Creative Suite. One thing I’ve noticed in the discussions and in the frequently asked questions, is that Adobe Bridge is highly underrated and often misunderstood. As one of the best applications money can buy (it’s FREE after all!) the reality is that Bridge has a monstrous set of capabilities, that all to often go untapped by the Photoshop user community at large.

Starting today, and over the next few weeks as a recurring series, I will be bringing you a look under the hood at what I consider the Swiss Army Knife of the Adobe Creative Suite. We’ll look at Bridge’s basic capabilities, as a file browser and launcher, but we’ll dig oh, so much deeper. In fact, if you stick with me, we’ll take the red pill (you do recall Adobe’s code name for CS3?) and we’ll see just how deep this rabbit hole goes!

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Software Security – Reprise
August 12, 2009 by admin

Well, here we go again! Another “Windows Patch Tuesday” has come and gone (Microsoft sends its Windows updates on the 2nd Tuesday of the month, if you haven’t noticed), and in this month’s batch we have a few interesting ones!

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Protect Your Images with Copyright Metadata (Part 2)
August 11, 2009 by admin

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at a technique for creating a metadata preset to hold your copyright information. Metadata presets are a great way to rubber stamp your images with all the important information you want, including your name, your copyright information, website, contact information, etc. Creating the preset is a one time effort, but in the end you still have to apply it to each and every image, by hand, one at a time.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could automate some of this? I’m glad you asked! Photoshop has some very nice features that will allow us to completely automate this process – you’ll be amazed! Every image you open in Photoshop will automatically have your copyright data embedded, without you having to remember to do it!

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Software Security – An Important Consideration
August 9, 2009 by admin

These days, it seems like the software security updates keep rolling in faster and faster, as software manufacturers continue their efforts to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. And, the bad guys these days means organized crime! Yes, a breach in your system can open the door to credit card fraud, privacy violation, and even the complete “zombification” of your system to be used as part of a “botnet,” a network of slave computers ready to do their evil master’s bidding.

How does this happen? With today’s complex software, there are many opportunities for the designers to make mistakes, and the bad guys spend a lot of time and effort looking for ways to exploit the mistakes. Therefore, you have Windows, and Mac OS/X, being updated monthly or more with security patches – and you’re well advised to keep up to date.

But, it doesn’t stop there! Other software on your system – Adobe Flash Player, Acrobat, your browser (whether Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera, or any other) and many other programs including media players all have the potential to have vulnerabilities that can be attacked and exploited.

So, what’s a poor soul to do in the Wild West that is the internet these days? Keep up to date and educated, that’s what. You can never be too careful or too well informed. Here are some places to keep in your browser’s favorites list:

Windows Update

Apple Support Downloads

Adobe Product Security

And my favorite source for all things secure: Security Now!

Remember to keep those automatic updates turned on, and remain vigilant at all times!

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Protect Your Images with Copyright Metadata (Part 1)
August 8, 2009 by admin

Over the next few days, we’re going to embark on a little project, one in which we take steps to protect our art. If you’re not adding copyright information to your images, you leave yourself wide open to having your intellectual property drained away! You need to think seriously about a plan to label, identify and register your images, so that the benefits of your hard work are coming to you. For more ideas and information on ways to look out for yourself, including instructions for registering your images with the US Copyright Office, visit our friends at Defend Your Art.

Today, we will take the first steps, in identifying ways to add copyright information to your images. If you aren’t already doing this, read on! If you are, I encourage you to read on anyway, as we will be looking at ways to speed up your workflow and automate things, so you can work harder on your image and not so hard on the maintenance!

When you open an image in Photoshop, and that image contains a copyright notice, Photoshop will recognize this and add a small © symbol to the title bar of the image, like so:

c01

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