Bridge

Yes, there comes a day where you have to stop obsessing about electrons and start obsessing about ink. If you're like us, printing is just one of those things that can make you very crazy very quickly. During the course of revamping the "Print and Output" chapter from Deke's new book (that would be Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One, due in stores next week!) we noticed that a lot of information out there about printing is just plain wacky, overly complicated, or downright wrong. So this week, we not only dispel the myth that you shouldn't print from Photoshop, but we take the fairly controversial position that trial-and-error and good ol' common sense are going to get you a lot further than complicated instructions that lead you in confusing, pseudo-scientific circles.

And I know it may sound like we've over-imbibed, but in this week's show we discuss how you actually can print straight from Photoshop: Read more » 

It's a full moon as I write this. And the moon's phattest phase brings glad tidings: Adobe has finally shipped a fully functioning version of Bridge CS5. So when the Adobe Application Manager prompts you to download the latest updates to Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro, and the Bridge, skip the first two for all I care and then drop whatever you're doing and download the last.

Previous to today, one of the Bridge's best new features, the Export panel, has been non-functional. Not somewhat impaired or slightly rough-around-the-edges, but just sitting there like an irritating lump, entirely inoperable. If you tried hard enough, you could make the Export panel display the "Select Modules to enable" message (see below), only to claw your eyes in disbelief as you stared at the blank space where some downloadable modules ought to be. But, ha! It was all a fun joke meant to test your loyalty. Now the Export panel actually works, and I'm actually here to tell you how to actually use it.

See, the spanking-new Export panel lets you batch-export images to Facebook, Flickr, and Photoshop.com. Which is swell and everything. But my favorite feature is called Save to Hard Drive. Despite its dopey name---presumably your images are already on a hard drive---it serves a much-needed purpose: Save to Hard Drive batch-converts your raw images to JPEGs so you can make them available to clients, friends, and other mere mortals. Read more » 

All of my One-on-One products---whether videos or books---begin by encouraging you to adjust your Creative Suite color settings and load my custom keyboard shortcuts. The color settings file goes by the name Best Workflow (because, I argue, that's the resulting environment); the keyboard shortcuts are dekeKeys.

I've received requests to distribute both. Which is the purpose of today's post.

I explain how to make your own Best Workflow color settings today. I'll post dekeKeys CS5 as a free download next week. Read more » 

Ah, I am starting to enjoy this Thursday visit to the dekeLounge. A half-hour with my good buddy Deke and an awesome special guest, and it's like the weekend has already started. And what could be better than a guest who knows what to drink. Not only is Peter Krogh the preeminent expert in digital asset management (that's the DAM acronym we have so much dam fun with, because we're eleven-year-olds underneath our cosmopolitan veneers), but the man requested we have Bombay Sapphire martinis to lubricate our discussion of how to manage all those dam(n) photos.

Fresh off the publication of the second edition of his bestselling The DAM Book, Digital Asset Management for Photographers, here's what Peter had to share over martinis: Read more »