PhotoZoom Pro: perfect image resizing?

Monday, January 24th, 2011

Ultimately the fundamental difference between vector and bitmap graphics is that the resolution, and so final quality, of the bitmap image is fixed. Scale a resolution-independent vector image up to the size of a football pitch and it will stay as pin-sharp and perfect as the original; scale a photo and it won’t.

This difference might seem intrinsic and unavoidable, but there are a number of software applications that promise to bridge the gap and maintain sharpness while letting you resize your images up to a massive 1 million x 1 million pixels. So do they deliver, or are they selling snake oil? (more…)

Drupal 7.0 goes live

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

In case you missed the announcement, the latest 7.0 release of Drupal has finally come out of beta.

Of the big three open-source content management systems (along with WordPress and Joomla), Drupal is generally recognised to be the most powerful and, as it’s been a full three years since the launch of 6.0, expectations are naturally high.

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PostworkShop: reinventing the bitmap filter

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

When Photoshop was launched some 20 years ago, one of the capabilities that made it stand out was its support for plugin filters and the extraordinary creativity that this unlocked. Indeed bitmap filters became a major industry in their own right and the creativity of add-ons from the likes of Kai Krause, AutoFX and Alien Skin often outshone their host.

Since then, however, the focus for bitmap editing has moved on from creative origination to photographic enhancement, and the bitmap filter has become increasingly marginalised. Nowadays users might explore the odd artistic filter that comes with Photoshop but, if they do, they are likely to quickly become disillusioned by the disappointingly limited range, control and end results.

Now a new kid on the block promises to radically shake up the whole world of creative bitmap filters.

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Silverlight 5: Back from the dead?

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

At its recent Professional Developer Conference Microsoft’s Bob Muglia signalled a major change of strategy for the company’s Silverlight technology. When first introduced Silverlight was intended to become a near universal cross-platform web runtime like Flash. Now Muglia revealed that Microsoft saw HTML5 as the future for universal in-browser development while Silverlight was being repositioned as a native application development platform for Windows Phone 7 devices. Unsurprisingly, most pundits saw this as an admission of defeat, with our own Jon Honeyball asking: “Silverlight RIP?”

Yesterday, just over a month later, Scott Guthrie announced the “Firestarter” launch of the new Silverlight 5 beta under the slogan “the future of Silverlight starts now”. So what’s going on? (more…)

Has Quark backed the wrong horse again?

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

It’s an exciting time for publishing, as the arrival of the handheld tablet form factor (aka the iPad) promises to finally usher in the era of wysiwyg, immersive reading alongside traditional web browsing. It looks like the digital dream that print publishers have been crying out for since they first grasped the full potential of the internet – stunning content, global audiences, revenue opportunities and minimal costs – is finally coming true.

More than this, there’s a real element of turmoil and unpredictability at the moment as Steve Jobs’ open war on Adobe and his refusal to support Flash on the market-defining iPad means that Adobe’s plans for the handheld market have hit an unexpected roadblock. In short, the future of design-intensive digital publishing is up for grabs.

All in all it’s a golden opportunity for Adobe’s main publishing rival, Quark, which last week announced the new 8.5 release of its flagship software QuarkXPress.

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How Adobe defied Apple to produce superb iPad magazines

Friday, November 12th, 2010

There’s a lot of excitement in the world of publishing regarding the massive potential of the new tablet market. The biggest news at the recent Adobe MAX 2010 was the official announcement of Adobe’s upcoming Digital Publishing platform for delivering rich, interactive electronic magazines using the Creative Suite design tools and InDesign in particular.

The reason for the excitement is obvious. Up until now the internet has been a disaster for the big publishers, as they’ve effectively been forced to cut their margins, and occasionally throats, by giving away content for free online. Now with the arrival of the tablet, it’s possible for publishers to provide a far richer, handheld, book-like, reading experience. The end user is happy because it’s a fundamental advance on both traditional print and web browsing, and the publisher is delighted because here at last is the chance to charge for content while taking full advantage of the internet in terms of its global audience and  minimal production costs. (more…)

Adobe MAX 2010: HTML5 and Flash

Friday, October 29th, 2010

Just how committed is Adobe to HTML5?

It’s a serious concern. Adobe is not only the developer of the main professional HTML authoring tool, Dreamweaver, but also of the Flash platform which promises to take the browser beyond HTML into richer, more powerful territory. Clearly there’s a possible conflict of interest here – a point I made at the launch of the latest CS5 suites when the page-oriented Web Standard suite was dropped in a blatant attempt to push designers towards the Flash-centred Web Professional suite.

Unfairly promoting Flash is one danger, but far worse is the possibility that Adobe would want to hold HTML5 back. This suspicion dawned with the limited HTML5 capabilities in Dreamweaver CS5 and was reinforced by Steve Jobs’ attack on Flash which ended: “New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”

There’s a real danger here that HTML5 and Flash could be driven into opposing camps in the war between Apple and Adobe, and you really don’t want to bet against HTML. Based on the latest Adobe MAX 2010, it looks like Adobe is well aware of the potential trap and has acted accordingly.

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Reader X: Adobe gets it right at last

Monday, October 18th, 2010

With the launch earlier today of its new Acrobat X platform, Adobe is naturally keen to highlight the strengths of its Acrobat authoring applications. With new capabilities such as action-based automation and enhanced portfolio handling, the new Acrobat X Pro (see full review) is certainly a decent upgrade.

By contrast, the new Acrobat X Standard (see full review) offers comparatively little. As many programs now offer their own in-built PDF authoring capabilities, and third-party alternatives such as Nitro and the more powerful Nuance offer similar office-focused PDF-based power (including OCR-based archiving and rich Word export), the one thing that Acrobat X Standard is crying out for, and that Adobe has again failed to deliver, is a major price cut.

Overall however I’d still call the new Acrobat X platform a major release, thanks primarily to the changes made to the free Reader X program.

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Should Microsoft buy Adobe?

Friday, October 8th, 2010

Now this is interesting. The New York Times has just reported talks between Microsoft and Adobe and possible discussions of a takeover. There’s certainly an apparent logic at work. The PC Pro news story quotes analyst Toan Tran saying “It may be a case of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and both Microsoft and Adobe have a common enemy in Apple.” With both companies suffering under the current Apple surge, perhaps such consolidation makes sense.

On the other hand there are lot of arguments against.

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Apple vs Adobe: some surprising statistics

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

I recently came across a very interesting bit of analysis on the Macworld site. According to a survey by Net Markets based on usage share across 160 million unique visitors spread over 40,000 websites:

“Apple’s iOS mobile operating system is now the third most popular platform on the internet, with a share nearly six times larger than Android’s… more than enough to shove Linux off its perch as the third-place operating system on the web.”

Now that really does sound impressive, especially in the context of some quotes from Vince Vizzaccaro, a Net Applications vice president, regarding overall mobile share and the iOS percentage: “Mobile’s growth curve is strong and mobile is becoming quite a phenomenon on the internet… That’s massive when you think about it… we’re seeing iOS totally dominate the market on the web.”

So just what are these amazing figures?

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