Photo

Flickr has seen incredible progress since its inception only three short years ago, and IDG News Service sat down with co-founder and general manager Stewart Butterfield to talk about the website’s growth and history, and future plans.

The photo sharing service has never strayed too far from its original purpose, even after entering the Yahoo! fold and through its explosion in popularity, with 7.2 million registered users and 23 million monthly unique visitors. Nevertheless, Butterfield chimes in with some thoughts on what we might expect (or not expect) down the line, including possibilities of news components, photo syndication opportunities, competition, and other relevant bits. But, I think the real question remains: when will Flickr transcend the Gamma phase?

When the complete Adobe Creative Suite 3 package is revealed on March 27, Adobe will announce not one, but two distinct flavors of Photoshop, including a standard Photoshop CS3 and the new Photoshop CS3 Extended.

Photoshop CS3 Extended includes the same tools as Photoshop CS3, but also contains a brand new set of features for the integration of 3D and motion graphics, and image measurement and analysis functions. This marks the first occasion (since Photoshop 5.0 Limited Edition?) in which more than one version of Photoshop will be made available, with the new version targeted at individuals in the fields of video, architecture, engineering, medicine, and science.

With the new PS CS3 Extended, video editors and artists can perform 3D model visualization and texture editing functions, as well as gaining the ability to paint and clone over multiple video frames. Final animations can be exported as QuickTime, MPEG-4, and Flash video, among others formats. Additionally, users in the scientific, medical, and architectural fields will be able to extract quantitative and qualitative data from images with special measurement and analysis tools, with support for specialized image formats. Kevin Connor, senior director of product management for digital imaging says: “At one point in time, we considered separate versions, but we found a lot of overlap in the features that these people needed…. Rather than create a new application, Extended is a superset of features that can specifically benefit people in those markets.”

An official list of features for Photoshop CS3 Extended, in addition to pricing information will be unveiled on March 27, and the complete CS3 suite will launch later in the spring.

After approximately a year of beta testing, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 is ready for prime time. Photoshop Lightroom is a software application that helps improve the digital photo workflow by providing a central point to organize and adjust digital images. It is a compliment to Photoshop, not a replacement.

If you didn’t get a chance to check out the beta, you can download a 30-day trial of the released version. The retail price is set for $299, but if you order before April 30, 2007, you can snag a copy at the customer appreciation price of $199. Both Windows and Mac (Universal) systems are supported. A heads-up if you are currently running the 4.1 beta, it is set to expire February 28th.

The last time Flickr tried this there was such a backlash that they supported both the old Flickr IDs and corporate overlord ones. But that was then, and this is now…
The Flickr News blog just announced that as of March 15th, the only access to your Flickr account will be via a Yahoo! ID. So, the last holdouts in denial of the acquisition will either have to quit the service or link to a Yahoo! ID. This official thread has been created to voice your concerns \ questions to the Flickr staff and community.

We’re told that this change is in preparation for some large projects later this year (ohhh - anyone have any ideas??). We’ve seen this requirement already with the recent updates to Flickr Mobile and Yahoo! Go that only allow Yahoo! accounts.

The same post also mentions the addition of a couple of limits:

• Maximum number of Contacts will be 3000
• Maximum number of Tags per picture will be 75

These changes are pitched to improve system performance. Flickr has started an official thread for any comments about the limit changes.

I have a Flickr account, and I take plenty of photos, but I find myself not using it as much as I feel I ought to. Maybe Thomas Hawk’s list of Top 10 Hacks on Flickr will help remedy that. It’s a round-up of tricks, scripts, and sites that make Flickr more pleasurable to use, and though I’d seen some of them already, several of them were pleasant surprises. His #1 Flickr “hack” is Flickr Leech. Its tagline is “because paging sucks,” and what it does is shows you all of the thumbnails for any user, photoset, or pool all at once. Very refreshing. That’s just the tip of the iceberg–Hawk also points out some great Greasemonkey scripts, some web (and desktop) apps, and more for your Flickr enjoyment.

At some time or another, we all upgrade our computers. And when the time comes, most people meticulously back up every bit of data they possibly can - often to load directly onto the new computer. But in many cases, for whatever reason it just doesn’t get there.

This is the situation I found myself in about 9 months ago when I moved onto the current laptop I use. I have a ton of data that just never seemed to make it to this machine. And while I thought I’d really miss it, save for only two or three instances, I really haven’t.

I asked around, and many of my friends report similar experiences.

So what does all of this mean? Are we all just digital packrats, carrying around way more data than we need to, even more than we can conceivably keep track of? Or is this one of the wonderful parts of this new digital world that we live in? Maybe we should treat all data like Google tells us to treat email - never deleting anything, simply archiving it so that it can be searched later if necessary. But I’m starting to wonder how valuable that old data really is.

Over the past number of years, I have at least 5 GB of PST files of my email archives. I haven’t looked at them since I backed them up to make room on my hard drive. Okay, let’s be honest; I haven’t used them since I started using Gmail. I suppose there could be some interesting nuggets of information in them, but realistically my likelihood of finding anything useful in that haystack of useless data is next to nil. It’s like keeping an archive of every personal conversation you’ve ever had - just trying to remember where the good stuff is would be impossible.

But I also can’t subscribe to the extreme notion of treating email like voicemail. There’s a contingent (this is particularly popular amongst the capital P Productivity crowd) that believes we should read an email once, determine whether it needs an action to be taken, and delete the email. I garner way too much value from being able to search my relevant old email, particularly in my daily business, to consider this drastic measure.

So how do we find the balance? What to keep, what to get rid of? Is anything over 3 years old even worth worrying about anymore? Give give us your thoughts.

Today Adobe is releasing the first beta version of Photoshop CS3. Though it isn’t available at Adobe Labs at the time of this posting, it should be within the next couple hours according to the press release. The biggest update in CS3 is that it will now run natively on Intel Macs. The official FAQ (PDF) also mentions non-destructive Smart Filters, Quick Selection tool, Reine Edge, Automatic layer alignment and blending, Vanishing Point with multiple, adjustable angle perspective planes, and Black and White conversion. The beta version of CS3 will be available to owners of Photoshop CS2. You can find more details at Adobe’s Scott Byer and John Nack’s blogs.

[Via Techmeme]

Update: It looks like even if you don’t own CS2 you can still try the CS3 beta for free for 30 days.

We’ve been peripherally interested in Riya, an image recognition slash visual search start-up since we first caught wind of it, but now they’ve really got our attention. Riya is now testing Like.com, which is basically a shopping search engine with a visual seach twist. “Basically” is a poor way to put it, however, because though the experience isn’t exactly jaw-dropping, if you spend some time playing around with it, you can see the potential. Like.com is truly the first of its kind: there’s no keywords here, just pure pixels. In its current alpha incarnation, Like.com allows you to browse the products in its catalog–shoes, handbags, jewelry, and watches–visually, meaning you can find an item you like and then find other items that look like it. If you like a certain aspect of an item–the toe on a shoe or the face on a watch, for example–you can highlight just that area and it will find items with similar features. You can also choose which aspects of your search are most important: color, shape, and pattern. While currently you can only search using images already in Like.com’s library, Riya plans to add image upload features that, if the Like.com front page is any indication, will allow you to do thinks like upload a photo of a celebrity, highlight his wristwatch, and find it and similar watches around the web.

Like I said, Like.com isn’t going to change online shopping today, but the groundwork is definitely there, and it does an impressive job of proving that Riya’s image search technology really does work.

P.S. How long before Riya gets into the internet dating business? “Find men in your area that look like Brad Pitt…”

[Via TechCrunch]

I love Photoshop tutorials. I like them even better when they’re not six pages long and produce great results. I’m guessing you can guess from its name what 2 Minute Photoshop Tricks is. It’s a text, video, and audio blog that shows gives you tips, tricks, and tutorials for Photoshop, each in about two minutes. Unfortunately it’s not updated especially frequently, but there’s a lot of good stuff there, from adding a dept of field effect to a photo to giving text a shiny Web 2.0 look. They’ve got feeds for their videos, podcasts, and blog posts, so you never miss a tip.

[Via kottke.org]

Worried about unsavory individuals lurking around your office or home and jacking your computer gear? Have no fear! With the help of your Windows PC, webcam, some free software, and this handy tutorial from Simplehelp, you can set up a reasonably sophisticated DIY security system. The core of the tutorial is Dorgem, an open source utility that captures images from your webcam and can save images based on “storage events,” e.g. every 30 seconds or every time it detects motion. Since having photos of your intruder on your computer isn’t very useful after the computer is gone, Dorgem has the ability to send the files to an external server via FTP or HTTP, or hand the files off to another program. The tutorial also covers more advanced techniques, like setting up multiple webcams and hiding your webcam from sight.