Apple/Adobe Imaging, DAM and Workflow
Apple/Adobe Imaging, DAM and Workflow
- Subject: Apple/Adobe Imaging, DAM and Workflow
- From: PID Jmail <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:35:27 -0500
- Thread-topic: Apple/Adobe Imaging, DAM and Workflow
I apologize if this title is not well applied and this post is overly long,
it's all I could think of at the moment and years of lurking are bound to
burst open from time to time...
I would consider myself one of the lurkers of this list. Most of the time
people discuss things on this list that are miles above my head. I realize
that it would be a good idea to be better educated about such things and
doing things like buying/reading 'Real World Color Management' would better
prepare myself to follow these discussions. Unfortunatley, since my work
does not require a great deal of color fidelity, I keep putting it off.
I start my post off with this because I happen to find much of the Martin
Orpen vs. Adobe discussions interesting both in terms of his accusations and
people's defenses. It gives me some idea about how professional people feel
about the digital tools at our disposal. I take things Martin says with a
grain of salt, and I'm glad for cooler heads that keep things under control,
but I personally think that Martin has maintained his interest in the
discussion rather than just the flame. Personalities collide (like between
Martin and Marco), but I still see a modest level of civility and adherence
to their original intended goal - Martin in his pursuit of holding Adobe
accountable and Marco in his drive for ever more full understanding of
things related to color and digital photography. Unfortunately, those to
goals will tend to conflict and lead to confrontation. Enough on that.
One thing in particular that interested me was Martin's comments about
Apple's imaging capabilities within OSX...
> The Mac OS had a 2-3 year window where the Core Image APIs could be
> used to do the work that Photoshop does in a much faster, more
> efficient manner. Developers got Core Image Fun House and we saw a
> couple of interesting third party apps - but Apple did *nothing*.
> And, as usual, we see more interesting stuff at the WWDC with Steve
> Jobs doing 64-bit retouching faster than Photoshop is capable of.
>
> Technologies like Quartz Composer are mind-blowing in their power
> and the uniqueness of the interface - why haven't these been
> developed as a new Pro retouching app by Apple?
I am wondering if there are any examples of products developed solely around
OSX imaging capabilities? Martin mentions interesting things seen at WWDC,
any more info about these? I am aware of apps like Image Tricks
(belightsoft.com/products/imagetricks/overview.php) and Pixelmator
(pixelmator.com), are there any other examples?
I find myself in a position where I enjoy seeing competitors to Adobe's
products but choose to use Adobe anyway. I was very interested when Aperture
came out and the idea of a possible new way of working piqued my interest.
When Adobe announced LightRoom shortly after, it stole most of my attention.
Much of this was due to the hefty hardware requirements of Aperture when
compared to LightRoom, but it also had a lot to do with my comfort level
about avenues of support for Adobe products vs. Apple products. If I have a
problem or question about doing something in an Adobe app, I know of a
couple of quick places I can go and have a very good chance of arriving at a
solution. Maybe it's just out of inexperience, but I would be harder pressed
to know where to look for Aperture support/community, and am just not
familiar with what I can expect from it once I found it. I am familiar with
a lot of the names of professionals who seem to know a great deal about this
industry and they invariably discuss Adobe apps in the process. I like to be
able to understand and identify with their challenges and opportunites.
The whole start of the thread I reference above was an article about RAW.
This subject has done much to influence my re-evaluation of my own methods
and workflow with regards to digital graphics. I work for a small-ish (15+)
architectural firm doing work as the marketing guy, IT guy, photographer,
and graphic/web/database designer. I produce printed and screen materials to
support my firm's marketing efforts. My workflow typically involves taking
images shot by a digital SLR, cataloging them into folders, evaluating them,
separating them into new folders, processing them in Photoshop, saving them
in several formats (editable PSD, hi-res TIF, med-res JPG, web-res PNG) and
then using them in the print and web materials. It's a time-consuming
process that takes a fair amount of file management.
One day one of the partners dropped the digital SLR on my desk and informed
me that I needed to create three new project cutsheets and modify one of our
SOQs. He took all the shots I should need that morning and he needs
everything in about an hour. Um, okay. My first thought was that this
clearly was not going to be possible with my existing workflow. Thankfully,
I had been experimenting with Raw a bit and had left the camera set to shoot
Raw. Typically we would shoot views of projects using three exposure
bracketed shots for every view and then I would do some Photoshop channel
work to combine the shots into to the best image (when necessary). With the
camera full of Raw images (3-bracketed versions for each view), I uploaded
them to the Mac to a single folder, opened up CS2 Bridge, used Camera Raw to
view/evaluate/select a set of images, used Camera Raw to make color
corrections and save PSD finals that I then brought into InDesign.
I could not believe how much faster and more efficient I was able to be when
pushed into using Raw and eliminating file beauracracy, and all of this with
'old' CS2 software. I finished my assignment on time and am now intensely
interested in how much more efficient I might be able to make my workflow
and what tools would be useful or necessary in doing so. I also wonder if
this requires completely switching to Raw or if I could accomplish similar
things with a full catalog of legacy Tiff and Jpeg files? Clearly
Aperture/LightRoom may have a part to play in this, if only to highlight a
possible example. I'm hoping that sites like thedambook.com and
lightcrafts.com will help in my re-evaluation. I know this is a color
management list and not a digital asset management list, but I eagerly read
'off-topic' items for whatever jewels of knowledge or experience I might be
able to glean from them.
I welcome any thoughts or revelations that people may have gone through in
re-evaluating their own workflows. If this post is just too long and
off-topic to garner any interest, then I will be content to just let it die
from lack of demand.
Thank you for bearing with my indulgence.
--
Aj
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