Photoshop titles now available in Apple iBookstore

Reading my book on an iPhone

If you’ve always wanted to read a Photoshop book on a tiny iPhone screen, your life is now complete: I just got word that my recent books, such as Real World Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers, are now available in the Apple iBookstore on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. An easy way to find them in the iBookstore is to search for my name, Conrad Chavez.

The books are formatted for easy reading in the iBooks app on iOS devices, and if you want to see what that looks and feels like, there’s a “Get Sample” button you can click to download a free excerpt. Or just look at the pictures here.

Photoshop CS5: Mac font-related crashes fixed by Mac OS X 10.6.5

Mac OS X v10.6.5 Update (Combo)

For some time now, Adobe has been advising customers that some Photoshop CS5 crashes were traced to bugs in the font code in Mac OS X. It appears that Apple has now fixed many of those crashes in today’s release of the Mac OS X 10.6.5 update, according to Photoshop engineer Chris Cox in a post at the Adobe support forums.

If you’ve experienced these crashes (I haven’t), download Mac OS X 10.6.5 and you’ll hopefully see an improvement in Photoshop stability. As always, I recommend downloading the Combo updater if you’ve got the bandwidth for it.

On a side note, if you’ve got a new camera and you’ve been waiting for Mac OS X to support its raw format, check the list of camera raw formats added in 10.6.5. It contains new support for some notable recent models such as the Canon PowerShot S95, Canon EOS 60D, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5.

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: now available

So now you’ve got Adobe Photoshop CS5, and you need to know which new features can bring the highest return to your photography and your studio’s workflow. Lucky you…just grab my book Real World Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers, which is now available.

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers book coverI concentrate on the needs of professional digital photographers so that you don’t have to wade through explanations of 3D, HTML, or cheesy special effects just to get good, solid images out the door. This book is about Photoshop for pure photography: How to get the image from the camera into editing and then produce the best possible version for the diverse forms of output that your clients demand today, such as CMYK printing, RGB inkjet printing, online photo galleries and sharing websites such as Facebook and Flickr.

Going well beyond a mere description of what’s in the menus and tools, Real World Photoshop still includes the time-tested, fundamental guidance about color correction, color management, and efficient workflow that has made edition after edition a perennial best-seller. You’ll also find valuable tips on almost every page in the book and advice on how to put together a killer Photoshop computer.

Here are some of the new features I cover in this CS5 edition:

  • Mask difficult edges, such as hair, more quickly using improved Refine Edge
  • Extend and optimize image dynamic range with Merge to HDR Pro and HDR Toning
  • Retouch faster with Content Aware Fill and Content Aware Heal
  • Correct lens distortions with new Lens Profiles
  • Select and specify colors faster with the new HUD Color Picker
  • Convert images and upload directly to Facebook, Flickr, and other destinations in one step, using the new Output panel in Adobe Bridge
  • Make the most of the rewritten raw processing engine, dramatically improved noise reduction, and new lens corrections in Adobe Camera Raw 6

How to get yours

Get Real World Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers at your favorite bookseller, at Amazon.com, or at Peachpit.com. Want it as an e-book? Check out Safari Books Online. If you’re a Creative Edge subscriber, you can even start reading Rough Cuts drafts of this and other Peachpit Press books online before they come off the press.

Photoshop CS5: Fix crashes in Mac OS X 10.6.4

If you experienced crashes in Adobe Photoshop CS5 on the Mac after installing the Mac OS X 10.6.4 update, there were issues with the graphics drivers in that particular Apple update that may have caused your crashes. (The bugs may have also affected you if you use Apple Aperture or play certain graphics-intensive games under Mac OS X 10.6.4.)

Now the good news: Apple has released Snow Leopard Graphics Update 1.0. If you download it and then install it on Mac OS X 10.6.4, it should resolve the problem, according to Adobe.

If you had been holding at Mac OS X 10.6.3 like I’ve been, it looks like it’s finally safe for Photoshop users to move up to Mac OS X 10.6.4 as long as you also install Snow Leopard Graphics Update 1.0.

Prints on display: Ida Culver House group show

Several of my photographs, including new work, are on display in a group show named “A Place Called Home” at Ida Culver House in Broadview (north Seattle). The show is up from July 22 to October 31, 2010.

The reception is on Thursday, July 22, 2010 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

RSVP: 206-361-1989 by July 19. See you on the 22nd!

Click to download “A Place Called Home” poster and reception info (PDF document)

A Place Called Home exhibition flyer