Currently working at Lucasfilm on George Lucas’ innovative television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, he has also worked at DreamWorks Animation, Walt Disney Studios and Industrial Light and Magic, where he trained in computer animation.  
He was layout supervisor on the feature film Rugrats Go Wild by Klasky Csupo.

Read whole interview

A few years ago, on a particularly hot spring day, Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin pondered the possibility of joining forces. Sharing a fascination with monsters, spacemen, and everything in between, CreatureBox crawled to life. Over the last three years, the venture has provided a manic peek at the collaborative development of characters for video games, comics, television and film. At CreatureBox.com, Dave and Greg continue to debut their weekly trials and tribulations while in search of innovative design. The site continues to be a hub for critiques, discussions and the occasional mindless rant on the various aspects of character design.

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/interviews/creaturebox.htm

What’s new in Lightroom 3 beta?

Import
The import module has been completely re-written. This is clearly obvious when you go to import photos from a card or a hard drive. This is a welcome change, I always thought that Lightroom was a little weak in this area. When you choose Import, you will be faced with an interface that simplifies the process. The “mini” import dialog box offers most of the features you need in a simple dashboard. Clicking the arrow at the bottom (5) will expand to offer more options than you can shake a stick at. The addition of an import preset will save a ton of time and clicking.

1. Choose the source
2. Choose what happens to the images (Convert to DNG, copy, move or add).
3. Where does it go?
4. Apply a metadata preset (Copyright info etc). Also fintune the destination, subfolder etc.
5. Click this button to expand the view to see thumbnails and other information

The expanded view offers more information and features than the Lightroom 2 importer.

For those who value their time. You can create an import preset that remembers all the settimgs so you don’t have to re enter them every time.

Social Network Collections.
This is perhaps the most exciting new feature for me. Adobe has realized that we don’t live in a bubble and that cloud computing is the way of the future (For some of us, it’s the way of now). You can now integrate Lightroom with Flickr. All you need to do is drag your photos into the Photostream. From there you can automatically upload to Flickr by clicking Publish. You can also add captions and photonames which will also appear on Flickr. But wait… it’s a 2 way communication. You can also view favs and comments right within lightroom from Flickr. Can I say “Brilliant!!!”

There’s more though. If you decide you want to edit the appearance of your photos, you can and update them to Flickr. Each time you press upload, evertything will sync with Lightroom’s Photostream and Flickr. Other services could possibly be added on the final release. Also 3rd party services should be able to write their own modules just like in Lightroom 2.

Drag the thumbnail to add to the Photostream

Click publish to upload or update your photostream with Flickr

Forgot to edit your photos? No problem. Do it while the photos are in the photostream or already on Flickr. It doesn’t matter. Everything will sync anyway.

They will appear right there in Flickr. (You will need a pro account for many of the features)

Oops, forgot to change the filenames. These aren’t pics of Hippos! Either change the names in Flickr or in the metadata panel in Lightroom. Hit publish and all is well on both ends!

Oh, I can read the comments from Flickr in Lightroom? WOW! Ok, busted, the zoo isn’t the best place to shoot animals.

Watermark
A highly requested feature is watermarking. Good news is it’s here. You can also automatically add watermarks to your photos that you share on Flickr. Add them to prints, to slideshows, wherever you like.

Choose the settimngs from publish manager to apply watermarks to photos destined for Flickr.

You can add text or image watermarks from the new Watermark editor.

Slideshow
Slideshows have always been a favoriate for Photographers. There are 2 big features in Lightroom 3 beta. The first one is that mac users can now add music without being tied to iTunes. You can actually choose a song now, and not a playlist. The second, which you will love, is the ability to export a slideshow as video! You can create an H.264 video with music. This is the same format for iTunes and iPods. Photographers can now offer slideshow videos to their clients as an extra service. You can also time the slideshowto the song.

Print package
Biggest addition? The ability to create custom packaged. Simply drag images onto th page. Resize how you like. Tip: Press the Ctrl/Cmd key to move a photo within a frame. You can drag and drop a photointo a frame to replace the existing photo.

Other stuff?
Lightroom 3is loaded with other new goodies including all new vigeting and grain effects. You can simul;ate film grain or just add a little for effect while softening photos. The noise reduction has been rewritten. The RAW conversion engine is all new. The demosaaic is much better, resulting in better conversions from RAW. Speed is also better.

Visit the Lightroom Learning Site

The PhotoshopCAFE booth was a huge success. We were swamped with people, usually 2 deep all the time. It seems that they have seen our ads in Outdoor Photographer and Digital Photo magazines. It was great to see a ton of repeat customers snapping up all the new DVDs as well as meeting lots of new faces.

Overall I was very happy with the Easy Coast reception. We are better knows on the West Coast at shows, but it seems this is changing as there were a lot of East Coast CAFE fans.

Then to add to the excitement, we snapped up tickets for the New Youk Yankees and Angels final Playoff game at the new Yankee stadium. Oh boy! What a crowd. The Yankees really do have fans. More about that in the next post

This old abandoned bridge is Shreveport was very interesting. I had to tread carefully because a lot of the wood was rotten.

The “CAFE Crew”

We were very lucky to not only have such talent speak at the booth, but we had incredible talent working the booth. These guys really out did them selves this time, a special thank you to them, and to the PhotoshopCafe community for making this such a successful show for us. If you were not be to make it out to this one, we hope to see you at another show. These days it is rare to have such an incredible learning experience while having a blast as well.

Read on for more and tons more pictures!

This was the speaker Schedule at the booth.

Thursday, Oct. 1

2:00-2:30
Tim Cooper The Zone System for Digital Photography
Learn how Ansel Adams used the zone system to get perfectly exposed shots everytime. You will never shoot in Auto mode again.

3:00-3:30
Jeff Foster Learning After Effects
Jeff will show you how to get started in Adobe After Effects. Make your Photoshop creations and photos move in amazing ways.

4:00-4:30
Colin Smith Photoshop and Flash Integration
Work with Photoshop and Flash together seamlessly. Craft an entire site with fluid movement and dynamic photo galleries.

Friday, Oct. 2

2:00-2:30
Jeff Foster Stereoscopic 3D in Photoshop
Grab a pair of 3D glasses from the booth and watch as Jeff shows you how to create real 3D right in Photoshop!

3:00-3:30
Tim Cooper Perfect Composition for Digital Photography
There are some rules that pros live by, learn to shoot like them. In 30 minutes, your photography will be completely transformed.

4:00-4:30
Stephen Burns Photoshop and Poser Integration. Photoshop & 3D
Stephen will show you how to unlock the 3D tools in Photoshop to create stunning artwork with effortless ease.

Saturday, Oct. 3

10:00-10:30
Wes Maggio Photoshop and Wacom Tablets
Watch and learn as Wacom’s Product Specialist, shows you how to master the use of the Wacom pen tablet.

11:00-11:30
Stephen Burns Photoshop and Poser Integration. Photoshop & 3D
Stephen will show you how to unlock the 3D tools in Photoshop to create stunning artwork with effortless ease.

What the guys had to say

Greetings, all!
Photoshop World has wrapped up and everyone has packed up and on their way.
We had some amazing speakers at the booth:
Colin Smith
Jeff Foster
Tim Cooper
Steven Burns
Wes Maggio

We had some wonderful people working the booth

Bruce Bicknell – Sessions.edu instructor and booth ‘manager’
Matt Keefe – Developer, Programmer, Photographer, Social Diretor
Darren ‘Daz’ Winder – The Amazing Illustrating Man v1
Philip Neal – The Amazing Illustrating Man v2
Frank ‘Cfire” Priboy – Director and Training disk Guru
Fotodog – You friendly Cafe Photographer
Kayser Ridha – Big Brother Star and Actor
Sabrina Bollenbach – Fashion Photographer

This was my first Photoshop World and although the vendors were not as abundant as previous years, I was in Photoshop heaven.

I’ll leave it to the other booth-mates to add their reviews, but we definitely made impact on the Photoshop World (as well as Las Vegas)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotodog

Cheers
~fotodog

Photos by Greg AKA fotodog

Frank hard at work

Colin and Matt figuring out a technical issue

BFF Daz and Phil

Bruce

Colin during his presentation

Colin at Freemont st

Matt at Freemost St

Kaysar

Frank

At dinner on Coli’s bday

The “CAFE Crew”

Big enough? Burger

Jeff Foster Presenting

PhotoshopCAFE booth

Tim Cooper

Looks like trouble. Daz, Matt and Frank watch Tim’s presentation

Dtephen Burns explaining 3D at the PSC Booth

Jeff and his 3D presentation

Jeff looks great in these new glasses

Photoshop World has come and gone once again, each year is more memorable than the last; We Had A Blast!!
It was good to see the familiar team faces and also to meet Greg and Frank, great guys.
Each year PhotoshopCafe goes the extra mile, this year was awesome,
Colin good job, the PhotoshopCafe booth was outstanding, thanks for another great Photoshop World.

DAZ

Photos by Daz

Matt and Bruce getting ready for it all to start

Daz, Frank and Kaysar

Stephen

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m still trying to recover.
Vegas wears me out
To all who have never attended, you have to go sometime and hang out. Everyone from the Cafe is amazing. You can’t ask for a better family.

PNEAL

Those photos came out awesome! I will write my review of PSW when I get some sleep and energy, an “8 hour” flight really takes it out of you.

Although I will say it was nice meeting up with familiar faces and some new ones too. Man I love the Cafe family and every year PhotoshopCafe steps up to the challenge of “do one better”, this year was no exception… more on that later.

Matt

Photos by Matt

Hey Colin and everyone else,

I finally got home late last night and am happy to report that after Laura got there and we upgraded to a jacuzzi suite my feet/legs feel almost normal. We rode the rollercoaster at NYNY and it was cool although not nearly as scary as a real NYC taxi ride.

All I can say for now is that I had a great time hanging with you guys, the demos at the booth rocked and the whole experience was really fun and inspirational. I wish I’d had more time to spend getting to know you all more. I really enjoyed talking with those I could with such limited time and I look forward to more.

Thanks for the invite and the goodies!

Frank

Photos by Frank

My Photoshop 3D with the glasses seemed to be a hit. We gave out over a hundred pairs of glasses in less than 15 minutes and drew people away from Scott Kelby doing a live demo (with cameras rolling on him) in a booth one aisle over.

Also – I’ve had a lot of comments about the T-shirt since I left PSW – people at Adobe MAX liked it as have people in random stores, etc.

That’s all I have for now – Jeff

Photos by Colin

Frank Taking a shot

Some of Colins iPhone pictures

We took a limo to Freemont st and the ols strip. Nothin’ but style for the CAFE Crew! 
Jeff does 3D at the booth

Contortionist at the istock Party

The istock party was crazy at a Rock Star Mansion. All the CAFE Crew got VIP tickets

Photos By Tim Cooper

The Artisan hotel. Thanks to Mr. Daniel Brown for finding this spot

A Speakeasy bar down by Freemont St

See more pictures at the PhotoshopCAFE Flickr page

See this on the web

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/news/psw09.htm

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cafe/viewthread.php?tid=52491

Co blogging

Get a full list of Photoshop World cobloggers here …

Corey Barker
John Paul Caponigro
RC Concepcion
Dave Cross

Jim Divitale
Laurie Excell

Richard Harrington
Scott Kelby
Matt Koslowski
Deke McClelland
Joe McNally
John Nack
Moose Peterson
Jeff Schewe
Colin Smith
Ben Willmore
David Ziser

Vectors Explained
As you know, Photoshop is primarily known for its ability to manipulate pixels, those tiny building blocks that join together so tightly that they seem to form a smooth image, usually a digital photograph. But Photoshop is also handy with the other important family of computer-graphics building blocks: the little guys called vectors.

Vectors are lines, whose curvature, thickness, and length are determined by mathematical formulae. You don’t need to know any math; it’s all done for you. If you want a shape like a circle, your job is to simply draw the circle; Photoshop defines the center point and the radius to create a circle. At that point, you can specify the circle’s color, line thickness, and so on.

It might seem odd to find vector-drawing tools in a pixel-pushing program like Photoshop; vector drawing is usually associated with very different programs, like Illustrator and Freehand. Photoshop can’t create entire vector documents. It uses vector elements and stores them in layers and as paths.  But be grateful that Photoshop offers this feature; it can come in handy in a number of situations. Most commonly vectors are used for cutting something out from its background in a photograph. Check out the car, vectors were used to cut it out.

The pen tool is great for these kinds of cutout tasks because of the clean, controllable, reusable nature of vectors.

Other times you might prefer to use Photoshop’s vector tools are for a large poster, because you can create it small and then scale it up huge without losing any quality. Vectors are great for when you have to change a design many times because you get no degradation each time you change something. Vectors also work great for text and box heavy designs such as postcards, because the edges will print nice and sharp.

In Photoshop (and other Adobe programs), the mathematical name for the lines that determine vectors is Bézier curves.

They’re named after their French creator, Pierre Bézier, who came up with a clever way to make computer-drawn lines bend to their will. A Bezier curve’s direction and angle is determined by the position of little anchor points that lie nearby

Drawing with the pen tool
When it comes to actually creating a path from scratch, the pen tool is the most common option. This tool may look familiar to you. That’s because its almost identical to the pen tool in other Adobe apps like Illustrator, Indesign and Flash.
It’s not, unfortunately, a very natural process, especially to anyone who grew up drawing with markers or crayons. This is because unlike the pencil tool, you are creating your shape with points and handles. You don’t just draw on the page, you have to add points and manipulate them to create your shapes. The pen tool is the way that you add these points and the way you drag the tool as you create the points determines how they will look.
Remember, the fewer points, the smoother a path will be. Imagine moving a pencil in a single motion to produce a smooth curve. If you attempt that same curve with many short strokes, you’ll wind up with not such a smooth curve—and that’s what you get if you add too many points do to path.

Learn how to create paths!

Read entire tutorial here

From the Golden Gate Bridge. Just shot this an hour ago. A little HDR and also some other little adjustments.

I wanted to do something different than the usual Golden Gate Photos you see. (Of course I captured a bunch of those too)