Commenting Update, Again
A couple of you have written to let me know you’re still having difficulties with comments. Behind the scenes, there’s been working going on to solve the problem, including upgrades in the Movable Type software that runs the site.
As of this morning, things are running the way they should — at least from here. Please give it a try and see. Let me know at blog (at) ospreydesign (dot) com if you still have a problem, and I’ll get MT to look over the installation to offer their insights.
Thanks for your patience!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 28, 2006, at 9:59 AM.
Posted to Site news
Aperture 1.5
Apple released a new version of Aperture this week at the Photokina show in Cologne, Germany. It’s a free upgrade for current owners, and should be available as a download today or tomorrow.
Rob Galbraith has a good overview:
The program can now work with pictures wherever they reside, not just on a single drive as before, the adding of metadata on import has been streamlined, RAW photos can be exported with XMP-format sidecar files, Aperture Library contents are accessible from applications in Apple’s iWork and iLife suites and a developer’s SDK enables third parties to create custom export modules.
There are important changes to the image viewing and processing controls too, but the most compelling aspects of the new release involving importing, tracking, exporting and sharing pictures. Here’s a look at some of what’s new.
Read the rest, and note the photos from the introduction — nice. (Thanks, Rob!)
Aperture has the potential to be a nearly-perfect application for sorting and preparing photos for use in book projects — its ability to organize is what got me interested in the first place. (After all, I love Photoshop. I’m not interested in “replacing” Photoshop, only streamlining the process — using something to organize and do simple adjustments to RAW files. Photoshop would still be the king for complex adjustments and all “artistic” stuff…!)
Note Apple’s section on books, too:
Presenting prospective clients with a handsome, bound and printed Stock Book sends a powerful message. And Aperture makes the production of such high-quality bound books both simple and affordable. To help you put a unique stamp on them, Aperture includes a sophisticated book-layout engine that offers significant design flexibility.
You can manually drag or have Aperture automatically place photographs in a layout for you. Double click on any photo, and you can zoom in or pan the image until it’s perfectly positioned. Aperture also lets you add both text and photo boxes; move, resize, and rotate photos; insert multi-columned text; even use your own photos as full-bleed, ghosted background images. Need another page? Add a blank one whenever you’d like or simply duplicate an existing page and replace its photos or text.
With Aperture, you have total control. And when you’re ready, you can print your completed book on your own printer, save it as a PDF, or take advantage of Aperture’s integrated ordering service to order hard- or soft-cover books printed at 300dpi for optimal print quality.
Would I lay out a photo book in Aperture rather than InDesign? Probably not. Will have to see, once I have the program.
…Which, unfortunately, won’t be immediately. It’s not just a matter of purchasing Aperture — it’s a matter of also purchasing a computer it’ll run on. My 20” iMac won’t cut it. Soon.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 28, 2006, at 9:45 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Computers | Photography
British Library on Copyrights
From yesterday’s Ars news:
The British Library has the Magna Carta, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, but it’s still not happy. Why not? Because it has the intellectual property blues.
The Library issued a manifesto today on intellectual property law in the UK and offered six suggestions for cleaning up the current mess, all of which attempt to strike a proper balance between the rights of creators and consumers of content. […]
Overall, the proposals are well-balanced, though parties on both sides of the debate will find bits to dislike. Copyright holders will dislike the restrictions on contracts and DRM, while those in favor of “open access” may be disappointed that the British Library advocates a “life + 70 years” copyright term. Still, it’s good to see an institution with the stature of the Library arguing for such a balanced set of proposals, and we hold out hope that the Library of Congress will one day advocate for many of the same proposals on this side of the pond.
Hear, hear.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 26, 2006, at 9:15 PM.
Posted to Books | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Writing
Artdaily.com on Books
Book lovers and aesthetes alike will often cite the material qualities of a book, the cloth covers, glossy pages, rough or gilded edges, or the personal touch that one can experience through a book’s design — even more than a book’s contents — as the basis for the medium’s lasting significance in contemporary society. These characteristics add up to the overall significance of a book as an object to behold, rather than simply a source of information, something appreciated by artists and readers since the first illuminated manuscript was published over ten centuries ago.
From “the first art newspaper on the net,” Off the Shelf: New Forms in Contemporary Artists’ Books. Cool.
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 22, 2006, at 3:59 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Book design | Books, design, art | Libraries
Cover I Like Today
Publisher’s Weekly:
The main points of this hard-hitting indictment of the Iraq war have been made before, but seldom with such compelling specificity.
Compelling cover, too:
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, September 20, 2006, at 9:46 PM.
Posted to Book design
For Sale: Sony F828
Update: SOLD. Thank you all for the interest!!
My year-old Sony F828, a 7x (optical) zoom, 28-200mm, 8 megapixel, articulating body camera, is up for sale:
Selling as a kit, with the HVL-F32X external flash (a nice unit with excellent capabilities), 1GB compact flash (it’ll also take Memory Sticks — simultaneously!), all the cables, original packaging, etc., and two bags (of different styles).
I liked my time with it, but simply outgrew it — and found that the only way to get some of the “pro” features I needed was with “pro” gear. The Sony isn’t, frankly, but during the year I had it, I was asked a great many times what kind of camera I had — because the pictures were so good.
It does well-lit and studio scenes beautifully. Use a tripod in the dark, and get great results there, too, or attach the external flash to get outstanding results with fill or bounce. Small enough to carry in a purse, it’s best feature is the articulating body — move the grip and screen on the back some 100 degrees up and down (I think it’s 70 up and 30 down) relative to the plane of the lens — fantastic for taking ground-level or over-the-crowd shots.
Read Sony’s point of view, or a review by The Luminous Landscape’s Michael Reichmann, who covers the good and the bad — and notes that he bought one:
”[T]he Sony F828 has found a permanent place in my camera arsenal— it’s the ideal digital travel camera…”
$550 for the kit, plus $25 insured shipping (in the U.S.). Little more than some — certainly not all — on eBay, but you get the great flash unit, you know who you’re buying it from, and can rest assured that it works and has been well taken care of.
Email blog (at) ospreydesign (dot) com if you’re interested or would like more information. Good examples of photos taken with this camera are available on Flickr. (That link only shows photos taken with the camera pictured above.)
The Sony opened my eyes to what photography can do. It’s not perfect, but what it does, it does exceptionally well. I hope someone enjoys it!
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 19, 2006, at 6:32 PM.
Posted to Personal | Photography | Technology
More Adobe News
Things are rolling forth from Adobe these days — pulling us ever closer to the CS3 experience. Can’t wait! (Looking forward to that $500+ upgrade, too — not.)
First up is a new version of Camera Raw, 3.5. This Photoshop plug-in now supports new digital camera (Sony Alpha, Nikon D2Xs, etc.). RAW can be a valuable tool when shooting photos — try it. The big news here is that it’s now Universal, for those of you using MacIntel.
Second, speaking of MacIntel, Adobe demonstrated Photoshop CS3 on a MacIntel machine at the recent Photoshop World.
“During the Photoshop World keynote, Adobe’s Sr. Vice President of Creative Solutions provided a quick look at Photoshop CS3, apparently running on an Intel-based Mac,” PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note to clients on Monday.
“While the presentation did not reveal any of the CS3 features, it provided evidence that the company has already successfully moved this core application to the Intel-Mac platform.”
AppleInsider also notes:
Next year’s Photoshop World is scheduled for April 4-6 at the John B. Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Mass., suggesting a release of Adobe Creative Suite 3.0 may precede the conference.
Third, that same article notes that the existing Creative Suite 2 has been updated:
Version 2.3 will include its Acrobat 8 Professional software, the newly released version of its PDF workflow software. In addition to supporting industry-standard PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3 files, Acrobat 8 Professional now outputs PDF/X-4 for native transparency support, as well as PDF/A for long-term archiving.
Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium also bundles Dreamweaver 8, the Web design and development tool acquired from Macromedia.
Interesting. GoLive, once the king of the hill, is now pretty lacking — glad they’ve selected Dreamweaver instead. (Or perhaps both? Either way.…) Acrobat 8 adds to the PDF letter soup. (Joy.)
Yup, exciting times…;)
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 19, 2006, at 5:24 PM.
Posted to Computers
Amazing
…photograph by Joe Reifer, titled Mojave #189:
Now if that’s not a book cover waiting to happen!
From The Online Photographer, (still) perhaps the best photography blog going.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 19, 2006, at 5:18 PM.
Posted to Art | Book cover photography | Photography
Photoshop 9.0.2, Again
It’s back:
Back in August, the company briefly made available 9.0.2 for Mac via the program’s software update mechanism, but that update was found to have a printing bug that affected OS X 10.2.x and 10.3.x systems and was quickly pulled from circulation. This 9.0.2 updater has the same fixes as the earlier 9.0.2, plus a correction for the earlier 9.0.2’s printing bug.
If you installed the earlier 9.0.2 updater for Mac, the new 9.0.2 updater’s Read Me document notes that Photoshop CS2 must be reinstalled before running the new updater.
Oh, reinstall joys!
Seriously, hat tip to Rob Galbraith, who also notes that the Windows version has been out since Aug. 23.
Posted by Giles, Monday, September 18, 2006, at 8:13 AM.
Posted to Computers
Comments Update
The problem seems to be when you preview; the system “loses” your information for some reason. If you just type and hit “post,” it goes through — but previewed comments error out.
No reasons why that I can tell; going to ask for help from the Movable Type folks. More ASAP.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, September 13, 2006, at 10:08 PM.
Posted to Site news
Google Books Highlights Banned Books
For decades, literary classics such as The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye have had a profound impact on millions of readers. Yet every year, there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from schools and libraries nationwide. Fortunately, the American Library Association and many other organizations are fighting back with Banned Books Week, taking place this year Sept. 23-30.
Now Google has joined the party. At google.com/bannedbooks, you can use Google Book Search to explore some of the best novels of the 20th century which have been challenged or banned. And while libraries and bookstores around the country celebrate the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week with special readings, displays, and more, you just might end up with a visit to your local library or bookstore and an old favorite or a new banned book in hand.
I don’t even like typing the phrase “banned books.” Glad that Google’s drawing some attention to it — and pushing the use of libraries instead of just their offering.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, September 13, 2006, at 9:49 PM.
Posted to Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Personal | Publishing
New Biz for Pantone
Paint. But not just any paint: $133 per gallon paint.
Pantone is known as the standard resource for color choices: virtually every designer keeps the company’s color wheels — which divide the spectrum into 3,039 specific hues — close at hand. (There are roughly 300 shades of blue alone.) Today Pantone is introducing a line of paints based on its comprehensive system in partnership with Fine Paints of Europe, a Vermont company that imports paints from the Netherlands. The main benefit, aside from the Dutch quality, is a broader array of colors than is typically found at paint stores, according to Lisa Herbert, an executive vice president of Pantone. But be prepared to pay a premium. A gallon of Pantone paint costs about $133.
From today’s NYTimes.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, September 13, 2006, at 9:41 PM.
Posted to Design | Whatever
Off Topic: iTV
I want one:
Breaking with Apple’s tradition of not announcing unreleased products [sic], Jobs said that the company will release a wireless, set-top box for the TV called… iTV. Approximately half the size of the Mac mini, the iTV will feature Ethernet, 802.11g, USB ports, component video, optical audio, and HDMI ports. It will work with the Apple Remote and sport an interface much like that of Front Row.
iTV will allow music, TV shows, and movies residing on a computer to play on a television in another part of the house with what Jobs describes as instantaneous access. It is slated to ship during the first quarter of 2007 and will retail for $299.
More on the new iPods, the update to iTunes, etc., at Ars, or, watch the Apple event.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 12, 2006, at 3:18 PM.
Posted to Computers | Personal | Technology | Whatever
DO: This is My Process
The Design Observer’s Michael Beirut notes, somewhat tongue-in-cheek:
When I do a design project, I begin by listening carefully to you as you talk about your problem and read whatever background material I can find that relates to the issues you face. If you’re lucky, I have also accidentally acquired some firsthand experience with your situation. Somewhere along the way an idea for the design pops into my head from out of the blue. I can’t really explain that part; it’s like magic. Sometimes it even happens before you have a chance to tell me that much about your problem! Now, if it’s a good idea, I try to figure out some strategic justification for the solution so I can explain it to you without relying on good taste you may or may not have. Along the way, I may add some other ideas, either because you made me agree to do so at the outset, or because I’m not sure of the first idea. At any rate, in the earlier phases hopefully I will have gained your trust so that by this point you’re inclined to take my advice. I don’t have any clue how you’d go about proving that my advice is any good except that other people — at least the ones I’ve told you about — have taken my advice in the past and prospered. In other words, could you just sort of, you know…trust me?
Great article. Check it out.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 12, 2006, at 11:36 AM.
Posted to Advertising | Book and design blogs | Business | Design | Jobs | Whatever | Writing
Two on Photography
— Smithsonian’s new Photography Initiative. Very cool.
— Digital Tampering in the Media, Politics and Law
Photography, of course, lost its innocence many years ago. In as early as the 1920s, shortly after the first commercially available camera was introduced, Stalin had his enemies “air-brushed” out of photographs. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images is becoming more common. Here, I have collected some examples of digital tampering in the media, politics, and the law.
Posted by Giles, Saturday, September 9, 2006, at 12:47 PM.
Posted to Photography
Scoop: Acrobat 8 on Sept. 18; Possible CS3 Details
From a Google-translated Italian article:
From the scarno communicated it is learned that Adobe will renew the entire line of Acrobat applications and that “will be enriched from new functionalities […] offers the possibility to create, to manage and to share documents and information, from the layout of press to the creative campaigns, without worries in terms of emergency, arranges operated or applications to you”.
Beyond to Acrobat, in that occasion, innovationes in the field are preannounced of “web-conferencing turned to the professionals and companies that must communicate and interact in real time without geographic and technological barriers”.
It will be occasion also for having greater information with regard to the distance and to the tempistica of Photoshop and the other applications of the Creatives Suite 3 in Universal version, for the Mac with processore Intel.
Probably the international announcement will happen the day before, the 18 september.
Apple’s all-Intel line of computers is making Adobe’s non-Universal flagship applications a little behind the times. C’mon Adobe. Surprise us with something!
Posted by Giles, Saturday, September 9, 2006, at 12:22 PM.
Posted to Computers
Errors in Posting Comments (Again)
Joe M. writes with a “Double Wow!” on the Library Smut entry — but wasn’t able to leave a comment due to an error. Argh!
Seems the comment errors are cropping up again. Will attempt to fix over the weekend — but in the meantime, please continue to try, as it seems to be an intermittent problem.
Many thanks for your patience — and continued comments!
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 8, 2006, at 11:12 AM.
Posted to Site news
A Million Little Refunds
James Frey, the author who admitted making up portions of his best-selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” and his publisher, Random House, have agreed in principle on a settlement with readers who filed lawsuits claiming they had been defrauded.
Neither Mr. Frey nor Random House are admitting any wrongdoing, but consumers who bought the book on or before Jan. 26 — when both the publisher and author released statements acknowledging that Mr. Frey had altered certain facts — will be eligible for a full refund, said a person familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the settlement still has to be approved by a judge.
The NYTimes has more.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 7, 2006, at 9:16 PM.
Posted to Book people | Books | Ethics | Publishing
"Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut"
By “library smut” I am in no way referring to the photo books on native peoples, or the illustrated health manuals, or any of the other volumes which, in your childhood, you lurked about the library aisle to find with the sole purpose of sneaking guilty glances at naked bodies. Nor am I referring to the “risqué” novels by Miller, Cleland, Réage, or Lawrence you leafed impatiently through as a teenager. No. What I’m talking about here is the full-frontal objectification of the library itself. Oh yeah.
Only one word from here: Wow.
Check out the rest of the models here. Enjoy!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 7, 2006, at 12:50 PM.
Posted to Books, design, art | Libraries | Whatever
Surprise: 24-inch Apple iMac
Back in September, 2004, I looked on the new iMacs with pleasure. Had only one request, really:
The only thing better would be a bigger iMac G5. Slashdot to the rescue, though, quoting an Apple engineer (if you believe it) saying that they chose the arm they did specifically because the articulating ones couldn’t support LCD panels larger than 20 inches.
Well, fast forward two years. While rumors of a 23-inch iMac have been around (and around, and around), Apple’s announcement this morning took many by surprise — not only for being a week sooner than the latest rumors expected, but an inch larger, too:
Better still, they dropped the prices — $999 for the entry-level 17” and $1499 for the 20”, with the new 24 coming in at $1999. Sweet.
Now, if Adobe could just get moving on Universal Creative Suite applications.…
Note: Yeah, I’ve had some troubles with my existing iMac. But not so many that I wouldn’t consider another — and a 24” iMac is more than $1000 cheaper than a tower and 23-inch monitor combo. Another nice one, Apple.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, September 6, 2006, at 11:58 AM.
Posted to Computers
Cover I Want to Like Tonight, Except...
Happy Labor Day to those in the U.S.…
This caught my eye tonight:
Okay, it’s a simple setup. But it made me look twice. Then a third time, after I’d read the description.
Why? The premise of this book is interesting (quoting the Amazon page):
In a not-so-distant future, a deadly virus kills off every human on Earth, except for Laura Byrd, a wildlife specialist on an expedition to the South Pole. Readers quickly learn that the dead move on to another life in a fantastic city on another plane of existence; there, they live out a second life free from aging and disease until every person who knew them on Earth dies. The chapters alternate between Laura and those in the city of the dead, often showing how these individuals connect to her.
So, my question is, eye-cathing as it might be, does this cover serve that premise? I can’t help but to feel like the cover should have been more, well, out there.
What do you think?
Posted by Giles, Monday, September 4, 2006, at 9:47 PM.
Posted to Book design
"They Blog"
Kathy writes:
I’m building a blog that’s going to be a simple “Q&A with bloggers”. It’s called They Blog. I feel there are a lot of great blogs out there and I think a lot of readers (and bloggers) out there want to know the writers behind the blogs. I’d like to start with some of my personal favorites and I really hope you’ll take part!
Absolutely! Delighted — it’s a great idea — and more than a little flattered. Thank you.
Read Foreword’s Q&A here.
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 1, 2006, at 12:49 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book people | Books, design, art | Personal
Photoshop Tech "Sneak Peak"
From Rob Galbraith:
During his upcoming keynote address at Photoshop World, John Loiacono, senior vice president of Adobe’s Creative Solutions Business, will provide “a sneak peek at some of the new Photoshop technology being developed,” says a company press release. Photoshop World runs from September 7-9, 2006 in Las Vegas; Loiacono’s speech is slated for the morning of September 7.
Hope to see more news on that soon.
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 1, 2006, at 12:42 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Computers | Photography | Technology
Google Book Search Allowing Downloads of Some Books
From Ars:
When Google Print was first unveiled, it was clear that the site would become an amazing resource. It provided full access to books that were already out of copyright, but only if you viewed them online, one page at a time. What people most wanted, though, was the ability to download full PDF versions of the books, which they could read or print at their leisure and on their own machines. Oh, and they wanted Google to provide this free of charge.
Google went ahead and did it. Books no longer in copyright are now available for download from the Google Book Search site.
Wow. Google strikes again, in a big way.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, joining Apple’s board is an interesting thing, too. They certainly have become the company to watch.…
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 1, 2006, at 12:36 AM.
Posted to Book sellers | Books | Computers | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Publishing | Technology | Writing