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Adobe turns 30 this week
The Life@Adobe blog reminds us that Adobe Systems turns 30 years old this week. Wow, that's gone by pretty fast. Founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, the company started when the pair left Xerox PARC to develop the PostScript page description language. Apple was an early fan with its Laser Printer and LaserWriter. In 1985, desktop publishing took off. Later came Adobe Illustrator, and what would become the company's flagship product (and my favorite), Photoshop, which revolutionized image editing. I don't think a day goes by that I don't touch Photoshop, and I've been using it and upgrading since version 1.0 in 1990 when it was a Macintosh exclusive. In 1993, Adobe introduced PDF files and the Acrobat Reader, which is now up to version 11. It's another Adobe product that many people use daily. Like all big companies, Adobe has had its share of missteps. Most recently perhaps, the drama with Apple over Adobe Flash, which Apple chose to not support on iOS devices. After 30 years, Adobe continues to make a tremendous contribution to graphics, photography, printing and web design. It's hard to find a digital product or media tool that lacks some Adobe DNA. Another 30 years of success is a pretty sure thing.
Wacom announces Cintiq 22HD pen display, we go hands-on (video)
Oh, to sit in a darkened room all day and get paid to do art. No phone calls, no stress, and no technology except for a PC and a brand new $1,999 Wacom Cintiq 22HD tablet display (and maybe also a pair of equally well-engineered Beyerdynamics). Alas, only our Distro magazine crew get to live like that -- the rest of the Engadget team must make do with spec sheets and quick hands-on impressions, which are precisely what you'll find after the break. %Gallery-159971% %Gallery-160012%
Adobe Creative Cloud rolls out today: CS6 applications, storage and syncing from $50 per month
If you haven't already upgraded to CS6, then maybe Adobe can entice you to take the "radical" next step of signing up to its cloud service, which starts today in 36 countries priced at $50 per month on an annual contract, or $75 per month for the non-committal. Will it be worth the potatoes? That depends on whether you're the type of person who prefers to pay $2,600 upfront for a perpetual license, or alternatively make use of subscription-based access to online install files, HTML5 apps like Adobe Muse 1.0 (for code-free HTML design) and Adobe Edge preview (for animations and interactive content), plus integration with Adobe's Touch Apps for iOS and Android tablets. You'd also get that other big cloudy offering: 20GB of online storage for easy sharing, viewing and syncing of all your hard work. Finally, if you're using an older version of Creative Suite, then Adobe's offering you a pretty hefty introductory discount to entice you onto the slippery upgrade slope. Check out the press release for further price info, or just look up in the sky.
Artist plagiarizes Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft illustrators
If you're going to steal, steal big -- or so Romanian artist Iani Papadopol thought. Papadopol put on an exhibit called "UpDate 3D loading" featuring fantastic landscapes and scenery. The only problem? Instead of painting them himself, he ripped off several well-known illustrators, including ArenaNet's Daniel Dociu and Blizzard's Mathias Verhasselt, claiming the pieces as his own. The fraud was discovered by online fans and local artists after the exhibit was broadcast on TV. Papadopol's works were found to be stunningly similar -- in fact, identical -- to those of famous video game illustrators. Papadopol attempted to sell the prints before he was caught. There's no word yet whether charges will be filed. "I found out from my friends," Dociu, a fellow Romanian, said on a news channel. "I recognized four pieces of my work immediately. What upsets me is that he's also Romanian with an artistic background. I will not take legal action if he admits what he did." Papadopol's father, the acclaimed artist Constantin Papadopol, says that this is a misunderstanding. In any case, let this be the lesson to the next lazy art thief: It's perhaps best not to rip off the guy whose work was on the cover of National Geographic.
Wacom Intuos5 touch review
It's no secret Wacom has a firm grasp on what it takes to make great graphic input devices. Fresh off of its introduction of the Inkling last fall, the outfit recently unveiled the latest member of its high-end pen tablet line, the Intous5 touch. Essentially, Wacom took what made the Intuos4 a great addition to any designer or illustrator's workflow and refined it, with this latest iteration sporting a new rubber-coated shell. It also implements touch gestures -- much like those on the fresh Bamboo models -- which can be customized to speed up tasks you need to complete on the regular, preferably without the aid of a mouse. Sure, a new matte black suit and the ability to navigate Adobe Creative Suite without a pen seem impressive at first glance, but is the new model worth investing northward of $229? Are you better off sticking with the Intuos4 you splurged on a while back? Let's see.
Wacom announces Intuos5 graphics tablets, we go hands-on! (video)
It's a couple of months since we spotted paperwork for a mysterious "PTK-450" device at the FCC and now Wacom has finally revealed the gadget that goes with the label. The Intuos5 tablet is available to purchase immediately in Small (4 x 6 inches), Medium (6 x 8) and Large (13 x 8) sizes, priced at £200, £330 and £430 respectively. We're still waiting on confirmation of US pricing, but it'll no doubt be less than what a straight currency conversion suggests (i.e. somewhere below $320, $525 and $680). There's actually a fourth variant to add to the trio, but it's not an XL -- Wacom is hoping to up-sell you to a Cintiq 21UX or Cintiq 24HD if you want something bigger. Instead, the fourth tablet is a version of the Medium that comes without touch sensitivity, bringing the price down to £270 if you're able to live with pen-only input. Opting for this particular model will remove one of the biggest upgrades in this three-year product cycle: the ability of the Intuos5 to sense up to 16 finger-touches simultaneously, rather than just the nib of the pen. But there have been other revisions since the Intuos4 aside from touch, and you only have to read on to discover what those are.Update: There was a problem with the embedded video -- sorry folks. It's working properly now, along with more gallery pics below.Update: Just got word on US pricing. $230, $350 and $470 for the touch sensitive models. $300 for the Medium without touch. Also coming to the US is a pen-only version of the Small tablet -- we're not sure how much that'll cost (and Wacom's site seems to be down right now), but it'll be the cheapest upgrade of the bunch.
Former Lineage II artist returns to NCsoft for new MMO project
NCsoft's prodigal son has returned, and with him the hopes and dreams of the future of gaming. Well that might be a smidge melodramatic, but fans of the company's games certainly have a good reason to celebrate today as former Lineage II artist Juno Jeong has come back to the fold. Jeong signed back on with NCsoft as of yesterday to be the art director of an unknown MMO project. This is a marked step up from his previous role in the company as a member of the character production team, and those who know Jeong's art style are already expressing excitement with his current role. Following his stint on Lineage II, Jeong worked for several other game companies including Gravity, NHN, and Npluto. While speculation is swirling over the exact nature of the project to which he's been assigned, the most common assumptions are either that he's working on another Lineage or Aion title.
Adobe CreatePDF for Android does exactly what its name implies
Google's mobile OS is growing and maturing into a business-savvy adult before our very eyes. With the release of Adobe's CreatePDF in the Android Market, we're delighted to finally see a PDF-creation app on the mobile front. Not only does it let you build a PDF from the ground up, it can convert most popular filetypes -- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OpenOffice, Photoshop, RTF, and Illustrator, just to name a few -- into PDF format. You can import any of these kinds of docs from your phone to app via the built-in file manager, or transfer an email attachment to it using Android's share function. Available for a one-time payment of $9.99, CreatePDF won't be for the light-walleted or the casual app enthusiast; don't be put off by the price, though, because the online version charges that much per month to do the exact same tasks on your computer. Anyone rocking Eclair or better can partake of the PDF love, so head to the source link to get straight to installing.
News roundup: Trek artists muse Apple design, Illustrator CS5 patched, Apple urged to pay dividends, free apps and more
Each week is busy and with summer winding down and several of us on vacation, we can't hit it all at once. So here's a little roundup of what happened over the past few days. Ars Technica has a lovely chat with some designers from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show where you may recall seeing an iPad-like device called the PADD (for Personal Access Display Device). You may be surprised to discover all those flat control panels were designed that way, in part, because they were cheaper than a panel with a bunch of physical buttons. As Apple keeps piling up cash ala Scrooge McDuck, some folks are calling for the iCompany to start doling out that cash back to stockholders in the form of a dividend. It's a familiar refrain (Microsoft gets this one frequently as has Google), although we're not so sure Apple won't need that cash in case the economy tanks again or in case they need to buy Facebook or Nintendo. Illustrator CS5 had a bug, and Adobe patched it. Well, it was actually a pretty significant bug for people running professional work Macs and who had more than 4GB of RAM. Apparently the app would cause all sorts of bad things to happen. But this patch makes it better, so apply it now if you haven't already. Free apps! Toodledo is usually around $3 but is currently free. If you've been wondering what the hubbub about Scott Pilgrim is, you can download six volumes of the comic on your iPhone or iPad. Duck Hunt is also free today for your retro arcade pleasure. MacRumors reports that Apple has hired a NFC (near-field communications) expert, which could herald ticketless concert trips for iPhone users, or the ability to buy stuff by just waving your iPhone around like an idiot. The future is soon!
Macworld 2010: TypeDNA
On the last day of Macworld, I caught up with the guys from TypeDNA to take a look at what I soon realized was going to be a revolutionary bit of software magic for designers of any ilk. TypeDNA is a series of plugins for Adobe CS4 applications (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) which makes finding the right font a simple matter. It has several methods for navigating font collections, starting with a search by name, which is handy on its own. The functionality expands from there, doing such things as automatically offering suggestions for similar fonts and font harmonies. The harmonies feature is especially interesting, and the suggestions it offered while they were demoing it were very good. You can pick a font from the suggestions and search for similar fonts to find exactly the right typeface for your project. TypeDNA always offers a variety of suggestions, and recognizes that font choice is entirely subjective ... you make all the decisions, it just helps you navigate a large font collection quickly and intuitively. I'll be doing a more in-depth review as soon as the demo version comes out (soon). The full version will be available in March, and will run $59US per plugin, or $89US for a full set (3 plugins) and two licenses so you can use them on two separate machines.
EVE illustrator breathes a dark, gritty life into the game's setting
Writer Annalee Newitz from the sci-fi centric io9 blog recently took a look at some of EVE Online's memorable artwork, by Icelandic concept designer B. Börkur Eiríksson (apparently also known as "Nag" according to The Art of EVE book). Börkur has been the Lead Artist/Illustrator at CCP Games since 2004, imbuing New Eden's futuristic backstory with his very dark, gritty style that really helps set the tone. On Börkur's "Industra" -- a depiction of a gloomy, burn out industrial city -- Newitz writes, "This image of a future city... feels to me like some anachronistic mashup of impressionist art and science fiction. The people in their hats and bonnets look almost nineteenth century..."io9 has a sampling of Börkur's artwork, but his online gallery -- Björn Börkur Eiríksson: Industrium -- is the prime place to find numerous examples of his work, divided between Concepts/Illustrations and Sketches/Speedpaints. EVE Online fans will recognize much of this artwork, which has been featured alongside fiction appearing in E-ON magazine and the official site's Chronicles over the years. If you're a fan of unidealized depictions of the future -- hell, if you just liked Blade Runner -- you'll probably appreciate the artwork of B. Börkur Eiríksson. [Via CrazyKinux]
Adobe CS4 offers overall improvements, higher upgrade pricing
As Robert reported earlier this month, Adobe officially announced Creative Suite 4 via a streaming webcast earlier this morning. Adobe CS4, which is scheduled to ship sometime in October, is being touted as "Adobe's biggest software release to date." While I was watching the webcast for our sister site, Download Squad, what struck me was the focus on performance improvements and cross-product integration. I've been dabbling with some of the CS4 betas since the beginning of the summer, and I agree that the Macromedia products are now much more tightly integrated (at least on the Fireworks and Dreamweaver side, I haven't used the Flash CS4 beta) with the rest of the Adobe suite.On the performance side, the GPU acceleration rumors for Photoshop CS4 that Mat mentioned back in May are a reality. What was really striking, to me, was that despite the all the hub-bub about the lack of 64-bit support for the Mac version of Photoshop CS4, the demonstrations for the webcast were all performed on a Mac (I'm assuming it was a Mac Pro, it was attached to an external monitor on stage and also displayed on stage/screen). Showing off some of advantages of GPU acceleration, the representative from Adobe worked on a 2 GB 400 megapixel file, showing how easy it was to zoom in and out, and roate the image without any lag or slowdown.So, 32-bit or not, Mac design shops that have powrful systems should benefit tremendously from the speed improvements to Photoshop.The pricing for some of the Adobe CS4 bundle suites has increased nominally both for upgrades and new purchases. Web Premium CS3 was $1599 US, whereas Web Premium CS4 will be $1699 US. Design and Production Premium prices remain the same ($1799 US for Design Premium, $1699 for Production Premium), but the price of Design Standard is now $1399 US, up $200 from Design Standard CS3. Upgrade prices on suites appear to be about the same as CS3, although Web Premium is $100 more than it was 18 months ago. For anyone who purchased Design Premium CS3 before May of 2008, you will be happy to know that Fireworks is now included in this suite (it was included in suites sold after May of 2008 or if you paid the $160 to upgrade to Acrobat 9). Fireworks never should have been omitted from Design Premium in the first place, so this is a nice addition.Adobe Creative Suite 4 will be shipping sometime in October. One note for PPC Mac users -- Adobe After Effects CS4 will only support Intel systems. Premeire Pro CS4, like CS3, is also Intel-only.
TUAW Faceoff: Low-cost vector design apps
While I'm not a hard-core professional illustrator or cartoonist, I do use vector design tools almost every day. Designing logos, playing with type, and creating quick layouts are things every vector design tool should do well. Adobe Illustrator CS3, of course, is the 800-pound gorilla in this field, and it's my tool of choice. But there are plenty of people who don't need the extensive functionality that Illustrator provides. Plus, Illustrator is something of a resource hog (right now, it's using 176MB of real memory and 1.21GB of virtual memory on my system). Today, I'm going to review four leaner, lower-cost (or free) options from four high-powered indie Mac developers: DrawBerry, EazyDraw, Lineform, and VectorDesigner. Unlike Illustrator, all of these use Mac OS X's built-in Core Image foundation, which makes them very easy to compare to each other. It's high noon for vector apps, after the jump.
Freehand dead, discount crossgrade to Lineform
Rumors of Freehand's demise have been raised and squashed before, but now it's official. Gruber points to this notice that Adobe has canned further development Freehand in favor of Illustrator. Adobe is offering some discounts on Illustrator for registered owners of Freehand, as well as some tutorials aimed at helping folks move over, but they will not be offering any further updates to Freehand. Apparently in an effort to capitalize on annoyance of longtime Freehand users, Freeverse is offering a discount on their competing vector graphics package Lineform. Just enter code "freehand" to get $30 off the regular price of $79.95 until June 1st. This looks like a great deal on Lineform; even if it's not quite as powerful as Illustrator, it's still a substantial vector graphics application for about $50.[via The Apple Blog]
Lineform 1.3 Updated with PDF Support
We've mentioned Lineform a couple of times, but the newly released version 1.3 of Freeverse's Illustrator alternative vector illustration program adds a significant new feature: PDF import and editing. You can now directly import a PDF into Lineform, resize it, and mark it up with the standard Lineform drawing tools. Other new features include improved SVG support and 256000% (!) maximum zoom.Lineform remains $79.95 and a demo is available.[Via Daring Fireball]
Inkscape - Open Source Vector Graphics Editor
Everyone knows about GIMP, the open source graphics editor that competes with Photoshop for editing bitmap images, or images with "pixels in a bitmap." But what if you need a free program that can work with vector-based images, such as those that Adobe Illustrator builds? Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor that runs in the X11 environment compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.Inkscape can import many and work with many of the common graphics formats, such as JPEG, PNG and TIFF, and can export as PNG and many of the common vector-based graphics formats.GIMP and Inkscape combined can offer many of the same capabilities of their much more expensive cousins Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. If you're looking to build a graphic design machine on the cheap, you should at least check out these open source programs. They may just suit your needs.
Adobe to drop GoLive, Freehand
The Mac Observer is reporting that Adobe announced at Adobe Live that the company is giving the axe to GoLive and Freehand for CS3, due out spring of 2007. Before the Adobe-Macromedia merger, GoLive was Adobe's Dreamweaver (and a far superior product, might I add), and Freehand was Macromedia's Illustrator (here's hoping Adobe means every word of their comment that "Dreamweaver will get a new interface"). I'm sure that since this decision was made some time ago, Adobe has had extra development hands to spend on making an Intel-native Creative Suite other projects.If this announcement disappoints you, just remember something John Gruber said in his translation of Adobe's PR announcement and FAQs of the merger: "Competition is overrated - it only benefits customers".
Make a request for Adobe CS3
We're sure you've heard the news by now: No universal version of the Adobe pro apps until 2007. The good news is that Adobe is currently taking your suggestions for the upcoming Creative Suite 3. You've got the ear of one of the world's software giants, so speak up.[Via creativebits]
