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Tuesday, February 7, 2012 10:15a EST - Did you see that the Nikon D800 has been announced? 36.3 million pixels (7,360 x 4,912) for $3K. It's also capable of broadcast quality video at 30 fps.

Friday, February 3, 2012 7:15a EST - 15 minutes ago our home page banner changed to read, "An Unprecedented Educational Opportunity Starts Today!"

Monday, January 30, 2012 4:41p EST - Friday Adobe previewed a much needed new app called Prelude, to add to their growing collection of DVA (Digital Video Audio) apps with other show biz names: Audition, Encore, On Location, and Premiere. Some describe Prelude as Adobe Bridge for video. It allows you to ingest digital footage, review it, and do a rough cut without requiring the skills of a professional editor. This is going to be a big hit with producers, assistants, and broadcast journalists. Read more, here.

Sunday, January 29, 2012 7:35a EST - The following is a wonderful illustration Janet created in Photoshop from an image Brian captured at a Christmas parade. We are known for the cloning process, which is a good way to get something like this started. But the colorful joy that makes something like this shine is the freeform handwork Janet added to this dear little angel.

Thursday, January 26, 2012 2:15p - If color is part of your job, here's a computer game you should be allowed to play a work. It doesn't come with instructions but the idea is to use the ring(s) in the outer circle to match that color(s) with the colors of the interior circle. Most of them are timed. It grades you as you go and at the end gives you a score. If you didn't do as well as you'd like to, click "Start over." When you're done, click on "Subscribe to be notified" and you'll see games on Kerning and Shape.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 5:32p EST - Here's a cool little video with Pete Falco, a lead computer scientist at Adobe on the Photoshop's 3D team. It an inspiration look at some of the cool things people are doing with the 3D features of Photoshop. It's also a humorous story on how Pete got into this.

Friday, January 20, 2012 2:27p EST - Yesterday's Apple announcement about iBooks textbooks is an exciting chapter in innovative learning experiences. Admittedly, we're known as Apple and Adobe fanboys. We're also known for holding a magnifying glass to the media. The downside we see to iBooks Author is that it's focused exclusively on the iPad. We realize that makes good business sense for Apple. However, you do all that work and if the content is needed for any other media vehicle, you need to recreate the whole thing. That doesn't make good business sense for you. Liz Castro has 10 excellent points on her blog.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 2:27p EST - What typefaces are you using? We're not sure how Web Designer Depot arrived at this but they have posted a list of the most popular typefaces. It's an interesting article. Read it here.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 10:29a EST - Many thanks for the fabulous response to our backlight story. It had our most views... EVER! Yesterday, alone, our page views doubled. We are thrilled to assist you in becoming better image-makers.

Saturday, January 14, 2012 6:02p EST - We are pleased to have published a new feature story on backlight. This one is more than just an opportunity for us to speak to you. This one's a challenge to our readers. Our Help Desk is open. We want yo to get involved and we want you to contact us if you run into problems.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 11:10a EST - Adobe CS6 is releasing in the 1st half of 2012. There's been some talk about a new upgrade policy. Here's the official story that Adobe has shared with us: If you have CS3, CS4, or CS5 apps or suites you can get the upgrade price through 12.31.12. Upgrades available 3 versions back has been the policy for a long time. There's no change. Get the whole story here.

Saturday, January 7, 2012 3:47p EST - Would you like a little poster of InDesign shortcuts? Click here. How about one for Illustrator? Click here. When they appear on your browser's window, click on each one and it enlarges for printing.

Thursday, January 5, 2012 8:20p EST - It's less than 3.5 hours since we sent out the preview e-mail on our new educational initiative. We are a few dozen page views away from our best 24 hour response, ever. Many thanks to our loyal subscribers! We're here for you.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 8:22p EST - Today M2 Media Studios started it's 20th year. We held our annual meeting at McMahon's in Warrenton, Virginia. We're dedicating this entire year to the educational initiative which launches in 21 days. Our subscribers are fabulous. We've helped so many move forward in their careers. Who wouldn't drop everything else to focus on such a calling?

Monday, January 2, 2012 2:12p EST - Our new home page just went live. Check out our very exciting 18 keyframe animation on what our new educational initiative is all about. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please e-mail the studio. We want to hear from you.

Friday, December 30, 2011 2:07p EST - We are pleased to provide you with a sneak peek at the design of our forthcoming video initiative. The entire multimedia series requires just about every app in Adobe's Master Collection.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 5:58a EST - We started using a new logo, yesterday. It'll begin appearing in everything we do, as we build up to the launch of our new educational initiative, 01.15.12. In a few days, we'll show you how we went about creating it and implementing the thing, in case your studio's identity graphics need a touch-up.

Saturday, December 17, 2011 Noon EST - We have been working like crazy on a new home page animation for our educational initiative. It has 17 keyframes. Look for that Monday. Also we've been working on the planning of the videos in the effort. Below, Brian is at the drawing board refining the details.

Saturday, December 10, 2011 10:16a EST - Has your film scanning software stopped working when you upgraded to Mac OS X Lion? This is a frequent problem for older software apps. They're often in the PowerPC format which doesn't work with Lion. Many once thriving film scanner manufacturers cease development on software. ScanFast 8 has you covered. That 3rd party app works with many current and discontinued scanners.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 4:23p EST - Over the weekend we added a Books section to our website. Because we are always exploring new technologies, we open the door to getting ourselves in trouble. Since 01.15.12 is the launch date of our new educational initiative, we want to explore issues sooner than later. The site got a little messed up, but we've since figured things out. If you see anything odd, please drop us an e-mail.

Saturday, December 3, 2011 6:20a EST - In a few days, we'll introduce a 15 panel animation, on our home page, which gives you great insight as to what our video/interactive educational initiative will be all about. It's something we're carefully crafting. There's something deliciously precise about distilling a big project into 15 succinct panels.

Monday, November 28, 2011 5:20p EST - As promised, we are making a major announcement, today. 01.15.12 is the launch date of a new video series we will be producing. We'll change our home page, tomorrow, to provide more of the details. It's beyond just video. Our educational materials combine video with PDF to maximize the learning experience. This is our most exciting endeavor, ever.

Saturday, November 26, 2011 12:49a EST - Stay tuned. Watch this space, Monday, for the announcement of a new educational initiative. It sets the bar way, way up there.

Thursday, November 24, 2011 7:41a EST - We are filled with thanks for the gifts we have been blessed with. We love sharing those gifts with others, so that all of you may fulfill your purposes here on earth.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 1:54p EST - "The Russell Brown Show" always adds a little panache to presentations (sometimes with unique outfits). This video on Photoshop Touch, the iPad app, shows how you can use the device's camera to create backgrounds while using the Ps Touch app.

Sunday, November 20, 2011 8:07p EST - We are still undecided about what to do about Flash videos. Google introduced a cool plug-in for Flash Pro. If you need to publish your Flash creations on all web and mobile devices, check out the weblink for how quickly you can move a SWF file to the rapidly becoming universal HTML5 format with Google's Swiffy.

Friday, November 18, 2011 2:21p EST - This week we attended a very exciting Washington DC InDesign Users Group (IDUG) meeting. Noha Edell did a presentation on Adobe's Digital Publishing System (DPS). She also showed this video from Adobe MAX where Kiyo, an InDesign product manager, demonstrates the forthcoming Liquid Layout.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 1:53p EST - Yesterday we got the new Wacom Inkling. It's one fabulous device. The Inkling looks like a cool pen and it draws on paper, just like a pen. However, a little receiver is storing all of what you're drawing. Hookup the receiver to your computer and it shoots the images right into Photoshop or Illustrator. We're impressed.

Monday, November 14, 2011 12:22p EST - This week we are investigating the best means to move our new content beyond the web and print. We hope to be able to optimize it for mobile apps. We're thinking of the iPhone, iPad, Kindle, and Nook. Our research tells us that they are the most popular. If you have other ideas, please let us know.

Saturday, Novemeber 12, 2011 3:01p EST - If you want an Adobe CS6 app or a suite you need CS5 or CS5.5 to get the upgrade pricing. Adobe announced that, this week along with a few other sales options. We're announcing it here for those who still are using CS4 or earlier. Adobe is offering a 20% discount through the end of the year.

Friday, November 11, 2011 6:38a EST - This week's news that Adobe has stopped development on Flash for mobile devices does not come as a surprise. This does not mean that the Flash Professional app is history. Adobe is investing in Flash Pro CS6 and beyond. It'll output to other file formats which work on mobile devices. Overall, we feel this makes for more efficient use of small hardware.

Sunday, November 6, 2011 5:51a EST - If you need a little divine inspiration on this first Sunday in Standard Time, take a peek at this link. Jann Lipka photographed the Stockholm Woodland Cemetery Chapel, yesterday, stitched it together to create a 360° panorama. A Java Script allows you to see a continual sweep of the chapel and the reverence on the faces of those in attendance.

Saturday, November 5, 2011 10:12a EDT - Did you read the complete eulogy by Mona Simpson, the sister of Steve Jobs? If not, read it by clicking here.

Thursday, November 3, 2011 9:41a EDT - If you have Photoshop CS4 or CS5, you have Bridge with the capabilities of generating contact sheets. Admittedly, it's not all the easy to figure out, but once you know how, it's simple. For that reason, we knew you'd need a step-by-step guide to get started. It is, where else, in our Online Learning section.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 1:05p EDT - Have you ever tried to photograph a beer pour? There are some lighting and staging tricks to it but it also has some great points about some challenging exposure situations. Read about how we do it in our Online Learning section.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 2:07p EDT - We cannot get out of our heads the final words of Steve Jobs, "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." as told by his sister. Doesn't this final enigma of Steve's appear appropriate for this All Saints Day and tomorrow's All Souls Day? What revelations came to him, at the end? ...or should we say, "beginning?"

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 8:13a EDT - Yesterday was our monthly production meeting. We sized-up our workflow capabilities over the next 60 days. In a few days we'll have a big announcement about the launch of a major new initiative, starting 01.01.12. A hint: after the meeting we went to Lord & Taylor.

Saturday, October 29, 2011 3:18 EDT - Did you know you can make great contact sheets with InDesign? It's something of a hidden feature. There's been a great response to our story about it, this week. We have a step-by-step for those of you who are not InDesign experts. The end result is a contact sheet which has a style which is as individualistic as your images. See either of these Facebook pages for a contact sheet sample Brian or M2.

Thursday, October 27, 2011 11:57a EDT - Many thanks to all the wonderful e-mail messages of thanks from our readers. This week, we broke all previous records for page views. This makes us feel very confident about where we are going with our educational directions. We have some fabulous work happening with our soon to be released video features.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 6:30p EDT - We uploaded 3 new feature stories, a few minutes ago, and sent out the e-mail notifications. There's something so satisfying to witness over 1,000 views in the first few minutes. As Sally Fields said at the Oscars, "You like me; you really really like me!"

Sunday, October 23, 2011 4:55p EDT - We take a great deal of responsibility for the feature stories we publish. We realize that people are going to invest a fair amount of time and effort to study them, step-by-step. The results better be great. We e-mailed a one-man software developer whose product we're featuring in a story we've been holding. We heard back from him today. Now that we have fact-checked them, we'll release three new features in the morning.

Saturday, October 22, 2011 10:20a EDT - Are you bothered reading PDFs on your iPhone or iPad using iBook? Do you wish you had the familiar Adobe Reader, instead? Now you do. Go to the App Store. It's the #1 free download (imagine). Once it has downloaded, page through the first few screens. They're a quick start guide. Reader's also available for Android. The other big plus about getting Adobe Reader for your iPhone and/or iPad is security. It's the safer route to go for sensitive documents.

Friday, October 21, 2011 7:50p EDT - We're wrapping up 3 new feature stories for our Online Learning section. They should publish tomorrow. If you're one of our subscribers, you'll get the usual e-mail message. If you have not joined the thousands and thousands of professional designers, illustrators, and photographers, please drop us an e-mail along with your name, street address, city, state/province, and postal code.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 5:35p EDT - In about an hour it will be 18 years since a steel beam fell on Brian's head at the Richmond, VA studio, and he had a 25% chance of survival. We usually keep these blog posts business oriented but figured you would like to join what Brian & Janet call "Celebrate Life" day.

Friday, October 14, 2011 2:36a EDT - Cautionary words on iOS 5: We had to change our passwords. It makes security sense. It’s just that they never told us that would happen. It wiped out all our apps. We should have backed up to computers so we could have restored them and how they were configured (that burnt off 2 hours which could have been better spent). For iCal and Address Book, iCloud allows us to deploy that stuff from 1 Mac to a variety of Macs and devices. Very cool!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 5:38a EDT - Remember that Mac "Think Different" ad campaign? It included a 60 second TV commercial, "The Crazy Ones" with Richard Dreyfuss doing the voice over (VO). Did you know there's one where Steve Jobs does the VO? Please watch (and listen to) this on YouTube and let us know what you think.

Monday, October 10, 2011 11:25a EDT - You never know how you can inspire a budding new artist. A 5 (almost 6) year old friend at church wanted to do a card swap with us. We created a composite photo of us with Monica. It was incomplete but it was a great exercise in learning what we could freehand in Photoshop for a real quick rendering. See it on our Facebook walls: Brian or M2.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 8:05p EDT - CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple Inc. said the company’s co-founder Steve Jobs died Wednesday. He was 56. “We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” the company said in a brief statement. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 10:35a EDT - Photographing a 17 year old girl comes with age appropriate boundaries. You want her to look absolutely fabulous and feel great about herself but you can't depict her as an adult. Amber has such fabulous hair that we used a gold/white umbrella for a back light and worked a silver/white side light until we got her gorgeous eyes to sparkle. See Amber on the Facebook wall of Brian or M2.

Sunday, October 2, 2011 5:11p EDT - Photographing a young male athlete and giving him a masculine look is not always easy. He'll often have features which are still maturing. This is where side light works in the subject's favor. Lighting placement is crucial. Work with the subject until you find the point where light skims across the contours of his face, providing great shadows. See a sample on the Facebook wall of Brian or M2.

Thursday, September 29, 2011 1:51p EDT - For our Mac users who own a studio, if you have not developed a relationship with the enterprise team at your nearest Apple Store, we strongly suggest that you do so. It's like having your own IT department. Tuesday night we were in the Fair Oaks store in need of complex server solutions. We're quite good at that stuff but their team huddled together and produced answers beyond our capabilities. We were impressed.

Monday, September 26, 2011 3:15p EDT - We offer a special thank you to our buddies on the Adobe Bridge team. We have been holding up two stories to verify some feature functionality. Their engineering people got on it and provided us with the very specific information we need to share with you. We have to be sure that our story content produces excellent results. We'll publish tomorrow.

Saturday, September 24, 2011 3:53p EDT - Here's a link to a great color theory poster. This might all be second nature to you, but it's possible to have a client which is clueless as to what you are attempting to communicate. Share this link with them or print it to 11"x17" (its big enough to print as a 22"x34") and hang it in your studio, office, work area, or client area. Best of all, it's free!

Thursday, September 22, 2011 8:47a EDT - We are still finessing this week's feature stories and on one of the stories model Joi (pronounced Joey) Delaney keeps staring back at us from the pages. We're proud of Joi. We've been shooting with her for 4 years. She just keeps getting better. Joi's more fit, energetic, and filled with confidence and joy. On a shoot, Joi becomes part of the team.

Sunday, September 18, 2011 2:07p EDT - Though we're still wrapping up tomorrow's Online Learning features, we are at work on next week's, already. Everyone is used to Photoshop's retouching tools. They're fairly easy to use and never cease to amaze. But how do you partially eliminate wrinkles and blemishes to retain a very true resemblance of your subject? Stay tuned. We'll show you how we do it.

Saturday, September 17, 2011 7:18p EDT - Before we publish a feature story, we do our best to fully test our methods to be sure it doesn't lead you astray. Sometimes we come across technology glitches in the tools we use. We have been struggling with this is 2 out of 3 of this week's stories. Then, our job becomes finding you the workaround so everything goes smoothly for you. Our pub date goal is Monday.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011 8:30a EDT - How do you create a photo of two women having a great time, and make it look like a candid snap shot? Practice, practice, practice! Start with two great models. Find the perfect setting. Add some very natural-looking artificial light. Choose the right optics and composition. Create a collaborative atmosphere. Next week, our Online Learning page will show you how we did it.

Sunday, September 11, 2011 2:19p EDT - We just posted a new animated banner to our Online Learning page. Please check it out and let us know what you think by sending us an e-mail. It should be different than the banners on any of the other pages on our website. If it isn't, you may need to refresh the page. If you have to do that, we'd like to know about it, too.

Sunday, September 11, 2011 11:57a EDT - It's been a very busy, productive, and enlightening 911 weekend. We have nothing substantially new to add to the 10th anniversary remembrances. Join us in looking to spiritual communication. One of the many joys of the weekend was an evening with Kat Gilbert and Ida Trusch. Visit their studio's website to find visual joy. More on the rest of the weekend, later.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011 5:11p EDT - Wise publishers listen to their readers. Professional photographer and Facebook friend, Tanja Mattfeldt wrote, "I really like that you state the ISO setting, and lenses you use in conjunction with the Camera body in your photos." This caused us to add the Tech Specs boxes, which appear in our books, to our new feature stories, starting tomorrow, thanks to Tanja.

Monday, September 5, 2011 2:34a EDT - We wish a happy Labor Day to one and all. The labour movement started in Canada, in the late 1880s. It didn't have anything to do with hot dogs and hamburgers. Today, it's a call to go back to school. As image-makers, please go out there and make this the best school-year, ever. Please push yourself to the limits and then push yourself around 100 yards further That's what we'll do for you in this educational year ahead.

Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:50a EDT - We're getting behind on this week's feature stories. There are no natural disasters to battle this week (okay... we had another aftershock, this morning, but we're getting used to them). This week, we're dealing with medical concerns. We're on the way back to the hospital for more tests, this morning. We've set our sights on Labor Day for our next publication date.

Monday, August 29, 2011 2:27a EDT - Mac Maintenance 3: Some things can go wrong with doing maintenance on a Mac. Booting from an optical drive requires enough RAM. If you have 4GB of RAM, you're probably okay. If you're trying to help someone, who only has 2GB, you could be in trouble. Part way through the process, you'll get "the spinning beach ball of death." That's because you've used-up all the RAM.

Sunday, August 28, 2011 1:17p EDT - Mac Maintenance 2: Once we have permissions taken care of we use TechTool Pro 6 to do a complete diagnosis of the Mac, this includes a surface scan of each block of the hard drive to be sure it's healthy enough to optimize the entire volume. Over time, files become broken into fragments. Optimizing brings them all together in continuous blocks. This allows everything to move at optimal speeds, with minimal wear and tear on the hard drive.

Saturday, August 27, 2011 2:40p EDT - Mac Maintenance 1: Just like your car or home, your Mac needs regular service. It'll run better and last longer if once a month you pop the OS X installation DVD into the thing, restart the Mac while holding down the "c" key. This boots the Mac from the DVD. Go to Disk Utility, from the menu bar. Choose the Mac's hard drive and click Verify Disk Permissions. As soon as it's done, choose Repair Disk Permissions. Next choose Verify Disk. If needed, choose Repair disk. Quit Disk Utility and restart a healthier Mac.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 8:22p EDT - If you are not fully up to speed on the resignation of Steve Jobs as the Apple CEO, here's a little more insight from the Wall Street Journal.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 9:22a EDT - Sidetracked by yesterday's earthquake, we did not get to shoot the beer pours, which are the subject of one of this week's feature stories. This follows-up on the story we did, last week, on lighting from below. In that shot, we walked a highlight/shadow tightrope. Imagine those challenges magnified, many times, once motion is introduced into the photographic equation.

Monday, August 22, 2011 11:04p EDT - We're working on a feature story about making contact sheets with Adobe Bridge. We want to follow up on last week's Bridge Web Galleries feature. Next to nothing has been written about Bridge contact sheets; we're surprised. We think it's a great, undiscovered feature of Bridge. Like Acrobat Portfolio, it's an hidden treasure. Use the tools to tell your story.

Monday, August 22, 2011 10:12a EDT - We are so pleased with the response to last week's feature story on Color. The stats are good and the e-mails very positive. We enjoyed putting the thing together. It took a great deal of research which was extremely fascinating. Now that we are aware of how our brains process color, our workflow has improved. We hope yours has, too.

Saturday, August 20, 2011 1:30p EDT - Adobe Muse, the app which allows you to design for the web without ever touching code, has had an overwhelming number of free downloads. If you're interested, but need some instruction checkout the video series that Adobe has created. Muse IS a beta, so it's a work in progress.

Friday, August 19, 2011 9:03a EDT - Our subscribers are SO fabulous! We didn't expect too many reads by publishing 3 features around 8:00p EDT. Were we ever wrong. Thousands of views in the first 12 hours. That's a record. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For a primarily North American audience, who knows what will happen in the light of day! You rev our engines to do even more.

Thursday, August 18, 2011 7:25p EDT - Check out what we just published: Color in Your Mind, Light from Below, and Your Web Gallery. It took a little doing to push the three new feature stories out the door, this week, but we are pleased to finally get them to you. As with the last set, they are in both PDF and Flash versions. Please let us know what you think of them.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011 8:00p EDT - Greetings from our annual meeting, at Griffin Tavern, in Flint Hill, VA. It's been a fabulous year but this coming one will far outshine it. Our buddies on Adobe's Bridge team are still working on that bug in the web gallery module. We can't replicate it, so we think it's no big deal. Unless we hear otherwise, we'll post 3 new Online Learning features in the morning.

Monday, August 15, 2011 3:40p EDT - We were about to publish 3 new Online Learning features when we have stumbled upon a possible Bridge CS5.1 Web Gallery bug (the subject of Feature #00120). We've made our friends at Adobe aware of it. We are hesitant to get you all revved up about creating something which might not work properly. Hopefully, we'll get this resolved and we can publish tomorrow.

Monday, August 15, 2011 7:27a EDT - Adobe Muse was released as a public beta a minute after midnight. It's an Adobe Air app which allows you to create a website without ever coming in contact with HTML code. This reminds us of the lighter side of Adobe GoLive (GL) which has not been around since CS2. Muse (a code name) appeals to designers as GL did. Get it, free, here.

Saturday, August 13, 2011 9:33a EDT - There's a "critical" security issue with Photoshop. A hacker can gain control of your Mac or Windows machine when you open GIF files, which contain malicious code. Adobe has a security update for Ps CS5 (12) and CS5.1 (12.1). Read the bulletin and get the plug in links, here.

Friday, August 12, 2011 10:35a EDT - For $2.99 Adobe’s Color Lava, for the iPad, is starting to turn the tide for traditional media mixing palettes coming to the digital workplace. Much as the old European masters mixed painter on a palette, you can mix color on your iPad and then export it to Photoshop. Even if you work on dual displays, as we do, the little iPad is a welcome addition to your workflow.

Thursday, August 11, 2011 12:02p EDT - Did you know that when you are making brush strokes, in Photoshop, that's the right hemisphere of your brain (the creative side) at work? However, when you need to open the Color Picker or Color panel and change the color, that's your left hemisphere (the verbal side) doing the heavy lifting. The creative process is something of an ongoing tennis match in your head.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011 9:47a EDT - You probably are familar with Adobe Bridge for editing images and managing files. Did you know that you can create a web gallery with Bridge? Yep. This week, we'll show you how easy it is to do. We're getting ready to do the same, so see what we're up to.

Sunday, August 7, 2011 1:56p EDT - We love to photograph fruits and vegetables on glass with a portion of the illumination coming from below, much like those light tables do which allow you to view film (remember those days?). The lighting is a little tricky to perfect, but this week, we'll show you how we do master it in our Online Learning section.

Saturday, August 6, 2011 11:14a EDT - With Adobe's Fireworks, Flash Pro, Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop, you are used to opening the color panel and adjusting RGB sliders from 0-255. How come when you do video color correction, in Premier. the RGB is expressed in much bigger numbers or small ones, with decimal points? The 0-255 is for 8-bit color. Video is sometimes 8-bit, but it can be 10, 16, or 32 bit. Read more about it, this coming week, in our Online Learning section.

Friday, August 5, 2011 5:22p EDT - We have been joyfully toiling away on next week's Online Learning feature stories. There's probably no story's research which has intrigued us more than the one on color and color pickers. The brain has to switch gears from when you are applying color to choosing colors and then switch back when you apply your choices.

Thursday, August 4, 2011 5:21p EDT - To follow up on yesterday's post, if you have been following our PDFs on your iPad and now you want to print one, how do you do it? Go back to the App Store and grab one of both of the free apps, Epson iPrint or Print Jinni. Apple has a printing app out there, but for some reason unbeknownst to us, it's only for HP printers. FYI: The printers need to be WiFi enabled, like our Epson Artisan 835.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011 7:54a EDT - Do you follow us on your iPhone or iPad? Have you tried to read the PDFs, but all you get is a black screen? If so, do you have iBooks? If you don't have iBooks, go to your device's App Store and download it. It's free. Once you have iBooks, roll your finger over the upper right of the PDF and press the Open in iBooks button. You're ready to read!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011 11:21a EDT - Adobe's public previews of a new app, Edge, has had our web development buddies filled with excitement. It's a motion and web development tool based on the new capabilities of HTML5, which is the foundation of the newest browsers. You can get a free beta version of Edge on the Adobe Labs website.

Monday, August 1, 2011 12:53p EDT - We always encourage people to respond positively when the "Software Update" appears in the dock of their Mac. If you have an Epson Stylus Pro printer, we want you to skip any printer upgrades Apple offers you. If it messes things up, for you, open the Mac's hard drive and go to Library>Printers>EPSON. Empty that folder and reinstall your print drivers. Beware that Epson's "updates" are not standalone drivers. So, you'll need to load the latest driver and then update it.

Saturday, July 30, 2011 10:03a EDT - How tough is it to create a website like ours? For a skilled web developer, it's no big deal. If you're not Adobe Dreamweaver-savvy, it's going to take some study. In our Online Learning section, we have both a PDF and Flash step-by-step on how you can insert our pages' HTML code into Dreamweaver and then you can adapt it with your own images. If you get stuck drop us an e-mail. We'll help.

Friday, July 29, 2011 12:17p EDT - So many people wrote to say how impressed they are with the animated banner at the top of our website's pages. Thank you. Our Online Learning section has a four page PDF (or Flash) tutorial on how we make them. It's a detailed step-by-step instruction so that our readers can implement the same on their websites. Sharing the gifts is what we're all about.

Thursday, July 28, 2011 6:55p EDT - There's been much discussion about Apple's latest Mac OS X release, version 10.7, Lion. We're hoping for a 10.7.1 which will fix all the issues with the first release. But, at this point, we see no reason to upgrade. It messes up all sorts of issues for which there is no resolution. We waited a few days to fully evaluate the problems before publishing an opinion.

Monday, July 25, 2011 12:35p EDT - We are glad to see the huge response to our new feature story on flash duration. Stop-action is a photographic drama. It grabs the attention of the audience. The viewers experience something that their eyes cannot. We had a great deal of fun shooting stop-action wine pour. It took quite a few tries and made quite a mess, but the results made it well-worth it.

Sunday, July 24, 2011 12:47p EDT - Many, many thanks to everyone for your kind words about the new Online Learning features. We didn't know what to expect publishing a new concept on a Saturday evening (North American EDT) but we literally had thousands of views in the first 7 hours. This is the most gratifying time in our careers. We are so pleased to serve you.

Saturday, July 23, 2011 8:23p EDT - We are so pleased to publish 3 new feature stories on photographic flash duration, how we animated the new web banner in Photoshop, and how we designed the website's pages in Photoshop and assembled them in Dreamweaver. The interactive functionality we gave both the PDF and Flash versions of each is pretty cool. Please try them and let us know what you think.

Thursday, July 21, 2011 7:35p EDT - In the past we have published some 2 page PDFs in our Online Learning section. In proofing the feature stories, for this week, we were not sure we were playing our A Game for you. The story on the designer's use of Dreamweaver particularly needs expansion. Look for all three of them, tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 8:10a EDT - Tomorrow we publish three new Online Learning stories. We have the interactive PDF and Flash components figured out. We're working on converting the Flash version to HTML5 so you can explore them on your iPhone and iPad. We've consulted with a few folks who have done this, so stay tuned!

Monday, July 18, 2011 11:01a EDT - You can look at exhibit pieces, on the web, and get a sense for the work an artist is doing, but it's not until you see those big prints, in an exhibit environment, exactly as the artist tweaked it, do you experience the artist's vision. We've loved Kat's collages but never saw one before, yesterday. We're now assured: Kat's the best (and real cute, too).

Sunday, July 17, 2011 6:54a EDT - Today, we're pleased to be traveling to Hampton, Virginia for the opening of Kat Gilbert's exhibit of Photoshop collages at the Hampton Arts Center. It's a juried show and she's garnered Best in Show. We've known Kat since the mid-1980s and are happy to see the transition she's made from graphic designer to photographic fine artist.

Thursday, July 14, 2011 7:24p EDT - amazon.com has posted our extensive review of Chris Converse's "Create Interactive Documents using Adobe InDesign CS." It was instrumental in the development of our new PDFs and Flash versions of the same. There's more to his DVD than just interactive there. Chris has some very polished methodologies for all of his InDesign production. Look for our new Online Learning features this weekend.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 7:20p EDT - As we announced in our Online Learning section, earlier today, we are moving forward with a concept planned for a few weeks down the road. We're not just going to bring you interactive PDFs, this week, we're going to offer the same content in Flash. It's a very compelling way to learn. Right now, we're doing a VERY fast retool.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 12:27p EDT - Our web stats show that our feature on scanning like a pro has renewed interest. We want to note that Nikon has discontinued its scanner products. (That's a pity, but we suppose the market for them is good but not great.) If you look around, you can still find the fabulous Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 10:36a EDT - We monitor our web stats frequently. It's interesting that when we launched Online Learning, 04.12.10, around a third of operating systems used, to get to our site, was Mac OS X. As of yesterday, that evolved to 49.7%, for July. This month the most popular browser is Safari followed by Firefox. Only around a quarter of our page views were with Explorer.

Monday, July 11, 2011 9:08a EDT - We are finishing up on three new PDFs for the Online Learning section of the new website. Look for them Wednesday evening. After 114 feature stories we introduced an all new look to these popular educational pieces. The new ones are interactive so they're no longer strictly print options. They're pretty cool!

Sunday, July 10, 2011 8:38a EDT - Many, many, MANY thanks for all the e-mails, which have come pouring in, congratulating us on the website. We have never had so many overnight page views. We started planning the details of the new site during the Christmas break. It'll be the end of summer before you see the depth of the project and fully understand why this was better than a half year in the making. Many blessings.

Saturday, July 9, 2011 3:46p EDT - We are thrilled to finally start rolling out our new website. We'll be adding to it each week until it's fully functional, later this summer. In a few minutes, we'll be sending an e-mail notication to all our Online Learning subscribers. With the new launch comes a more simple temporary password system. Please let us know what you think of the new site.

Thursday, July 7, 2011 7:29p EDT - We are completing the initial Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5 work for launching the new website. You'll start enjoying it, tomorrow. If you want a sneak peek at the first of a series of animated banners, which we mentioned earlier this week, see it here.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011 6:01p EDT - We are so appreciative to acclaimed Adobe Dreamweaver author, David Powers, and Dreamweaver guru, Meredith Foster, who together, helped us through a few technical glitches in the new website. We're not HTML5 "code jockeys." Meredith and David looked at our code and figured-out how to perfect it. We still have hours of reworking, but what's better than perfection!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011 5:59p EDT - One of the things which has delayed the website's launch is the animated banners at the top of each page. We just have not been able to get them 100% to our liking. Well, we just perfected them. The new site launches tomorrow. And, next week, we'll show you how we made them, so you can make them for your website, too.

Monday, July 4, 2011 7:05p EDT - We like to say that, "We have been in this longer than film." but we learn new things, every day. We have been trying to pull apart a Photoshop mural which is over 153" tall. It needs to be broken down into over 100 images. We went into this not fully realizing the best workflow. Once we established it, we went from averaging better than 5 minutes per image to less than 1 minute per de-constructed photo.

Sunday, July 3, 2011 12:55p EDT - To all our Canadian and American subscribers we wish you a fabulous Canada Day/Independence Day weekend. Celebrate safely!

Saturday, July 2, 2011 7:12p EDT - We keep packing the new website with cool stuff. We hope it goes live, tomorrow.

Thursday, June 30, 2011 6:55p EDT - For the past 48 hours we have been working like crazy to launch the new website, but we just keep coming up with cool new things we want to do with it for you. We'll do our best to give you a sneak peak tomorrow, as we roll out innovative new stuff on it throughout July.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011 1:30p EDT - We are working on the finishing touches to our website's new look. It'll expand throughout the month of July. We are known as Photoshop evalgelists. So why isn't the new site created entirely with Photoshop? Some of it is done with Ps CS 5.1. But Photoshop is not the most efficient solution for regularly updates a big site. Here's why a fellow Photoshop fan does websites with Fireworks.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 4:56a EDT - Here's an interesting 12 min presentation on where the video industry is going. We're beyond the days of the standard 4:3 video aspect ratio changing to HD 16:9. The digital instead of tape conversion is old news, too. The new story is about consumption. HD video is the new norm, as seen by its growth on dSLR cameras. How HD video is edited, enhanced, and shared is the present day developing story.

Monday, June 27, 2011 1:42a EDT - If you would like to learn about creating interactive PDFs, as we mentioned yesterday, learn from the master, Chris Converse. We saw his presentation, June 2, at the Washington DC InDesign Users Group meeting. Get his DVD and related mini-book at amazon.com. Like ourselves, Chris has mastered a good chunk of the Adobe Master Collection, a rare but much needed pinnacle to find yourself atop.

Sunday, June 26, 2011 2:19p EDT - There's something satisfying about creating the InDesign master pages for a new interactive PDF series. It's almost a parental experience. It's (quite literally) been on the drawing board for weeks. We have been tweaking it in InDesign, off and on, all weekend. It just keeps getting better and better. We can't wait to publish the first three new Online Learning features for you.

Saturday, June 25, 2011 7:59a EDT - Here's very innovative science on how we may be capturing photos in the future. Rather than a camera recording the light which is reflected from surfaces, as we do now, the new camera photographs "light fields," the light traveling in numerous directions off each object. Click here to see what Lytro is working on.

Friday, June 24, 2011 12:52p EDT - We're working on a fresh new design for this weekend's first e-mail newsletter in a long time. It's a preview of our new interactive PDFs. This is just one element in the redesign of absolutely everything the public sees. Since what we do is all new, we felt it was the right time for a change in our visual identity, as well.

Thursday, June 23, 2011 11:42a EDT - Going from a little static website to planning ahead for an industrial-strength interactive e-commerce site is no small effort. We have suspended photographic sessions for the second week in a row just to deal with all the technical background goings-on. It's mentally exhausting and energizing, at the same time.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 12:20p EDT - Sunday we mentioned Digital Asset Management. If you don't know anything about it, where do you start? Our late friend Mike Pocklington was a fan of Peter Krough's "The DAM Book." Peter has a 2nd edition of his 480-page authoritative reference. ISBN 978-0-596-52357-2. Get it at amazon.com.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 6:43a EDT - Many of you, who have websites done in Flash have been bothered that those with iPhones and iPads are unable to view your animations. Apple's refusal to allow Flash to run on those devices has been ongoing. There's a way around that problem. Adobe Labs has Wallaby a free little Air app which converts FLA files to HTML: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/wallaby

Monday, June 20, 2011 7:11a EDT - This morning, a friend of ours is photographing a lovely pregnant woman. She's bringing her husband with her to the shoot. That sort of session works best when it can become a tender, loving moment for the couple. The goal is to provide more than a series of exquisite portraits; you want to make the entire experience memorable.

Sunday, June 19, 2011 7:23a EDT - Our rapidly expanding image library is in need of a significant managerial make-over, to the point that we're not shooting anything this week just to reorganize what we have. This is called "DAM" (Digital Asset Management). How to manage a library of books is well established. Why isn't the same true for images?

Saturday, June 18, 2011 10:52a EDT - We have announced the evening of Wednesday, June 29 as the start of our new website emerging. That's when we debut the site's new look and interactive learning PDFs. Each week, through the end of July, more of the new site will be revealed. It's extremely innovative and quite a big push both creatively and technologically. It's no small effort to open huge new doors.

Friday, June 17, 2011 9:14a EDT - We go back to little beige Macs with black & white screens, circa 1984. We've installed hundreds for Macs and can practically do it in our sleep, but the Mac server is a slightly different animal. Fortunately, the guys at Apple Enterprise Support have been excellent hand-holders. The new home for our massive image library is up and running, but there's still plenty of work to do.

Thursday, June 16, 2011 6:07a EDT - Things here are usually moving at light speed (pun intended). We are doing postproduction on 376 food photos we shot at the awesome Griffin Tavern. Last evening we had a chance to throttle the speed back and go, "This is world class stuff!" Take time to feel blessed with the talents you have been gifted with and then make sure you are using those blessings to the max.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 10:24a EDT - Since February we've been struggling to get our photo studio better organized. Having all of that lighting gear in just the right place is essential to productivity. We tried manufactured cabinetry twice but had to send it back. We just met with Mike and Heidi from Appalachian Woodworks. They can deliver custom furniture for not much more than the manufactured junk.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 8:38a EDT - In this morning's Broadcast & Cable, we saw a story on a 3rd season cable news series being shot entirely with dSLRs. The show's host said, "There are definitely some workflow issues but the color, contrast and quality of images is so much better than normal news TV cameras." This is not news to us. A dSLR CMOS sensor creates awesome video footage.

Monday, June 13, 2011 7:18a EDT - We have been ramping up our food photography production. We normally shoot over 1,000 images per week in two-day spurts (though we did around 1,500 in a 90-minute marathon, last month). We are learning that if we dive right into Adobe Camera Raw postproduction, at the end of each day, it's all the more manageable.

Sunday, June 12, 2011 5:58a EDT - Today we start Lisa as our apprentice. It's been a while since we have seen both the photos and Photoshop work of someone who clearly has a fresh eye plus compelling technique. Our primary goal is to introduce her too AC flash illumination. These beginnings are always energizing, for everyone.

Saturday, June 11, 2011 12:05p EDT - A company's identity graphics are something which should evolve. If they change too radically, people think it's a new, uncharted entity. We're upgrading our logo and related visuals. It'll have some three dimensional elements to it, when introduced, this month. That's shockingly simple to do in Illustrator CS5.

Friday, June 10, 2011 6:30a EDT - This month we rollout our all new website. We're perfecting it in Adobe Fireworks CS5.5. There are many great things you can do with Photoshop and Illustrator to create websites. But, if you need to top-level manage web visuals and prototype a site, Fireworks is the must-have tool. Fireworks is to web pages what InDesign is to print pages.

Thursday, June 9, 2011 9:45a EDT - Thanks to our many subscribers who write wondering when our next Online Learning issues will be published. Next week, we give you a sneak peak at what the interactive PDFs are all about. We're excited!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 11:39a EDT - The three new PDFs are looking good. Janet has had to go to Fauquier Hospital, for medical imaging, so they might publish a day late. (We have our priorities)!

Sunday, April 17, 2011 12:35p EDT - Tomorrow we begin the first in a series of head shot tests with primarily young actors and actresses. We do this at no charge to them, to get to know fresh talent for future shoots. To those who show potential, we offer them call-back invitation for a free portfolio, which we develop over a few sessions. The portfolio's worth around $2,000. We'd rather give it away while we develop new models. Beyond the business aspects, it just feels good to help a young person get a foothold in the business, especially during Holy Week. Happy Palm Sunday!

Saturday, April 16, 2011 5:37a EDT - With 5 Macs, an iPhone4, and an iPad2 we're something of a traveling Apple store. This week, we got a Verizon store to install Personal Hotspot on the iPhone. That's to coolest thing we've ever seen a cell phone do. The iPhone becomes its own little mobile, password protected WiFi hotspot. Our Macs connect to it and everyone can access whatever, as we drive along. For a work ethic intense team, it's a $20 a month dream come true. Now we're always on top of what's happening with this very fast-paced company we've created.

Friday, April 15, 2011 12:18a EDT - How does this fast-growing studio stay on-track with our goals? It's not easy. We look at where we want to go in the quarter. We then parse that down to a month and further chop it down to days and hours. Each week,there's always a few pockets which just don't work, 100%. We retool and never miss goals, overall. Apple's iCal is a player on this team. As we do updates, we publish iCal to the Macs, iPhone4, and iPad2. We're trying to see how FileMaker can be another player. It sounds like MBA stuff, but it's also pretty cool.

Thursday, April 14, 2011 6:23a EDT - This week Adobe "announced" CS5.5, commemorating the 1st anniversary of the CS5 announcement. There may be a few more weeks until CS5.5 ships. InDesign and Flash have great, much-needed tools for portable devices. Dreamweaver is geared up for HTML5. Some of the apps (like Bridge, Fireworks, Illustrator, and Photoshop) are more of a CS5.1, with bug fixes. CS5 included Acrobat 9. CS5.5 comes with A10 for which Acrobat Pro has a new wizard not in the original A10. Soundbooth is gone, replaced by Audition which plays nicely with Premier. Premier works even better with laptops. Adobe had been rolling out big releases every 18 months. Technology changes so fast, maybe a full or partial release is needed every 12 months.

Monday, April 11, 2011 8:49p EDT - WOW! We were shooting grilled chicken, today, on three sets. The food just kept coming with four or five variations, per set, every few minutes. It was like photographing people; we had to just keep it happening, constantly restyling it, to keep it fresh. We're exhausted, but the results are fabulous.

Sunday, April 10, 2011 12:54p EDT - It's not easy to do professional photography inside the US Capitol. We started, Tuesday, with the office of the architect of the capitol. That didn't work and we were sent to the capitol police, who sent us to the special events office, who sent us to their website to fill out an application which we faxed back. Thursday the capitol police called to say that the interior of the capitol is not within their jurisdiction (huh)? So, we were transferred to the senate radio and television office, where we were asked our zip code, and were transferred to house majority leader Cantor's office (we're in his district). Once at his office, Friday, the staff assistant/legislative correspondent and avid photographer, Lisa Tolstykh handled everything for us (including a few creative suggestions). Our sincere thanks to Lisa for offering us so much of her time while congress was in the midst of some industrial strength doings.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 7:45p EDT - Tomorrow we solidify the new website's grid. It's pretty exciting stuff. We have been not only looking at current technologies but anticipating where things are going in the months (kind of, sort of) years ahead. When we started doing websites for NBC News, in 1995, this was MUCH easier! (Easy's not necessarily good.) You get your first glimpses, April 29. The whole thing rolls out in the 60 days which follow. This is a BIG deal.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 10:11a EDT - We solved our human resources dilema during an intense six hour luncheon, yesterday, in front of a roaring fire at the Griffin Tavern, in Flint Hill. We not only hired our intern as a full-time production assistant, but we brought her sister into the business, too. We built a day-by-day, hour-by-hour game plan for April and May. There’s truckloads of work to do.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 8:58a EDT - As the month and the quarter wind down, all of us are reviewing those pages of goals we periodically compile and print from InDesign and hang on the wall. We made some very good progress in Q1 2011, but in two meetings yesterday, it's clearly not enough. We're giving all we have to offer, 6 days a week. If we're not getting enough done, we need to staff up. We're doing a lunch meeting about this, today. This is when an arts & sciences grad needs a little bit of a MBA.

Sunday, March 27, 2011 10:13p EDT - We knocked out around 1,000 great food images, today. We're finding a new vibe for this production environment. It's a culmination of creative, technical, and research methodologies. Jane, our intern, is really excelling at this. She tells us that we have lifted her spirits. If you can do that for a young person, a fresh force in this industry, is there a better purpose on Earth?

Saturday, March 26, 2011 2:52p EDT - Since we are now immersed in video production preparations for our new online learning section, we picked up three of Mitsubishi's 40" and 55" six-color Unisen LCD video displays. Running an HDMI cable from the Macs to the TVs make the Mitsus a second display. We have found this to be a fabulous means of editing still images. The photos are so large, we can clearly check our focus.

Thursday, March 24, 2011 10:57a EDT - Yesterday we photographed tomato and lemon slices. It's a bit tricky. We sandwiched Rosco diffusion material between two plates of glass and lit it from below with an extra small Chimera light bank and above with a medium one. It's important to strike a balance between the two light sources.

Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:10p EDT - Our thanks to Vittitow Construction for swooping in here and updating our studios and offices, yesterday. We still have plenty of painting and reorganization to do. In the midst of all those goings-on. We've been shooting every day. Unfortunately, with all the renovation, shooting, and development, we've had to slow the publication schedule of our Online Learning section. But, as the song says, "The best is yet to come..."

Monday, March 14, 2011 7:55p EDT - We normally discuss the coolest image-making digital technology. This week we're working on some technologically advanced non-digital toys. Last week, we bought a 37.5" x 72" drafting table/machine. A few years ago, we took a survey of Adobe Illustrator professionals. All but one, in the survey, said that they start a project on paper. It's faster. We print-out grids and drop them under tracing paper and just draw, draw, draw. It's all part of the conceptualization process.

Thursday, March 10, 2011 6:19a EST - Our new intern, Jane, starts today. We're really excited about this. We've been talking to Jane about coming to work with us for at least five years. Things are so crazy here, we could use a few more Janes. We're hoping to mold her into a producer. Today, we're shooting red wine pours, plus zillions of blueberries, and strawberries.

Monday, March 7, 2011 11:37a EST - We have written about using third party inks in our Epson printers. For years we used Lyson inks, with no problems. We suppose the new printers require a finer ink formula. Our Stylus Pro 4800 always worked perfectly until we started using third party ink over a few years. The print head began clogging and needed replacement. Eventually, the service center replaced the printer. The replacement printer worked fine for a while and started clogging, too. Last month, we replaced another print head and went back to all Epson inks in all printers, and for now, everything is printing perfectly. So, the third party inks are cheaper but parts and labor exceeded a thousand dollars over the past two years, so the savings are not there.

Thursday, February 24, 2011 4:20p EST - We are very glad to be back in the business of posting feature stories. All the development time our new ventures require have slowed our editorial process, this year. Here's what's new on our Online Learning page:

• This isn’t the first time that we have explored light source to subject distance and light source size. This is a fascinating exploration into the difference between theory and practice. We have some real world examples which test how all of this is relative to your day-to-day lighting projects.

• When we e-mailed a poll of what you wanted from our content, this year, over 2,000 of you responded. When asked for the top five favorite topics, the majority of you wanted AC flash, wireless battery flash, or both (among other things). Here we compare the two in a real world light bank shoot. The results may surprise you. (They surprised us).

• Puppet Warp is one of the big new "WOW!" features of Photoshop CS5. True. It has all the trappings of Hollywood special effects work. Yet, Puppet Warp is very much a part of retouching a portrait. It should be just as much a key to enhancing someone’s image as is the Patch, Healing Brush, and Clone Stamp tools.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 12:31p EST - Thank you for all of your responses to our 3 question survey on what you'd like to see in our new Online Learning section, this spring. This is extremely helpful. We are rethinking our plans to suit your responses. We have been working very hard to get the thing ready. The development effort is huge. It has to be the best learning library available for image-makers. We're still hoping to launch it the week of March 27.

Monday, January 17, 2011 2:00p EST - We are pleased to be back publishing new feature stories. We've uploaded three of them and will be updating the Online Learning page in just a little bit. We need to add a bunch of new subscribers to our e-mail database, so it'll probably be this evening until we send everyone their new passwords. This week's stories feature:

• In Photoshop, we needed to place a little girl into a tree. The problem was that we did not have a complete image of her. This caused us to create parts of her arms, blouse, and skirt, in Photoshop. We show you how we do it, step-by-step.

• Now that we have the photo of our little friend, we made her into a children's book illustration, using Photoshop's paint engine. This can be an emotionally and financially rewarding aspect of offering special services like this.

• We prime you for next week's big feature on light source to subject distance and light source size. This week, we examine using a small source to vary dramatic lighting depending on your camera angle.

Friday, January 14, 2011 12:35p EST - Well this is pretty frustrating. We put 3 weeks into researching and perfecting an extensive Online Learning story for you on lens testing. We wanted you to be able to evaluate your own lenses. The deeper we got into the topic the more we discovered that it was far too easy to do this incorrectly. We felt certain that it would cause you to spend quite a bit of time attempting to get results which may not be accurate. So, we've abandoned the idea. We have something cool to replace it with, so look for three new features, this weekend.

Saturday, January 8, 2011 2:55p EST - Just what have we been doing with ourselves? We're working like crazy on the developmental work on the new Online Learning section, which will launch in a few weeks. It will be packed with some really cool HD videos with animated graphics and our PDFs will be interactive. We go back to Adobe Premier 1.0 and have always loved After Effects, but we are far from having mastered them. We are studying those apps and how they interact with the rest of the Master Collection.

During the Christmas break, we were out of town, dog-sitting for Tracey Lee, while she and her dad went to be with a friend's family, in LA. We got snowed in. Fortunately, we had plenty of study materials with us. We not only read and watched videos but we wrote reviews about them, as well (some are rambling). You can find them posted to amazon.com. We have also begun to publish things to B&H Insights.

Saturday, December 25, 2010 8:21a EST - We wish everyone a peaceful and blessed Christmas.

Friday, December 3, 2010 1:52p EST - We have our new Mad Mimi e-mail delivery system working. It's a pleasure to create these messages compared to iContact. We're sorry it took a few days. Hopefully you'll get your passwords in the next few minutes. • We're pleased to bring you another story on use of the Wacom tablets. They are always popular downloads. This week we deliver on the promised story about the Art Pen. We guide you through the advantages of this tool which takes advantage of the stylus's barrel rotation capabilities. • On some occasions clients have handed us some old artwork that they wanted to be incorporated into a project we were working on. It's often something tiny, old, and ragged. Scanning it and cleaning it up in Photoshop just won't do. We show you how to make it easy with the Illustrator Blob Brush. • The feature story we did a couple weeks ago on the color meter was well-received. That tells us that our readers are in an excellent mood to dig deeper into color correction. It's not always possible to do in-camera. Sometimes the use of color media is your best bet.

Thursday, December 2, 2010 9:00p EST - We just posted this week's new Online Learning. If you are one of our ever growing number of subscribers, you will get your password, tomorrow. Working with iContact, our former e-mail service, has been an expensive disaster. They just could not handle our rapid growth. We're really jazzed about switching to Mad Mimi, a little husband and wife Mac shop, just like us and many of you. Thank you for your patience.

Monday, November 22, 2010 8:44p EST - This week, we have skipped our usual software oriented feature story to bring you two, next week. We are trying to up the game a bit, each week. We hope you are stepping up with the rest of our readers, as more stories are published. Lastly, we have over 1,000 new subscribers, this week. It's our most explosive growth, in a week, yet. • We are always pleased to hear of our educational institutions introducing students to the new digital ways of life by returning to our origins of film, the darkroom, and boxes of hot metal type. Since the new tools offer far more power, they are also more complex than the old ones. If you don't understand the basics of what the traditional tools and methods were all about, you'll never master the new power. That's what our D-Max and D-Min story is about. We look and traditional darkroom techniques and bring them into the digital darkroom era. • We have published a couple stories on daylight fluorescent lighting instruments, which were well received. Daylight fluorescent is gaining a great deal of popularity, especially the Westcott TD5. We look at how you use daylight fluorescent as an outdoor fill light, which some will argue is a "kicker" or a "rim." • Bounced light, to a photographer using a battery operated flash unit, mounted in the camera's accessory shoe, is often a different technique than what the photographer who works with a great deal of AC flash power encounters in a big space. The photographer who covers events must master bouncing light to avoid harsh shadows. Some of our readers who cover events, such as weddings, have shot certain reception spaces so many times that they know the space as if it were their own studio. We wanted to look at bouncing in big spaces, with AC flash.

Monday, November 15, 2010 7:02p EST - We explore three essential topics for commercial photographers to know, this week. Even if you do not shoot commercially, you will want to make these part of your lifelong learning knowledge base: • If you shoot, commercially, you are well aware of the various forms which are needed. However, if you are new to that aspect of photography, we have a toolkit to assist. Does it seem like so much of what we do, on location, has very little to directly do with making images? Image-making is very much a business and it needs to be treated as such. • Since this weekend, some portions of North America saw their first significant snowfall of the season, it's not too early to talk commercial snow shots. We walk you through how we shot a warm glow emanating from a home, just after sunset. • It used to be that no self-respective commercial photographer was without a color meter. Color meters, like many digital SLRs, measure color in mired shifts. Do you know what a "mired shift" is?

Monday, November 8, 2010 9:15p EST - We talk AC flash a bunch and extoll the fan-cooled bare tube head, but how many photographers use that flash head... well... totally bare? We take a look, this week, at using it, with zero modifiers. for something glamour oriented. We don't profess to know much about glamour photography. We've never photographed nudes. So, this pushes us. But, challenges is what we're all about. Also, there we have learned that there are some issues with some photographers understanding what upsampling is all about, especially when there are some great new 25 megapixel cameras out there. Some clients tell us that upsampling should not be done. Is there validity to that claim? The print window in Photoshop is filled with terminology. Are your producing the best prints possible in Photoshop? You should be. It's what your customers deserve. Do you know that window backwards and forwards?

Monday, November 1, 2010 8:03p EDT - Thank you for all of the feedback on last week's story on file formats. Some of you took a great deal of time to share with us some of the disheartening experiences you have had when given small JPEGs which need to become large print projects. This week, we are keeping this moving forward with the next in the series. This one's on image size. One feature story's name sounds more like holiday baking than image-making: "Hard or Soft Cookies?" "Cookie" refers to the nickname for a Cucoloris, a wonderful lighting tool for creating patterns. With daylight saving time about to come to an end, the earlier night fall is an excellent opportunity to take advantage of busy downtown areas in action. Night photography is filled with delicious colors and a sense of either complete stillness or the mood of nightlife happening all around you. We share some of our experiences and insights.

Monday, October 25, 2010 7:50p EDT - We are very pleased to have just published this week's three new feature stories. We always get such a fabulous response to the stories we do on umbrellas. This week, we wanted to feed that interest with a look at both reverse umbrellas and using an artificial light source as a key light, in an outdoor environment. We have very much enjoyed bringing you the series on lighting vocabulary, which Dean Collins inspired, so much so that we're sad to wrap it up, this week. Finally, we switched topics, at the last minute, on a story we wanted to bring you. We are hearing a great deal of confusion on behalf of even some well-established professional photographers, over file format. It seems as if some of you do not understand when you ought to be shooting camera raw but you are choosing JPEG, instead, and are getting stuck in an un-reversible bind.

Monday, October 18, 2010 7:42p EDT - It's time to publish three new stories. We're pleased to bring you the second in the series which Dean Collins inspired. This week we provide a deeper understanding of highlights and shadows from a technical and analytical vantage point, an arena in which Dean excelled. We have also been moved by the thousands of wedding a portrait professionals who are now subscribers of ours. That group of photographers have a great deal of responsibility to maintain the images of the very important life events which they cover. With that in mind we looked at servers for storing extensive image files. Since so many of you downloaded the past two feature stories about support tools and wrote to us about them, we created a new one about C-stands, in our continued effort to introduce the tools of Hollywood to the still shoot.

Monday, October 11, 2010 6:37p EDT - We're pleased to launch a new series inspired by the late great photographer/educator, Dean Collins. Dean didn't just light a subject; he didn't just educate the world about how he did it, Dean studied light and created systems for studying and analyzing it which really stirred professional photographers. So many of you have websites which run Flash animations, but they are created with packaged page layout tools, over which you have limited creative control. We started a new series on creating Flash projects with InDesign CS5. It puts you in the creative drivers seat and you can knock out great pages in minutes. Finally, since our feature story on "Umbrellas 101" had huge downloads, we had to provide a feature about some of the new gear which umbrellas inspired. We want you to explore some great new lighting opportunities.

Sunday, October 3, 2010 12:33p EDT - Once again, we are getting this week's feature stories published a day early. This past week, via e-mail, we did our best to help one of our readers, who was having issues with the color quality of his photographs, as seen on his display. That prompted us to publish a story on display calibration. If your display is off, you're under the impression that everyone sees your images the way you do and nothing could be further from the truth. In addition to our use of the soft, hand-held reflectors, which we have been discussing for the past few weeks, we like hard reflectors, too. Rosco has a wide-variety of reflective media which easily clamps onto a hard reflector. For just a few dollars, you can have a very versatile hard reflector. One of the most important things a photographer does is see. Matching natural light to what you see in your subjects is part of how you tell your story about them. We share with you some of our foundational thoughts on how styles of natural illumination help us to communicate who our subjects are, or want to be.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010 4:05p EDT - We just verified, this morning, that hundreds of you attempted to register for our seminars and got error messages. This was an issue with our credit card processor. It's fixed now, so please try it again.

Monday, September 27, 2010 8:29a EDT - This week's three new Online Learning stories are just two pages each, but packed with information which requires some careful review to fully understand. We heard from so many people with a strong interest in last week's story on support tools that we rushed out a second one. This is the essential gear for photographers and film makers. Another set of tools for pros are flags and the means of absorbing light. This gear is the reversal of the reflectors we discussed a couple weeks ago. Finally, we've been meaning to explore for you the Repoussé feature set of Adobe Photoshop CS5. It's an excellent means of integrating 3D text into a photograph. It's another means for you to be a turnkey resource for image-making.

Saturday, September 25, 2010 1:55p EDT - We have finally gotten all the data for our thousands and thousands of Online Learning subscribers moved over to the new system and everyone has been sent their new passwords. Many thanks for your patience.

Thursday, September 23, 2010 3:20p EDT - It's been an insane week for us. So much is happening. Our Online Learning subscriber base keeps growing. We have had to go to an automated distribution service for our weekly subscriber passwords. Getting the old database over to the new one is no small effort. Not everyone has gotten their passwords, yet. Hopefully, it will be complete, tomorrow.

Friday, September 17, 2010 12:47p EDT - We just closed out registration for Charlotte and Atlanta. We had many who wanted to come but couldn't make those dates so we posted January dates for those cities.

Monday, September 13, 2010 9:20a EDT - As we get ready to hit the road for our 24-city USA seminar tour, we're getting this week's PDFs out the door a little earlier than usual. We're wrapping up our series on lenses with a look at wide-angle perspective. For digital cameras, which do not have a full-sized sensor, wide-angle is a significant issue. We've been talking about large reflection frames but have not had much of anything to say about hand-held reflection. So, we're starting a series on hand-held light modifiers. Finally, we've been promising a step-by-step look at the new bristle brush tool in Illustrator CS5 and along the way turned it into a four-page story about combining Photoshop and Illustrator to maximize the value of your digital assets.

Sunday, September 5, 2010 6:00p EDT - Since we were late in uploading last week's PDFs, we thought we'd make it up to our growing number of subscribers and publish this week's PDFs a day early. We have been hearing wonderful responses from our readers. This week, we're tackling the color models, gamuts, and work spaces. Until the image-making professional understands what they are all about, it's difficult to know how to manage digital color. We also continue with another segment of our series on "glass." This week we delve into standard telephoto lenses. With good reason, we have not mentioned the mainstay of many professional photographers' favorite light modifiers, the umbrella, until now. We have a nice Umbrella 101 on what should fill every photographer's lighting toolbox.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:39p EDT - Well, we're feeling better to have published the new PDFs and sent all the subscribers their passwords. We've been doing a few entry-level things on daylight fluorescent and thought we should crank up the complexity with a feature story on creating a moonlight look. It reminds us of autumn evenings. (It's 94 degrees in the Blue Ridge Mountains, as we post this). We can't talk moonlight unless we create sunlight. This goes hand-in-hand with the popular slave trigger story that we did. To wrap up our location series, which was so popular with so many of you, we look at the precautions we consider when going on location with computers as well as the optimal setups we have found.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - 7:05a EDT - We're just getting over a three-day move to a bigger studio. We've been without phones and internet, until now. This has delayed our posting this week's PDFs. We'll do that, this morning. Thanks for your patience.

Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 7:20a EDT - How do Photoshop professionals brush up when a new version is released? There are a variety of great ways of doing that. We are fortunate to be part of a worldwide group of upper-end Photoshop users. Like us, many of them watch videos on Adobe TV, lynda.com, and do the lessons in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Classroom in a Book. We recently posted a review of that book and DVD to the amazon.com website.

Thursday, August 12, 2010 - 10:42a EDT - Janet's working on a really cool Illustrator Bristle Brush project. She's starting with a pencil comp. This surprises many. Some think that people who are deep into the digital world have broken their pencils and torn up their sketch pads. Nothing could be further from the truth. About a year ago, we participated in an online discussion, with about a dozen movers and shapers in Illustrator. Only one person didn't start with paper and pencil. It's faster. In the time it takes for an app to launch, we can have a completed thumbnail comp.

Monday, August 9, 2010 - 3:54p EDT - There are 3 new PDFs waiting for you in our Online Learning section. We have been working with Wein slaves plus wireless triggers and are impressed with these very inexpensive solutions. Many photographers knock out image after image and never bother to check the histogram on the camera or in Adobe Camera Raw. We show how simple it is. Time is money. Just because a tabletop shot does not have a model, on the clock, does not mean that you can take your sweet time. That's a waste of money.

Monday, August 2, 2010 - 7:45p EDT - We just published 3 new PDFs to Online Learning.

Monday, July 26, 2010 - 12:43p EDT - We're putting the finishing touches on 3 new PDFs. One looks at the mixed lighting technique of dragging a shutter. This is important when shooting with flash, indoors, near windows. Safety is a big concern when using flash near water. We review the precautions we take when using supplemental flash around a swimming pool. There's a great story on how simple it is to use the new Roto Brush in After Effects CS5. Look for all three of them, this afternoon.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 4:15a EDT - There's a little more to this week's feature story on mixed light than the title explains. We got into how Mike Pocklington designed a photograph. It's more than a technical story. It's also about how a photographer thinks through a visual creation.

Monday, July 19, 2010 - 7:58p EDT - You have to check out the new PDFs we posted, today. Please let us know what you think of them.

Saturday, July 17, 2010 - 9:48a EDT - We're working on 3 new features for Monday. Since you responded so well to our mixed light and HMI features, we have two more for you. Also, many people are confused by the default settings in Adobe Camera Raw. Zero them out. We'll show you why they default the way they do and how to make them better.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 3:00p EDT - Yesterday we published an interesting look at the intricacies doing what some professional photographers feel is mundane work, copying fine art. We also looked at using a tent for very shiny surfaces. Together, they are anything but plebeian projects. Getting it perfect takes a great deal of skill. We also started a series on mixed light sources. This follows up on the flash alternatives we have been exploring. Now it's time to bring them all together. This first one is all about how we collaborated with Tracey Lee and used a snoot and grid as an accent spot. Finally, there's so much happening with dSLRs offering HD movie features. We to explore how easy it is to edit that video with the very powerful Premier CS5.

Friday, July 9, 2010 - 12:05p EDT - It looks like our Fall seminar registration processing fee needs to go up to $35. Save $10. Register in July.

Monday, July 5, 2010 - 6:45p EDT - We just posted 3 great new features.

Sunday, July 4, 2010 - 4:25p EDT - Independence Day cheers to all our fellow Americans and a belated happy Canada Day to our neighbors to the north, and a belated festive Día de San Pedro y San Pablo to our neighbors to the south. We are wrapping up work on three new PDFs. As promised, we have a step-by-step Photoshop painting story. Capturing spontaneous moments does not always provide time for a tripod. We look at becoming a human tripod. In another look at non-flash lighting we visit the simplicity of the Chimera Triolet.

Saturday, July 3, 2010 - 3:44p EDT - In preparing a new story for Monday's Online Learning section, we did some informal research on how many photographers are strictly studio-bound. In checking the Virginia members of the American Society of Media Photographers, we only found one who was not showing any location images. This is a significant change over the past 25 years.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - 5:30p EDT - As previously mentioned, Janet has been working feverishly to get six pages into Susan Bloom's next book, "Digital Collage and Painting, Second Edition: Using Photoshop and Painter to Create Fine Art." Here's the finished painting. The book is due out in October, published by Focal Press, the publisher of "Stoppees' Guide to Photography & Light."

Monday, June 28, 2010 - 7:46p EDT - We just post the greatest number of PDF pages we have ever provided in a single week. We're feeling good about now having 36 stories in Online Learning. Thank you for all your input.

Sunday, June 27, 2010 - 9:40a EDT - We're working on three new Online Learning PDFs for you, tomorrow. We continue to look at alternatives to flash illumination. This week we're offering the first in a series of stories on HMI, the lighting of Hollywood. Also, many of us have a huge library of images on film. We look at scanning them like a pro. There's a great article on perspective control lenses, too.

Saturday, June 26, 2010 - 2:30p EDT - It's been an insane kind of week for us. The fall seminar tour is our biggest endeavor, ever. We're partnering with big retailers in the 24 cities that we're visiting to offer you some fabulous deals. It's very encouraging to talk to these people. They're revved to be part of this project. There are plenty of great people out there who are very dedicated to doing great things for the creative professional.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - 2:38p EDT - It's really us! We have gotten some e-mails from some of you wondering if we employ "surrogates" to answer your e-mails. Thanks for the complements, but nope, when you hear from us, you get the real deal! It's true that the workload is intense and sometimes the workday starts around 2:00a or 3:00a. Yet, taking breaks, to answer e-mail messages, helps keep it real. It assists us in knowing that someone is on the other end of the electronic pipeline.

Monday, June 21, 2010 - 1:55p EDT - Later today, we'll be publishing to our Online Learning section three new PDFs. We're just finishing them up, now. Since this is the summer solstice we did a feature on seasonal light. As promised, we have the first in a series on artificial light sources other than flash. This week, it's daylight fluorescent. And, we've continuing with our series on Adobe's Creative Suite 5 features by looking at Illustrator's new bristle brush feature set. As soon as we publish them, we'll e-mail passwords.

Friday, June 18, 2010 - 11:40a EDT - Some creative professionals bound out of bed in the morning, ready to start a challenging project. Others have a "fear of white paper." We have a little 4 year old friend, Monica, who loves to draw. She'll grab a pen and paper and just unleashes her desire to visually express herself. When Adobe introduced its new paint engine and tools for Photoshop CS5, Janet was a bit apprehensive, after 19 years of Painter. We put a folder on her computer's desktop filled with her favorite photo references and called it "Monica's Pictures." The goal was to just draw like Monica. It worked! Janet will be one of twenty featured illustrators in Sue Bloom's Digital Collage and Painting, Second Edition: Using Photoshop and Painter to Create Fine Art. It has an October publication date.

Monday, June 14, 2010 - 5:45p EDT - We just posted our promised new stories. We'll be e-mailing everyone new passwords, ASAP.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 - Noon EDT - We are working on 3 new PDFs for Monday. Since we did a feature on High-Key, last week, we obviously need one on Low-Key, this week. Our May 31st story on Sensor Size and Optics and Mastering Test Shots obviously points us toward "EV" (Exposure Value). So much of what goes on, behind the scenes with auto exposure. Much of it is based on EV. The more we learn about it, the better. Last week, we got into the new pressure sensitive options of Photoshop CS5. This week we'll enlighten you on tilt sensitivity.

Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 7:36a EDT - As something of a tiny postscript to one of our Online Learning PDFs, this week, we're impassioned about how long prints last. We expect them to last a lifetime and be handed down through generations. There's something very disappointing about the number of photos, of special occasions, which have faded. Customers expect longevity. Professional photographers and digital illustrators must strive to give their customers the best the industry has to offer.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - 5:36a EDT - We just posted the following to our Facebook page (you can see the image, there): "Janet's back in gear with more Photoshop CS5 painting. We were in a bit of a quandary with the source photo of a hydrangea. It's a beautiful photo in the sense that the petals are quite vibrant and respond well to saturation adjustments for the underpainting. However due to the delicate nature of the petals it requires a fair amount of detail for the painting to properly convey what it's an image of. Janet did not want to fall back on the very photo-realistic qualities she often had with Painter. Additionally, she wanted to reach new comfort levels with the Ps paint engine and how it reacts. The trick was in holding the detail while letting it flow freely. Exploring new tools is exciting."

Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - 4:10p EDT - We are very excited to already announce the dates and locations for our 2010 Fall Seminar Tour. Please plan to join us. We'll be announcing some very exciting opportunities for our attendees.

Monday, June 7, 2010 - 7:35p EDT - We just went live with 3 new educational PDFs. There are some great new pressure sensitivity tools in Photoshop CS5. This starts a new series of great stuff Adobe built into it's CS5 apps just for Wacom tablet users. We did a 4-page feature on a troubling issue for image-makers: print longevity. Since color photography was introduced the lifespan of prints has been an issue for which we must take responsibility. Finally, we want everyone to be up to speed on what High-Key images are all about.

Saturday, June 5, 2010 - 2:32p EDT - Here's something cool that Janet did with Adobe Illustrator CS5, this week, which we just put on our Facebook page. You've been watching us show off what she's been doing with Adobe Photoshop CS5's bristle brush and paint engine. Did you know that Illustrator CS5 introduced a bristle brush, as well? Just as Photoshop is pixel-based, Illustrator is vector-based. So the two have very different results. But, in both cases we start with photos which become the basis for the illustrations.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - 7:10a EDT - To add to what we wrote in this week's story on Sensor Size and Optics, there was a time when professional photographers used to debate film quality. There was a Kodak vs. Fuji vs. Agfa thing. These were primarily E-6 transparency film discussions. In today's digital world, it's all about the camera's sensor. The sensor size and its affect on lenses is not that well understood. That's why we did this story. The story includes a link to a lab which tests sensors and rates them.

Monday, May 31, 2010 - 11:53p EDT - We tried to pack a great deal of high-level content into this week's PDFs. We just posted them. We hope you had a happy Memorial Day. God bless those who served.

Saturday, May 29, 2010 - 6:21a EDT - On our Facebook page is another one of Janet's Photoshop paint projects. We're proud of her ever developing skill sets with this. Janet used John Derry's brushes and asked about using the Restoring Brush - Sample All Layers to add detail from the photo. We felt that was not the best route to go. With Photoshop painting she's getting away from the more photo-realistic things she used to do in Painter. The particular scene seemed to lend itself to the more free-form style of traditional painting. What do you think? Comment of our Facebook wall or send us an e-mail message.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 6:54p EDT - We are speechless with all the kind thank yous from ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) and PPA (Professional Photographers of America) members who have e-mailed us, this week, about our Online Learning PDFs. These wonderful men and women are our colleagues in professional image-making.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - 9:14a EDT - We have been getting a great response for this week's Online Learning. There were around 1,100 page views in one day alone (a record for us and quite a feat for a new website). THANKS!

Monday, May 24, 2010 - 4:47p EDT - Our 3 new PDFs went live and have been fully tested. We'll start sending out passwords, ASAP.

Monday, May 24, 2010 - 5:10a EDT - We posted to our Facebook page Janet's latest effort in painting with Photoshop. The photo reference is in our "Stoppees' Guide to Photography & Light" book. Toward the end we were getting frustrated with some of the details, especially with the area of her face where hair is over one of Heather's eyes. John Derry's Restoring Brush came to the rescue. The photo was a real team effort. Tracey Lee a photographer/stylist painted the background and found and styled the model. (Her photos are in our next book). Mike Pocklington (who is in our first and next books) popped in with the exact lighting solution. It's ironic that the making of the painting required a team, too. Thanks to John Derry, Tim Shelbourne, and all who have been contributing to our ever-developing mastery of painting in Photoshop. Janet needs to get onto painting in Illustrator, if we want to be ready to show these things at our Atlanta seminar.

Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 1:05p EDT - We have 3 new PDFs for you, tomorrow. They just need some outside technical editing. One's a primer on monolights, an excellent place to get started with AC flash. The samples of what we've posted to Facebook on painting in Photoshop come to fruition with a look at how we do it. And, we start a series of inside looks at how we organize our production phases to insure high-yield photo sessions.

Friday, May 21, 2010 - 6:31p EDT - Check our Facebook page for Janet's latest Photoshop CS5 painting. We're featuring this one in our seminar tour along with another that's she's doing this weekend. The photo was from the late, great Mike Pocklington's trip to Italy. It appears in our next book, "The Photographers Lighting Toolbox."

Friday, May 21, 2010 - 7:27a EDT - amazon.com has "Stoppees' Guide..." for 46% off! We've never seen it that low. Usually, these things only last for a few days.

Thursday, May 20, 2010 - 12:40p EDT - We just post another of Janet's terrific Photoshop CS5 paintings to our Facebook page. We have a bit of a secret set of tools for these which we want to share with you on the Expressive Pixels website. These are the creations of John Derry. John began working on what was Fractal Design Painter 1.2. So if anyone knows something about painting brushes it's John. He's one of our favorite painters in digital media, too. Part of the package are textures and cloning actions which sets up Photoshop for you to clone from a photo, much like Painter. In short, John is giving you all the tools you need to get started in turning a photo into a painting.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 1:12p EDT - Janet's been totally jazzed by the new paint engine and features of Photoshop CS5. On our Facebook page is the first painting that she's ready to share. Janet finds her productivity way up compared to her 19 years in Painter. She can knock these things down faster than ever. Janet's also seeing more energy in the illustrations she's producing in Photoshop. We'll post more, soon.

Monday, May 17, 2010 - 9:06p EDT - Our 3 new PDFs went live.

Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 8:22a EDT - We're working on 3 new educational PDFs for tomorrow evening. You've seen those panels which Hollywood film crews erect to get that beautifully diffused light on a sunny day; we'll show you how you can do the same. There's a cool pop-up grey card you need to know about; it dramatically improves your exposure and color. How do we dramatically light those very close-up macro shots? You'll love the little tools that we have.

Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 2:10p EDT - It's been a little over a month since we opened the doors to m2media.com. We tried to contain the web traffic until we got a sense for the stability of the site. We have had over 12,000 page views. (We've been told that passing the 10,000 per month mark is some sort of litmus test). So, today, we're telling the world. We just posted a press release and we're ready to welcome the rest of the world!

Friday, May 14, 2010 - 12:57p EDT - Yesterday Adobe ran full-page ads in many newspapers with "We [heart] Apple" in the headline. Like Adobe, we too love our Macs. We go back to the little beige ones with the black and white screens. There's a growing discussion about Apple's not supporting Flash on their iPhone, iPad, etc. You may have heard Steve Jobs making negative comments about Flash. Adobe created a special section on their website to politely and respectful respond to this.

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 9:30a EDT - We've been pleased to get e-mail feedback from our Online Learning readers. To date, this week's PDF e-mailbag is more chuck full than ever. The response to the stories on Photoshop and Illustrator CS5 has been 100% positive. Thank you so much for this. It helps us in determining the content of our new features.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 4:58p EDT - Many of our seminar pre-registrants in the Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia region have Memorial Day Weekend plans. They're asked us to reschedule those days. It seems like the patriotic thing to do. We'll be announcing new dates for those cities in a few weeks. If you are in that region, please e-mail us and get on the advanced reservation list.

Monday, May 10, 2010 - 7:10a EDT - We're working on 3 new PDFs, today: 2 more on CS5 (Photoshop and Illustrator) and one on using a Nikon Speedlight in a Chimera Lightbank.

Friday, May 7, 2010 - 7:07p EDT - After some in-depth work in Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 over secure registration site went live a few minutes ago. So, come in and register for our seminar tour.

Friday, May 7, 2010 - 8:26a EDT - We think our secure site for registration goes live, this morning. We must have written or edited 300 lines of XHTML code, yesterday. Coding is not our thing. We've been working on websites since 1995. This has been the toughest.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - 6:23a EDT - We're working like crazy with our credit credit processing company to get a secure site seminar registration page to work optimally for you. It's a tooth puller. Hopefully today.

Monday, May 3, 2010 - 6:50p EDT - We just posted 3 new PDFs to our Online Learning page. Subscribers will get new passwords in the morning. If you're not a subscriber, please e-mail us. If you have to see them ASAP, e-mail us, too.

Monday, May 3, 2010 - 4:40p EDT - Now amazon.com has our book at 41% off! It's going nuts on their sales chart. We think this is the most brisk we have ever seen sales on it.

Sunday, May 2, 2010 - 7:45p EDT - Funny one: If you open InDesign CS5 and choose the "About InDesign..." screen, wait for all the credits to scroll, under the "Special thanks go to" section you'll see (among others): Brian Stoppee!!!

Saturday, May 1, 2010 - 12:50p EDT - We're thrilled to see that Adobe Creative Suite 5 is now shipping. Most online retailers are not showing it as available, yet. It's at adobe.com. We got our copy of the Master Collection, yesterday. This is so much the most awesome thing Adobe has ever released that there isn't a second place.

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 6:00a EDT - We just saw that amazon.com has 40% off our "Stoppees' Guide to Photography & Light." There's no telling how long that will last.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 10:50a EDT - Yesterday was very frustrating for us. The company which processes our credit cards was having all sorts of issues. Fortunately, we have gone to this PDF registration form rather than online registration or we would have been clueless as to why people's registrations were not being processed. The downside is that it took our entire day to do everything manually. We're glad to be back working of three cool new PDFs for you, next week, plus diving into refining the seminar for you.

Monday, April 26, 2010 - 3:00p EDT - We just finished not only posting the 3 new PDFs but redoing the entire website. For those of you who have requested more information on us, please see the Let's Talk page. There are extensive biographies, there.

Sunday, April 25, 2010 - 9:55p EDT - We finished the 3 new PDFs. We're going to make some dinner, get some sleep, and post them in the morning. Thank you for all your interest.

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 1:50p EDT - We are working on 3 new PDFs for Online Learning. We usually post them Monday. Maybe we'll get them out a day early. One's the other half of the PDF on flash heads: power packs (they're like a married couple). There's so much talk about the Photoshop CS5 paint engine (which we are 100% in awe of) that we want to share with you something on Painter's Photo Auto-Painting. We also have the much-promised story of changing color with Adobe Camera Raw's hue slider. As usual, we'll e-mail all of our subscribers when they've posted to this site.

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 7:25a EDT - It's a leap of faith to post to this blog. Wednesday, when updating our wildly popular Online Learning page that page then showed site visitors an "Access Forbidden" message. Our web hosting service, the mammoth Network Solutions, was having problems with their Unix servers. After plenty of time on the phone, the Network Solutions guys fixed the problem but warned us not to try to post changes or new pages. We wanted to post 3 new PDFs, yesterday. Supposedly, Network Solutions has fixed things. Let's see! (gulp)!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 8:00a EDT - We were floored, yesterday, to learn that in this website's first 7 days of operation we had 3,099 page views. To paraphrase an actress receiving a big award, "You like us. You really, really like us!" (We love you, too)!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 6:05a EDT - We were overwhelmed, yesterday, by the flood of requests for PDF passwords and advanced seminar registrations. We've been working on websites since 1995. This thing has taken on a life of its own, after just 7 days. "M2 Media" and "Light of Image-Makers" appear to have risen to the top of the Google stack. Many thanks for all of your support. We're touched.

Monday, April 19, 2010 - 8:00a EDT - We just posted 3 more PDFs to our Online Learning page: Off-Camera Flash, Tilting Column Tripod, and Adobe CS5-InDesign.

Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 6:05a EDT - Every decent dSLR camera has an HD movie feature. Nikon has it on their D3s, D300s, and D5000. A new D5000 body is just $600. Every other decent photographer we know is shooting motion. Adobe Premier Pro CS5 has answered that market with dSLR compatibility and a fabulous Rotoscope Brush which feels like it's right out of the pages of a Photoshop playbook. The marketplace is changing. We're working on a few new PDFs (and... yes... videos) about this in the weeks ahead to keep you well informed about industry trends.

Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 2:50p EDT - There are a variety of speculations on when Adobe's CS5 products will be available. adobe.com says that English, French, and Spanish versions will be available mid-May.

Friday, April 16, 2010 - 9:03a EDT - One of the most fascinating things about a basket full of new Adobe releases are the concepts behind the splash screens and icon graphics for the items in your dock. Check out these insights from Adobe design lead, Shawn Cheris, on how the fresh new look of CS5 was developed: http://veerle.duoh.com/blog/comments/the_new_cs5_branding/

Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 7:35a EDT - I just read that Adobe has given us permission to show you some of the cool features in CS5 that they are demonstrating. I guess we'll have two waves of PDFs this coming week.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 8:20a EDT - For those of you who downloaded our PDF on flash heads, we're working on a follow-up about flash lighting power packs for next week.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 1:15p EDT - We are encouraged by the huge response we have had to the online training materials. Every hour brings more people wanting a password to the PDFs. We thank everyone who have sent us feedback on what they think of them (so far 100% positive)!

Monday, April 12, 2010 - 7:00p EDT - It's an even bigger thrill to final be able to launch this web site. Our Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) with Adobe do not allow us to post any CS5 tutorials until the products begin to ship. A shipping date has not been announced yet. We can release the PDFs that we have been creating with InDesign CS5. We'll put more of them out there in our online learning page weekly. For now we are going to concentrate on getting PDFs to you. After CS5 starts shipping we'll get into the videos.

Monday, April 12, 2010 - Noon EDT - It was a thrill to watch the Adobe CS5 announcement today. If you missed it, live, checking it out here: http://cs5launch.adobe.com/