Adobe’s Principal Product Manager of Photoshop, John Nack has posted an idea for a new Photoshop feature on his blog. Nack’s idea is to create a way of rendering HTML and CSS within Photoshop. This means visual designers could work with “live” HTML objects as they’re building websites within a team of programmers, easing the workflow between the designing and coding stages.

Before you get to excited (or disappointed) keep in mind that isn’t a feature, isn’t even part of a plan, it’s simply and idea that Nack would like feedback on.

Nack describes the idea (and workflow) like this: a designer creates a mockup, which he hands off to a programmer. The programmer then renders the mockup in HTML/CSS, at which point he could hand it back to the designer who can open it in Photoshop as a kind of live layer. Resizing and other layer actions would cause the code to respond according to how the programmer has written the code.

What Nack is envisioning is a smart layer that uses WebKit (already part of the Creative Suite) to render what he calls “programmable layers.”

Among the benefits Nack sees are “[live] pixel-accurate web rendering (text and shapes); the ability to style objects via CSS parameters (enabling effects like dotted lines); data-driven 2D and 3D graphics; and high fidelity web output (HTML as HTML).”

The real world example Nack uses is a calendar widget, but that particular example raises an interesting question — what about scripting languages? We don’t know of anyone who writes out calendar code in HTML, that would be insane to update. So if you’re generating the calendar with, say, PHP, where does the script rendering happen?

So far, the comments appear pretty evenly divided between those who think such a feature would be great and those think that either it’s just more bloat in Photoshop, or that Fireworks would be a better home for the idea.

If you’ve got strong opinions one way or the other, head over to Nack’s blog and let him know what you think, either in the comments or by completing this survey.

Just remember that this is not part of a roadmap and may well never happen. In the words of Douglas Adams, “Don’t panic.”

See Also:

• Photoshop’s Top Dog Replies to ‘Flash Is Dead’ Meme
• Designers, Step Away From the Photoshop
• 
  Photoshop Upgrade Promises New Tricks, Timesavers [GadgetLab]

Welcome to Lesson 2 of our Lightroom walk-through. Now that you have a general idea of how the interface works, it’s time to get down and dirty with the individual modules.

We’re going to start with Library module. As we learned in Lesson 1, each specific task in Lightroom is performed within its own dedicated “module,” and the modules are laid out in a linear fashion to match the typical photographer’s workflow.

Getting to Know the Library Module

The first module is the Library. It’s where you import, organize and sort your images. It’s also where you start by default when you launch the application. The Library is Lightroom’s brain — it’s where you can tag your images, sort them, group them in folders, apply ratings and build smart collections. The Library module does have some quick-editing tools that allow you adjust your images. But the bulk of the editing happens in the Develop module where the more robust tools are kept. So, for the time being, we’re going to skip the Library’s handful of editing tools and focus on the organizational stuff that makes up the meat of the Library.

Folders

Earlier versions of Lightroom were not very smart in the way they handled folders on your hard drive. Fortunately that’s one of the many things Adobe changed in Lightroom 2.0. Be aware that everything that follows is written with 2.0+ in mind.

The Folders sub-panel in Lightroom’s Library module.

If you look at the left hand panel in the Library module, you’ll notice a “Folders” heading with a triangle next to it. Click the triangle to expand that header if it isn’t expanded already. That will reveal a list of available hard drives (you’ll probably just see one hard drive listed, unless you’ve already told Lightroom about others) and then any folders you’ve told Lightroom to import.

In the case of the screenshot you can see I have a drive named “luxagraf” and a top-level folder named “Negatives.” Inside “Negatives” are some date-based folders, and then location folders below that. That happens to be my organizational preference, not something Lightroom imposes.

You can store and organize your photos on you disk however you would like. In fact, you can rearrange your photos outside Lightroom, then go back into the program, select the folder, right-click it and choose “synchronize folder.” That will tell Lightroom to update the list of images in that folder.

Want to add a folder? No problem, just right-click the folder you’d like to serve as the parent and choose “Create folder inside…” If you want to add a new top level folder, just use the plus button at the top of the Folders panel.

Building a hierarchy in Lightroom works both ways — Creating new parent folders above a folder is as easy as creating child folders below it. Just right-click on the child folder and you’ll see an option that says “Add Parent folder.” Select that and presto, Lightroom is now aware of the parent and the original child folder.

Note: In the screenshot above, Lightroom is displaying a photo count next to the drive listing. This display actually shows the amount of hard drive space used and the amount available by default. To change that display, just right-click on the text and select one of the other options.

Collections

It’s a good idea to set up your folders in Lightroom to mirror the structure you’re already using to organize photos on your hard drive. But folders alone would be a bit limiting — what happens if you want to have the same photo be in two places are once? If you’re using folders alone to organize things, you’d end up with duplicate files, which isn’t very smart.

That’s where collections come in. Collections are essentially like an iTunes playlist — they’re groups of images that the application groups together in a way wholly independent of where the actual files live.

In other words, collections are a way to organize, group and sort photos without actually moving them anywhere.

Ordinary and Smart Collections

There are two types of collections, ordinary Collections and Smart Collections. Again, the comparison to iTunes playlists works well. Ordinary Collections are static, to create them just click the plus button and choose “create collection.” You can then manually add photos to your collection by dragging and dropping.

The Collections sub-panel. Smart Collections have tiny gears next to them.

While Collections are static, Smart Collections are dynamic and work just like smart playlists in media players. You define a set of criteria — say, all your photos rated with five stars, or everything tagged “Paris” — and the Smart Collection will show only those images. Later, when you add some new photos to your library and give a couple of them five star ratings or tag them with “Paris”, head back to your Smart Collections and your new photos automatically show up in the appropriate collection.

In the screenshot, you can see that I have the default Lightroom Smart Collections folder and then a normal collection called “top” which happens to hold some of my personal favorites hand-culled from my library.

Smart Collections can be as complicated or intricately filtered as you’d like, just hit the plus button to keep adding criteria to the filter.

Create Smart Collections by filtering for various criteria.

The fun doesn’t stop there. You can also create Collection Sets, which are essentially folders to hold your various collections. I could merge two Smart Collections — say, all of my five-star photos and all of my four-star photos — into a Collection Set called “Highest rated,” which would contain two distinct collections.

Adding Keywords

Smart Collections can also be used to display all images with a specific keyword, like, in our example above, “Paris.”

But how do we add keywords to our photos? For that we need to jump over to the right-hand panel in the Library module and open the Keywording sub-panel. This is the interface we’ll use to add keywords to our images.

Keywords, ratings, dates — this is all metadata, or information associated with a file that’s sort of tacked on after it’s been created.

Note that by keywords, I really mean tags. They’re essentially the same thing, and most of the sites on the web that rely on metadata call this labeling system tagging. It just rolls off the tongue better than “keywording,” I suppose. However, since Adobe chooses to call them keywords, we’ll stick with that terminology to avoid confusion. But they are the same thing in concept.

Tags are “Keywords” in Lightroom.

In the screenshot, you’ll notice the selected image has the keywords “2006″, “city”, “Laos”, “market” and “round the world trip” applied to it. To add more keywords, you can click that dark grey box and type them in. Use commas to separate keywords from one another. However, the better option it use the box below that where it says “Click here to add keywords.”

Tip: The nice thing about using the smaller box is that it will stay selected when you move between photos using the CMD-right/left arrow (CTRL-right/left arrow on Windows) keyboard shortcut. It makes for a nice quick way to add keywords to multiple photos without ever taking your fingers off the keys.

Below the Keywords box, you’ll see the Keyword Suggestions area. Adobe touted this quite heavily when Lightroom 2.0 launched, claiming it would be exceedingly smart at suggesting related keywords based on a whole series of criteria.

If by “smart” the company really meant “the single worst keyword suggestion tool you’ve ever used,” then we’d be inclined to agree. Maybe your luck will be better, but in all our time spent been using Lightroom 2.0, it has yet to suggest a keyword that makes sense.

Just below Keyword Suggestions is a tool that actually is very useful — Keywords Sets. The idea behind keyword Sets is that you’ll probably want to apply the same keywords to different photos quite frequently, so why not save them as a reusable set that can be applied to multiple photos with a single click? That’s exactly what Keyword Sets allow you to do. There are some default options, like Outdoor Photography, which has some common keywords you might want to use on your landscape images. But the real power here is in defining your own sets and then applying them to your images. Any time you’ve assigned multiple keywords to an image, you can save them as a set.

The simplest and quickest way to keyword your photos is when you import them. The trick is to apply the more general keywords — location names for instance — at this stage. Then, apply more fine-grained keywords, like say “sunset” or “beach” to your individual images.

Filtering Images

You have all your photos imported, organized, er, keyworded — now what? Let’s look at the main Library view to see how we can use all that data to sort through our photos and find just the images we want.

First, let’s take a quick tour of the Library module’s two views — Grid, pictured below, and Loupe, which allows you zoom in on your images. To change what’s displayed in either view, just right-click on an image and select “View Options…” That will give you a preference pane that you can use to customize the Library module just about any way you like.

Also note that to quickly jump to Grid view, you can use the keyboard shortcut G. For Loupe view, it’s E. No, we don’t know why it’s E either, but it is.

Notice the filter bar across the top of the screenshot. This is where our keywording and other metadata filtering happens. To enable a filter, just click it. To disable it, click again.

Between the three types of filters — Text, Attribute and Metadata — you should be able to see just about every possible combination of images you can imagine. Of particular note is the metadata browser, which allows you to filter every criteria your camera records.

But maybe you don’t want to jump through the hoops of filtering every time you want to find a particular image. That’s why there’s the custom filter tool over to the right hand side of the filter bar. Use the custom filter tool to save your filter criteria so you can quickly jump back to it whenever you want.

The other element of note in the main Library Module is the toolbar along the bottom of the Grid view. This is where you can change settings like the sort order, switch between views (including two we haven’t covered yet: Compare and Survey), adjust the thumbnail size and even apply keywords and metadata using the painter tool.

Odds and Ends

Here some other interface elements within the Library module we haven’t covered:

The keyword browser, which lives in the right side panel. The keyword browser has the same effect as typing a keyword into the text filter in the filter bar, but in this case you see all your keywords. This avoids unnecessary duplicates, and you don’t have to try to remember whatever specific term you used two years ago.

In the left panel, you’ll find the catalog sub-panel, probably most notable for providing quick access to your last import.

Also on the left is the Navigator sub-panel, which is useful in Loupe view since it shows you at a glance, where you are in your zoomed view. Photoshop users will feel a sense of familiarity in the Navigator.

Conclusion

Adobe likes to provide more than one way of doing most things in its software. The result is that Lightroom 2.0 is very flexible, but it can also be somewhat daunting. Hopefully this orientation has given you some insight into how the Library module can help organize your images.

So go ahead and try out some of the things we’ve covered — import some images, move them around, create collections, add some keywords, sort by various metadata criteria and so on until you’re comfortable.

Then come right back, because in the next lesson, we’ll walk through the basics of the Develop module. That’s where the real fun begins!

But why do we work this way? It violates one of the fundamental tenets of good design, that design should follow content. It also means working with static documents. You submit a design to a client, the client likes it, but wants all the corners rounded. Have fun changing the corners in Photoshop — meanwhile, we’ll be adding a single line of CSS 3 to our live mock up.

In the final post to this year’s 24 Ways (see our coverage of other 24 Ways highlights), Meagan Fisher picks up what’s become a popular idea among many of web design’s most respected voices — that web designers should do their mockups in markup. That is, start with a live HTML and CSS page to create your designs.

Citing Photoshop’s shortcomings (not to mention expense) Fisher argues that tools like CSS 3 make writing — and more importantly updating — your mockups pure code just as fast, if not faster than the old Photoshop methods.

But there’s an added benefit Fisher touches on only briefly that bears further emphasis. Working with the code from the begin gives you chance to refactor, refine and improve it before production work ever starts.

Part of the reason lies in something designer Jeffrey Zeldman once posted to Twitter, “design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”

Starting with content — whether actual content, or simply the markup of the page — will force you to focus more on structure and making sure that your design fits the site from the ground up. In our experience this leads to slimmer, more semantic and easier to maintain code. As with writing in any language, the real process is not writing, but rewriting.

Even if you’re thinking that the world can pry your Photoshop markups out of your cold dead hands, give Fisher’s piece a read and, even better, try starting with code and see what happens. For some it might mean learning a new skill set, for others merely a shift in thinking. Regardless of whether you decide to switch to this method for good, we guarantee you’ll learn something new in the process.

See Also:

• Slick Web Design Gets Easier Thanks to CSS 3′s Transform Tools
• Design Patterns Solve Common Problems for Web’s Color Blind Users
• 10 Reasons to Politely Decline a Web Design Gig

Now, there’s one more battleground: Photoshop.com, Adobe’s online photo service based around its flagship photo editor, has jumped on the Android bandwagon as well. Adobe released a new Android-based photo app Friday that allows you to edit, view, share and upload images directly from your phone. It works with any photos stored on the phone.

Photoshop.com Mobile is already available for the iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. It’s a free download on all three mobile platforms. The Android version of Photoshop.com Mobile has all the features found in its Apple-y and Microsoft-y cousins, but it also packs in a few things that can’t be done on the iPhone — like background image uploads, so you can upload an album and still do other things with the images are being transferred.

As for the editing tools themselves, well… don’t expect “real” Photoshop. But the basic options like cropping, straightening, color corrections and preset image transformations can go a long way toward making your mobile images look much better.

Adobe has a video overview, but for some reason doesn’t offer any way to embed it. You can check it out on the Photoshop.com Mobile site. Watch for the subtle iPhone snub about midway through the video, when Adobe’s Corey Barker says, “this particular phone has a really cool feature called background processing…”

If you’d like to give the new Photoshop.com Mobile for Android app a try, head to the Android marketplace.

See Also:

• Android Gets a Better Browser, Now With More HTML5
• Five Reasons Android Might Deliver Where iPhone Won’t
• Adobe to Release Photoshop.com Photo-Sharing App for Windows Mobile

Photoshop guru Russell Brown has posted a video demonstrating the power of Photoshop CS4′s “content aware scaling,” which is difficult to describe, but fairly mind-blowing once you’ve seen it in action (video link).

In a nutshell, content aware scaling enables you to resize an image on single axis without distorting any of the primary content. It works by analyzing your image and figuring out what is important and what isn’t. Generally speaking, that means that foreground subjects are left alone and backgrounds are resized independently, though the exact behavior will depend on the image you’re working with.

But squeezing backgrounds isn’t the only thing content aware scaling can handle, you can also use the “protect” feature to manually control which parts of your image are preserved and which are resized. In the video Brown walks you through how to use an alpha channel mask to selectively resize parts of your image.

Of course to get your own hands dirty with content aware scaling, you’ll have to wait until Photoshop CS4 is available later this month. In the mean time, you can drool over the possibilities highlighted in Brown’s demo.

And note that yes, Brown is, well, a bit eccentric shall we say, but he knows Photoshop better than most. If the nerd version of the monster truck rally voiceover makes you cringe, just hit mute and watch the video — content aware scaling speaks for itself.

See Also:

• First Look: Photoshop Creative Suite 4 Is Faster, More Refined
• Adobe Announces Creative Suite 4
• Stunning Video Of ‘Content Aware Image Resizing’

In addition to its desktop-software announcements, Adobe is introducing a new mobile service designed to make it dead simple to upload images from a Windows Mobile smartphone.

If you’ve been looking for an easier way to get your camera-phone images posted onto the web (or wanted to do a bit of light editing before posting something to Flickr), the company’s new Photoshop.com Mobile app might be the answer.

The software, which requires FlashLite and will be released as a public beta in September, allows you to upload, back up and share your photos from a Windows Mobile smartphone. The initial release will support six mobiles: Samsung Blackjack I and II, the Palm Treo 700 and 750, and the MOTO Q 9h and Music 9m; the company says support for Android, iPhone, Symbian and RiM BlackBerry devices will be coming in 2009.

The Flash-based Photoshop.com Mobile app greatly simplifies the task up uploading images from your phone. In fact, you won’t need to do anything to upload an image to Photoshop.com — point and click to capture the shot, and in about 10 seconds the photo shows up in your online gallery, where it’s ready to be shared. You have the option to simply upload your photos and keep them private or to upload and instantly share your images through a personalized Photoshop.com URL.

While the app will automatically upload your images to Photoshop.com as soon as you take them, to pass them on to other sharing sites like Facebook or Flickr will require a separate trip to the browser (or desktop software if you’re using it). But once you log in to your Photoshop.com account, adding your photos to another service is as simple as dragging a thumbnail over to a folder on the left side of the screen marked “Flickr” and letting go.

Adobe says it’s working toward an update that will allow you to upload images with other services directly from the mobile app, but it won’t be available for the initial release.

Other features in the mobile app include full access to your Photoshop.com library and albums on your phone, as well as the ability to turn off the automatic upload service for those images you don’t want to upload.

While the iPhone has made it pretty easy to send photos to Facebook and Flickr through specialized apps, the experience just isn’t as simple on other phones. And while almost all photo-sharing services offer upload via e-mail features, the process isn’t nearly as simple as using a dedicated app. A gap exists for nontechnical users, and that’s the gap Adobe is hoping to fill with Photoshop.com Mobile.

The public beta will be available as a free download at mobile.photoshop.com at the end of September. We’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it’s ready to download.

Adobe has announced new versions of its Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements photo and video editing suites for the Windows platform. These suites are what the company refers to as its “hobbyist-level” offerings, the little siblings to its flagship editing products, Photoshop and Premiere. Which isn’t to say they’re under-powered. In fact, each application packs a substantial number of features into a $100 package, with the emphasis clearly on ease of use, online sharing and quick execution of common tasks. And while the Elements apps may fall short of expectations for professionals or “prosumers,” they will appeal greatly to their target audience: mom and dad, kids, or anyone new to working with digital media.

Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements will be available toward the end of September for Windows XP and Vista and will cost $100 each. There will be bundle available with both apps for $150. A Mac version of Photoshop Elements is due at a later date (it’s on a different release schedule than the Windows version). There is no Premiere Elements for Mac, but that gap is nicely filled by Apple’s iMovie.

The Elements line last got updated in the fall of 2007, and the newest versions of both apps pack in the enhancements. The clear standout is the integration of Adobe’s new online sharing service, Photoshop.com. Both Photoshop and Premiere Elements now offer automatic syncing and backup of your images and videos through the new Photoshop.com service. Photoshop.com is essentially Photoshop Express, combined with pieces of the new Elements desktop software.

When you fire up either Elements app for the first time, you’ll be given an option to sign up for a free Photoshop.com account (there’s also a pay version with more storage space). Once Elements has your account info, using the new features is dead simple — just select the folder you want to back up away you go. All backup and syncing operations are handled in the background — no need to wait or pause what you’re doing.

If you make some changes using the online editor at Photoshop.com, the next time you open the desktop software, it’ll update to match your changes. And don’t worry, it wont overwrite anything on your local drive — any changes will be stacked on top of the original as a non-destructive edit, much the way Photoshop Lightroom works.

For those not interested in the new online features, fear not, both apps have plenty of new features on the desktop side as well. Of course, both Elements products continue Adobe’s flagrant disregard for the user interface conventions of Windows (or any other platform), but as long as you can get past that, the new versions have some very nice new tools.

Photoshop Elements now offers a very slick Scene Cleaner feature, which builds on the Photomerge tool that debuted in the last version of Elements.

Where Photomerge was designed to combine several images to find the best overall composite (handy for group shots where Grandma closed her eyes), Scene Cleaner works in the opposite direction, taking several photos and allowing you simply brush away unwanted subjects, such as tourists cluttering up your image of the Eiffel Tower.

Also new is the Smart Brush, which makes it easy to apply pre-set effects as a mask without having to understand that that’s what you’re doing. More advanced users can then move in and change and manipulate the mask and effects. But even using the default settings, the Smart Brush is one of the easiest ways you’ll find to selectively touch up an image.

There’s also a new set of “Quick Fix” tools designed to make it easier to do common retouching tasks like whitening teeth, brightening blue skies, enhancing sunsets or softening skin, all while retaining nice sharp edges and details.

On the video editing side, the new Adobe Premiere Elements now supports AVCHD video, which should be welcome news for auteurs wielding those new tapeless HD cameras.

The software also features an InstantMovie tool that can create professional-looking effects through a simple drag and drop theming tool. There’s also a new “green screen” tool that makes it easy to merge video or superimpose your subject on top of another scene, without needing sophisticated video editing skills.

Once you’ve got your video looking the way you want it, Premiere can burn it off to DVD or Blu-ray and offers publishing options for just about any screen size — from mobile phones to HDTV. There’s also an option to upload your movie directly to YouTube.

Pricing for the new Photoshop.com web service is tiered. At the bottom level, there’s a simple Photoshop Express account, which hasn’t changed; you’ll still get 5 GB of storage for free. The next level up is the Basic Membership, which you can sign up for through either Elements app. A Basic account is still free and offers the same 5 GB storage limit, but it gives you access to the automatic backup features as well as tutorials and some additional themes.

Also available is the Photoshop.com Plus membership, which will set you back $50 per year, but bumps the storage to 20 GBs and offers a steady stream of updated themes, video tutorials, hints, trick and ideas.

See also:

• Photoshop Elements Helps Hobbyists Produce Pro-Quality Pics
• Macworld: Adobe to Show Off new Photoshop Elements 6

New online image editor Pixlr is closer to Photoshop than web-based Adobe’s Photoshop Express. And Pixlr was created by one person.

Sweden-based developer Ola Sevandersson spent a year writing–and re-writing–his Flash-based image editor. He also maintained a full-time job as the development manager for a Swedish web community.

The reason Pixlr feels so much like a desktop app may be its menus. The standard top bar begins with File. Creating new images, or loading from your computer occurs via this menu, and it doesn’t feel buggy (except I cannot load in an image now, which could be caused by all the attention this project is receiving today). Other online image editors use HTML forms for uploading, or partially implement the desktop menu metaphor.

Maybe the best part: Pixlr is the only online image editor I’ve seen that has layers, which is a necessary feature for all but the most basic of edits. Yes, there are still some features missing, but this is already more usable for me than Photoshop Express, and other online photo editors. See links to our coverage of Pixlr’s competitors at the bottom of this post.

Webmonkey had a chance to talk to Sevandersson about Pixlr, his development process, and what he has planned for the tool.

How is Pixlr different from Photoshop Express?

The difference between PSX [Photoshop Express] and Pixlr is that while Adobe doesn’t want to create a free online replacement tool for their Photoshop Elements and other licensed software I just want to create an online tool that will satisfy the 80% of the photo enthusiasts needs. I am well aware of that it’s much more work left to do before Pixlr will accomplish what Elements do, but this is just the first beta launched.

How long did it take you to write Pixlr?

Yes, the first line of code was written in august 2007, but it was not full time and done by a single person. The code is rewritten several times to get the overall performance up and the app to work. To get the performance up and keep the size down I have written all of the controls my self and not used the built in flash controls.

Any plans to make money? A year is a long time for just a labor of love…

All you need is love and I love bitmap algorithms. The plan for Pixlr is to license the techniques and do small app spin-offs’, and there is some ides of a PRO app (Maybe on the desktop?).

What other features are coming soon?

Crop tool, text tool and more auto adjustments are the first things in the development plan. API and other development tools are on the wish list too.

The dotted line [to show selection as the user drags the mouse] will be added soon. Some features was ignored in this release, I just wanted to get the application out to the public so I could get some feedback and know if I was going in the right direction with the product.

See also:

• Adobe Photoshop Express Puts the Power of Photoshop Online
• Picnik API Offers Photo Editing Tools for any Website
• FotoFlexer Tricks Out Online Photo Editing With Desktop-Style Tools
• Fix Up Those Holiday Photos With Phixr