Smashing Copyright on Stunning Photographs

Smashing Magazine recently published an article, in blog format, titled Really Stunning Pictures and Photos. The article begins with the presentation of text advertisements from Google Adsense in the main column, and a row of image-based advertisements in the menu column. Further on the article begins as a brief introduction that heralds the effort involved in Photography as a craft and a very brief notice that all photographs are copyright of their respective owners.

The publication then seems to flagrantly and egregiously disregard all respect for copyright by actually displaying copies of photographs hosted on their website that have been scraped off well known photo sharing websites such as Flickr and DeviantArt. While it's very flattering to have a magazine or well known person or organization use one's photo, perhaps an ego trip sometimes, we as photographers shouldn't let third parties arbitrarily steal or borrow creative work or intellectual property by using it without consent or without proper credit.

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  ColdFusion 8.01 64-bit and Supported Linux Distros

The ColdFusion 8.01 System Requirements as shown in the detailed platform support matrix [PDF] indicates that support for 64-bit Linux distributions is limited to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and SuSe Linux Enterprise Server 10.1. This fine print appears to often go overlooked, so I just want to broadcast it a little louder here.

I was contacted today by someone reporting installation problems and mentioned glibc and floating point errors. A bit of Googling turned up this Google Group thread and this blog entry. Apparently, glibc 2.5 is required for the 64-bit binaries used in the ColdFusion 8.01 64-bit server, so RHEL4's glibc 2.4 just won't do.

On a related note, the ColdFusion Installation Support page currently has a broken link to receive free installation support by email. I notified the web team about the broken link, and I found that the new way to enter this type of installation support request is by registering your product and completing a form here.

  Bare Knuckle Boxer

In a recent shoot at CDIA, we were all shooting fashion models in glamour, fashion, and your basic "All-American" type styles. By contrast, one model showed he had a tough, serious side which gave me the idea for a classic boxing shot that you might have seen 30 or 40 years ago.

Using hard, split lighting from two 20 grids mounted on strobes on either side I was able to produce some dramatic light bouncing off his shoulders and cheeks, while a 18" dish above him provided a hair light and kicker. In fact, this was the same light I used on this very different shot here, and yet the results have very different feels.

At the dollar general store across the street, I found a squirt bottle and a roll of sports tape to help prepare the shot. I wrapped the tape around his hands the way boxers do before putting on gloves, pressing it into the knuckles to make it look worn and used. Still the tape didn't have that look and feel of the real thing because it was so white and shiny. Luckily, with a little improvisation, I found some leftover chocolate cake nearby which had a rich brown color, so I convinced the model to let me rub some of it into the tape. Wiping off the excess, it perfectly matched what could have been some dried blood and dirt.

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  Adobe's Angela Drury, Photographer by Night, on Adobe TV

New on the Photography channel on Adobe TV, Angela Drury, Customer Support Manager at Adobe, share's her story behind her passion for photography, including her experience with the Lightroom team in the 2006 Lightroom Adventure in Iceland. You can follow along with Angela and the Team right now as they're in Tasmania on the latest Adobe Lightroom Adventure 2008.

After Hours at Adobe - Angela Drury
By day, Angela manages a team of product support engineers for Adobe Customer Care. After hours, she's an award winning photographer.

  Working with Models: A tough gig, but someone has to do it!

This month at Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts I'm learning to work with fashion models in studio photography. This course, DP206, teaches us the rhythm of working with models, how to direct them and engage them to turn the shots we visualize in our heads into beautiful prints in real life. It puts together everything we've learned so far about about camera operation, studio lighting, portraiture, concept, and posing. Additionally, as the program emphasizes the use of Lightroom for digital imaging workflow, and Photoshop for retouching and compositing, this course also puts our full range of beauty retouching skills to the test.

...not that we really need to, because they are -after all- models. ;-)

BOOM!, there it is in living color. I'm especially proud of this one, and I think its my best image to date. You can check it out on Adobe's new Photoshop Express Gallery.

The models are real, both male and female, and our best images will go into their portfolio as well. This means lots of exposure to the photographers because every ad agency they work with will see model's portfolio, and if we're lucky, they'll want to know more about the photographer behind that great model shot. From the CDIA website:

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  ColdFusion 8.01 64-bit Windows Performance Comparisons

My distant colleague Manju has just published a very well written article on Adobe DevNet regarding performance considerations of running ColdFusion 8.01 on 64-bit Windows (and Mac) platforms. The article gets you up to speed on the basics of 64-bit architecture in practical terms, however the best part is on the last page where he reports on three different ColdFusion scenarios comparing 32-bit performance to 64-bit for cpu intensive, memory intensive, and disk I/O intensive conditions. Its definitely worth a read:

Taking advantage of 64-bit support in ColdFusion 8
by Manjukiran Pacchhipulusu
ColdFusion QA Engineer

At the end, Manju provides a list of credits that helped him develop the article, including my blog entry from last year, Performance Considerations for Running ColdFusion 8 in 64-bit Mode.

  New Kinder, Friendlier Photoshop Express Terms of Service

Its already after working hours here on the East Coast, so many Photoshop Express users out there may not yet be aware that the Terms of Service (TOS) have been greatly revised based on user feedback. The TOS are no longer so all-encompassing as they were when Photoshop Express went live last week.

In fact, I think they are written to be much more readable since they now include (parenthetical) plain english explanations of the generally terse legalese, and I think users will find the new TOS to be respectful of your copyright on your intellectual and creative property.

The TOS now include a means of terminating Adobe's display of your images on the site if you so choose, which should provide a greater measure of comfort to using or considering using the online photo editing and sharing service.

You can read the kinder, friendlier Photoshop Express Terms of Service here (see Section 6: Use of Your Content)

  Adobe Lightroom Adventure 2008 in Tasmania

Wow, did I miss the boat on this one! (or the plane as the case may be)

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Team is happily clicking away as I type this in the luxurious landscape of Tasmania this week and next, corresponding with the release of Lightroom 2.0 Beta.

This is the sequel to the very successful Adobe Lightroom Adventure 2006 in Iceland which produced copious gigabytes of beautiful images to herald the launch of the first version of Lightroom.

You can follow their daily blogging from Tasmania on the O'Reilly website here. Among the crew is a friend and colleague Angela Drury, frequent contributor to Photoshop User magazine, award winning photographer, and manager of Dreamweaver Support at Adobe.

  Introducing Flash Mini - Squeezing Flash on the iPhone

Just when all the news of porting Flash to the iPhone has died down, I stumbled across what appears to be an internal document diagramming how Steve Jobs intends to do just that with a product code named Flash Mini. Who knew!?

Read the full story for more...

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