The Adobe max keynote is about to start in ten minutes. After it concluded I’ll be back to post some of my thoughts. The link to the live feed is here on the Adobe website.

Well this was a very interesting event and I have to give Adobe a lot of credit. The event began with a DJ mixing beats with a touch screen using a audio mixing website that runs on Flash. It really is amazing how far some of the  various technologies have come. I lost count how many times Android was mentioned during the event. A surprise for all to see was when Martha Stewart walked out onto the stage showcasing an iPad with her magazine on it. As expected mobile development was a big part of the first keynote. Tablets and mobile phones were the stars of the event along with development for the television running Google TV. A few months ago I had checked in with Adobe to see what they were doing with HTML5. Basically they are focusing on HTML5 but also focusing on the development across various platforms at the same time which was a big topic today. During the presentation it was really encouraged for developers to start taking that initiative when thinking about the user experience. A big step for Flash at least in my own opinion was the display of CPU when using 3d acceleration in a game. The CPU was between 0-1 percent; very impressive. They also used a controller and steering wheel when playing the game to display the new capability in the Flash player. Hmmm what else, oh everyone attending received a free Droid2! I still can’t believe Martha Stewart shows up out of nowhere! So where does Adobe go from here? Well their was other stuff about CSS and web development in general. Transitioning print to web, something a lot of magazines are trying to accomplish right now. If your in the industry of web development you’ll hear a lot of about all of this and I think that’s really something that was great about this Max event. Adobe has people that are in touch with the community and are aware of what is going on. What else can I say but thank you to Adobe. If I think about it now I’ve been using their software for around ten years and they are constantly evolving. I’m looking forward to the second portion of the keynote tomorrow. Before I forget , yes their was a couple brief remarks towards Apple without sayng Apple. The speaker from Motorola said if a phone doesn’t run Flash it’s not offering a full web experience. Well that pretty much is a shot at Apple but it’s true and I’m glad that did come out. I don’t think Adobe has much against Apple at this point since they let Martha walk out onto the stage with the iPad. But I have to say it does show a lot about Adobe as they have not backed down with Flash. I’ll see you guys in the next post.

Lag in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 has been one of the most popular topics of discussions with my audience on the blog and over on the AdobEasy Tips YouTube channel. In a previous article I explained some tips on how to enhance the performance in CS4. Now I’m going to tell you why you should move onto CS5. Premiere Pro CS5 was created for a 64-bit environment and also utilizes  the GPU-accelerated Adobe Mercury Playback Engine. Workflow is the name of the game and Adobe was fully aware of the issues that users were facing when working in previous versions of Premiere Pro. Now before you go running out buying the software, please note that you need to be working in a 64-bit environment. If your computer is not running an operating system that supports this you will not be able to use the software. After reading some of the comments from Adobe it’s clear they wanted to deliver software that could match the high demand projects that were being brought into Premiere Pro and 64-bit was the way to do it. It’s a smarter direction for the software. Rather than compromising performance by prepping the software in a high and low performance environments, Adobe went straight for high performance. This optimization was greatly needed and if your serious about editing video it’s time to move forward with a 64-bit operating system. I know some might say they don’t want to spend money on a new operating system or even another computer for video editing. If that fits your situation I would still recommend using Premiere Pro Cs4. Working with the new software in Premiere Pro CS5 you’ll see real time editing done more fluidly than in previous versions. Also your projects are just going to open a lot faster. Optimized would be the key word when it comes down to this software package. If you haven’t read about the software or are interested in possibly purchasing it, check out the Premiere Pro CS5 page over at Adobe.

Justine Ezarik better known as iJustine on YouTube has become quite popular online. With over a million followers on Twitter I would think it’s safe to say she has a following that continues to grow. From what I know she originally got her recognition on YouTube after recording herself opening a bill that AT&T sent her outlining her iPhone use which was on tons of paper. So that’s how she made her claim to fame online. Nowadays you can find her on YouTube with a few channels discussing a variety of topics including a channel that is dedicated to technology reviews. A few weeks ago I came across a video she posted talking about the iPad. As she’s talking about the iPad she mentions Adobe Flash along with how it can overheat your computer and make it run slow. Basically repeating everything Apple has said. She also mentions that developers will have to adjust and stop using it to build sites. After hearing this I clicked onto another video where she talks about the iPhone 4. She mentions iAds and discusses the advantages it will bring developers. First off, her being a “YouTube partner” is a joke. You’ll notice certain YouTube channels getting additional features with layouts and the ability to implement advertising through Adsense. iJustine’s channels fall under this category as she’s being recognized as a YouTube partner. The biggest issue I have with this is that she is completely clueless while also misinforming people. I know YouTube has no control over these things besides monitoring copyrighted material. But the last time I checked Adobe Flash is copyrighted and if someone is going to just create a bunch of material with misinformation I would think theirs some action that could be taken, at least by Adobe. Anyways that’s probably a stretch still the fact remains she has a large audience and people actually listen to this nonsense. I would like to say this though, iJustine has no basis for her comments about Adobe Flash. Saying it runs slow while using Farmville isn’t exactly a stress test. Furthermore Adobe does actual testing on the Flash player which has a lot more credibility. As for her comments on the iAds as she speaks on the behalf of developers, well she’s not even a developer. And by the way, that whole program Apple is developing is a complete lift from Google Adsense. Yes the very ads that iJustine runs on her channel. My message to iJustine… Leave the commentary about these topics to those who understand the facts. At the very least tell your audience that you’re not an authority on the topic. This is one of my major sticking points with YouTube. It’s a complete free for all with content that’s distributed on their site, hence why I fact check any sort of review. Message to people who read my blog, just be on the lookout for stuff like this. If you’re new and are interested in software or a type of programming go to a couple of developer’s sites and you’ll get a much better point of view. What’s the saying they use? Ah yes, leave it to the pros.

Update: I received a couple of replies from Justine via Twitter this is exactly what she said… otherijustine: “lol.. I’m not allowed to mention iAds if I’m not a developer?” otherijustine: “didn’t seen you tweeted me twice. I’m allowed my own option on the matter.” So there you go she completely misses the point and I replied back to her explaining  this. I also told her that she misinformed her viewers about Adobe Flash which was what I really had a problem with. Okay that and her projecting herself as a source of information on development topics. The iAds thing was a bonus, If you watched her video you could tell she was just repeating what Apple was saying without even realizing what she was talking about. When I started this blog I never planned on  writing about anyone who I thought was so misinformed. That being said, sometimes someone has to speak out and put the facts on the table. And if someone like iJustine can go onto YouTube and generate revenue via advertising I think it’s important for people to know about the person broadcasting this stuff. She’s not the only one , I know there’s others. On YouTube you’ll see people pointing this stuff out. By the way I find it interesting that she replied to me via a second Twitter account while I originally sent her the article through her account with over a million followers. Anyways, if any further updates or responses come via this story I’ll keep you guys posted.

So I’m back with another post this time about Adobe Photoshop CS5. A few weeks after the release I started using the newest version and to be honest I’m coming with some pretty strong opinions. Being this is my tenth year using Photoshop I have to say I’m on the fence telling people they must get the latest version. Well let me start like this, if I had to give a reason for getting CS5 I would say get the latest version because it’s the latest. If your using the software professionally it’s better that your using the most recent version released by Adobe. On the other hand if you aren’t a professional and your going down the list of new features you probably won’t be sold on running out and upgrading from CS4 to CS5. Adobe made the new feature of content aware fill a really big sell in this release. It reminded me of the pre release of CS4 with the hype about content aware scale. I played around with the new content aware fill feature and it’s kind of interesting but like I thought isn’t perfect. For anyone not familiar with content aware fill this is the new feature that was added to Photoshop CS5. In theory you can select an object in a photo and remove it without the viewer ever knowing it was there. The object gets automatically filled with the surrounding background. I played with this, and of course when a person is involved say holding something and you remove the object, the software has no idea how to handle filling in the area around the fingers and hand. So it’s a case by case study on how well content aware fill will work for people, just as content aware scale was. I did notice that the software operates a bit smoother. I’ve used both the 32 and 64 bit versions. If your a fan of painting you might get a kick out of the new brushes. Adobe really brought on the textures with the new brushes panel in CS5. Even displaying paint brushes with some action showing movement as you work with them. If you look even more closely you’ll notice the icons for the tools got a little refreshing. It’s very slight but I’ve been using the software for so long I could tell they threw some extra shadow in them. I know not the most important addition but for the record I wanted you guys to know I noticed that. Also the loading screen is no longer a square. Have you ever used Adobe Air? If not, in Air you can make a pre loader to an Air application that doesn’t need to be square, kind of cool. If your into 3D rendering and your computer can handle it, CS5 added more 3D rendering capabilities. Adobe seems to be headed pretty fast in this direction with Photoshop. They’ve also added this thing called mini Bridge which I thought was handy. It’s a little panel that will open up after launched and you can use Bridge right inside of Photoshop to view your assets. This is extremely handy when browsing through your files while working on a project. So back to the main point of this article and the most popular question, should you get Photoshop CS5? Well if you own Photoshop and are just occasionally editing photos I would say it’s not a must. For any professional I’m saying you should get it. In this business it’s considered a plus to be using the latest software. Could you imagine using Photoshop 7 today, I didn’t think so! I’ll be posting a video soon to my YouTube channel introducing everyone to Photoshop CS5, stay tuned.

This morning Adobe will be hosting the Adobe Creative Suite 5 online launch event. I’ll be posting highlights when the event concludes.

11:30AM.- The half hour event has just concluded and I was impressed with some of the changes but I don’t think these are all that extreme. Below are some of the updates that I thought stood out.

Highlights:

Indesign CS5 – Once again Adobe is boasting about more automation in it’s software. In Indesign CS5 you’ll now be able to create more interactive content with automated Flash features. I think this is good for some that get overwhelmed with Flash. My personal preference is to develop with the Flash software.

Photoshop CS5 – Content aware fill has been a major selling point for the new Photoshop. This new feature will allow you to select objects in a picture while auto filling your background. For example a beach ball removed on the beach. You will easily be able to replace the area where the ball was removed with the beach. In these scenarios you will not have to mess around with the clone stamp tool. From what I saw and have seen already I thought this was a pretty cool feature and found it useful. Another feature mentioned was the puppet warp tool. Reminded me of the puppet tool in After Effects. You’ll now be able to use a similar tool in Photoshop CS5 to pin point spots on an image and warp it a bit. I believe this will help people editing frames in animation projects.

Premiere Pro CS5 – I was glad to hear that Adobe addressed a lot of the ram issues in it’s video editing software. The updates in Premiere will allow users to utilize all the ram they have on their computers. In doing this you’ll be able to render and navigate through your projects more efficiently.

Flash CS5 – In the presentation they briefly went over some changes in working with text which has often been sluggish in past versions of Flash. They didn’t really mention the Actionscript hints that I know are coming to the software. A funny moment in the presentation was the display of an export option “to a very popular phone” as Adobe put it… yes the iPhone! So they didn’t completely ignore Apple but they did take a few minutes to state that 85 of the top 100 sites use Flash and 75 percent of video online uses Flash. Adobe also displayed a bunch of major companies utilizing Flash including HTC, Google, and The New York Times. They also took out an HP Slate to display the content. I thought this portion of the presentation was definitely a dig at Apple, but hey that’s business.

In conclusion I feel the changes that are coming are good but I don’t believe they are monumental. The problem is that a lot of people feel some of these changes including myself should of come in the form of an update. I do feel new versions of the software are welcomed when they address the functionality. The addition of native 64 bit support is a good example of this and shows us that Adobe continues to enhance the Creative Suite.

A lot of news has been coming out of the Adobe Max 2009 conference this year including the anticipated release of Flash player 10.1 that will be usable on most mobile devices. The irony in all of this talk is that Flash development software itself has also made leaps and bounds with the next release of Flash CS5. The new software will allow developers to create applications on all smart phones yes including the Iphone. All sounds good right? Well not exactly, just Google Flash nowadays and you’ll see tons of articles boasting about Flash running on the Iphone . This is the deal with the Iphone. Flash app’s will be arriving to the Iphone and if someone chooses Flash cs5 to create these apps your good to go and it will be a nice fit. Now the flip side to this is that Flash player will not, let me repeat the Flash player will not be coming to the Iphone anytime soon. The guy’s at Apple haven’t approved anything on this issue and until this is done your not going to see it on that phone. From what I’ve read Apple still doesn’t believe the Flash player can run smoothly on an Iphone without over exuding it. Boggles the mind, If you read the specs on Flash player 10.1 you’ll notice a lot of issues have been addressed so it can run nicely with the lack of memory and hardware you’ll find on a smart phone. Which is all understandable these phones are tiny and the technology is still in the works yet it get’s better every year. Eventually Apple will have to address this issue and give the user a full web browsing experience. Maybe they are developing a player of their own, Applash? Who knows with Apple, they are more into the ownership of a market rather than a share in.