No Free Lunch @ Adobe Until July 1

Bob Epp, Sr. Analyst in the Ed Tech Center, alerted me to the fact that some of his Photoshop students wanted to download a trial version of Photoshop (typically good for 30 days) and found that the trial downloads (http://www.adobe.com/downloads/) are unavailable until July 1. This appears to be the case with allk Adobe trial downloads, not just Photoshop. Here is the explanation from Adobe:

During the month of June 2008, certain product trials that are launched for the first time (regardless of when they were installed) will function for only one day instead of 30 days, due to an error in a line of code that counts down the remaining days in a trial. You will not experience this issue if you have launched your trial before June 1, 2008, or do not launch it until July 1 or thereafter.

We understand that trials are an important tool to experience the new features of a product. However, this issue would have resulted in a frustrating situation for a large number of customers — an experience that just does not meet the high standards we have set for all of our products and solutions. We invite you to explore the other resources available on Adobe.com in order to experience the products in action.

While we’re discussing Adobe products, I mentioned Adobe Express in an earlier post. Christopher Boyce of the UMKC School of Medicine (Kansas City, MO) subsequently shared the following information with me:

I just wanted to mention a note about Photoshop Express, which you may already know - Adobe's terms of use: https://www.photoshop.com/express/terms.html

They have already revised it recently, due to negative feedback from their original terms, but there is still these particular terms which may not sit well with some users:

"8. Use of Your Content.

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, and unless otherwise specifically agreed in any Additional Terms that might accompany individual services (such as Photoshop.com/Express), you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

and

"10. Right to Derive Revenue/Advertisements.

You agree that Adobe may derive revenue and or other remuneration from the Services including from portions of the Services that include Your Content.
For example, Adobe may display Adobe and/or third party paid advertisements and other information adjacent to or included with the Services and adjacent to or in connection with Your Content, and you agree that you are not entitled to any compensation for any such advertisements. The manner, mode and extent of advertising or other revenue generating models by Adobe on or in conjunction with the Services are subject to change without specific notice to you."

...I just wanted to pass this along.

So, “buyer (or freebie user) beware.”

From Digital Photography to Adobe Express -- Part I

I just returned from Photoshop World and four days of valuable and intensive sessions on Adobe products (Photoshop CS, Elements, Lightroom, and so on) as well as digital photography. Over the coming days, I’ll share some of the information I gathered.

First, Adobe has released Photoshop Express (see https://www.photoshop.com/express/), a totally online consumer product for storing, editing and sharing your digital photos. Without charge you obtain 2GB of storage space. You also get access to a variety of Photoshop tools that enable you to crop, correct and even “deform” your images. If you wish, you can then create a gallery of images to share on the web. The gallery feature requires Adobe Flash Player 9, but that’s installed automatically with a single click. You also have built-in features to enable you to post/integrate your photos with Facebook, PhotoBucket or Picasa; or to post to your blog.

When editing a photo, you have access to some pretty advanced features (though not with the fine control available in Photoshop) such as white balance, sharpening, cropping, rotating, red-eye removal, saturation, and adding fill light (to name only a few of the 17 controls). When you select a tool, you’re given several visual thumbnails to use to determine the exact settings (e.g. if you add Fill Light, you can select one of the thumbnails to determine how much fill light you want applied). You can also click and hold the View Original button at anytime to see the original version of the image and compare to the changes you’ve made. Express also enables you to drop any changes by deselecting the check box next to the tool/adjustment made. Or, you can click the Reset All button to revert to the original.

It’s probably wise to mention a few caveats.

1. Depending on your connection speed and network traffic, you’ll just need to go get a cup of coffee each time you open an image.
2. Photoshop Express is a beta project (if that scares you, don’t go further). This beta seems fully functional and Adobe is asking for feedback before they finalize Photoshop Express.
3. Keep in mind that you can add captions to your gallery and technically show any image you want; but discretion suggests you should make public only images that do not give away personal information or which could be misused against you or by others.
4. As always, be aware of college/company policies regarding the disclosure of student/employee, medical and other restricted information (e.g. don’t post an image with a caption disclosing information about someone’s medical condition, student/employment status, and so on).
5. Be aware of copyright issues. Just because someone posts an image in an Express Gallery (or anywhere on the web) that you like does not give you or anyone else the right to copy, reproduce, distribute or to make a derivative works without permission. Any creative works (photographs are included) are copyright when created, with or without a copyright notice.
6. Finally, from what I’ve discovered, you can share your “Albums” in your Gallery but you cannot restrict access to only specific users. Once shared, your images are available to anyone on the web.

If you’d like to see a small example of a Gallery, check out http://jbacon.photoshop.com, hover your mouse over the Album icon and click to play the slideshow. When finished, click the Browse button at the top of the screen to view other albums.