Hanoch Piven's bright, colorful, minimalist and witty collages were immediately snatched by the American publishing world upon their first appearance in 1992. Ground meat, underwear, boxing gloves, bananas, chicken fat and smoked fish are a small sample of 'found objects' Piven utilizes to create likenesses.

As fellow American caricaturist Steve Brodner wrote in his introduction to Piven's 2001 collection of portraits, "Faces": "His pictures fill the viewer's eye with strong graphic statements while powerful commentary, deeply ingrained in the graphics, stimulates the mind..."

Between the years 1996 and 2001 Piven lived in Israel where his work for the daily Haaretz established him as the country's most visible illustrator. Born in Uruguay, raised in Israel, and schooled in New York City, Piven currently divides his time between Barcelona, New York and Tel Aviv.

Well this is just what I was looking for. I've just finished reading Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind, which explores and promotes right-brain thinking. The book suggests that to trigger the right brain into activity you should try doing things you don't usually do.

So I thought, why not learn more about Piven and his work and try making one of these dimensional portraits myself. I've been stuck in my Photoshop brain for so so long now, and wanted to jump out of the computer and out of the screen. That's exactly what I did, and I've been having an amazingly inspired and happy time creating my own object caricatures, and I will post some soon.

I have huge admiration for this humble genius and his beautiful and inspiring work. So we sent some questions to hear more about his creative process and career.

Read the full interview Hanoch Piven.

posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | send comments

MONDAY - NOVEMBER 13 2006

Christmas & Holiday Photoshop Brush Set From Janita

The IceFlowers brush set is a collection of very delicate and beautiful hand-drawn brushes that will add a nice impact to any holiday design project.

The snow flakes and ice crystals were done up in the shape of flowers and will give a subtle, uplifting decorative touch to a letter or greeting card. Perfect for the winter season. And they come from our very own brush angel, Janita, who's many free brushes you can find on our brushes page.

Download the Christmas & Holiday IceFlowers Photoshop brush set (ZIP - 80 KB)

For more brushes, see our Photoshop Brushes Page.
posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | send comments

'Vintage Christmas' Photoshop Brush Set From Kirsty

Kirsty sends this in: "Hey everyone, it's a little early (even for me!), but I figured an early start to Christmas cards and graphics couldn't hurt.

"So here you have it, a Vintage Christmas themed brush set! This is also the last in the Vintage Holidays brushset series :) Hope you enjoy it! The brush set can be found at the usual address 500ml Brushes."

The Vintage Christmas Photoshop brush set contains 11 Christmas themed brushes. You'll find more of Kirsty's super beautiful brushes on our Photoshop brushes page.

For more brushes, see our Photoshop Brushes Page.
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Hard Drive Data Recovery Tips From DriveSavers

Since 1985 companies around the world have relied on DriveSavers to recover lost data from hard drives that have crashed, failed mechanically, become physically damaged, or are logically corrupted. IBM, Dell, HP and Apple all refer their customers to DriveSavers when they've lost access to critical files, and all major drive makers allow DriveSavers to open and recover from their drives while preserving the original warranty.

Sadly, drives often arrive that are unrecoverable because of what transpired after the initial crash. So this list is to help anyone who suffers a crash. These are the best things to do before getting it to DriveSavers. You'll also find some tips on what to do to avoid data loss, along with some basic backup strategies.

Read the DriveSavers tips.

For more on Photo Backup & Recovery, see our Photo Recovery Resource Center.
posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | send comments

FRIDAY - NOVEMBER 10 2006

Total Training Releases CS 2.3 Premium & Acrobat 8 Pro HD DVD Training Packages

Total Training has announced two new products following the newest software releases from Adobe. Total Training for Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium includes helpful tips and tricks from industry professionals, and features indexed lessons on DVDs that cover important topics in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, and a workflow series.

This updated training series also adds tutorials for Acrobat 8 Professional software, a new component of Creative Suite 2.3, as well as lessons for Dreamweaver 8, which is now bundled with the Suite.

Total Training for Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is a 12-hour video series in HD presented by Tim Plumer, Jr., an Acrobat Evangelist. Plumer shows viewers how to unlock the full power of Acrobat 8 Professional. Users will learn how to collect different file types into a single, unified PDF package and then leverage Acrobat 8 Professional to drive a collaborative, shared review process involving multiple participants.

"Total Training continues to offer dynamic, valuable content to professionals with the new training series on Acrobat 8 and Creative Suite 2.3," said Ricky Liversidge, a director of product marketing at Adobe. "The company's video-based training enables our customers to set their own pace and work along with projects that enable them to take more complete advantage of the softwares' comprehensive capabilities."

Pricing and Availability
Total Training for Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium Bundle is priced at $499.99 USD, and Total Training for Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is priced at $129.99 USD.

Exclusive 20% Discount
To redeem our exclusive discount coupon, use promotion code save20pss in your shopping cart. You could save hundreds of dollars. Use this special link to see the full offer.

posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | send comments

Photoshop Site Octopussy-World Updates To Version 5

I love Octopussy-World and have for a long time (I guess it helps that I'm bilingual). If you speak French, you'll want to know that Octopussy-World vient de passer en version 5. De nouvelles fonctionnalités, un nouveau design, le site se perfectionne et offre pleins de nouveautés à l'internaute...

So what was that? The site has been improved and has lots of new features and a brand spanking new design. Make sure to check out the tutorials.

Thanks Vivien for sending that in. There's lots of good stuff over there, and you can always zap it with the Google machine and see the whole thing in Borat English. Go on, try it, it's fun.

posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | send comments

THURSDAY - NOVEMBER 09 2006

Free Photoshop Lightroom Training Videos

If you're looking for some instructional videos to help you navigate through Photoshop Lightroom, we've discovered a very nice collection for you at the RawWorkflow.com site. Photo expert Michael Tapes has put together a little series of Lightroom tutorial videos.

These videos scattered all over the web are really starting to add up to a substantial body of free training — now it's just the time to view them that's hard to find. Here's the current breakdown for the Lightroom videos:

01 - Introduction and Greetings - 1:30
02 - User Interface - Overview - 18:34
03 - Importing Files (Quick Tour) - 5:27
04 - Develop Magic: Quick Tour - 3:50
05 - Develop Module: Basic & Tone Curve Panels - 12:31
06 - Develop Module: Copy/Paste and (the Kitchen) Sync - 5:40
07 - Develop Module: A Bunch of Crop - 7:08

View the Free Photoshop Lightroom Training Videos

For more on Lightroom, see our Lightroom Resource Center.
posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | send comments

Apple: Aperture Plug-in Interest Exceeding Expectations

From Jim Dalrymple at Macworld:

Apple made some significant improvements in Aperture 1.5, but perhaps one of the most important decisions the company made was to allow third-party developers to extend the application through a new plug-in architecture. While only available for about a month Apple said the response by developers has exceeded their expectations.

"We knew that there would be a lot of interest, but we received 150 emails from individuals, companies and organizations that all want to develop plug-ins for Aperture," Richard Kerris, Apple’s Director of Professional Photography Partnerships, told Macworld. "We are all pleasantly surprised with the companies that want to develop plug-ins. It really makes this a powerful application for whatever type of photographer you are."

Apple launched its Aperture API with several big name partners including Getty Images, iStockphoto, Pictage, Flickr, PhotoShelter, DigitalFusion, Soundslides and Connected Flow.

Read the full article.

For more on Aperture, see our Aperture Resource Center.
posted by Jennifer Apple | permalink | send comments

Winners Of The 2006 O'Reilly Photoshop Cook-Off

O'Reilly's 2006 Photoshop Cook-Off offered Photoshop enthusiasts and newbies an opportunity to exercise their imagination and ingenuity — and win great prizes, too. Entrants took their original digital photographs and "cooked" them with Adobe Photoshop, using recipes from O'Reilly's five Photoshop Cookbooks. The contest was judged by a panel of A-list Photoshop and industry experts, who based their decisions on five key criteria: image quality, composition, originality, the appropriateness of the applied technique, and the use of color and/or tone.

SEE PREVIOUS POSTS FROM THE NOVEMBER 2006 BLOG...

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Exclusive Special Offer - Fluid Mask 2.0 - $189

Fluid Mask 2.0 is based on breakthrough segmentation technology inspired by the way the eye, optic nerve and brain perform visual processing. When an image is loaded, Fluid Mask's segmentation engine analyses the distribution of colors, finding the natural groups within the image. Together with information calculated about edges, gradients and textures, a model is constructed which divides the images into objects.

Vertus Software is offering Fluid Mask at the special 'friends and partner' discounted rate of just $189 - PLUS free upgrades for the next 6 months.

This is an exclusive offer to visitors of PhotoshopSupport.com. To qualify, visit the Fluid Mask Discount Price page. Find out more about Fluid Mask on our special Fluid Mask Page.

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Total Training for Adobe Photoshop
Learn Adobe Photoshop with 21 hours of interactive Adobe Photoshop tutorials. This is training for real-world situations and includes additional tips and techniques used by the pros.

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SiteGrinder 2 - Photoshop Plugin

There often seems to be a strict division of labor within the world of web design and development. Creative professionals tend to stick to the Photoshop domain, while those well-versed in scripting are left to the task of implementing their work. Indeed, the two realms are quite different from each other, to which any of us even vaguely familiar with either can easily attest.

Essentially, Photoshop is a no-holds-barred design studio, offering the artist a seemingly endless array of creative options. On the other hand, HTML, CSS, Java and the like follow strict rules of engagement, requiring the developer to take any number of esoteric concerns into consideration in order to ensure that designs are properly displayed on the web.

Turn Photoshop Into A Complete Web Design Tool
SiteGrinder 2 seeks to bridge this gap between design and development. Basically, this program turns Photoshop into an easy-to-use and fully functional web design tool. With SiteGrinder 2, designers will now have the freedom to totally let their creativity loose and then, without skipping a beat, transfer their designs to the web. Bringing esthetic concerns together with more practical considerations, this program is an amazingly powerful tool that would make a fantastic addition to any web designer's bag of tricks.

Generate Your Web Pages Directly From Photoshop
By generating web pages directly from Photoshop, you'll be able to spend much more time on the creative end of the spectrum, since you'll know right off the bat how well particular designs will translate to the web. No more going back to the Photoshop drawing board after getting a phone call from your development team, telling you that what you had envisioned doesn't have a chance of being displayed on the web. You can immediately visually and interactively test your designs, which permits you to then make changes to either esthetics or functions while it's still relatively early on in the design process.

Pricing and Availability
Mac OS X and Windows versions of the SiteGrinder unlockable demo are available now via download. SiteGrinder 2 can be ordered from Media Lab's online store.

Photoshop Book - Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills - By Mark Galer And Philip Andrews

An inspirational and user-friendly guide to creative image editing, Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills provides direction for photographers and designers alike who have ventured into the realm of the 'digital darkroom.' The book offers a progressive curriculum to guide you through Photoshop with a series of clear, step-by-step projects designed to place knowledge into a practical context.

Whether you simply want to retouch an image, create a glamour makeover or create a highly sophisticated montage - this book will give you the essential skills to complete the work to a professional standard.

The accompanying CD-ROM and website, www.photoshopessentialskills.com, offer additional teaching and learning materials which form a library of indispensable supporting resources including:
• All of the images used in the text
• Over four hours of QuickTime movie tutorials to support the practical projects
• A range of presets (including layer styles, curves, shapes and gradients)
• Camera RAW files
• Free extra chapters in e-book form.

For a free sample chapter see our How To Sharpen An Image In Photoshop tutorial.

Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills (Amazon.com - save 34%)


PHOTO CREDIT: Apollo 11 Images — Earthrise sequence - Earth emerges over lunar horizon.
© NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Scanning credit to Kipp Teague.