Landscape, Nature and Travel Photography

Over the past week I’ve received a few inquiries from readers wondering whether I use Apple’s Aperture or Adobe’s Lightroom. The answer… I use Lightroom. The decision is rooted back when Aperture was first released and Adobe put Lightroom out as a Beta. At the time I was about to purchase Aperture, but before I did I went to MacWorld to get a little more information on it. The 2006 MacWorld was one of the best ever because there was a huge push around photography so there were tons of organizations and software manufacturers that would have otherwise never been there. When I talked to an Apple rep about Aperture I asked questions around…

• How well does Aperture integrate with Photoshop?
• What color space does Aperture use?
• How flexible is the “vault” for image storage?

These three questions sunk my interest in Aperture.

How well does Aperture integrate with Photoshop?
Well it turns out at the time that it didn’t very well. I don’t recall the exact details but combined with the answer to the next question I felt the two didn’t play as nicely together as I would have hoped.

What color space does Aperture use?
This is what really turned me off. At the time Apple was using a custom color space that they created. When I talked to the Apple rep about this he was telling me how it supported more colors blah blah blah. When I asked him what hardware supported this color space he couldn’t answer. It all amounted to Apple creating a color space that went to 11 (a la Spinal Tap the movie). The only thing that he could say was that it must tie in to their on-demand print service. The discussion left me wary and unimpressed as most photographers at the time had begun to accept Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB as the standard color space to use.

How flexible is the “vault” for image storage?
At the time the “vault” storage model was very inflexible. The “vault” was tied to one drive. If that drive failed you were SOL and there wasn’t a meaningful system to back up the “vault” at the time. I believe Apple has since fixed this, but too little too late as far as I’m concerned.

So pretty straight forward about Apple’s Aperture… why Lightroom?
Lightroom was beta at the time and it too had its limitations, but…

1. Its ability to port files over to Photoshop with little hiccup was a big selling point to me. For the type of photography I focus on I still need to make localized edits in Photoshop.

2. The ability to start off with non-destructive edits and the space savings that afforded was huge.

3. Keywording and metadata… I really liked the system Adobe set up for this. Having a database to query and pulling images with certain keywords was huge. By the time the beta wrapped there was a backup mechanism in place as well.

4. Post-beta Adobe threw in mapping dust spot removal so you could carry over spot removal from one image to another, they expanded their web export features and they expanded the functionality of their RAW converter.

Additional feedback I heard from other pros was that Aperture had very unintuitive controls and this matched up pretty well to my initial demo experience at MacWorld.

Honestly I have no allegiance to one or the other. I’ll use the best tool available, but at the time Adobe had the edge even though it was beta and not all the features were baked in yet. As a result I’ve been on the Lightroom bandwagon ever since. Adobe did just release Lightroom 2 Beta and they’re expanding their feature set to include Smart Collections which is another huge feature I’ve been looking for & they’re expanding they types of non-destructive edits that you can make. Apple has never been open about their software so Adobe’s transparency and beta program makes it easier to stick with their software.

That’s the history behind my choice to use Lightroom.

What do you use and what factored into your decision?

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Lightroom, Apple, Aperture, software, photography, application, beta, post-processing, post, processing

Last week I discussed the Adobe Photoshop Express terms of use (ToU) and how the wording was nothing short of a rights grab (see Adobe Photoshop Express & The Mindless Photo Rights Grab). By weeks end John Nack posted an update, regarding the ToU, that “the Photoshop Express team has made some changes”.

Reading the paraphrased revisions on John’s blog post alleviated what concerns I had, but when I read the revised ToU I was left scratching my head wondering what the hell I just read.

First John’s post linked to the General ToU which I think has edits, but they’re not marked so I can’t be sure what they are. Text as seen at the top of the General ToU:

Last Updated on April 3, 2008.

Changes are not marked in red. Please read entire document. Please also note that these revised Terms will apply to all of Your Content as of the Effective Date.

If you do not agree with these revised Terms, please remove Your Content from the Service by the Effective Date.

What people need to certainly reread is the Adobe Photoshop Express Additional Terms of Use which has (2) two edits. On this page I get the edit about advertisements in Section 10, but I’m left confused by the most important edit to Section 8.

8. Use of Your Content.

1. 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.

I’ve reread this at least ten times and each time and the edit in red makes about as much sense as when I read it the first time. Didn’t I just read this in the “Additional Terms of Use”? Why is the Additional ToU referring to the Additional ToU? Is this not circular loop? I still don’t see how this matches up to the paraphrased note from the Photoshop Express team as noted on John Nack’s blog.

• Adobe’s Rights - Adobe has retained only those limited rights that allow us to operate the service and to enable you to do all the things the service offers. If you decide to terminate your Photoshop Express account, Adobe’s rights also will be terminated. We don’t claim ownership of your content and won’t sell your images.
• Shared Content – We clearly state the rights you’re granting other users when you choose to publicly share Your Content.

Although the edit in red still confuses the hell out of me one element of my confusion was addressed, but only after some detective work. What isn’t in the edited license is (6) striked out words that were in the previous version of the ToU “derive revenue or other remuneration from”. Previously in the context of…

…you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content…

With these words out of the ToU I can see how the claims in John Nack’s post “We don’t claim ownership of your content and won’t sell your images.” are valid.

Perhaps this all makes sense to a lawyer, but the edit to the ToU was hardly an easy thing to figure out and to be honest I’m still not 100% on what the edit now means. At least the “distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from” text has been removed.

Once again this goes to show…
1. Terms of Use are hardly readable to the common user.
2. The photo community rallying for their rights can instigate change.
Now if only Adobe could make these edits a little more clear so they’re as easy to understand as the paraphrased text in John Nack’s blog post.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop Express, rights, copyright, software, technology, web, terms of use, rights grab, edit, revise, John Nack

For those that are using Adobe Lightroom you may be interested to learn that the Beta of Lightroom 2 has been released with in the Adobe Labs.

John Nack’s blog details some of the new features including:
Greater CS3 integration with Smart Objects, panorama creation, HDR creation and multiple file management. Additional editing functionality has been built into the application enabling regional editing of “dodge, burn, saturate/desaturate, adjust contrast, and more”.

Lightroom 2: The Deuce Is Loose! - John Nack @Adobe

Also if you’re on the fence about trying a beta application note the following from the Adobe Labs Lightroom page:

This download will install the Lightroom 2.0 beta and will work independently alongside your installation of Lightroom 1.3.1.  The beta version is intended to provide an opportunity to give feedback and as such, does not read, upgrade or import catalogs from previous versions of Lightroom.  Please continue to use Lightroom 1.3.1 for your primary workflow needs.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Lightroom, Lightroom 2, beta, Adobe Labs, photography, software, editing, post processing

This past week Adobe launched beta of Photoshop Express, a little over 1 year since Adobe announced its intention to put Photoshop online (see Photoshop In A Software As A Service (SaaS) Model?). Unfortunately for Adobe what proved to be most noteworthy about this new application is not its functionality, but the rights grab they’re making for each image that is processed in the online application.

Adobe makes available a very short and general Terms of Use document for Adobe Photoshop Express users to review. What new Express users see initially during the registration process is only the higher level Adobe.com Terms of Use. Surprisingly Adobe buries their Photoshop Express Terms of Use in a link from their general Terms of Use document concealing the following information:

8. Use of Your Content
a. 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, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, 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.

For myself a few questions came to mind immediately after reading this.
1. “What the hell is Adobe thinking?”
2. “Are corporate lawyers really this out to lunch?”
3. “Why wasn’t greater thought put into supporting the rights of their users and managing the trust behind the Adobe brand?”
4. “Why would Adobe bury the meat of the Terms of Use as they’ve done?”

For the sake of full disclosure I have worked with creative agencies that have done work for Adobe in the past. It’s been a over 18 months since I last worked on anything Adobe related, but one thing is well known about Adobe… they take their brand very serious. By “brand” I mean the corporate perspective of what Adobe stands for and the reputation that they project. From a “brand” perspective this rights grab dramatically undermines the foundation in which their brand had been built upon namely “trust” and “empowering the creative professional”.

I’d like to think that Adobe’s lawyers made a mistake, but knowing how corporate lawyers work every clause of a contract is meticulously reviewed and approved. Nothing a corporate legal team does is an accident. Someone defined, reviewed and approved the terms with a lot of thought. What is certain is that effort was not brought in line with those that manage Adobe’s brand and products. With out a doubt Adobe’s staff was likely under the gun to produce and to give credit where credit is due… to turn out a product like this in a little over a year is an impressive feat. I have the greatest respect for Adobe to accomplish this, but with out hesitation I can say that Adobe really dropped the ball with their Terms of Use. In this day and age as an amateur or professional creative it is nearly impossible to not use Adobe software on a project. To this point an implicit bond and trust has been in place between Creatives and Adobe. If you can’t trust Adobe then who can you trust?

To quote Adobe from their Acquisition of Macromedia FAQ:

“What is Adobe’s mission?
Our mission is to revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information. By acquiring Macromedia, we are strengthening this mission by making it easier for customers to create, manage, and deliver their ideas and engage with information of all types — in print, on the web, in video, and across mobile devices. We believe in enabling powerful, effective, and meaningful digital experiences across multiple operating systems in the broad span of diverse industries we serve.”

Adobe consistently walks a fine line on many issues facing their customers and partners, but in this instance they have egregiously treaded on their customers rights. To give Adobe credit they’ve recognized their mistake and are trying to make right as noted in John Nack’s blog post A note about PS Express terms of use. None the less once treaded on users undoubtedly will be and should be sensitive to this point and should rightfully keep a close eye even on Adobe.

I hope that Adobe is able to avoid making this mistake twice and given their leading role in this industry perhaps to re-establish their trust and leadership they could take it upon themselves to spearhead defining thoughtful standards and Terms of Use that are respectful of the rights of Creatives; standards and terms that other companies might then adopt as the norm rather than the exception.

Now to watch how quickly Adobe moves to revise and correct their Terms of Use. How fast they move surely will be a sign of how serious they’re taking the issue.

Kudos to fellow JMG-Galleries blog reader Ben Bailey for raising my awareness to this development.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop Express, rights, copyright, software, technology, web, terms of use, rights grab

From time to time a lot of buzz will surface about GPS devices for photographers that will track, map and embed GPS coordinates in the EXIF metadata of captured images. I use a GPS in the field when I’m out in remote locations not just for safety but to mark locations I’ve either photographed or plan on revisiting. To date I can’t say that I’ve missed having this information embedded in my EXIF metadata. I suppose it would be of benefit so that I wouldn’t lose the information, but a good photographer is also a good note taker.

This weekend I started to ponder, assuming this information were more commonly embedded, would photographers really be open enough to reveal it on a regular basis for geotagging? I can’t talk for others, but I can talk for myself and I more than likely would not be an open book with this information. For obvious locations I wouldn’t have a problem in sharing the information, but for special areas I’ve spent a great deal of time researching and/or exploring to find I’d likely keep it to my private notes. There is always the possibility of exceptions and I might open up for some friends, but even still it wouldn’t be the general public. Of course I run the risk of playing my cards here and looking like a real hardcase, but I’m just telling the truth. The more effort I’d put forward to find a location the less likely I’d be willing to share it.

What about you?

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Technorati Tags: photography, GPS, EXIF, metadata, geotagging, gadgets, philosophy