GPU acceleration is one of the most significant trends in today hardware industry, opening the doors to an entirely new class of software. It appears Photoshop CS4 will be one of the first mainstream applications that will tap into the GPU for a speed up. We have been saying it for a while now, mainstream applications need GPU acceleration to ring in the next major evolutionary step in software development. Far too long we have been stuck in a cycle of programming that relies on increasing clock-speeds, brings acceleration with new CPUs and a slow-down with new software releases. Even if Photoshop supports multi-core CPUs, it is one of those applications that always are very time intensive to use and especially if you are a professional user and work with huge images, then you are very familiar with “The Great Wait”, which typically describes the time lost when opening a big file or when applying a filter.
But there appears to be a very effective solution on the horizon, a solution that is most likely more effective than anything else we have seen before and in our experience using Photoshop over the past 14 years. of Adobe’s "Creative Suite Next" (or CS4), code-named “Stonehenge”, which adds GPU and physics support to its existing multi-core support.
So, what can you do with general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) acceleration in Photoshop? Playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it will be like a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core Skulltrail system. Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly. Another impressive feature was the import of a 3D model into Photoshop, adding text and paint on a 3D surface and having that surface directly rendered with the 3D models' reflection map.
There was also a quick demo of a Photoshop 3D accelerated panorama, which is one of the most time-consuming tasks within Photoshop these days. The usability provided through the acceleration capabilities is enormous and we are sure that digital artists will appreciate the ability to work inside a spherical image and fix any artifacts on-the-fly.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Peter Roebuck's busy eulogising Mahendra Dhoni
I do love it when he does this kind of thing.
One of his little saccharine frothy-praise pieces earlier this year about Brett Lee had me in stitches laughing, and I get the feeling it wasn't meant as a comedic piece - one of the bits that stuck in my mind was something about "his dashing looks and generous disposition cause many a heart to flutter" or something equally ridiculous.
I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Some of the stuff he puts in there is nearly embarrassing to read. My favourite quite from the Dhoni piece: "He is Obama in white clothes." What's there to say?
One of his little saccharine frothy-praise pieces earlier this year about Brett Lee had me in stitches laughing, and I get the feeling it wasn't meant as a comedic piece - one of the bits that stuck in my mind was something about "his dashing looks and generous disposition cause many a heart to flutter" or something equally ridiculous.
I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Some of the stuff he puts in there is nearly embarrassing to read. My favourite quite from the Dhoni piece: "He is Obama in white clothes." What's there to say?
Monday, November 10, 2008
Design Thinking
Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy.
Thomas Edison created the electric lightbulb and then wrapped an entire industry around it. The lightbulb is most often thought of as his signature invention, but Edison understood that the bulb was little more than a parlor trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful. So he created that, too.
Thus Edison’s genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he made, and he engineered toward that insight. He wasn’t always prescient (he originally believed the phonograph would be used mainly as a business machine for recording and replaying dictation), but he invariably gave great consideration to users’ needs and preferences.
Edison’s approach was an early example of what is now called “design thinking”—a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design ethos. By this I mean that innovation is powered by a thorough understanding, through direct observation, of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.
Many people believe that Edison’s greatest invention was the modern R&D laboratory and methods of experimental investigation. Edison wasn’t a narrowly specialized scientist but a broad generalist with a shrewd business sense. In his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory he surrounded himself with gifted tinkerers, improvisers, and experimenters. Indeed, he broke the mold of the “lone genius inventor” by creating a team-based approach to innovation. Although Edison biographers write of the camaraderie enjoyed by this merry band, the process also featured endless rounds of trial and error—the “99% perspiration” in Edison’s famous definition of genius. His approach was intended not to validate preconceived hypotheses but to help experimenters learn something new from each iterative stab. Innovation is hard work; Edison made it a profession that blended art, craft, science, business savvy, and an astute understanding of customers and markets.
Design thinking is a lineal descendant of that tradition. Put simply, it is a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. Like Edison’s painstaking innovation process, it often entails a great deal of perspiration.
I believe that design thinking has much to offer a business world in which most management ideas and best practices are freely available to be copied and exploited. Leaders now look to innovation as a principal source of differentiation and competitive advantage; they would do well to incorporate design thinking into all phases of the process.
Thomas Edison created the electric lightbulb and then wrapped an entire industry around it. The lightbulb is most often thought of as his signature invention, but Edison understood that the bulb was little more than a parlor trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful. So he created that, too.
Thus Edison’s genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he made, and he engineered toward that insight. He wasn’t always prescient (he originally believed the phonograph would be used mainly as a business machine for recording and replaying dictation), but he invariably gave great consideration to users’ needs and preferences.
Edison’s approach was an early example of what is now called “design thinking”—a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design ethos. By this I mean that innovation is powered by a thorough understanding, through direct observation, of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.
Many people believe that Edison’s greatest invention was the modern R&D laboratory and methods of experimental investigation. Edison wasn’t a narrowly specialized scientist but a broad generalist with a shrewd business sense. In his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory he surrounded himself with gifted tinkerers, improvisers, and experimenters. Indeed, he broke the mold of the “lone genius inventor” by creating a team-based approach to innovation. Although Edison biographers write of the camaraderie enjoyed by this merry band, the process also featured endless rounds of trial and error—the “99% perspiration” in Edison’s famous definition of genius. His approach was intended not to validate preconceived hypotheses but to help experimenters learn something new from each iterative stab. Innovation is hard work; Edison made it a profession that blended art, craft, science, business savvy, and an astute understanding of customers and markets.
Design thinking is a lineal descendant of that tradition. Put simply, it is a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. Like Edison’s painstaking innovation process, it often entails a great deal of perspiration.
I believe that design thinking has much to offer a business world in which most management ideas and best practices are freely available to be copied and exploited. Leaders now look to innovation as a principal source of differentiation and competitive advantage; they would do well to incorporate design thinking into all phases of the process.
Photoshop CS4
Photoshop CS4 is the 11th version of Adobe's venerable and industry-standard imaging application. It's hard to imagine that Adobe can continue to make large changes to Photoshop. It seems that just about everything but the kitchen sink is already in the application, but once again, Adobe has found ways to take a mature application and improve it. In this review, I'll give you a first look at the new features you'll find in Photoshop CS4.
Photoshop CS4 has changed the main work area and now supports tabbed documents . Here you can see the major changes to the UI. The main tool bar across the top of the window has changed with many of the most common tools, like selection, zoom, rotate, and views placed on the title bar for immediate access.
Photoshop CS4, along with Bridge CS4, is a solid upgrade to one of the most popular image editing programs. With a good mix of new features and improvements to old favorites, this is a worthwhile upgrade. If you skipped CS3, now is the time to move forward. In particular, the improved raw processing, and the new adjustment panel are a key part of my workflow when in Photoshop. Tighter integration with Lightroom 2.0 is a welcome addition, and the ability to perform better soft-proofing in the Print dialog is also helpful. It's still a big and complex program that probably does more than most of us will ever need. Only you can decide if Photoshop CS4 is the right option for you, but it's certainly not a program you'll ever outgrow!
Photoshop CS4 has changed the main work area and now supports tabbed documents . Here you can see the major changes to the UI. The main tool bar across the top of the window has changed with many of the most common tools, like selection, zoom, rotate, and views placed on the title bar for immediate access.
Photoshop CS4, along with Bridge CS4, is a solid upgrade to one of the most popular image editing programs. With a good mix of new features and improvements to old favorites, this is a worthwhile upgrade. If you skipped CS3, now is the time to move forward. In particular, the improved raw processing, and the new adjustment panel are a key part of my workflow when in Photoshop. Tighter integration with Lightroom 2.0 is a welcome addition, and the ability to perform better soft-proofing in the Print dialog is also helpful. It's still a big and complex program that probably does more than most of us will ever need. Only you can decide if Photoshop CS4 is the right option for you, but it's certainly not a program you'll ever outgrow!
PixelSmudge
Hi,
This is a page where you can find tips and tricks for a wide range of design topics ranging from Photoshop to Video and 3D works. Iam planning to use these pages for using in my site
http://www.pixelsmudge.com/
This is a page where you can find tips and tricks for a wide range of design topics ranging from Photoshop to Video and 3D works. Iam planning to use these pages for using in my site
http://www.pixelsmudge.com/
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