Robert Scoble posted an inspiring piece about the impact of photography on the way he sees the world. You can see that influence in the inspired photos that he's been taking lately. Scoble is kind enough to suggest that he'd like me to help him with some more Photoshop tips.

I had a great time giving Scoble and his Photowalking buddy Thomas Hawk some Photoshop lessons last year. You can check out the videos of the three of us working at Scoble's house in Half Moon Bay here and here. I'd love to make that an annual event. Anybody else interested in getting together for some serious Photoshop for photographers? How about a group Photowalk and Photoshop session?

If you're in the San Jose area this week check out the Web Video Summitt at the San Jose Marriott. This conference is all about creating and distributing video over the net. I'm on a panel on Teaching and Learning with Web Video with my pals Lynda Weinman of lynda.com and Alex Lindsay of Pixel Corps at 2:00 pm Wednesday June 27. And I'm signing books on Wednesday at 3:30 in the Exhibit area. Stop by and say hi.

If you installed Creative Suite 3 on a Mac, check that your firewall is still enabled. Adobe has issued the following critical Security Advisory warning that certain Creative Suite 3 installers turn off the firewall on Mac OS X, creating a potential security vulnerability.

"When you install Adobe Version Cue CS3 Server on Mac systems that have the Mac OS X personal firewall enabled, the installer turns off the firewall to correctly set up Version Cue Server but does not turn the firewall back on at the end. This creates a potential security vulnerability.

Adobe recommends turning the personal firewall in Mac OS X back on using these instructions:

1. From the Apple menu, select System Preferences.
2. Click the Sharing icon, and then click the Firewall tab.
3. Click Start."

If you've been waiting for Photoshop CS3, this is the big day. Adobe just released Photoshop CS3 along with Creative Suite 3 Design and Web editions. Details are in this press release. Don't be overwhelmed by all the different configurations. Pricing and availability in the various CS3 collections breaks down like this for Photoshop users:

• You can purchase a stand-alone version of Photoshop CS3 Standard edition for $649. The cheapest way to get the new Photoshop is to upgrade from Photoshop 7, CS, or CS2 for just $199.
• If you're interested in additional special Photoshop features like video and 3-D, pony up $999 for Photoshop CS3 Extended. You can upgrade to this edition of Photoshop CS3 for $349 if you own Photoshop 7, CS, or CS2.
• Photoshop CS3 Extended is included in Creative Suite 3 Design Premium, along with InDesign CS3, Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional, Flash CS3, and Dreamweaver CS3, for $1799. The upgrade price for owners of Photoshop 7, CS, or CS2 is $1599.
• Photoshop CS3 Standard is included in Creative Suite 3 Design Standard, along with InDesign CS3, Illustrator CS3, and Acrobat 8 Professional, for $1199. The upgrade price for owners of Photoshop 7, CS, or CS2 is $899.
• Photoshop CS3 Extended is also in Creative Suite 3 Web Premium, along with Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional, Flash CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, and Contribute CS3 for $1599. The upgrade price for owners of Photoshop 7, CS, or CS2 is $1399.
• Unfortunately, Photoshop CS3 is not in the Creative Suite 3 Web Standard edition.
• If you're feeling flush, go whole hog and get Photoshop CS3 Extended in the mega Master Collection, which also contains InDesign CS3, Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional, Flash CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, Contribute CS3, After Effects CS3 Professional, Premiere Pro CS3, Soundbooth CS3, and Encore CS3. It's a whopping $2499, but you get your bang for the buck.
• Shared Adobe apps and services, including the very useful Bridge CS3, the new mobile device content creator Device Central CS3, and more, come with all the Design and Web CS3 collections.

I'm heading out to the hottest conference of the year, SXSW 07 in Austin, Texas, to speak about what we've been doing right here -- online instructional video.

If you're going to SXSW, let me know in the comments below. If you're among the lucky ones who will be there, come see my panel on Tuesday 3-13 at 3:30 pm in Room 10AB. It's called Instructional Online Video - The Next Big Thing. Alex Lindsay of Pixel Corps and the popular TWIT network will be joining me.

You can also catch me at the Author's Reception on the Day Stage Saturday 3-10 at 4:30, and signing my book How to Wow: Photoshop for the Web on Tuesday at 3:00 at the South by Bookstore on the trade show floor. Stop by and say hi.

I'm pleased to have been asked to write for O'Reilly's new Inside Lightroom blog, where I'll be contributing blog posts and articles about the newly released Adobe Lightroom. I'm thrilled to join the O'Reilly family and to be included among such luminaries as Derrick Story, Mikel Aaaland, and other big-time contributors to this professional blog. Check out my first post on some of Lightroom's organizing features, and be sure to bookmark the Inside Lightroom site and subscribe to the Inside Lightroom RSS feed in your favorite news reader.

Adobe announced today that Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 is now shipping. Head over to the Adobe site to download a 30 day trial or to purchase the program for $199. That's a special introductory price that's good until April 30, 2007. After that, Lightroom will sell for $299. While you're at the Adobe site, download a free version of the Adobe Camera Raw 3.7 plug-in for Mac or Windows, optimized for compatibility with your Lightroom adjustments.

Are you a Photoshop Elements user who is considering upgrading to Photoshop? Then check out this unusual deal at the Adobe Store. Adobe is offering $350 off Photoshop CS2 for owners of an Elements serial number. By my calculations that means Photoshop will cost you only $299. Ownership of Photoshop CS2 will give you another bonus. It makes you eligible to download the free public beta of Photoshop CS3. This offer from the Adobe Store ends February 25, 2007.

I'm just getting my land legs back after returning from a week of teaching Photoshop in the Caribbean on a Geek Cruise. I was in the good company of fellow instructors David Pogue, Deke McClelland, and Eddie Tapp, among others. It was all good -- from hanging with the Geek cruise audience to walking the boulders at the Baths on Virgin Gorda. Thanks to ebullient Geek Cruise director Neil Bauman for another terrific week on the high seas.

Photos of Pogue, McClelland, and yours truly by Randal Schwartz, an amazing guy who has been on more Geek Cruises than God.

Happy Holidays to everyone who's been kind enough to listen to Photoshop Online since its inception this summer. I truly appreciate your support and participation. Feel free to add your holiday message below. Jan

Photoshop product manager John Nack has announced that the public beta release of Photoshop CS3 will be available for CS2 users to download within 24 hours -- in other words by tomorrow afternoon, Friday December 15. The direct URL for the download is not yet active, but it should be:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/photoshopcs3/

Are you eligible for a free download of the Photoshop CS3 beta, along with Adobe Bridge 2.0 and an alpha release of Adobe Camera Raw 4.0? Eligibility requirements are posted in an official Adobe FAQ about the release at PhotoshopNews:

The Photoshop CS3 beta is available in English only but to Photoshop CS2 users worldwide. It is available to licensed users of either the Photoshop CS2 (full, upgrade, and education), Adobe Creative Suite 2.x Standard or Premium (full, upgrade, and education), Adobe Production Studio Standard and Premium (full, upgrade, and education), Adobe Video Bundle (full, upgrade, and education) or Adobe Web Bundle (full, upgrade, and education). You will need to provide your Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite, Production Studio or Bundle serial number in order to get a Photoshop CS3 beta serial number, enabling you to activate the Photoshop beta and use it beyond the 2-day grace period.

Check back here at Photoshop Online often for more news and training on the Photoshop CS3 beta.

Huge news! Adobe is releasing a public beta of Photoshop CS3, which will be available shortly as a free download from Adobe Labs to owners of Photoshop CS2 on both Mac and Windows. The Mac version of the public beta is optimized to run natively on Intel-based Macs, which means that you Intel Mac users will experience the fast native performance you've been waiting for.

Keep in mind that this is not the final version of Photoshop CS3. It is a beta, and therefore unfinished. Adobe is still anticipating launching the final of Photoshop CS3 in the spring, as previously announced. In the meantime, Photoshop CS2 is still shipping.

I'm not certain exactly when the beta will be available on the Adobe Labs site. Keep checking http://labs.adobe.com for the beta drop. I'll be posting video training on the new beta here. In the meantime, check out this screenshot of the new user interface in the Photoshop CS3 public beta.

Robert Scoble, producer of The Scoble Show, has posted Part 1 and Part II of the Photoshop lessons I recently gave photographer Thomas Hawk at Scoble's house in Half Moon Bay.  These videos show how to apply some of the principles I've been teaching you here to Hawk's photographs. We talk about shooting RAW, using Adobe Bridge with Photoshop, and some practical techniques for correcting photos in Photoshop.

This is part of Scoble's Photowalking series at Podtech. Other shows in this series feature Hawk shooting photographs on walks with Scoble in the Bay Area. There's more on the Photoshop lesson adventure here and at Hawk's blog.

The Vloggies for the top video podcasts were awarded in San Francisco this weekend. Here at Photoshop Online we were honored to have been considered in the Instructional/Educational category.

Congratulations to all the winners, including our very cool friends Phoebe Ventouras and Julie Daman at Nontourage (Favorite Female Vloggers and Favorite Music-Peoples' Choice), and Ryanne Hodson (Favorite Female Vlogger-Judges' Choice). And a special shout-out to co-hosts Irina Slutsky and Daniel McIvar.

If you weren't there, you can live the event vicariously through these photos by photographer extraordinaire Thomas Hawk (who also managed to make me look presentable a couple weeks ago), these videos at Podtech and Weird America, and these lists of winners at Scobelizer.

I spent Saturday afternoon with Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk filming future episodes of Scoble's hot new video cast, the ScobleShow. Scoble filmed me walking "photowalker" Hawk through some techniques for processing his photos in Photoshop.

If you've been watching the ScobleShow, you know that Hawk and Scoble have done a series of Photowalking episodes in which Hawk shares his techniques while shooting. Processing Hawk's digital photos in Photoshop takes the idea one intriguing step further. Interacting on camera was an interesting and novel way to teach Photoshop in a podcast. I think you're really going to like it.

I'll post a link here as soon as Scoble posts the first of the Photoshop episodes on the ScobleShow. In the meantime, enjoy Hawk's photos at Zooomr (a cool photo-sharing site of which Hawk is the CEO), and check out Scoble's and Hawk's posts about the fun day we had Photoshopping and hanging out in Half Moon Bay.

I'll be offering more Photoshop tips on the upcoming October 10 episode of the popular iLifeZone podcast [iTunes link], which I'll be guest hosting along with regulars Derrik Story and Scott Bourne. Check it out.

Photoshop Elements 5.0 was released today. Although I love Photoshop, I have to admit that Elements is a great deal, particularly for non-professional photographers. It's $89.99 or $69.99 for an upgrade version at the Adobe Store. Elements 5.0 has some cool new features, including:

• Interactive Flash Web Galleries, with very cool themes, including a book whose pages turn, and a turning carousel of your photos, as well as a more classic layouts.
• Photo Maps, that show the location of your photos on interactive Yahoo maps.
• Color Curves adjustment, with an easier to use interface than curves in Photoshop.
• Adjust Sharpness adjustment, giving you more control over sharpening photos than Unsharp Mask.
• Convert to Black and White, a collection of visual controls for getting the best color to black and white photo conversions.
• Correct Camera Distortion filter, for fixing photo perspective and vignetting.
• Photo layouts, with fun templates for sharing multiple photos on the Web or burned to CD.
• Artwork and Effects palette, with new backgrounds, frames, graphics, and themes to enhance your photos.

Thanks to iTunes Music Store for listing our Photoshop Online podcast in the New and Notable section. We're in some heady company -- right next to Conde Nast Traveler and HBO podcasts no less.

w00t!

I just got word that Adobe will offer a sneak peek of new Photoshop technology at Photoshop World in Las Vegas next week. John Loiacono, senior vp of Adobe's Creative Solutions Business unit, will give Photoshop World attendees a glimpse of what's to come in Photoshop in his keynote address on September 7.

Photoshop World is a huge party and the premiere Photoshop educational event, now in its seventh rockin' year. This time the conference is  September 7-9 at the Mandalay Bay Conference Center in Las Vegas. I'll be speaking at the Peachpit Press booth in the Photoshop World Tech Expo at 10:00 a.m. on Friday morning. If you're going, let us know by adding a comment below.

Windows users of Photoshop CS2 can head over to the Adobe site for a free download of Photoshop update 9.0.2. This update includes the following fixes:

- Menus now respond correctly after a single click.
- Undo/Redo work properly when multiple documents are open.
- Photoshop no longer produces a program error when encountering unsupported file types through the Acrobat Touchup workflow.
- Supported files that incorrectly produced an "unsupported color space" message now open as expected.
- TIFF files with layer data greater than 2GB now open correctly.

9.0.2 also includes fixes in the previous update 9.0.1, so there's no need to download both updates. Adobe expects to release a Mac version of 9.0.2 shortly. Apparently there was a glitch in the Mac version that Adobe posted prematurely last week and has since removed from its download page.