Yes that's right. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is now available for public beta testing at Adobe Labs.

And it's very cool.

For those of you who don't know, Lightroom is literally a digital photo darkroom.  Where Photoshop has many workflows - digital imaging, creative design and pre-press - Lightroom has a truly singular workflow: digital photography.

It combines many features of Bridge, Camera RAW, and digital image correction/enhancement in a very slick package. It also offers multiple output workflows: slideshow (with music, even), print (single images and packages) and web (photo galleries and direct to flickr upload).

If any of this has piqued your interest, be sure to drop by Adobe Labs for the beta, and to watch some excellent Lightroom 3 videos by Julieanne Kost

Finally, the video training product many of us here at CMX have used on the Windows platform is now available on the Mac! 

Camtasia lets you easily create engaging presentations, demos, software tutorials and even marketing videos. If it's on your screen, you can recrod it in action!

I've used Camtasia for Windows for many years and love it. Now that I've recently switched to the Mac platform, I can't wait to add this software. And even better, Techsmith is offering a special promotional price of $99 US. If you're an educator who teaches software to your students, you have to try out Camtasia.

To learn more, check out Techsmith's press release.

I'm very excited to announce that my latest video training title is now available on lynda.com!

Recorded earlier this summer, the 4.5 hour course discusses and walks you through wireframing, storyboarding, interactive HTML prototyping, in a far more in-depth manner than my Essential Training title is able to. I also introduce you to creating Flex skins, exporting MXML and exporting FXG.

I had a lot of fun putting this course together and I think it will be a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about using Fireworks for prototyping web and other interactive projects such as AIR applications.

Here's a quick run down of the main lesson topics:

• Rapid Prototyping Options in Fireworks
• Wireframing
• Storyboarding
• Multi-page Mockups
• Adding Interactivity
• Creating AIR Prototypes
• Creating Flex Mockups
• Going Further with HTML Prototyping

My photos are now online from the camping trip with Tom Green and sons.

I shot approximately 600 images, and have edited them down to about 240, using Adobe Bridge as my primary tool.

I experimented with slow shutter speeds on many water shots this year and also made a conscious effort to find scenes which I thought would translate well into black and white. In fact, you'll get a first-hand look at how I created the black and white images on flickr in my latest tutorial, which is running on Tuesday of this week.

I've also included a few panoramics from the trip as well, including the one of the campsite.

I hope you get a chance to check out the photos. Feel free to comment on them; I love to know what people think.

Yes it is almost that time again. This coming Saturday, August 1, my good friend Tom Green, I and our sons will be making the 12 hour trek to Obatanga Provincial Park for a week of very low tech relaxation.

Now we don't raise our noses at all technology, you understand; we'll still have our digital cameras so we can capture shots like those seen at mine and Tom's flickr sites. But overall it's a time to chill, read a book, go hiking or canoeing and watch the sun set over a wonderfully peaceful lake. There will be no laptops and our cell phones don't work up there (Tom keeps trying for a signal.)

I have no idea how Mr. Green will survive, as he will be unable to Twitter various profundities at any given time of day. Perhaps he will write them down and later do a massive post-adventure Twitter rampage . . .

This is, of course, assuming:

• We don't strand him on some tiny outcropping of Canadian shield poking out of a lake . . .
• And that we can keep all the sharp and pointy objects from his eager grasp . . .
  
• And that he doesn't get adopted by a black bear as her long lost albino cub . . .
  
• Or that he doesn't become the ringleader of the local Red Squirrel brigade, stealing careless campers' cookies by the bagful when they least expect it . . .
  

I am so dead when he reads this.

It's a time to recharge the spiritual and psychological batteries. That stored up energy is important. Soon after we return, both Tom and I will return to teaching at college - a job as rewarding as it can be exhausting.

In general it will be a time to refresh and renew ourselves before normal daily life washes over us again.

I can't wait. I even have new Christmas songs on my iPod - just for Tom (bwa ha ha . . .)

Hey Everybody!

I'm picking through my idea file for new tutorial concepts for Fireworks and I thought I'd put the request out to you, our faithful CMX subscribers. Is there something you've been dying to know about Fireworks? (or Photoshop or Dreamweaver or ~insert favorite app here~ . . .)

And what about the types of articles? Creative? Technical? Workflow? Business oriented?

Drop by the Community Clubhouse forum and share your thoughts and ideas.

Yes that's right!

Adobe has released the very long awaited patch for Fireworks CS4 for both Mac and Windows. The updater addresses some of the big issues related to text and stability.

You can download the update from http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html.

After applying the update, please ensure that the version screen now shows as shown below.
 
http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthak/FwCS4_update_about.jpg

You can also read more details about what was fixed in the patch by reading the release notes.

W00t!

A very exciting day, yesterday; I received my shipment of books and I must say, I'm very happy with the overall production quality of the book. It's pretty cool to see all the illustrations in full color!

Sporting a bright banana-yellow cover (you almost need sunglasses!) the book definitely stands out. Kinda like some of my shirts . . .

In the next few weeks, I hope to release a few excerpts of the book here on CMX, so stay tuned.

It should be in bookstores soon, so if you're interested in learning FW from the ground up, make sure to check it out.

Have you ever wondered if (or how) you can add an iframe to a Fireworks prototype? What about inserting a SWF? Or adding some jQuery functionality?

Well, I just finished reading a truly excellent article at the Adobe Developer Center, written by David Hogue and Mariano Ferrario that takes protyping with Fireworks to the next level.

The article shows you how to leverage CSS, JavaScript and HTML using Fireworks and Dreamweaver to create a highly interactive HTML prototype. There's a great synergistic result when you combine the design capabilities of Fireworks with the coding strength of Dreamweaver. 

If you're interested in prototyping, head on over to the Adobe Developer Center and check out this article.

Well, it's finally happened.

I just pressed the checkout button at the Apple store and in a few days I will be the proud owner of my very first Macintosh.

I ordered the 15" Macbook Pro with the faster, bigger hard drive.

My old Toshiba doesn't owe me any favors; it's had a hard three year life span - and will probably end up in the hands of my nephew for at least a year, but with the writing I've been doing, having the ability to work with both Mac and PC apps is becoming pretty important. I'll just install a trusty copy of XP on the system so I can still work on both sides of the Force.  ;-)

Can't wait till it gets here.

Ahhhhhh! A huge sigh of relief and great sense of accomplishment are the two things I am feeling most at the moment. As the headline states, the very first Classroom in a Book for Fireworks is off to the presses.

I'm so freakin' excited!

The book has a total of 11 lessons, plus two supplemental lessons on the CD which accompanies the book. Just like other CiaB's, the artwork is included so people can work along with the same assets I used in the book. Some of the assets are supplied by - or inspired by  - Adobe, and some are my own, including several photos.

I think this will be it for me on the book scene for a while, but I have some other projects in the works, including some new video titles with Lynda.com . . . and of course, I'll keep writing here at my home away from home, Community MX.

I'll keep you posted on the release date.

Well, MAX San Francisco has come and gone. What an experience; 5000+ geeks attending a single event!

Seriously, it was a great event and I had the opportunity to meet and mingle with many new people. There were also a few networking opportunities as well. Both my Fireworks Mock Up labs were full, and I saw several other very interesting sessions and labs. I for one, was very impressed by the number of Fireworks sessions that were available.

Yep, the secret is out! :-)

On my return, I was informed by a very happy publisher that 28 copies of my book sold in the MAX Store during the event, which made me very happy as well.

I know I promised pics much earlier, but I've just gotten around to getting them online. So if you want to see a few shots from the event and a few from the aquariums at the California Academy of Sciences, head on over to my flickr site.

Enjoy!

Fireworks CS4 finally began to answer the problem of designing and exporting standards compliant web pages, with the inclusion of a new export feature, CSS and images. This feature was an enhanced version of the Smart CSS extension which was available for FW CS3.

Well, the shipping version of this CS4 feature still had some issues. but luckily for us, Fireworks evangelist Matt Stow worked with Adobe to improve the export script.

You will find his article and the new export assets on Adobe's web site:

 This article and the support files are definitely worth a read.

Well day 1 has come to a close (for me, anyway) and it was quite a whirlwind!  The keynote session this morning was pretty cool. There's some pretty amazing stuff happening with AIR, FLEX and Flash in terms of development projects from companies like Disney Interactive and the New York Times Company.

I thought MAX was big last year; the attendance this year is even higher! I'm told there are over 5000 people attending the event.

I ran my first Fireworks Mock Up lab this morning and it went over very well. I'm very happy to not ethat both labs are at capacity (50 people per lab). It is so awesome to see this kind of interest in Fireworks!

It's been a blast hanging with friends; Danilo Celic, Joe Lowery, Alan Musselman and Aaron Beall, Stephanie Sullivan and Greg Rewis and may others. I haven't seen some of these people for months (or longer) so it's nice to get a chance to talk face to face.

This evening, Alan and I tooled around a bit in his car, taking a few night shots of the Bay Bridge and just enjoying the local scenery.

I'll post some photos soon on Flickr and update you when they're online.

In a few days I'll be flying down to San Francisco to attend and present at this year's Adobe MAX. Last year was my first time going to MAX and it was certainly impressive. I'm very interested to see if that "MAX fever" is maintained.

As for the work side of MAX, I'll be running the Fireworks Mock Up lab, where we will take a couple half built sample files and add the interactivity and other steps necessary to turn the files into interactive PDF documents and AIR prototypes.

I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and making some new ones (and giving out a few copies of my book). If you're attending MAX, I hope to see ya there.

I'm very proud to announce that Adobe Fireworks CS4 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques will be available October 20, 2008. It was a heck of an experience and I owe a big thanks to Kim Cavanaugh who was my tech editor.

You can learn more about the book here: http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321562879

I'm very excited about the book. I think it's a great introduction to Fireworks.

At 12:01 this morning, Adobe publicly announced the upcoming release of Creative Suite 4. Some very cool new features have been added to all our favorite software applications. Fireworks CS4 is - IMO - the most significant upgrade in a long while. And other apps like Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash are also chock full of new goodies.

For more details, be sure to stay tuned here at CMX, and also make sure to drop by Adobe's web site for a breakdown of the Suite packages.

Well, it's coming! Adobe has disclosed the the announce date for Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 on www.adobe.com.

Details about Creative Suite 4 at will be made available at  12:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time (USA) on September 23. You can register to hear the special launch webcasts at: www.adobe.com/go/somethingbrilliant

TODCon will be here very soon. Yep, I'm counting the days. OK that's not the secret.

It'll be great to hook up with some CMX friends and regular TODCon attendees and speakers. Well, that's no secret either.

I've written the last three CMXtraneous blog posts! That's more of a shock than a surprise, though. 

I'm pretty stoked about the Fireworks public beta. The Fireworks engineering team has done a phenominal job. It's to the point now where I don't like going back to CS3. Yeah, not really a secret there either, the way I've been blabbing all week long about it.

The secret is my second TODCon session. It will be a live demo of the new features in the Fireworks Public beta! We'll look at some of the cool features you've read about in my recent articles as well as Kim Cavanaugh's piece on the Path panel. Based on what you've read and heard this week, I hope you pull up a chair for my session.

Alan Musselman from Adobe will also be presenting a session on Fireworks. He'll no doubt have some very awesome and cool stuff to share as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'll be the guy with the loud shirt and - new this year - a limp (sprained my ankle and pulled a tendon a couple weeks ago YEOUCH). Feel free to have pity on me and buy me a martini or at least help me to the gift shop for a new fashion statement. ;-)