I will be presenting 'Using 3D Tools in Photoshop CS4 Extended' to the User Group and Experts community on September 16th via Adobe Connect. I'll cover the basics of how the tools work using a graphic design example, as well as a model from Google's free Warehouse 3D collection.

Here's the info you need:
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)

If you are a member of Adobe Groups, you can check out the details here:
http://groups.adobe.com/posts/aebfa20efe
Or just join the meeting on the 16th:
http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/techweds2009/

This is a free community event, one of the last of the summer, so stop in and soak up some 3D goodness!

My new book, Real World Compositing with Photoshop CS4, is set to hit shelves in early January 2009. We turned in the final manuscript this past week. It's been an interesting journey, and I'm already collecting notes for a 2nd edition (if we're lucky), and possibly another book altogether.

We took the approach of going from concept to execution, hoping for a more holistic way of creating composite artwork. The goal was to help people understand that creating works, especially very realistic or goal-oriented pieces, is not something that can be done by piling up tutorial after tutorial. In fact, we rarely discuss specific techniques. Instead, we take the reader from concept development on up to the point of starting actual work, but not much further.

So, early on, we worked at guiding the reader towards having a vision in place, and working on elements along the way that support the vision. Planning, photography, sketches, notes, etc. are all wrapped up in the process of managing the vision. With any luck, there will be a supporting website to handle specific techniques and challenges, some of which will be brought to CMX as articles and tutorials. Keep your eyes peeled!

John Nack has a lengthy post about why you won't see 64-bit Photoshop goodness on Mac for CS4.

There is a lot of good information there about what 64-bit does and doesn't mean, both in general and for running Photoshop. In the end, it's about market, and Apple has decided to leave Carbon-64 in the trash heap. So, Adobe will be focusing on moving to the Cocoa way of doing things.

John brings up some good information for Mac folks, and also tries to head off any media-baited flame wars. However, I am willing to bet this will just spark a frenzy of armchair developers wagging fingers and charry-picking lame arguments. It's business, folks... take an objective step back and see what makes sense to all parties involved. Pay special attention to the 3 points made near the end of his blog entry.