Five questions with Russell BrownChances are, when you think of image editing, the software that floats to the top of your mind is Adobe's Photoshop. The first version was commercially released in 1990 exclusively for Macintosh. Since the, the program has come a long way. Last year, Adobe launched Photoshop CS4, which upped the industry standard by incorporating 3D imaging features.
 We've seen some demonstration of new technologies developed by Adobe for the supposed next version of Photoshop, Photoshop CS5. Can you elaborate more on that? Russell Brown (RB): There is no Adobe Photoshop CS5! Russell Brown (referring to himself in third person in jest) gave a technical presentation showing technologies that may or may not appear in the future. I do not know anything about CS5. What was shown online--Patch Matching, Wet Paint and Warp--are technologies which I had demonstrated at Las Vegas a few weeks ago. But with regard to Patch Matching, it's a miracle. It's the next miracle. From what I've seen in Adobe's lab, it's going to be outstanding. We are making it possible to correct things so well, like getting rid of telephone or power lines going through photos, and this solves a common problem that photographers face. It's a cool, easy-to-use technology which Adobe is working on. What about stability on new operating systems like Windows 7 and Apple's Snow Leopard? RB: Everything went very well with Windows 7 when we tested CS3 and 4 on it. We got good result across the CS line of products on the new OS, though we're not sure if something might come up later. We also tested it with Snow Leopard but had some issues. There are problems related to a particular font, but who's going to take the blame for that? All these problems are documented on John Nack's (principal product manager for Adobe Photoshop) blog. That's where I go to find out if there are any problems with our products on Windows 7 and he is on top of it. We understand there is a Photoshop.com app for iPhone, but the features are limited. Is Adobe working to create a slimmed-down version of Photoshop for mobile devices, given that most handsets these days have better processing power? RB: Photoshop.com was an experimental tool we made to see people's response and feedback was pretty good. I don't know what the future is but I am guessing we may see more toys (mobile-oriented imaging programs) along this line. If we go down this line, we will try to make applications that cut across multiple platforms. I am toying around with an idea for a gallery application for mobile devices which will allow exportation of a whole image gallery for the iPhone or other smartphones. I think Adobe is definitely evaluating the mobile market. My speculation is that Adobe could start to go down that path to (develop image-editing applications for mobile devices) because there is a lot (of potential) to put into (for an emerging market segment). Now that digital cameras have become mainstream among consumers, demand for good image-editing tools is expected to increase gradually. However, most people generally have the impression there is a steep learning curve to Photoshop. Are there plans to change that perception? Or is Adobe going to focus only on more advanced users for its Photoshop software? RB: As far as I know, Photoshop is going to remain pretty much as a professional tool. If I told you I am offering you a brain surgery tool that is easy to use and anyone can perform brain surgery on you, would you let anyone do it, or would you trust a pro? This is a way crazy analogy. On the other hand, I think we are aware there are things which are difficult to use, but we are always striving to make Photoshop easier to operate. Photoshop takes the Swiss Army knife approach and it has a tool for everyone and everything. So, your particular job may require only the can opener but you got these other tools. There are ways to slim it down and display only certain number of features--you can go into CS4 and hide certain features to simplify to your preference. But for the average user, I would steer them to Photoshop Elements first as an entry-level tool, and move them up once they feel more comfortable with it. A frustrating issue for some photographers is the different RAW formats from different camera manufacturers. Adobe has expressed interest in standardizing its DNG format for imaging brands. What's the latest update on this? RB: To have every manufacturer using DNG is a good dream. However, having different RAW formats is also the competitive edge for the imaging companies as they have different ways of interpreting pictures. So there is no marketing reason for them to use DNG. On the same topic, if everyone adopts the same format, who's going to do the interpretation of the RAW file? Adobe or them (imaging brands)? More about RAW:Currently, camera manufacturers are using their own RAW files and they require special software to interpret and process them to the more common JPEG format. The same RAW photo will look different when it is converted using different programs. To read more about RAW formats, click here.Tags: Image-editing, Microsoft Windows 7, Imaging, Camera, Adobe Systems Inc.
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