Jeff Carlson (.Thought)

Recover Erased Photos from a Memory Card

Have you done the bone-headed thing I did recently? I erased a memory card in my camera, and then realized I hadn't transferred the latest photos to my computer. Fortunately, they're easy to recover as I write about in an article at TidBITS: Recover Erased Photos from a Memory Card (2009-06-03).

I look at four programs that can get the job done, each with their pluses and minuses: Data Rescue II, Klix, Photo Recovery for Mac, and Image Rescue.

My Photoshop Elements 7 Book On Sale

I just received word from Peachpit that my Photoshop Elements 7 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide is part of a new VQS promotion that Barnes & Noble is running this month. It's available for 30 percent off ($20.99) in physical bookstores (look for a "stepladder" display), or $18.89 online if you're a Barnes & Noble member. In the meantime, I'm hard at work on my iMovie '09 book!

Love Love Love this Photo

Contemplating the Trees, by Kim Carlson

Ellie in the Seattle Times

I wrote a review of the Nikon D90 camera for the Seattle Times (see Nikon, Canon push digital still cameras to a new level, Nov. 15, 2008), and included an image of Ellie to demonstrate the camera's low-light capabilities.

Siblings

Five Hot New Features in Photoshop Elements 7 for Windows

Adobe announced Photoshop Elements 7 for Windows this week, and since I'm deep into working on the update to my Photoshop Elements Visual QuickStart Guide, I wrote an article for the Peachpit Web site about what's new in Elements 7: Five Hot New Features in Photoshop Elements 7 for Windows. I talk about the integration with Photoshop.com (adding a level to Photoshop Express) and the great offshoot of that pairing: automatic online photo backups. I also cover the new Smart Brush tool; Photomerge Scene Cleaner, which lets you remove people and objects from photos; and the improved text searching capabilities.

The software will ship in late September, and the book should be available shortly after.

Spring

It's now been over three months since my daughter was born, and I'm only now starting to feel like things are stabilizing. Not that she knocked anything out of whack, per se, but that everything is just different enough that I haven't done some things - like update this blog. (I've been blogging about Ellie, of course, but that's different.)

So what am I up to? I've been keeping busy, like a good freelancer. A lot of my time lately, it seems, has been spent in the management and work required to get new work: making article proposals and the like. I'm within striking distance of finishing The Adobe Photoshop Express Pocket Guide, doing some work on the TidBITS site design, writing a few articles, and fielding a request to license one of my photos for a display.

With the weather turning, there's that familiar sense of renewal in the air, so perhaps that will inspire me to blog more often.

Long Hours

Midnight Pavoni Rendezvous
Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson

On Saturday, I planned on going to bed at the same time as Kim and get a good night's rest. We spent the day with family, watching my 2 year old niece for a few hours and then having dinner at my sister's house. She lives in Bremerton, a little over an hour away (either by ferry or by driving around Puget Sound), so as a result we didn't get home until about 11:30. Still, that was the earliest I'd been to bed all week by about 3 hours.

I'm spending most of my time updating my iMovie/iDVD Visual QuickStart Guide (the new edition isn't yet listed at Amazon), which is more work this time around because iMovie '08 is a completely new video-editing program. I'm starting to warm up to the changes Apple made, and realizing that this version is deeper than I expected it to be (which means more work for me to suss out those depths).

I'm also helping to update a colleague's book in roughly the same timeframe. And since Adobe just released Photoshop Elements 6, the update to the Elements Visual QuickStart Guide is in the mix, too. Sprinkle a few article assignments in there as well.

But why should work occupy all of my attention? Why not do something really out of the ordinary, like have hardwood floors installed in our house (finally)? Heck, I might as well start a family while I'm at it.

This explains why my trusty La Pavoni espresso maker pictured here has become a reliable friend late at night and early every morning. I'm not complaining (much), because I did say yes to all of these projects. It's fun in that overwhelming sort of way. I just don't know where September and October went.

Even More Autumn

I'm utterly swamped with deadlines and home renovation, but I snuck some photos of autumn leaves near where I parked at the office today. (Click to view the larger version)

I Love Autumn

Sunrise 09-Oct-07
Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson