Someone posted "10 Rules for Editing Digital Images" on the Digital Photography School site. I thought it might be interesting to build our own list of basic rules.

I've produced a large handful of CS4 panels. The latest have been so-called "Pro" sharpening panels. There's one for capture sharpening, another for output sharpening, and a third for overall USM sharpening.

Doumentation is still limited. That's something I need to work on. Some videos, too. I was thinking of trying for a brown bag session, next week maybe, to discuss the sharpening panels.

It is regrettable that this site has been subjected to nearly hourly obsessive posts from a gentleman named Doug Cook. He hosts a forum on Flickr! for Photoshop Elements.

If you've read any of his comments, you can tell we have some disorganized thinking going on.

I have run many forums over the years, stretching back to a BBS with a Commodore 64 in 1983. In all that time, I have banned exactly one person. Another person who was unable to focus on digital photography and instead wanted to obsessively wage a personal hate campaign.

I run into irrational fools on the Web occasionally. Here's a recent one:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/pse/discuss/72157622570480909/

Ric Grupe, a valued member of this community tried to talk reason to a nut. This guy is using multiple names: AdobeHelper, GrfxDziner, Gwennie2006, etc. He's a dishonest shill who slanders me on his own forum and here.

The culture on Flickr! can be truly astounding. This thread is an interesting case:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/pse/discuss/72157622565966121/#comment72157622566484243

(In case it disappears, Doug Cook has threatened deletion in two hours unless I alter my site, here is a .PDF to preserve the thread.)

http://www.thelightsright.com/files/flickrsilliness.pdf

Bugs happen when you design software. Sometimes they result from your own carelessness. Sometimes they result from poor/incomplete documentation with the tools you use. Sometimes they result from bugs in the tools you use.

I posted a new action set this past weekend. The actions just wrap calls to poopular Noise Reduction tools with features like adding Smart Filters layers and surface masks.

Tom Hubbard has posted a controversial blog entry on The Portland Metro Photographic News site.

R.I.P. HDR has a complicated perspective on HDR photography.

Tom says he's not opposed to HDR, but ovedone HDR is a fad and HDR is a tool used more to fix bad photography than its intended purpose. Then he launches off with talk about Ansel Adams, the Zone System, etc.

Jay Kinghorn posted a provocative essay last week, Workflow Trends: More Is More. The title didn't really work for me, but I agree with the main point of the essay. In the last year or two, digital photography has been moving more and more to crafting photographs that are not a single camera shot but instead are composites from more than one photograph.

I've spent a few hours musing about the future direction for Photoshop CS4 panels.

Here are some common features that I plan for future development:

I spent some time tonight watching how CS4 panels that ship with Photoshop work. That gives me ideas about how to handle things in future panels.

I'll inquire at Adobe about who's programing the panels. I'd like to have a conversation with them and ask to borrow look-and-feel from the Adobe panels (to keep things consistent for users).

It is possible to create future panels that allow for previews. That will mean using scripts rather than actions.