Couple of Books worth getting

I was out in the centre of Birmingham at lunchtime today and needed to get hold of an OS map.  The main Waterstones in the City is great and I often enjoy a browse at the the books while I am there.

I spotted a couple that I though our blog readers might be interested in, and that I have now ordered for myself

Firstly, from a great photographer who does some fabulous wildlife and landscape work by the name of Guy Edwardes.  The link to his book is below and well worth buying.  great photography, but more importantly great tips and techniques or where when and how to do it.

Secondly, while I struggle to get to grips with the epic Martin Evening tome on CS5, I found another great guide for both CS5 and Lightroom 3 that I can recommend.  Much more skinned down and very relevant to the needs of photographers.

I shall look forward to my copies coming from Amazon, and much better rates than I saw today I hasten to add

So here are the links.

Martin

Wanna save £20 UK readers?

Having looked at the Terms and Conditions on the ad link below, I reckon you can save yourself £20 if you take the upgrade to CS4, with a free CS 5 to follow.

Seems a strange thing, but looks like an option to save a few pennies - let me know if I have read it wrong.



and for MAC users - you only get to save £9 - bad luck




For our US readers, here is the link for you guys and girls - but I can't find the same thing there so you are stuck with your cheaper than in the UK anyway  version



Martin

Photoshop CS5 Pricing

Last week when I announced the launch of CS5 here, Amazon.co.uk had it on their site for about £200, wheras Adobe were offering it at £186 for the upgrade version.  So against that I was not prepared to put it on the site here as you could get better deals elsewhere.

Now Amazon have matched, so this is as good as any at the moment.

Link here for either full versions or upgrades, in Windows or Mac.




Martin

Adobe launch Creative Suite 5 today

Later today, in about four hours time, Adobe launch the new Creative Suite 5. For most of our readers that means a new version of Photoshop CS5 might be of interest.

I will certainly look forward to it and judging by the some of the early feature releases, then I think this will be a good update.

I am expecting Adobe's handling of the Canon RAW files to get better.  The engine they have used in previous versions and Lightroom have not been good in my opinion, certainly on the later Canon models.  However, I have recently had a quick play with Lightroom 3 beta 2 and the files look pretty good with the 7D.

I will do a more comprehensive blog on LR3 beta 2 when I have had some more hands on time with it.

CS5 will be launched as a standard or extended product, and either in full version or upgrade variant.

If you have CS2 or newer, you can get away with the upgrade.  Older versions will see you shelling out around £600 or so.

Now on to pricing, which is where I start to get far more vexed about it.

In the US, the upgrade is scheduled to be $199, whereas with around a 1.5 $ to £ we pay....wait for it.  Roughly the same.

But if you think that is bad, wait for this.

You can buy the boxed version with a DVD, delivery, cardboard etc from Adobe for £186, or you can download it for £192.

Now maybe I am naive, but I would have thought that logic says that downloading would be cheaper.

Anyway, it is not due to ship until early to mid May.  I will wait until it has been out a couple or three months so that the early un paid 'beta testers' can find the bugs.  Certainly, CS 4 had some pretty serious problems with some aspects on launch.

Martin