Time lapse video of crocus opening in the sun.

CameraBag 2 allows beginning digital photographers the capability to manipulate photos and provide some quality pictures. Even my wife, who has no real interesting in taking photos except the point and shoot version, appreciated the simplicity of this software.

Key Features
- Choose from 100+ built-in styles and filters, or create and share your own.
- Full suite of 25+ manual photographic tools including advanced curve editors.
- Stunning new interface.
- State-of-the-art image processing via the all-new Analog Engine.
- Add any look you create to the toolset as a fully-adjustable filter.
- 32-bits-per-component color depth.
- Non-destructive editing (active history).
- Easy layering of styles and adjustments.
- Quicklooks and hover previews for visual decision-making.
- The Remix slider, which smoothly transitions between endless variations.
- Large, precise controls.
- Laptop-friendly design.
- Batch saving.
- RAW format and metadata support.

Freedom to Explore
Using Quicklooks in CameraBag 2, all the possible “looks” are displayed: old-school instant film or modern high-contrast portrait, subtle color adjustment or complete artistic overhaul. Pick the view that best suits your vision, then tweak and adjust non-destructively with large, interactive sliders. In particular, the Remix slider displays a tremendous variety of natural variations for each style.

Advanced Control
When ready to take greater control of the image adjustments, CameraBag 2 features a full suite of photographic tools, from simple exposure and cropping to advanced vignetting, color correction, and curves. Every adjustment appears as a tile in the tray, so it’s easy to see everything affecting the image at once. Tiles can be rearranged or adjusted without compromising image quality. And the tiles act as adjustment or style layers. Combinations of a style, multiple adjustments and a border may be easily saved right into the interface as a new filter – your own personal recipe.

The videos below illustrates CameraBag 2 in action.

Tutorial: Instructional and getting started videos may be found at Nevercenter’s CameraBag 2 YouTube Playlist.

Free Trial: 30 day Free Trial for CameraBag 2

Related Products:
CameraBag Mobile

Contact: Nevercenter

Cost:
Introductory Price $24 USD (combined Mac/PC
Introductory Price $18.99 USD Mac App Store

AutoCAD 2012 was built from the ground up for OS X Lion and takes full advantage of the performance improvements available to applications written for Lion.  If you’re running Lion, this is the biggest reason to upgrade.

The other enhancements provide efficiency improvements. Depending on your workflow, the efficiencies provided in AutoCAD 2012 may alone be worth the upgrade. Examples of these improvements include:

• Auto-complete on the command line and dynamic input;
• Content palette – drag and drop blocks from a library or the current drawing;
• Group layer button – helps manage layers; new visors – hatch options, layout, and externally referenced drawings;
• Export to PDF; and
• Drawing enhancements.

The video below illustrates these enhancements.

Tutorial: Instructional and getting started videos may be found after launching AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk AutoCAD Tutorials, or Autodesk’s YouTube Channel.

Free Trial: 30 day Free Trial for AutoCAD 2012

Related Products:
AutoCAD LT
AutoCAD WS (Free Product)

Contact: Autodesk

Cost: from $3995.00 USD

For Maya 2012, Autodesk adds powerful new tools for prototyping and previsualization, extends Maya’s simulation capabilities, and improves integration with other programs.  New feature highlights include:  Enhanced Viewport 2.0; Node-based render passes; enhanced sequencer; substance smart textures; Craft Animation tools; enhanced graph editor; and single step interoperability with Mudbox 2012 .  With all of the new features and enhancements, you are sure to find several that will make your day – after you move up to Maya 2012.

Check out the new features in the Autodesk video clips below.

New Viewport 2.0 Features – Rendering and Render Setup

Node-based Render Passes

Camera Sequencer updates

Substance Smart Textures

Craft Animations plug-ins

Editable Motion Trails Enhance the Animation Experience

HumanIK Enhancements – Rigging

Dynamics and nDynamics

System Requirements: Check current Autodesk System Requirements

Contact: Autodesk

Price: $3495.00 US

Subject Matter: Acme Made Trixy Laptop bag. It’s not black!

Most laptop and computer bags come in black, black and…black. Boring. Acme Made has some very stylish, yet sturdy laptop bags for ladies of all ages. Observe the red Acme Made Trixy Laptop bag. It’s good looking, the Trixy comes in three different colors, yet sturdy for a very fashionable bag.

I am hard on bags and purses. Even my watch has a roll bar. And I go through bags and purses. Yet, I don’t have to baby the Acme Made Trixy Laptop bag, and it has multiple uses.

The Trixy bag contains two pull-out pouches, one for your laptop and one for miscellaneous small items (keys, cards, makeup, pills, etc – just the right size). An outside and interior zipper pocket allows me to compartmentalize, and find papers, wallet, keys, whatever. The bag also features four open slide-in pockets for cell phones, glasses, business cards, etc.

Some Nice Features
Leather pull tabs on sturdy zippers and leather trim are attractive features, the bags are made from water resistant material, and raised metal bottom tabs will keep your laptop bag’s bottom surface clean. Dimensions are not bulky and fit most 15.4″ laptops. Nice!

Color choices: Chocolate with pink trim, camouflage, or red with brown trim.

I’m loving this bag. You will too.
Contact: Acme Made Trixy Laptop Bag
Cost: $97.50 US

New Features for Mudbox 2012
Added features:

• UV-Less Painting
• Large Texture Datasets
• Paint Layer Masks and Blend Modes
• Editable Stencils
• Single-Step Suites Interoperability
• Performance Improvements
• New Brushes and Brush Options
• Multiple Joints
• Pose Presets
• Hotbox and Marking Menus

Cool Innovations
UV-Less Painting is one new feature that makes painting more natural, efficient and allows users to be creative. The interoperability has been improved between Autodesk Mudbox and Maya, 3ds Max plus Soft Image. It only takes a single step to send data. Expanded tool sets have been increased to improve productivity. One example is Paint Layer Masks and 22 layer blend modes.

The blend modes improve compatibility with Adobe Photoshop.  Also, in the past Mudbox was mouse and menu driven.  The addition of hotbox and marking menus improves the efficiency and speed of using Mudbox with a drawing tablet (like Wacom’s Bamboo tablets).

With these features and other improvements to Mudbox 2012, Autodesk continues to provide valuable innovations that are worth the upgrade.

Contact: www.autodesk.com

Cost: $745 U.S.

Mobile Development for Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS
Adobe’s CS 5.5 Master Collection focuses on enabling mobile application developers to build applications once and deploy to multiple platforms – Apple iOS, Android, and Blackberry.
CS 5.5 Master Collection helps streamline the development process and for low budget and education development, this could be the difference between success and failure. CS 5.5 also marks the beginning of annual improvements to Adobe’s CS product suite and additional purchase options

Mobile Me
Adobe CS 5.5 Master Collection offers innovations in HTML5 and Adobe Flash authoring tools. Many of these innovations are applicable in mobile application development and deployment within the education field. Right now, the education market is fractured on using tablet devices employing either iOS, or Android operating systems. For education developers, this lack of standardization can result in duplicating development efforts, or only developing for a single platform. Adobe addresses this issue with Adobe Flash Builder 4.5, where content can be developed once and then deployed to multiple platforms.

For instance, Adobe CS 5.5 Master Collection allows designers and users to:

• Deliver mobile applications on Android™, BlackBerry® Tablet OS, iOS and other platforms
• Create rich browser-based content across screens using HTML5
• Leverage Flash Player to deliver premium video content, casual games and rich Internet applications.
• Produce and deploy mobile applications to more than 200 million smart phones and tablets by the end of 2011.
• Apply improved HTML 5 and Flash authoring tools for web based development and deployment.

Reduced Time and Effort to Market
Develop once and deploy to many markets – this is where Adobe CS 5.5 Master Collection rocks. Mobile application developers race against time, money and the feeding frenzy of application users to produce mobile apps across multiple platforms. In the education arena, the market moves a little slower, and there are less buyers. Yet when these education buyers do commit to a platform, they don’t typically reconsider optional platforms. Therefore, it behooves application developers to quickly deploy on multiple platforms. Adobe CS 5.5 Master Collection offers users flexible and powerful tools to address multiple mobile application features.

Deliver Amazing Designs to Tablets and Smartphones
With CS 5.5 Master Collection, designers can create:

• Immersive digital magazines and elegant e-books with accompanying video and audio
• World-class websites based on HTML5 and CSS3 standards
• Interactive mobile applications built with familiar Flash tools that display consistently across Android™, BlackBerry Playbook and iOS devices
• Updates to Dreamweaver CS5.5 (including the Live View mode, CSS panel and Multiscreen Preview panel) that streamline website design to optimize viewing on multiple devices
• And preview desktop, tablet and smartphone browsers side-by-side.

Also, new in the suite are updated versions of Adobe Dreamweaver®, Adobe Flash® Professional, Adobe Flash Catalyst®, Adobe Flash Builder™, the all-new Flex framework for mobile devices, Adobe Device Central and Adobe Acrobat® X Pro.

Flexible Pricing
Estimated street price for the suites are:

• US$2599 for CS5.5 Master Collection,
• US$1899 for CS5.5 Design Premium,
• US$1799 for CS5.5 Web Premium,
• US$1699 for CS5.5 Production Premium
• US$1299 for CS5.5 Design Standard

By subscribing to Creative Suite, customers can choose a one-year subscription plan for lower payments, or a month-to-month subscription for greater flexibility. Upgrade pricing and volume licensing are also available.

For mobile developers and developers working in Adobe Flash and HTML5, Adobe CS 5.5 Master Collection is an upgrade well worth considering. And this upgrade provides flexibility to deploy content to a wide variety of platforms from a single design.

Contact: www.adobe.com

AutoCad Comes to Mac
With AutoCad 2011, Autodesk has extended their popular 3D computer aided design to the Mac platform. This illustrates AutoDesk’s expanding support for Mac users. Recently, Autodesk released AutoCad 2012 with support for the new Lion operating system. We expect AutoCad 2012 will add further enhancements to an already great product.

Like Maya and Mudbox, the user interface opens up with a Getting Started dialogue window that includes a useful, tutorial video. Users can deselect watching the video by clicking on the check box.

Mac Friendly Features
Features that highlight the AutoDesk support and Mac integration of AutoCad 2011 are the track pad and two finger use on the Magic Mouse (all the Mac gestures while interacting with the program.) It’s also easy to apply dimensions and text to drawings. AutoCad 2011 makes it simple to create and edit print layouts. The program provides powerful tools for converting 2D drawings to 3D models.

One cool feature is the dynamic input box by the curser that speeds the drawing process. If you want a line 10mm long, click on the start point, type in the line length, and the line is immediately drawn.

AutoDesk 2011 bent over backwards to make AutoCad 2011 compatible with Mac, but to take advantage of features unique to the Mac (i.e. two finger gestures). Two tutorials build on the material provided in the Quick Start video. Overall, AutoDesk delivers an excellent drawing product in AutoCad 2011, and we look forward to AutoCad 2012.

System Requirements: Mac OS® X v10.6.4 or later; 64-bit Intel® processor (see Autodesk.com for system recommendations)

Contact: www.autodesk.com