dynamic image tool

[camner]

I hope you will accept this as a query and not a nag, Richard. In late August you indicated you were close to releasing an update to the Dynamic Image Tool, a wonderful action I use regularly. I know you are working on many projects (perhaps thinking about an update to HPE for v5?), but I hope you won't mind a followup question about whether this is still on your "to do" list for the not-too-distant future.

Thanks!

[Richard_Lynch]

I was actually working on this on Sunday, and just ran out of time. THere were a bunch of little odds and ends to correct--far more extensive than I thought. I hope to have it done in a day or two but other obligations keep getting in the way.

[camner]

Thanks for your prompt reply. Good news, indeed! I'm looking forward to the update of this great tool.

[Richard_Lynch]

Several months later that i realized i finished this and never posted it. I've got the DI tool for Elements 5 (and Elements 4) up on the website finally...

duh.

See here;

http://hiddenelements.com/elements5_tools.html

[camner]

Thank you very much! I figured you had gotten busy with HP 5 and hadn't been able to finish the Dynamic Image tool.

Will all the HP 5 tools work in HP 4 or just some of them?

[camner]

Ah, a followup question or 2...

1. There is a warning on the HE5 tools page to use the tools only on a PC. Will the DI posted there work on PE 4 Mac?

2. Perhaps I can infer from the layout of the page that the version of DI posted there is NOT a free upgrade from the older DI (I believe it was released for PE 3?). Am I correct about this? (No editorial comment is being made....it's just a question).

Thank you!

[Richard_Lynch]

Originally Posted by camner

Ah, a followup question or 2...

1. There is a warning on the HE5 tools page to use the tools only on a PC. Will the DI posted there work on PE 4 Mac?

Go to the Elements 4 section and there is an Elements 4 DI tool -- I updated the tool and developed materials and installation for both.

Originally Posted by camner

2. Perhaps I can infer from the layout of the page that the version of DI posted there is NOT a free upgrade from the older DI (I believe it was released for PE 3?). Am I correct about this? (No editorial comment is being made....it's just a question).

Thank you!

To me upgrades are free if a) i made a mistake originally, or b) i want to update an existing tool for other reasons. It takes countless hours (countless, because I don't count them--in that i may not want to know) to develop the materials, add supporting mateerials, update the website, get the information out, and provide post-purchase support. I really have to make something on new versions, or it isn't worth doing. I hope i make tools that are worth the cost.

[camner]

Thanks for the quick response. It appears from your answer that the DI for version 4 and the DI for version 5 are a bit different? Am I correct about this? If so, I'll probably wait until PE 5 for the Mac comes out (hopefully soon...) and then buy DI then. If they are the same, please let me know and I'll go ahead and purchase now.

I understand completely about charging for the upgrade and have no problem at all in paying for it (the cost is quite reasonable!). I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something on the site.

[Richard_Lynch]

The installations are different, and the tools are mostly the same. I didn't want to have to go through support with the new installation for tools on the PC, so I took some extra time and made an installer instead.

In an aside, I wonder what adobe has in mind for Elements for Mac, considering the new mac allows running PC programs, I am guessing they may even not do Elements 5 for Mac...It may be why they delayed last time. They seem to be on a 12 month schedule for Elements releases for PC now, and it may be that they'll just stick to that. A guess, but from a marketing standpoint, i wonder if it just makes a lot of sense now...

[camner]

I wonder the same thing (about PE5 for the Mac). Yet, there is a huge installed base of PowerPC Macs out there, and at this point, running Windows on the new Intel Macs is not just an "works out of the box" experience (not to mention the cost of Windows if one does the right thing and buys a legal copy). So, although Adobe may abandon a Mac-specific version after a while, I would think (I hope that this is more than "the wish is father to the thought") that Adobe would support a Mac-specific version for a little longer.

If what I read is correct, creating a Universal Binary is not trivial for some apps. Especially if PE (P, really) was "performance tweaked" for a PowerPC processor, the porting may not be as straightforward as it is for other software.

In the past, have the Mac and PC versions of PE/P had exactly the same functionality?

[Richard_Lynch]

In the past, have the Mac and PC versions of PE/P had exactly the same functionality?

Once upon a time that was the case. and after adobe spent several development cycles trying to make mac and pc versions of all their flagship items exactly the same cross platform, they departed from that attempt at cohesion. Why? um, dunno. Adobe makes a lot of choices i just don't have the information to fathom, and i think they ignore some very key user aspects to the problem when they make some of the decisions that they do. For example, is there any dang-blasted reason you can think of why it is necessary to change implementation of actions in EVERY version of the program? if anything has put a damper on my development time, I would say that was the biggest hamperer. Granted i don't expect them to think about ME, and really i am probably one of few who benefits from the constant change, but you'd think they'd get a plan and stick it out a bit. For example, in Photoshop i have been reporting the same actions bugs since version 7...they seem content to keep those.

They do know things that we don't, i can be assured of that. But I would think consistency was a benefit.