Make PNGs Not Suck

Mac users, read The Sad Story of PNG Gamma, and then download GammaSlamma.

In short, PNG is a potentially useful file format hampered by a well-intentioned but disasterous attempt at simple color management. But when you remove the bogus Gamma flag from a PNG file, you've got an elegant and free cross-platform lossless image format.

Windows users can aparently strip out PNG Gamma flags with PNGCRUSH.

I've tested neither of these, so please let me know if they work for you!

Rebel Update

Good news abounds!

Amazon now says The Guide "Usually ships within 3 to 6 weeks," which is code for "Hey, it finally occured to us to order some copies of this book that we've been accepting preorders on for over half a year." My insiders say that they should actually be shipping all preorders in about two weeks.

Amazon customers, please post a comment when and if you get a message from Amazon indicating that the March ship dates were a big, hateful lie, designed to cause strife and keep you from making a movie.

Some enterprising Amazon Marketplace sellers have some copies for sale, some of which are available now. Check out "More Buying Choices" on the Amazon product page.

Barnes & Noble show that they ship The Guide within 24 hours. Rock on, BN.

And of course Peachpit is still happy to sell it to you online or at Macworld next week.

SciTech Awards Announced

Scientific and Technical Achievements to Be Honored with Academy Awards

Of note:

To Florian Kainz for the design and engineering of OpenEXR, a software package implementing 16-bit, floating-point, high dynamic range image files.

To Peter Litwinowicz and Pierre Jasmin for the design and development of the RE: Vision Effects family of software tools for optical flow-based image manipulation.

Congrats Florian, Pete, Pierre, and the rest of the winners!

A few little-known facts about the Nerd Oscars:

  • You don't get nominated. You apply! But you can win without applying, because if your application is investigated, so will be any similar technologies.
  • The Academy announces which technologies it is investigating, so that if you have a similar one you can submit it for consideration.
  • As you can see, the awards are announced well in advance of Oscar night.
  • The awards are handed out in a seperate ceremony that is briefly referenced in the Oscar broadcast, usually when you are in the kitchen getting snacks.

 

Premiere Pro Back to Mac

Adobe Production Studio To Be Available for Both Mac and Windows

Yay!

I've been a Final Cut user since its first release, and it's great. But when I got my MacBook Pro I decided to quit cold turkey and learn Premiere Pro, for the simple reason that its integration with After Effects stands to create some kind of Voltron-like super robot of editing and effects capability. I haven't been sorry—and now I'll be able to enjoy the Production Studio goodness Macside.

I'm filing this under The Guide because a seamless path between NLE and AE is a big part of the workflow. FCP users will either require Automatic Duck or some serious time on their hands (I've done both myself).

Way to go Adobe. Welcome back where you belong Premiere!