Hi everybody. It’s Thursday, and you know what that means. It’s time for “News Stuff!”

• First off; did Michael Tapes make some friends yesterday or what!!!! If you missed his post, he and the folks at Imagenomic, came up with a free utility that makes a JPEG from any Raw file, and it does it at lightning speed. I installed it yesterday myself, and I gotta tell you—it rocks (just read some of the comments from yesterday—Michael has a whole new fan club). So, my thanks to Michael for doing something so cool, and so useful, for the community, and secondly, for helping people out all day by answering their questions, troubleshooting the installs, and just being incredibly helpful to all who asked. What a great guest blogger!!!

• Sadly, Michael’s incredibly popular post overshadowed a special day yesterday that just doesn’t get the love it should. That’s right, yesterday was officially “National Punctuation Day” (here’s the link for details), and in honor of NPD, I wanted to recognize Seven people who daily throw themselves over the punctuation grenades I toss liberally into the first drafts of all my books, magazine articles, and even here on the Web.

First, thanks my incredible in-house book editor Kim Doty, to whom my Lightroom 2 book is dedicated. I can’t imagine the punctuation indignities she has suffered on my behalf, yet she soldiers on as if I know an ellipse from a semicolon.

To Cindy Snyder, who works alongside Kim in this battle, which includes me often forgetting entire words, and it’s up to her to figure out what I meant to say. She does not have an easy job.

To Kim Gabriel, who is often the last look before something goes to press, and the gatekeeper who stops many a dangled participle from leaving the grounds.

To Larry Becker, who reads this blog each day, which is often written while I’m half asleep, who probably sits there, shakes his head, and wonders, “What in the world does he mean?”

To Photoshop User Editor Issac Stolzenbach, who while editing my articles, must look over at Kim and Cindy, then they all smile, and just giggle.

To our in-house Web Editor, Aaron Westgate, who reads everything else I write for the Web, which is a job I can only imagine is as rewarding as moving piles of dirt. I feel for him.

To the long suffering Chris Main, Layers Magazine Editor, who has been editing my work the longest of anyone, and knows how badly I can mangle a phrase, yet he rarely mentions it unless our teams are meeting that week in Fantasy Football.

My humble thanks to these people, who each day do their darnedest (sp?) to make me look much smarter and more eloquent than we all I know I really am. Thanks you guys—and I hope you had a great National Punctuation Day! (See, I italicized this for no apparent reason).

• If you’re up in Chicago, make sure you mark your calendar to catch Dave Cross’s “Maximum Photoshop CS3 Tour” when it comes to town on October 20th (link). Also, tomorrow the aforementioned Ben Willmore will be bringing the “Photoshop for Photographers Tour” to Kansas City, Missouri tomorrow (Friday), and then onto St. Louis on the 29th (there’s the link). Lastly, our own Bert Monroy travels to Sacramento, Califorina with his Photoshop Creativity Tour on October 7. Here’s the link.
• I have a special video that I’m shooting this morning for posting here on the blog tomorrow, so I hope you’ll check back here then to catch it.

Have a great Thursday everybody!