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Hi gang: This is a quick update because it’s after 3:00 am, and I am just beat. We had an amazing day today—the Expo floor was jammin’ today, and I saw lots of cool stuff, met lots of great people, and had a ball (The shot above is from the opening keynote). Here’s a quick recap:

  • I spent a lot of time with the gang from Wacom today, getting really into their new Intous 4 line of tablets. They had a hands-on lab where any attendee could follow along with a Wacom trainer as they showed you how to make the most of their new tablets, and I sat in on one of the sessions, and I learned a lot of cool new things that I never would have known. A number of vendors are sellling the new tablets on the floor, and people are buying them left and right. It’s one of those things you have to try for yourself, and then you want one SO badly!
  • I sat in for a while on RC’s class called “10 Things you Need To Know in Photoshop” and I was just blown away at the quality of what he was teaching, and how he was teaching it. He really has a gift for training, and it really made me proud that he’s on our team. I literally had to find him after the session and give him a hug. He was that good!
  • I heard great things about Corey Barker’s special effects class, people were still raving about Kevin Ames Live Shoot Pre-con, and the Photoshop & Video classes were so packed people were sitting on the floor.
  • The Expo Floor was packed today, and when I went by the Adobe booth today, I was Photoshop Principle Product Manager John Nack doing a session, and later answering questions at their booth. Grid Iron Software was there showing Flow and it was creating a lot of buzz around the show floor. OnOne had some nice show specials on their Plug-in Suite, as did Hoodman. Westcott had a huge booth doing demos all day, and all the show theaters were packed all day.
  • Today I did Part 2 of my Portrait Retouching class, and after building on the techniques we learned in Part 1, I then did a live photo shoot in class, and then took the images into Photoshop and retouched them live on the fly without any prior knowledge of the subject or what retouches might be necessary, and it really turned out to be a lot fun (it’s kind of cool seeing the techniques you just learned applied in a real world scenario right in front of your eyes).
  • Tonight was our now famous “Photoshop Midnight Madness” late-night session, and it was absolutely wild, hilarious, off-the-hook, insane (insert your own adjective here_____) kind of nite. We tried a bunch of fun new stuff, and it was just a riot!!!! You’ve never heard so much screaming, cheering, and laughing. At one point I thought the hotel would come and throw us out.
  • This conference made a lot of CS4 believers out of people who were on the fence. In the classes, there’s been a lot of focus on maximizing your time, getting quick return on your investment, and working as quickly as efficiently as possible, which are some of the key things Adobe did in this upgrade, and I think people are really starting to see and realize that. The big flashy features are what often grab the headlines, but I think today a lot of people realized that it’s all the little improvements, tweaks, and efficiency enhancements that really pay the bills. Right now that’s what everybody wants to learn—how to work fast, smart, and maximize their time and investment, and they are getting loads of it in every conference track.
  • Macworld magazine did a very nice write-up on the show on their home page. From their article, it appears that they came to the show yesterday and spent the day observing how we do things, the mood of the crowd, the traffic, ect. and then shared their observations in a piece called. “What Photoshop World can teach other trade shows.” Here’s a link to the story.
  • Jeff Revell of PhotoWalk Pro posted some shots of my band, “Big Electric Cat” playing at the nightclub “The Estate” during the attendee party. Here’s the link to check them out.
  • Don’t forget: if you want to come and check out the Expo Floor, today’s the last day (In fact, the show floor’s only open until 1:00 pm today, so this is your last chance), you can get a free Expo Pass by signing up right here.

That’s it for today gang. Have a great Friday and we’ll see you back here on Monday when I return to my regular blogging schedule.