Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Software from Adobe


A few students have reported trouble getting their software from Adobe. You should have Lightroom and Creative Suites 6 on your computer for the first week of class (next week). At the same time you definitely don’t want to order before you get your student number. This, combined with Adobe’s occasional foolishness in accepting your student IDs, may result in problems.

The solution is to download the 30 day trial version of the software. It can take several hours to download (I downloaded 5.5, and 6 may be different). That is with a high speed connection … don’t even try with a dial up connection. If your home only has dial up, come to school and log in here, but be prepared to spend the day. If you have high speed at home, that will give you the best service.

Once you have the trial software installed, you can use it free of charge for 30 days. Be careful not to reset your computer clock during the trial though. People tried doing this in the past to make the 30 days never end … except Adobe was quickly on to them, and made it so that as soon as you try to alter the date, the trial runs out.

And, if you think that you can just run trials over and over again, that will also fail. The only way this can work is if you completely reformat your hard disk … and even that might not work with the new activation processes they use. 

However, the trial is a good way to get started. Once you get the trial you will have a month of access to the programs, allowing you time to get your serial number for either the cloud or full versions of the software. Once you do, all you have to do is enter the activation code into your log in screen, and then you will have a legitimate version of the program. There is no need to uninstall the trial and reinstall the full version.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Photo of the Month

We are honored to use this blog posting to announce a new faculty member on Lambton's Digital Photography team. David Chidley will be teaching the Design and Composition course in September.

Dave's experience is vast, both as a commercial photographer and as a photojournalist. He spent 18 years working at the Calgary Sun, where he won a National Newspaper Award (the Oscars of the newspaper business) in 1997, and in 2001 he won the Canadian Press sports picture of the year. He won a second National Newspaper Award in 2007 of a photo of newspaper magnate Conrad Black making an obscene gesture at his trial. It was News photo of the year for Canada.

Dave worked for the London Free Press for several years as a staff photographer before going into freelance work, and now works for Canadian Press, Toronto Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, and other publishers. As well, a visit to his web site will show that he does commercial, wedding  and portrait work as well.

Just prior to signing on with Lambton, Dave spent the entire week in Toronto photographing the Canadian Open golf tournament. As the photo above shows, he photographed world leaders at last year's G20 summit in Toronto. Dave was one of the official photographer at the event and shot the official welcome, group photo, events, etc., for the government.

Richard Beland, program coordinator for the Digital Photography program said that hiring a famous professional like David Childey is a feather in the cap of Lambton College, and shows that the prorgam will feature the best possible training for aspiring photographers from teachers who are known experts in the field.