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Adobe just released a bunch of updates for CS3 products:

Photoshop

Photoshop version 10.0.1 fixes a number of issues, such as bugs converting to CMYK in certain profiles, speedups for a few cases, a crash for BMP format saving, and crashing when Microsoft Intellipoint software is installed.

It also has a long list of printing fixes, which hopefully will address all of the printing issues that people have had with Photoshop CS3. I guess hoping they’ll all be addressed is a little unreasonable, but the fix list does cover a lot of ground that has been complained about quite often, such as poor color management, off-center printing, and Photoshop forgetting the printer settings for a document after printing a different document to a different printer.

Bridge

Bridge CS3 2.1.1 has a number of fixes, including a number of crashes and freezes in different cases. It even has a fix for a data loss issue: “data loss that could result from replacing a folder with another folder by the same name has been prevented.” Yikes.

Camera Raw

Camera Raw 4.3 adds support for a bunch of new cameras: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon PowerShot G9, Nikon D3, Nikon D300, Olympus E-3, Olympus SP-560 UZ, and the Panasonic DMC-L10. It also adds support for Canon’s sRAW format.

Lightroom

Lightroom 1.3 has a shorter update list, it adds support for the same cameras that Camera Raw got, and now had “updated” support for Apple OS X 10.5, “Leopard.” Does that mean it didn’t work with Leopard before, and now it does, or now it just works better? “Updated” is kind of a vague word.

Lightroom also now has an export SDK available, so you can write plug-ins to export from Lightroom to anything you want. The sample code gives you Flickr and FTP export plug-ins. This is just a prerelease preview, however, so they’re open to suggestions on how to change it, and you might not want to do a whole lot of development in case things change around in a few months.

Lots of people have been foaming at the mouth about the new print system in Photoshop CS3, and it sounds like a lot of people are using CS2 to print all of their photos and other Photoshop work just because it works in CS2 but not in CS3.

So now, several months after CS3 came out, we have the first signs of a possible fix to the issues, based on this post on John Nack’s blog:

We’ve made some changes & will be issuing an update to Photoshop CS3, but it’s not quite ready to be shared with the world at large.

If, however, you’re experiencing printing problems & would like to test the current code, please drop me a note. I’ll then ask our pre-release coordinator to send you an invitation, after which you can download the latest build and send us your feedback.

Now, there are a bunch of issues with printing in CS3: it doesn’t remember your settings from print to print under Windows — apparently this has always been the case on the Mac and everyone just lived with it, but Windows users are frustrated; there are also lots of weird bugs with it simply being impossible to get correctly centered, full-bleed prints with accurate colors in some situations. There’s no word on what exactly this is going to fix. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it mostly addresses the outright bugs where it’s impossible to get the right results, but doesn’t address the workflow issues of printer settings being reset every time you go to print another image. On the other hand, maybe it’ll cover every printing issue people have mentioned and everything will be unicorns and rainbows.

Adobe’s John Nack posted a blog entry pointing people to a Photoshop and Bridge performance survey that Adobe is doing. They want to know what areas are the most important to Photoshop users so that they know where to put most of their efforts. You should all run over there and put in your thoughts — no, I haven’t done it yet, stop calling me hypocritical — so that when the next version of Photoshop comes out you can at least shout, “Dammit, why didn’t they listen to me!!” instead of “Dammit, why isn’t this any faster!!”

This isn’t strictly DSLR-related, but I have to assume that 99% of you use Photoshop, so I figure it’s my duty — yes, duty! — to let you know that Adobe has posted updates for Photoshop CS2 and CS3 that address a “critical” vulnerability in some of the file import filters:

Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Photoshop CS2 and CS3 that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these potential vulnerabilities to take control of the affected system. A malicious BMP, DIB, RLE, or PNG must be opened in Photoshop by the user for an attacker to exploit these potential vulnerabilities. Users are recommended to update their installations with the patches provided below, and Adobe encourages all customers to be cautious before opening any unknown file, regardless of which application they may be using.

I know “OMG THAT JPG HAS VIRUS!!!11″ was an old joke on the Internet, way back in the good old days — although I guess you wouldn’t have had lolcat grammar back then, so just ignore my anachronism. It’s so surreal to see it actually come true and have it be possible to let someone take control of your computer just by opening a picture. Not that this is the first time it’s happened, either, Microsoft has had their fair share of image format vulnerabilities. I just still can’t get over how weird it is.