Windows 7

Windows 7 SP1

Microsoft have today released Service Pack 1 for Windows 7.
This is a mixture of all previous updates and bug fixes together with some new ones.
I will be testing the update this week to see if it has any impact on Photoshop/Lightroom/Exiftool etc use. If your PC is mission critical then you may wish to accept just normal updates and hold back on SP1 till I have tested here.
UPDATE:
Well its been a week now and there is nothing bad to report from my experiences of the SP1 update. I have noticed a few small improvements in responsiveness so I would suggest that if you run Windows 7 you give the service patch a go.
Stephen

Pen click animations in Windows 7

If you are getting the annoying “bloop” animations in Windows 7 when using a Wacom tablet pen then the following may be of use.

To turn these animations off:

1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor (Start:Run:gpedit.msc)
2. Navigate to User Configuration: Administrative Templates: Windows Components: Tablet PC: Cursor
3. Enable the Turn off pen feedback setting.

Retouching in Photoshop is much smoother without these animated cursors, I had got rid of them some time ago but they came back recently (possible after a service patch). I confirmed that the Microsoft tablet controls service had been switched off but obviously this associated setting was still in place.

 

Photoshop CS4 Windows 7 dragging an image to the Photoshop icon

Windows 7 now treats files dragged to application icons in the new apps bar as files to be “pinned” to menu of the application.

This can be useful for files you open regularly but a bit of a spoiler if your used to dragging image files to the Photoshop icon to open them.

The good news is that this fuctionality is still available – you just need to make sure you press the shift key whilst dragging the file to the icon and they will then open in the usual way.

Stephen