Photoshopin' @ 8

Hovering above Monday's keynote congregation, this friendly ghost felt slightly chagrined as his favorite fruit company unveiled the latest in OS/Fax integration. Tugging his fanciful headdress in contempt, the Jaded one grumbled at Apple's newfangled approach to firing off cease and desist faxes with touch of a key. But yet, he was elated at news that ex-comrade and prophecy preacher, Robert Morgan, had finally thrown in the towel on the Apple/Disney merger rumors that were fueled for nearly half a decade.

Straying from fantasia, Kasper is busy digesting pre-chewed morsels of info that suggest the termination of FileMaker 7. According to his entourage of hooligans, the in-house move of subsidiary, FileMaker Inc., was ordered to help transition the software into an iApplication, and database component for the company's upcoming iWorks office suite.

Concurrently, sources are reporting that hardware tweakings to the company's PowerBook line, suspiciously omitted from Monday's announcements, will be presented via Newswire sometime in the immediate future. Modern day Picassos rejoiced at news that these portable palettes would be in ample supply shortly after their introduction.

Speaking of graphics gurus, a number of Mr. Jade's admirable craftsman were recently caught knee deep in the latest beta of Adobe's image editing suite. These 64-bit ready versions of Photoshop 8 and ImageReady 8 have taken up the monikers of "Dark Matter" and "Taconite," respectively. Expected to debut shortly after the release of the 64-bit Panther OS, the suite sports a number of productivity and editing enhancements, as well as cleaner, speedier code.

For starters, sources raved over Dark Matter's new "Filter Gallery" module that allows users to quickly switch between, preview, and apply multiple filter effects from a single dialog window. Apparently, a listing of applied filters layers and settings are retained for multiple applications of the same desired effect, over multiple layers.

While on the subject of layers, this infamous creature is overzealous at the adoption of nested layer sets, the return of the airbrush tool to the floating palette — now sporting the title "Art Sprayer" — and the addition of "Color Replacement Brush."

Slightly Jaded, but weary of being faded, this friendly ghost further applauds the integration of advanced color matching tools and the addition of Pixel Aspect Ratio selection: allowing starving 21st century artists to conduct their business on a canvas comprised of non-square pixels. Further accessories include a histogram palette, path guided text, shadow highlight correction, a photo filter for warming and cooling of images, a "Scripts" sub menu, and tighter Image Ready integration.

Before he fully indulges in the appetizing array of Taconite's alluring flavors, this illusory mastermind has been ordered to have his chops appraised and abdomen securely harnessed. For as his pack of angry gnomes advise, the only thing worse than passing a stone is having to swallow one.