one of the hardest things for me to transition to mac os x is getting my workflow in photo processing to be as efficient as my pc workflow. i feel like i should be able to do the same things that i have been doing, but i just don’t seem to be using the tools right.

the biggest thing is that the mac uses the ALT key instead of the PC which uses the CTRL key for shortcuts. for auto-levels and auto-contrast, it can be as much as a four key shortcut and the keys are different! i couldn’t figure out how to do auto-contrast, even though i thought i was hitting the correct keys. eventually, i found out that you can remap the keys in photoshop to create your own shortcuts.

this has made using photoshop so much easier on me. this probably means, though, that i won’t be able to use photoshop on somebody else’s mac. kind of a bummer, but i don’t really plan on using anyone else’s mac, i guess.

if you want to see what a modern day ghost town looks like, go to downtown redwood city on a sunday at lunch. it’s eerie. all of the restaurants and shops are closed. i met up with geoff yesterday and thought that we would be able to find a place to eat and everywhere we went was just shut down.

we eventually found a mexican restaurant that was open off main street and had lunch, caught up, and waxed philosophy. afterwards, we went in search of a starbucks (because surely starbucks wouldn’t be closed on a sunday!) and chatted a bit at the train station starbucks. we were just looking back at how times have changed in a year.