There is so much out there for the photographer, and every moment it seems that something else breaks the news. This year I have collected some ideas for every budget.

1)    Books – The Scott Kelby Digital Photography Book set is amazing. Each page is an easy to do instruction. Comes as a book set that is one of the easiest to follow out there. It will transform your photography. Full of tricks, gear selection, approaches, he makes it so easy to learn!

2)     Jobo Geo Data attachment – This cool device attaches to the top of your camera in the hot shoe. Each time you take a photograph it pegs the geographical location and matches it to the photo. Perfect for the traveler.

3)     Gorilla Pod – This is still a hot item and they have expanded the gorilla pod line, something for every camera with every lens. Cute, rugged, dependable, it’s a perfect traveler’s tripod.

4)     Rain Sleeves – Some of the best images take place in the least camera-friendly conditions. This protects your camera so you can get the shot. I have used this on the beach, in pouring rain; it has been a lifesaver!

5)     Hoodman LCD Magnifier Hood – LCD are a challenge in bright light. The LCD magnifier not only makes it dark for viewing, but it magnifies it for a better view. Hoodman also carry hoods for laptops, camcorders and other handy hoods.

6)     Camera Lens Mug – It won’t work on the camera but it is such a neat thing for the camera geek. Just don’t stick it on your camera when it’s full. This is on my personal gift list.

7)     Flash Benders – There is a whole host of these light shapers for the on-camera flash. They make the flash output softer and more flattering. It’s quick to attach, small to pack, but huge in the image quality improvement.

8)    Your last lens strap, the BlackRapid Camera Sling – This is the one I personally use. It places the camera, with lens, low on your bum, a bit like a gunfighter. It’s a quick draw to photography, huge improvement over the neck straps. Stops all that annoying bouncing around, and they have some videos so you can see it in action.

9)     Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 – Elements 9 has come a long way. It’s now very easy to use, being designed for the consumer market. It has all the key tools that you need to make wow ‘em digital images, specifically the Layers and Actions features. Plus you can buy 3rd party plug-in products to make things even better. The best part is the price: under $100 in most online stores.

10)    Photoshop and elements 9 plugin – Two of the best ones are OnOne’s Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 and Nik Software Suite of Effects. These are both a mainstay in my workflow. The effects they create are stunning, and all created by clicking a few buttons. You will be making art in no time.

Okay, so we do have an 11th, your bonus gift idea, and it’s something special from us.

11)     Gift Certificate from Inner Spirit Photography for your photographer – I am very proud of this one; your photographer friends will get a lot out of it. We have gifts for 2-hour seminars, to full week all-inclusive workshops in Italy. From photography, cameras, and Photoshop/Elements courses, I can enrich your photographer’s abilities.

See also: 13 Inspirational Camera Accessory Gifts

Each new version of Photoshop – 20 years worth – has been exciting for me. I love ripping open the box to find out what the new amazing tools and workflows do. I have never been disappointed.  But a while back I started to explore more of the things mentioned in the fine print, and some that weren’t even acknowledged there. These were cool things that I could really use, which isn’t always the case with the banner stuff.

This, their 20th anniversary edition, is no different. In fact it actually has a few more perks because it is the anniversary evolution. Many are unheralded and hidden.

With this edition, behind all the hype of eye candy bling tools (no disrespect, there is some very cool bling here) are some more subtle, but no less impressive, under the hood improvements and additions. Miss those and you are missing some of the most powerful additions and tweaks to the program. Some of them are really dramatic.

Adobe has done a few things to make it easier for you to find what is new. In the Window dropdown menu you can turn on the highlight option that naturally highlights the new or changed tools and functions. In the dock you can also turn on an info palette with more insights and links.

It’s almost always about speed, with this version bringing both platforms up to 64-bit performance. Yes, gloat PC users, you did have it first. With last minute changes that Apple made to their core program, Adobe had to do a massive rewrite of the program to make it Cocoa compliment. This rewrite was like a ripple through the program, so there are speed bump results beyond the 64-bit advantage.

Photoshop will now access more than 4 gigs of RAM, which is great since even laptops can get up to 8 GB of RAM memory. There is one caution: not all of your third party plug-ins work in 64-bit, and most will have to be rewritten as well. To access these plug-ins you need to turn the 64-bit function off to get them to work. It should not be long before all third parties have their patches available though. Some of the really complex plug-ins are begging patience until deep into the fall.

It’s fortunate that RAM has gotten more affordable because, for many of the new features, you will need lots of it. The math that the program needs and the space required to juggle its magic is mind-boggling. More than ever, “you can never have enough RAM” is the mantra.

It was great to see that the user interface has not been overhauled, so you won’t be spending your time finding things and building new workflows. There have been tweaks though; the scrubbers have been expanded to most of the tools, and some new icons have appeared. Some of the new features you can turn on and off. Explore the option boxes in the tool bar.  For example, in the magnifying option, turn on the scrubby zoom; drag the curser left to shrink, right to expand. I love this.

There is a fun term the programmers came up with for the Layers Styles; they are now “sticky”. This is great, and it means that you can change the defaults and those changes “stick”. For example, the annoying bright red default of the stroke style can now be default changed to black or whatever works best for you, even on the fly. Look for the Make Default button at the bottom of the palette.

A great step saver is the ability to drag an image from the desktop into your image. It places the new image as a smart object in its own layer. Another layer tweak is that you can change the opacity of multiple layers at the same time.

These are some of the unheralded changes that came under the directive, “Just do it.” I think it was from plaintive user cries over small items. There are many more of these little fixes, polishes and refinements to explore.

You can now use the ruler tool to not just figure out by how much the image needs to be straightened, but it will actually do the straightening. It rotates and crops the image all in one step. Just click on the straighten button in the options bar.  But wait, what if you just wanted to square it up then clone in the white gaps? You can turn the crop step off or step it back in your history palate.

In the actions palette you will find a new LAB Black and White process. You will find this action in the fly out menu in the palette; it’s that little triangle in the upper right corner.

Adobe has brought Bridge back into Photoshop itself; it’s a Mini Bridge! Part of their improved workflow quest, Mini Bridge can be a dockable palette. For a mini feature it is pretty well equipped. You will find the button to the right of the Bridge icon in the application bar. Bridge needs to be running in the background. It has full-bodied navigation options, drop down menus to folders, and Collections. It works with pods; you have navigation pods and preview pods. All of the viewing options are customizable, and you can even launch a slide show from it. Dragging an image from Mini Bridge onto an open image will place that image as a smart object in its own layer. There is more and it’s worth exploring.

While new and very powerful tools have been added, some of the older ones have been effectively tinkered with. The Sharpen tool is one. A protect detail checkbox now appears in the options bar, making it clever and more effective.

The color picker tool has also been empowered, just in time for the addition of the new bristel brush effects. The selection crosshairs now appears inside of a color sample ring, the CSR. The inside bottom of the ring is the last color, and the top half is the new selection color. There is an outside grey ring to act as a buffer from the other colors to keep it clean. This is perfect for getting colors when painting on the fly. There are a couple of other options. There is the HUD wheel, (Heads Up Display, love this stuff) color picker. (It requires OpenGL.) It’s a color wheel with a hue block inside. You can set them in Preferences > General.  The very cool thing is you can bring these all up with quick keys.

Yes, in spite of all the mouse and tablet advancements, Adobe is still ramping up the quick keys for power users. If you aren’t learning the quick keys, you really should indulge. The CSR color picker still comes up with the Alt/Option key click. The HUD comes up with Windows – Shift+Alt+right-click, with Mac – Control+Option+Command. Release those keys then temporarily press the spacebar to maintain the selected shade while you select another hue.

There are plenty more of these tweaks, refinements, and subtle but powerful upgrades to the program. Of course, this article does not even touch on the big things, which you probably have heard about. To find more, try a Google search on Photoshop CS5 upgrades. Take a trip over to Doctor Russell Brown’s website and blog. He’ll make you laugh and inform you.

This is an upgrade fitting of a 20th anniversary.  She has a great speed advantage, improvements throughout, and a swath of new tools. The third party plugins will catch up, if they have not already. Oh, one last thing, there has been an update to the CS5 release; all those little quirky bugs and refinements are smoothed out. You can download and install them if you haven’t already.

There is always dangerous habit of getting an upgrade and just poking at a few major things then approaching things as you always have. Explore these new things, take advantage of them, and integrate them into your workflow. Have a great time with the hidden treasures in this Anniversary release.

No doubt about it, Dave Cross knows his stuff and has fun with it. As usual, nearly every chair had a bum in it, paying rapt attention to the 20 foot screens. Dave has this great ability to move it along but seem like he is unhurried. The seminar was presented by Kelbytraining.com. The company really knows how to get you into the flow of things; from supporting vendors with great special offers, to a perfect sound system to catch all of Dave’s tips.

One of the more enjoyable perks of the seminar is the workshop booklet, with lots of places for personal notes. The manual, Dave explained, covers every step, every photo he talked about. The package also came with a disc of the original images he used for teaching so the students could experiment with them later.

All ages were in attendance; behind me was a 12 year old boy complete with iPad and Macbook Pro. Further back were some old guys muttering with happy grins.

Lots to grin about. Dave showed some of the magic that is in Photoshop 5. I heard lots of “Well, I like that!” There are some huge leaps forward in this version.

Dave has a book out on Selections. He suggested that he could abridge it and just use the new Photoshop 5 selection tool. His demo of that defined his recommendation, even wispy hairs got snagged.

Being the selection expert, he showed a layers trick to select a tree full of delicate leaves from a background of cloudy blue sky.

Naturally he showed off some of the new flashy tools in Photoshop 5. (I am a reviewer for Adobe Photoshop; I will have a full review article out soon.) Pretty much all he taught was applicable to the other CS versions.

A lot of his instruction was on workflow speedups, all very effective.

These seminars come to Calgary once or twice a year and are very affordable. The next time you hear of it, if you have any interest in Photoshop at all, book a seat.