The Report is back...in a new home

It’s been a long while since we posted to the Luminous Works Report, so we thought we’d tell you why. From the perspective of our dear subscribers, little will change (except that we’ll be posting again!). Subscribing will continue to be free and we hope you’ll enjoy our reflections on creative topics throughout 2024.

The Problem with Substack

Last fall, we learned through various reliable sources that Substack has a Nazi problem. We are strong advocates for free speech but draw the line at sharing a stage with those who advocate for racial and ethnic violence. Like many writers on Substack, we thought the people behind the platform would enforce their own terms of service. As one prominent tech newsletter (Platformer) said in the announcement of their departure: “We didn’t ask Substack to solve racism. We asked it to give us an easy, low-drama place to do business, and to commit to not funding and accelerating the growth of hate movements. Ultimately we did not get either.”

Last month, Substack did ban a few publications, but not ones that make them money. So we moved to a new, reputable platform, beehiiv, that has reasonable content moderation. We’re new here, so we’ll see what time brings.

Adobe Software News

The Photoshop team continues to be busy and, in our opinion, helpfully so. In the most recent update, we’ve been given a new, easy way to create our own adjustment presets.

To create an adjustment preset:

1. Add Adjustment Layers configured to create the overall look you want

2. Click the plus “+” sign in the new Your presets section of the Adjustments panel

3. Give the new preset a name

4. To apply the preset in other images, just click it and Photoshop will generate a layer group with the adjustments you used. You can then refine them as necessary.

The Illustrator team has improved the Text to Vector Graphic feature. It’s still pretty awful, but getting better. InDesign continues to get nearly no new features, but its engineers keep swatting bugs. May they continue to do so!

Luminous Works Classes & Resources

To check out our classes both in-person and online, see our Class Calendar or List of classes (which can filtered by how you like to learn). Also, we’ve just started to offer templates for sale! See our Resources page for more on that as well as our many free tips and tutorials.