On Saturday , Dec. 16 , a longsighted - meter friend and fellow of mine , Bruce Fraser , passed away . He buckle under after a short bout with lung Crab , a few workweek shy of his 53rd natal day . To many of us , he was a warm , gregarious human race and a loyal friend . To anyone who ever study his columns , reviews or books , he was a writer of wonderfully decipherable and often extremely opinionated prose . To those fortunate enough to see him speak , he offered valuable bakshis and legerdemain with a minimum amount of technobabble and a average helping of Scottish humor .
Bruce defined himself as a “ color eccentric person , ” and that he was . Long before any of us were pay attention to RGB , CMYK and ColorSync , Bruce was knee - deep in it , for the most part a result of his foiling and fascination with the first generation of scanners for the Mac . He turn that passion into his profession , moving from product reader and user to book generator , reader and guru . Later , as one of the co - founders ofPixelGenius , he became a computer software developer of kind , helping create a suite of Photoshop plug - ins because no one else was making the tools that he needed to use in his own work . Over the years we joked about the rise of “ Bruce , Inc. , ” but he never lose that interest in help oneself one more individual get past some trouble with Photoshop or digital picture taking . It was crucial to him that he not be viewed as some grand lord of the digital kingdom — although he savor that role — but as a regular hombre who was unbelievably felicitous that he could make a support doing something he loved .
When I first conform to Bruce , I was a author atMacWeek , and our common making love of picture taking led us to partake in experiences on the the digital imagery frontier . By the time I becameMacWeek’sreviews editor in 1990 , he was one of our primary contributors , wrick out reexamination after brushup of scanner , digital imaging applications , color direction tools and digital cameras . He was fair and considerate in his reexamination , but was never afraid to call a product risky when it was . To him software package and computer hardware development was a process that was never finished : something could always be made a picayune bit better , and to those developer willing to mind , he often provide valuable feedback . He was one of Photoshop ’s first big champions , and ultimately became a small-scale driver in the ontogeny of the app , regularly spur Adobe in mark and behind the scenes to make it better . Photoshop returned the favour by making hisReal World Photoshop(co - written with David Blatner ) a immense best - marketer .
Bruce work as hard forMacWeek’ssister publishing , MacUser , as he did for us , and , when those issue went aside , he brought his talents toMacworld , work as a worthful rudder to the magazine as digital imaging suppurate . alas for us , the demands on Bruce ’s metre , and the conflict inherent in his family relationship with Adobe and as a software developer , meant that we were able to use him less and less over the past few years , but he never ceased acting as an consultant and mentor to many of us atMacworld .
Bruce and I were close over the years , and while I have plenty of pleasant memories of us testing and discussing scanner , hard drive and printers inMacWeek’slabs , it is a week of medicine that lingers with me . During a sabbatic in 1994 , I rented a studio in San Francisco , and spent a workweek playing music with Bruce , Ric Ford ofMacInTouch , and another admirer . respite assured that I will never be mistaken for a musician . Bruce , on the other hand , was as invest a instrumentalist as he was a coloring material eccentric , and was just as generous with his time and cognition . To him , there was no difference between pushing us to stretch our fledgling natural endowment and telling us why we absolutelyhadto graduate our monitors . He was just glad to be there , diddle music with some champion .
The undulating circumstances of life brought me further and further forth from both reviews and San Francisco , and , as a result , I see less and less of Bruce in recent times . But , every clock time I run into him — in the lab , at Macworld Expo , or willy-nilly on the street — he greeted me with lovingness and fear for my cosmopolitan well - being . That ’s the form of bozo Bruce was . He had his burred side ( I did mention that he was extremely opinionated ) , but at heart , he was a nice serviceman .
I look over at my bookshelf and at a coup d’oeil , see five books that Bruce wrote ( you’re able to find many of themhere ) . I will continue to expend the techniques and tips that those books have taught me , long after the practical app they cite are gone , but , more importantly , I will cherish the fact that I sleep together the man who was behind those loudness . Bruce , Inc. might be no more , but there are thousands upon one thousand of people who were touch in some way by the thing he did . These days , that ’s a honest bequest to have .
Peace , my friend .
Here are link to some of Bruce ’s workplace on Macworld.com ( click here for all of it ): ? The Color Challenge ( are LCD monitors near enough for precision color work ? ) ? Inside Camera Raw ( we also posted an excerpt from his Peachpit record book on the same topic ) ? True Colors ( a classic on getting the best print out of your inkjet pressman ) ? Print Publishing Secrets ( a treatise about ColorSync )
