Last week, Adobe removed support for free Pantone colors across its Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator Creative Cloud applications. PSD files that contained Pantone spot colors now display unwanted black in their place, forcing creatives who need access to the industry-standard color books to pay for a plugin subscription (via my box).

“As we had” shared in June, Pantone decided to change its business model. Some of the Pantone Color Books that are pre-loaded in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign were phased-out from future software updates in August 2022,” said Erin Di Leva, Public Relations Manager for Adobe in a statement to The Verge. “To access the complete set of Pantone Color Books, Pantone now requires customers to purchase a premium license through Pantone Connect and install a plug-in using Adobe Exchange.”

Prior to the introduction of the Pantone Color Matching System, companies used individual color guides which gave inconsistent results as each ink company could interpret “red” as slightly differing shades. Even CMYK, another industry standard color matching system used in at-home printers, is seen as inferior as the required combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black can lead to slight variations. Pantone doesn’t require a combination of colors, making it more reliable for designers working on large projects.

While the Pantone FAQ states that “existing Creative Cloud files and documents containing Pantone Color references will keep those color identities and information,” Photoshop users are nevertheless

Adults who can’t or don’t want to get the updated booster formula from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna can get a shot of Novavax as their booster, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Food and Drug Administration said last week.

The new authorization applies to people who’ve gone at least six months since their primary vaccine and who have’t had any booster yet. About 48% of US adults are fully vaccinated but haven’t yet received the first booster dose.

Novavax has been available to adults and teens as young as age 12 as the original or primary vaccine, but this is the first time some people will be able to get it as a booster. Like the first two

Snapchat is giving users more powerful video tools through a new feature called Director Mode. It’s available starting today globally for iOS and Android.

Director Mode, first previewed in April, brings a handful of new features for filming and editing videos on Snapchat, including a few that are popular on other platforms. Green screen, for example, allows users to record videos with a background, similar to the TikTok filter of the same name. And dual camera, previously only available for iOS users, is a BeReal-esque feature that takes a front and back-facing photo or video simultaneously.

Other tools include quick edit, which allows users to trim and splice multiple videos together, and a camera speed feature to speed up or slow down videos. Director Mode is available via an icon on the main camera toolbar.

People can use Director Mode to make content to share with friends, but the emphasis on new editing tools comes as Snap tries to make a case for Spotlight, its TikTok competitor. Snapchat has introduced several programs to try to entice creators to make videos for Spotlight, including challenges that pay cash for top videos using different Lenses or sounds.

Boosting Spotlight usage is a priority for Snap. In an internal memo circulated in September, CEO Evan Spiegel said he wants 30 percent of Snapchatters using Spotlight every day in 2023. The company recently told investors that engagement on Stories was down; Snap laid off around 20 percent of its employees this summer.

Other platforms

Let’s start with the good things

WhatsApp’s new “Communities” feature, which will support communication across larger organizations, is beginning its rollout alongside the addition of 32-person video calls, the company announced Thursday.

The Communities featureswhich is WhatsApp’s take on Telegram’s Groups and Channels sections, were first announced in April alongside the addition of emoji message reactions.

Using Communities, the Meta-owned chat app will now allow users to “bring together separate groups under one umbrella with a structure that works for them,” Meta said. This could include ways to coordinate among school groups or neighborhoods.

“It [communities] makes groups better by enabling sub-groups, multiple threads, announcement channels and more,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “All secured by end-to-end encryption so your messages stay private.”

Within WhatsApp communities, you’ll be able to do a number of new things such as receive updates sent to the entire community and organize smaller discussion groups. There will also be new tools for administrators such as announcement messages that can be sent to the whole group and control over which groups can be part of the community.

In addition to communities, WhatsApp is also rolling out other new features that can be used in both groups and communities, such as in-chat polls for group decision making, the aforementioned 32-person video calls and groups that allow up to 1,024 members.

Communities is rolling out globally and will become available to everyone over the next few months, Meta said.