A Brief History of David Biedny
David Biedny is a leading digital effects, graphics and multimedia expert. His writing, educational efforts, multimedia and special effects work have enjoyed global exposure. He’s a legend in the Macintosh industry, and was right there at the beginning – he got his first Mac on January 24th, 1984, and instantly became the go-to Mac troubleshooter for the first generation of Mac users in New York City. He was a founding member of the New York Mac Users Group (NYMUG), and headed up their highly popular Graphics SIG (Special Interest Group) and Advanced User SIGs for over 5 years.
In 1985, Biedny was brought in as part of the founding editorial team of MacUser magazine, and quickly rose from Associate Editor to Technical Editor. Since then, he's written for just about every major Macintosh magazine - Macazine, MacWorld, MacAddict - and is currently a contributing editor for MacLife magazine. He was the primary author of the very first book ever written on Photoshop, "The Official Adobe Photoshop Handbook" (Bantam), and his "Photoshop Channel Chops" (New Riders) is a cult classic, the most collectible computer trade book of all time. He also co-authored "Adobe Photoshop: A Visual Guide" (Addison Wesley).
Biedny was formerly President and Technical Director of Incredible Interactivity Inc., a pioneering New York based firm which created multimedia projects and products for companies such as General Motors, Knoll International, Apple Computer, HBO, American Express, The American International Group and AT&T, among others. At the time, he was also a faculty member of the School of Visual Arts, teaching in the undergraduate and MFA programs, with a concentration on design principles for interactive media and imaging. David has has taught and lectured at NYU, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, the Seybold Seminars, and is currently a faculty member at the Yale School of Drama, where he teaches a class on digital media for scenic designers.
Biedny has also been a key interface/feature consultant/beta tester for many of the major multimedia tools currently on the market. His involvement with computer graphics includes participating as a feature and interface consultant for key applications such as ImageStudio (the first mass market digital retouching software for the Macintosh platform), PixelPaint, ColorStudio (Biedny conceived the Shapes vector graphics capabilities unique to that product), Altamira Composer (which was acquired by Microsoft) and Photoshop (David was user #4, spec'd many of the key features of the product, and was included in the credits for Photoshop 1.0). David was also a seed site for the original Power Macintosh computer, and has been credited with helping conceive of the "Power Macintosh" name. In 1998, David produced an award-winning video training series, "Photoshop Inside and Out". His consulting clients have included Microsoft, HBO, LucasFilm, LucasArts Entertainment, Landor Associates, Readers Digest, Broderbund Software, Ziff Davis, Ressmeyer Starlight and the Federal Trade Commission, among others.
Working at Industrial Light and Magic, he created digital effects for motion pictures including “Hudson Hawk”, “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”, “The Rocketeer”, “Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country”, “Hook” and “Memoirs of an Invisible Man”. His former company, IDIG (Interactive Digital Intelligence Group), created 35 visual effects shots in 35 days for the movie "Spawn", and Biedny also provided visual effects for David Arquette's directorial debut, "The Tripper".
In recent years, David has created animation and video projections for a number of theatrical productions, working with the award-winning projection designer Wendall K. Harrington. David produced projection media (using the Mac exclusively) for “The Good Body”, “Drowning Crow”, “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All”, “Tommy Tune: White Tie and Tails”, “Nixon in China”, the Simon & Garfunkel reunion tour, “Arjuna’s Dilemma”, and the Chris Rock 2008 New Year’s Eve show. Biedny was also commissioned to produce two Hi-Def music videos for Elton John's 60th Birthday concert at Madison Square Garden.