Subscribe via RSS
Graphic Mac on Facebook
Graphic Mac on Twitter
Follow me on Pinterest
A great article for mental masturbation is available from Digital Web Magazine covering the principals of design.
The principals of design
The principals of design
Add noise with InDesign CS2′s drop shadow feature
In the screenshot above, I have purposely exaggerated the Noise amount to illustrate the results. Notice the randomness of the color dots, once printed they will actually appear smoother and more natural if you use the right amount. I recommend that you use nothing darker than 20-25% black on a white background for a nice natural soft shadow, but adding noise will allow you to go a bit darker if you wish. Experiment with the settings, I’m sure you will be quite happy with the results.
Add noise with InDesign CS2′s drop shadow feature
If you’ve upgraded to InDesign CS2, and you use drop shadows, you have have noticed a new feature in the drop shadow dialog box. It’s called Noise. To understand how valuable this addition is, take a look at a piece you’ve done with drop shadows on a white background, or a solid color background. Notice any banding? Does the shadow not “blend” with the background? Does it ever look like the drop shadow is simply another colored object? Enter Noise. What adding Noise does to your drop shadow is it breaks up the drop shadow color into random dots, rather than a smooth gradient of color. Between using Multiply and adding Noise, your drop shadows should look much more natural, and blend much better with background colors.
Getting better drop shadows in InDesign
Pick-up stray pixels with the Magic-Wand tool in Photoshop
Pick-up stray pixels with the Magic-Wand tool in Photoshop
When you’re editing your images in Photoshop, and you’re trying to make a selection using the Magic Wand Tool, you may find that the tool leaves behind a few stray pixels. The easiest way to pick them up is with you selection made, choose Select>Modify>Smooth from the menu bar.
Backing up your iTunes library on multiple CD/DVDs easily
Go to iTunes>Preferences and select the Burning tab. Click the Data CD or DVD button. Now all you have to do is create a playlist and drag your entire library into it and click the Burn button. iTunes will figure out the best way to split up the songs, burn the CDs and ask for another blank CD when it’s ready.
Backing up your iTunes library on multiple CD/DVDs easily
In the creative business, you tend to have a few late-nights. One of the things that gets you through them is music. Personally, I have a few thousand songs, but my wife has something in the very high 5-figure range. I regularly back up her collection to an external hard drive and DVD. But many times, neither of those is an option. Thanks to Bryan at the MacMinute forums for providing the obvious and easiest way to do your iTunes music backups:
Backing up iTunes libraries
Combining Photoshop layers losslessly
Combining Photoshop layers losslessly
If you have the occasion to combine all your layers in your Photoshop document, yet still have access to all the layers at the same time, you can use this little trick to do it. Create a new blank layer on top of all your other layers and hit Command + Shift + Option + E. This merges all the visible layers onto that new layer you created AND keeps all the old layers intact for further adjustment.
Add round corner effects to any path in InDesign
Add round corner effects to any path in InDesign
Did you know the Corner Effects feature in Adobe InDesign works on ANY corner, not just rectangular shapes? You can get a rounded corner effect on a path shaped like an L – without having to hand draw it with the Bezier Curve tool to edit it for the effect.
OSX Dashboard keyboard shortcut
Once you’ve used F12 to view your opened Dashboard widgets, it’s a pain to have to grab the mouse and click the “+” sign to open the Dashboard bar to view other widgets you have installed. Luckily, there is a keyboard shortcut: Command = (equal). This will toggle the Dashboard bar on and off.
OSX Dashboard keyboard shortcut
OS X Dashboard
Adjust skin tones in Photoshop easily
Many times, adjustments made with either Levels or Curves can destroy detail and affect colors you don’t want to change. Here’s another way that isn’t quite as drastic and limits the adjustment only to the colors you want. 
First, select the area you want to edit (in this case, the face) and feather the selection a little to create a soft edge. Now, create an Adjustment Layer using the adjustment layer button at the bottom of the layers palette and select Hue/Saturation. By using an adjustment layer, we don’t lose the original and don’t have to bother saving the adjustment as a copy. Next, from the drop down menu, select the color you wish to adjust, in this case it’s Red. Now start moving the sliders around and watch the unwanted color disappear. Or if I really WANTED to look sunburned, I could add more red to the already red areas. You can see the results of a slight Red adjustment in the photo below. Notice that only the red areas were affected. 
The changes I made were purposely drastic (the skin tone now looks too flat) to show the differences. Obviously, you must look at each image individually and adjust accordingly. The guy on the left is still ugly, but at least he doesn’t look sunburned!
Adjust skin tones in Photoshop easily
One of the most difficult color adjustments to do is skin. Too much red and you look sunburnt, not enough and your skin takes on a shade of yellow that can only be compared to an infants dirty diaper after eating peas. In the photo below, the handsome devil on the right looks pretty good, but that ugly guy on the left looks like he spent a little too much time in the sun the day before.
Original image with redish skintones
First, select the area you want to edit (in this case, the face) and feather the selection a little to create a soft edge. Now, create an Adjustment Layer using the adjustment layer button at the bottom of the layers palette and select Hue/Saturation. By using an adjustment layer, we don’t lose the original and don’t have to bother saving the adjustment as a copy. Next, from the drop down menu, select the color you wish to adjust, in this case it’s Red. Now start moving the sliders around and watch the unwanted color disappear. Or if I really WANTED to look sunburned, I could add more red to the already red areas. You can see the results of a slight Red adjustment in the photo below. Notice that only the red areas were affected. Adjusted skintones