Tagged: Adobe

The Graphic Mac Link Box #3

General / Internet
24 Jun, 2011

The Graphic Mac Link Box A collection of interesting or otherwise helpful links I’ve come across recently that you may not have seen:

Prepare for Pixelmator 2
For those who want full featured image editing but don’t want the price tag attached to Photoshop, Pixelmator is the perfect app. Pixelmator 2.0 will be available later this summer via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store. For now, anyone who doesn’t have the app can purchase the currently available version of Pixelmator on the Mac App Store for $29 and receive a free upgrade of Pixelmator 2.0 once it is released.

Control your privacy in Google Chrome
I love Google Chrome, it’s a great Web browser with plenty of features and extensions. The problem is, it was made by Google; so you know they’re collecting all sorts of data while you’re using it. Ahad Bokhari has a great tutorial on how to protect your privacy while using Google Chrome.

Photoshop CS5 vs. CS5.5
If you work primarily in Adobe Photoshop, you may be wondering what the difference between PS CS5 (v. 12.0.4) and PS CS5.5 (v. 12.1) actually is. The answer is: absolutely nothing. John Nack explains on his blog.

Google stands by 15-minute refunds
Google offers a 15-minute time frame to receive a refund on apps purchased in the Android Marketplace. While many users complain that it takes that longer than 15-minutes to download and configure some apps, it’s still better than Apple’s refund time of zero!

View Instagram stream on your Mac
Screenstagram allows avid Instagram users to view their Instagram photo stream as a screensaver on any Snow Leopard Mac desktop or laptop.

40 Online generators for web designers and developers
Web forms, charts, button makers, AJAX plugins, fonts, color schemes, CSS menus, and more. Tripwire Magazine has a list of 40 great generators to save you some coding time.

Prevent color shifting in your Photoshop image by adjusting only the gray values

Photoshop
21 Jun, 2011

When you’re using Curves, Color Balance, Levels, Hue & Saturation, and other color correcting filters on your Adobe Photoshop image, it’s always best to use an Adjustment Layer (the icon at the bottom of the Layers panel shown at right). Doing so allows you to make further adjustments to your image later on using the Adjustments panel, leaving the original image intact. It also gives you an easy way to adjust only the gray values in your image, thus preventing color shifting.

Using the Luminosity Blend Mode allows you to adjust only the gray values in your image

First create an adjustment layer using the color adjustment of your choice. In the example above, I’ve chosen Color Balance. Next use the Blending Mode drop down menu at the top of the Layers panel to set the layer blending mode to Luminosity.

Now when you tweak the settings in your Adjustments panel, Photoshop will limit the changes to only the gray values in your image. As you can see in the image above, leaving the Blending Mode of the Adjustment Layer set to Normal introduces a lot of color shifting in the image. By changing it to Luminosity, Photoshop prevents it from taking place.

VectorScribe takes vector path and shape editing to new levels

Illustrator / Site News
14 Jun, 2011

Please join me in welcoming The Graphic Mac’s latest site sponsor, Astute Graphics. The first time I heard of Astute Graphics was back in 2008 when I reviewed Phantasm CS, a new plugin suite for Adobe Illustrator. In that review, I called Phantasm CS “the most useful plugin set I’ve ever come across for any version of Adobe Illustrator.”

Today I want to introduce you to VectorScribe, the latest plugin from Astute Graphics. VectorScribe allows you to quickly and easily create and manipulate vector paths in Adobe Illustrator CS3 to CS5 through the use of several new tools and panels.

VectorScribe makes complex path operations easy

Because there are two versions of VectorScribe, Designer and Studio, and the tools are so incredibly powerful and in-depth, I’m just going to briefly overview them here. But before I do, let me just say that if you’re the type of Illustrator user who only opens AI once or twice per month to quickly edit an existing logo, VectorScribe probably isn’t for you. But if you spend a good amount of time in Illustrator, working as a logo designer, architect, illustrator, or cartographer, then you’ll definitely enjoy this plugin! (more…)

How to turn on or off InDesign stroke scaling

InDesign
19 May, 2011

Adjusting your stroke weight scaling setting can save lots of frustration

When you’re scaling objects in Adobe InDesign that contain a stroke, you may have been frustrated by the fact that the stroke scales with it – or maybe you wish it did.

InDesign offers a somewhat hidden feature that allows you to customize the stroke when scaling. In the flyout menu of the Transform panel, simply check or uncheck Adjust Stroke Weight when Scaling to adjust the behavior accordingly.

Free Freehand group files antitrust lawsuit against Adobe

General
12 May, 2011

There was a time when the battle for vector creation dominance was a heated battle between Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand. Illustrator was the dominant player, but not by much. Freehand users were extremely loyal, and the application offered many features that are still absent in Illustrator to this day. All of that changed in 2005 when Adobe acquired Macromedia and discontinued Freehand completely.

Freehand users were absolutely furious. To this day, Illustrator faces no real competition in the professional vector art creation world.

Out of nowhere (for me anyway), a group called Free Freehand has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Adobe Systems, Inc., alleging that Adobe has violated federal and state antitrust laws by abusing its dominant position in the professional vector graphic illustration software market.

I suspect that the group is seeking to have the code for Freehand sold to another party for active development, or donated to the open source community. At this stage of the game, I’m not sure if anyone could resurrect Freehands popularity among professional designers. Illustrator is a great program, and as part of the Adobe Creative Suite it is a staple product for every professional designer; a group that doesn’t take well to drastic change. But it will certainly be interesting to follow the lawsuit.

Two ways to master Adobe Illustrator’s text Tabs panel

Illustrator
11 May, 2011

Illustrator's Snap to Units tab feature makes it easy to set precise tabs

Adobe Illustrator’s Tab panel offers a little-known feature that helps you set tabs at specific measurement units on the ruler called Snap to Unit. It’s particularly helpful if you want to set several tabs at exactly the same increments.

To use it, simply select your tabbed text and open the Tabs panel (Command + Shift + T). If the Tab panel isn’t located right above your text, simply click the little magnet icon in the panel to line it up. Now choose Snap to Unit under the flyout menu in the Tab panel. Now when you click in the ruler to set your tabs, the tab stops will automatically jump to the nearest tick mark on the ruler as you drag the tab stops around.

If you’re like me and you don’t want to go through the hassle of using the menu, you can simply hold the Shift key down while dragging your tab stops around on the ruler.

Setting your preferred measurement units in Adobe InDesign

InDesign
21 Apr, 2011

Ever wonder why certain Adobe InDesign documents open with Inches as the measurement unit, and other open with points, or some other unit? InDesign is smart enough to remember what measurement unit the document was saved with.

You can quickly change the unit of measure in a document by right-clicking anywhere in the document rulers and selecting your preferred unit of measure.

If you’re annoyed when you open a new InDesign document and the unit of measure is not what you prefer, you can set the preferences to always create new documents using inches (or any other unit you prefer). Simply close all InDesign documents and set your preferred unit of measure in Preferences>Units & Increments. From that point forward, all new documents will use that unit of measure by default.

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5: digital content creation and new subscription plans

General
12 Apr, 2011

CS5.5 focuses on digital content creation

Adobe has announced the next version of their Creative Suite software. CS5.5 is heavily focused on designers wishing to take their work to tablet, smartphone, and EPUB users. All versions of their individual apps will be updated (except Acrobat, which remains at version X), as will the Creative Suites that comprise the apps – including InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Flash.

Beyond the numerous features for building interactive documents for use on iPad, iPhone, and other tablets and smartphones, there’s not much information available covering feature updates for print-based designers.

An Adobe CS5.5 pricing chart is available to help you decide what versions of the Suites or individual apps you wish to purchase.

This is where it gets interesting. Adobe has also announced a new month-by-month subscription plan for all their major Creative Suites and individual applications. For instance, you can rent Dreamweaver for as little as $19 per month, or the entire Creative Suite Web Premium for $89 per month. Serious Creative Suite users will most likely still want to purchase their preferred Suites, but for those who just need to complete a quick website and only own Design Standard can rent Dreamweaver for the price of a week’s worth of coffee at Starbucks.

With any Adobe Creative Suite update comes discussion of frequency and cost of updates. Adobe is making changes in this area. From now on, the Creative Suite will be on a 24-month development cycle for major upgrades (CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6, etc.). Every 12 months they will also release a mid-cycle update (such as the CS5.5 just announced) which will offer only minor feature enhancements, bug fixes, and code tweaking. Previously, Adobe released Creative Suite upgrades around every 18 months.

Unless you’re doing a lot of work destined for a tablet, smartphone or ebook reader, you’re probably going to skip this release and wait for Creative Suite 6. But if you do that type of work, CS5.5 appears to be a dandy update.

SneakPeek allows you to view your InDesign and Illustrator files on the Mac, iPhone or iPad

Mac & OS X
11 Apr, 2011

When Apple introduced Quick Look in the Mac OS it was a huge productivity boost to many designers and photographers. Quick Look allows you to view QuickTime compatible files in an overlay right in the Finder simply by selecting the icon of the file and pressing the Space Bar. It wasn’t long before users began seeking out plugins to view more file types than just PDFs and JPG images though.

SneakPeek Pro, by Code Line Communications (the company that brought us Art Directors Toolkit, arrived on the scene and took Quick Look to a new level. This simple Preference Pane allows you to view layered Adobe Photoshop files, Illustrator .ai and .eps files, and InDesign documents. SneakPeek doesn’t stop with just a preview image of your document though. The Quick Look overlay SneakPeek provides also displays information about Illustrator and InDesign files, such as the colors used, the images placed in the document, fonts used, and general file information such as multiple page previews (see the image below).

SneakPeek Pro for Mac allows you to view your graphics files in the Finder

I’ve found SneakPeek Pro for Mac to be a valuable addition to any designer’s toolbox. But with more and more designers working on the road, the ability to view graphics files on the iPhone would be nice addition. Thankfully, Code Line has finally brought the power and usefulness of SneakPeek to iOS device users.

SneakPeek renders previews of graphics files stored on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. It works by providing an “Open in SneakPeek” button to your favorite iOS applications like Mail, Dropbox, Safari and just about any app that gives you access to files.

SneakPeek for iOS allows you to view the same file information as the desktop version

With SneakPeek installed on your iPhone, you can check the InDesign file for a client’s new business card layout that just got emailed to you without waiting to get back to the office. And rather than viewing a jagged JPG file attached to an email of a new logo, you can view the actual Illustrator file. SneakPeek for iOS also offers you the same file information as SneakPeek Pro for the Mac – such as fonts, images and colors used.

SneakPeek Pro for Mac is available for $19.95, and offers a 15-day demo for you to test out. SneakPeek for iOS devices can be had for only $9.99 directly from the Apple App Store. Both versions of SneakPeek can save you a lot of time, and are well worth the cost of ownership.

Extensis brings Adobe Font Collection to web designers

General / Internet
1 Apr, 2011

WebINK brings Adobe fonts to web designers

Extensis announced that they are working with Adobe to deliver the Adobe Font Collection typefaces to the Web with its WebINK web font service.

Over 180 Adobe fonts are now available on WebINK, including some of their most recognized type families. Myriad Pro, Adobe Garamond Pro, and Chaparral Pro are just a few of the families available as Adobe Web Fonts.

“Extensis WebINK makes web site development and design easy, and integration with Suitcase Fusion 3 is a great feature for designers,” said Caleb Belohlavek, principal product manager for Type Development at Adobe. “We’re excited to collaborate with Extensis to provide customers with high-quality Adobe type for the web.”

Until recently, web browser and font license limitations have constrained Web developers to using only a handful of typefaces in their web designs. Extensis’ recent debut of WebINK breaks down these barriers, instantly delivering custom fonts straight to web browsers using WebINK’s global network. With WebINK, web designers simply indicate their chosen fonts using the @font-face rule in CSS. Developers can now choose from a huge array of fonts and quickly reference them within the site’s HTML code.

WebINK has a free 30-day trial, so you have a great opportunity to test your own website using custom web fonts. And don’t forget, WebINK is integrated into Extensis Suitcase Fusion, making it even easier to use.

Tagged: Adobe

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