Latest Posts in Creative Notes
Explore your font characters
A few weeks ago, while visiting the National Archives in Washington, D.C., I had the privilege of viewing the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The penmanship in the Declaration of Independence should be quite familiar to most Americans, as they've probably seen it dozens, if not hundreds, of times.
But viewing it in person, I was taken by the handwriting style of the documents, which were produced with just a bottle of ink and a feather quill pen. It's a style that falls into today's typeface category of Script. I mistakenly assumed that the penmanship belonged to Thomas Jefferson, the acknowledged author of this great work. As it turns out, although Jefferson was the author, the final document (and many other important documents of the time) was actually penned by Timothy Matlack, an early patriot and master penman.
The American Scribe typeface replicates the script found in the Declaration of Independence.
Because Matlack's lettering can be found on so many documents, it was possible to create a digital version of it as a typeface we can all use. And that is exactly what type designer Brian Willson did: his American Scribe typeface ($39) lets you generate your own Declaration-like documents, posters, movie titles, and so on.
Plug-in Suite 5 for Photoshop now available
onOne Software today announced the immediate availability of Plug-in Suite 5 for Adobe Photoshop. Designed to solve common problems facing photographers relating to color correction, enlarging, masking, and photographic effects, Plug-in Suite 5 combines full versions of six software tools in one package: FocalPoint 2, PhotoTune 3, PhotoFrame 4.5 Professional Edition, PhotoTools 2.5 Professional Edition, Genuine Fractals 6 Professional Edition, and MaskPro 4.
The suite supports Photoshop CS2, CS3, and CS4, and now includes a new onOne Panel which provides quick access to all products, Windows 64-bit support, and the ability to access select plug-ins from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 and Apple Aperture 2.1. Plug-in Suite 5 is available for electronic download immediately. Boxed copies will be shipping by December 5, the company says. The package costs $600 for new users; for existing users of previous versions, the upgrade price is $200. Customers who own any one or more of the suite's products can upgrade by visiting the company’s upgrade link. Purchased separately the products would cost $1,300.
"We are excited to announce...Plug-in Suite 5, our biggest product update and release in over four years," said Craig Keudell, president of onOne Software. "This release is the culmination of working closely with both professional and enthusiast photographers to ensure that Plug-in Suite 5 continues to solve the most common problems they face by providing high quality, easy-to-use products at an incredible value. We are particularly pleased about partnering with NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) to include content from some of the biggest names in the Photoshop community."
Apple updates Final Cut Server
Apple today released an update to its Final Cut Server software.
Version 1.5.1, a revision to Final Cut Server 1.5, addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues. Apple recommends this update for all users of Final Cut Server 1.5.
The new version does the following:
- Fixes possible slowdown in the check-in and check-out process to improve the time taken to check in or check out Final Cut projects.
- Fixes status display in the Downloads & Uploads window—Category is now set to "[None]" by default rather than "Other" when performing an upload.
- Corrects the aspect ratio on thumbnails for anamorphic clips. Thumbnails for clips marked with an anamorphic flag are now displayed correctly and not with a default 4:3 aspect ratio.
- Locked assets are now skipped in the archive process, which fixes an issue in which Final Cut Server would freeze when attempting to archive multiple locked files.
- Fixes archiving and restore for bundle assets. This corrects an issue that prevented archiving scripts from operating on bundle assets, and corrects an issue in which the filetype extension for non-folder-based bundle assets was lost after restoring from archive. It also ensures that restoring a bundle to a volume that has insufficient space will terminate without leaving a partially copied bundle behind.
- Improves reliability of adding and removing archive devices. This corrects an issue with Final Cut Server archiving to an unmounted archive device whereby a local folder was created for the archive. Now the archive process does not complete and gives an alert indicating that the archive device is unmounted.
This release also contains a significant number of smaller fixes aimed at improving overall stability.
For more detailed information about the changes, see the Release Notes available from the application's Help menu.
Ableton releases Max for Live
Ableton and Cycling '74 have announced the release of Max for Live. The product integrates the Max/MSP audio visual programming language with Ableton's Live 8 digital-audio workstation. Co-developed by Ableton and Cycling '74, Max for Live opens up the Live platform, allowing users to create and edit their own devices.
Ableton Live 8
Max for Live creations are integrated into Live's interface and workflow, just like native Ableton instruments and effects. Users can create unique synths and effects, algorithmic composition tools, or hybrid hardware and software music machines.
Users who don't want to build their own devices can access Max for Live's collection of instruments and effects, which are pre-made and ready to use alongside Live's native devices, the company says. Such users will also be able to take advantage of new devices created by other Max for Live users.
The Max for Live package includes the following:
- A Step Sequencer that lets users play up to four concurrent sequences, each with up to 16 steps.
- The Buffer Shuffler audio effect, which "shuffles" incoming audio by buffering, then replaying it in a specified order.
- The Loop Shifter, a creative loop playback device that uses MIDI notes as triggers for playback states, with each MIDI note representing one state.
- Pluggo for Live, which features more than 40 devices from the Pluggo collection, including audio effects and instruments, all re-built and optimized for use within Live.
- Various tools, building blocks, and tutorials, featuring numerous new MIDI and audio effects, ranging from common studio utilities like graphic EQs to creative MIDI utilities such as humanizers.
- A button matrix step sequencer that turns the button matrix of the APC40 or Launchpad into a hardware interface for programming MIDI sequences.
- The official Live API, which lets programmers access some of Live's inner workings, including tracks, clips, notes, names and values, and selection states.
The product is available from the Ableton Website and other music retailers for $299. Owners of Max 5 can purchase the Live software for $99. Product bundles of Max for Live plus Ableton Live 8 and Suite 8 are also available. Max for Live runs only with Ableton Live 8. The ideal configuration is an Intel Mac running OS X 10.5 or later.
Holiday newsletters with iWeb '09
Holiday newsletters bring your relatives and friends up to date about the year’s events, but designing, printing, and mailing them can be a chore. This season, save money and time by replacing a traditional newsletter with a Website created in iWeb '09. Here's how.
Catch up with yourself. Photos will be a big part of your site (naturally), and reviewing your iPhoto library can help you get organized and remember events worth sharing.
In iPhoto, select File -> New Smart Album and create an album of the year’s pictures. The Smart Album dialog contains three pull-down menus that give you contextual choices. For example, I chose Date, Is in the range, and then filled in the dates I wanted. There are lots of other parameters to choose from that will let you narrow down your photo choices. Check out the contents of the smart folder, choose the pictures you want to use for your newsletter, place them in a separate folder, and name it something like “Newsletter pictures”. Note that you can create as many albums as you want—say, to showcase your camping trip or a special family visit—or you can just assemble all your favorite photos into one album.
Get started with iWeb. Select File -> New Site and pick a theme. iWeb doesn't offer holiday themes, so Leaf Print or Watercolor may be appropriate choices, or maybe just choose a plain Black or White theme that gives you a neutral canvas on which to create your own holiday spirit. Select a My Albums page to begin. To add pictures, select View -> Show Media (or click the Show Media button at the bottom of the window) to show iWeb’s Media Browser. Then drag your iPhoto albums into the album template. New Photo gallery pages immediately open to show you each image, and there you can edit captions and other placeholder text.
Add, remove, and replace PDF pages
The other day, we looked at ways to extract content from finished PDF files using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. But extracting content is not the only reason to revisit a finished PDF.
For example, one of the many uses I have for Adobe Acrobat's PDFs is to produce quarterly reports for my design clients. If you’ve ever done this sort of work, you know that parts of such reports—such as spreadsheets and charts—can change right up until the very last minute. That could mean multiple exports of an entire report to PDF format. The process can be time-consuming and tedious or it could be a matter of simply adding, removing, or replacing one or just a few pages in a long document. Here’s how to perform such PDF maneuvers easily.
Removing pages
Deleting one or more pages from a PDF file with Acrobat Pro is a snap. Simply choose Document -> Delete Pages, and then choose the page or pages to remove. You can choose the selected page, available when one or more pages are highlighted in the Pages navigation panel, or specify one or more pages by range with the From radio button in the Delete Pages dialog. Click OK to delete the page(s) and then save.
Deleting pages dialog.
Adding pages
Adding pages to a PDF file is almost as easy as deleting them. In the Document menu you’ll find the Insert Pages command, offering you the opportunity to insert an external PDF file. Select the file and, once you hit the Select button, you’ll see the Insert Pages dialog box. At this point you must decide where you’d like to insert the new file—before or after the first or last page in the current PDF, or before or after a specific page number. Make your choices, click OK, and save your newly combined PDF.
Insert pages dialog.
Replacing pages
Sometimes you need to both remove and insert pages, replacing an old version of a page or page sequence with a new version. That can be accomplished in one step instead of two—as long as you’re replacing the same number of pages as you want to insert. Choose Document -> Replace Pages, and find and select the PDF containing the new material you want to use. Next, in the Replace Pages dialog, which appears automatically, select the page or pages to remove and then the pages to insert. Note that the [Replacement] With Pages window allows you to specify only the starting page number. If you’re replacing five pages, Acrobat has you insert five pages, beginning with the page number you specify, and continuing in sequential order. Click OK and then save.
Replacing pages in an existing document with new versions from an external document.
This technique is much easier than re-generating an entire PDF document. Just don’t tell the boss how easy it was; keep them thinking it’s a major chore, otherwise they may send changes even more often!
[Pariah S. Burke is the author of Mastering InDesign CS3 for Print Design and Production (Sybex, 2007), and other books; a freelance graphic designer; and the publisher of the Web sites GurusUnleashed.com, WorkflowFreelance.com, and CreativesAre.com. Pariah lives in Portland, Ore.]
Fonts in the wild
One of the greatest thrills of a font designer is to see their font being used in a prominent place: a TV show, a commercial, billboard, or—even more exciting—on the packaging of a popular product.
Font designer Paul Veres tells me he was excited recently to see his Aperto font used in the logo of Aveeno, a natural cosmetics company.
But you don't have to be a font designer to enjoy identifying fonts in public places—in the wild, so to speak. If you can take a photo of a type sample, you can upload it to the free WhatTheFont feature at MyFonts for identification. It really works!
Photoshop tip: Global Light
Think of Global Light as a shop light—one of those caged light bulbs with the hook at the top.
While working on your car’s engine, you’ll typically hang the shop light somewhere under the hood to illuminate your work space. As you move around the engine compartment, you'll often relocate the hanging light. What happens then?
The Global Light dialog.
The light illuminates a different area of the engine, causing different parts to glint while the shadows cast by those parts relocate, shrinking where they were once long, stretching where they were once short.
Integrate your iWeb site with Facebook
Your iWeb site and Facebook profile represent you and your interests to the world. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together? Fortunately, it’s easy to go beyond the basic Facebook integration in the latest version of iWeb (
) to boost your site’s visibility to friends, family, and associates. Here’s how.
Create Facebook badges for iWeb
Badges are widgets that automatically refresh to add Facebook information to your Web site. To get started, open your Facebook Profile and click the “Create a Profile Badge” link beneath the left-hand column (you may have to scroll down to the bottom to see this).
Click the edit screen’s checkboxes to customize the badge’s layout and content (which can include your picture, status, contact information, and more). After you save the badge, you can create and save additional Profile badge designs, as well as Photo badges that display pictures you’ve uploaded to Facebook. To export your badge to iWeb, select Other as its destination and copy the resulting code.
Next, open your site in iWeb and select the Media Browser’s Widgets button. Drag the HTML Snippet widget into the page you want it to appear on, paste in the code, click Apply, and close the box. Then upload the revised page.
Creating a favicon for your Web site
Go to any major Web site, and you’ll almost certainly see an icon to the left of the address in your browser. This tiny image is called a favicon (or Favorites Icon), and with a little effort, you can create one of your own.
Design your icon
At just 16-by-16 pixels in size, favicons can be a challenge to design. Pictures and intricate company logos become unrecognizable when scaled to such a small size, so you’ll need to come up with something simple and, yes, iconic—like the first letter of your name or perhaps a single graphic element from your company logo. You can create a favicon with just about any image editor, but for this example, we’ll use Adobe Photoshop CS4 (). We'll also be generating a favicon in the newer .png format, which allows for full color icons with anti-aliased edges. Note that favicons can be larger than a 16-pixel square to take into account their use in bookmark lists and RSS feeds, but for this article, we'll focus on how to create one to appear in your browser's address window.
Don’t try to design at 16-by-16 pixels; instead, start with a file that’s at least 512-by-512 pixels.
As you design your favicon, keep it streamlined and stick to the gridlines. Horizontal and vertical edges that do not adhere to the grid will end up looking muddy and indistinct. Avoid using too much detail; after all, each square of the grid will be reduced to a single pixel when scaled down.
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