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Photoshop compositing and the never ending road
Sunday, November 6th, 2011Mastery doesn’t mean you’re done learning
Are you a “Photoshop Expert” or “Guru” ? *shudder* When was the last time you edumacated yourself? (yes. the spelling is deliberate)
The image on the left is of a composite I’ve been working on for class. I will play with more features when making “random art”. I’m a big fan of the Photoshop Disasters site. It kills me that some of those images manage to get the the approvals process all the way to final print without anyone going… “Wait! What the hell is that!“. I don’t have the same time pressures that they do and am grateful for it (one of the many reasons why I’m a software trainer and not a production artist). However, some of the mistakes that you’ll see are just nuts. Basic anatomy people. Normal human elbows don’t attach at the chest – It’s not that hard!
So… back to the purple fantasy picture… I don’t have any specific class that is if going to use those images – I just need to keep my hand in and work on all the techniques that I want my students to know.
There are specific tutorials I will sometimes use, and I need to work through those regularly too. Nothing, however, beats the value of grabbing some images on whim (bless you fotolia) and trying to make something out of thin air. I urge you to dig thru the stock photography database at your favorite site (I cannot give the Fotolia people enough love) and look for an image that captures your imagination. In this case it was the dancer and the purple background that did it.
Ok, Kirsten, we get it. So why the rant?
Someone recently expressed surprise that I have a Lynda.com membership. They said something to the effect of “but I thought you taught this stuff?” Yes, I do and have for over a decade. I also go to the NAPP website, Deke.com, have an RSS feed of tips and tutorials a mile long, and have a bookcase of software manual that takes up most of one large wall.
It’s simple – you’re never done
I’m well known for having three-too-many resources for people at the end of class. I have books and videos I recommend along with the names of people who are always worth listening too. There’s a reason I have that information – I’m a student too. Any technical trainer (heck, any teacher at all) will tell you that the best way to master a subject is to teach it to someone else. It’s true. It’s also true that you don’t really know a subject if you can’t explain it to someone. My favorite quote is on my desktop so I see it every day, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough - Einstein”.
Please don’t get caught up in the “I know that already” trap. I was fortunate enough to go to Photoshop World when it was last in Boston. Most of the classes I took covered things that I teach in class regularly – and yet I got a TON out of going. I got to see other trainers work, which is extremely valuable, and picked up lots of new ways of getting a topics across to an audience.
It’s scary to know that there is no end to what you can learn. Sometimes it seems like there’s too much to take in. I won’t lie – I sometimes curse Adobe’s release schedule, but focus on the positive. Every new features gives you a new toy to play with. There are so many fun, amazing things you can learn – become a master of – that you can pick and choose what suits you best.
Strive!
Mastery is a fantastic goal. It’s just not the last goal. The farther you go the easier that is to forget – we’re never done learning.
What is rule one?
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011With apologies to Terry Pratchett, 
I am re-writing rule one. While it is always wise to follow his version … “Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men”, – mine will have to be “remember: software is not intuitive”.
Before you start screaming, I know that there are many cases where software is not challenging to figure out and some people find learning software to be very easy. What I am referring to is the habit that adult learners have when trying to do a task in some piece of software. Generally I get some variation on “I know it’s easy, but I’m not finding it” when people come to me for help.
Why assume that it’s easy?
I teach software for a living and am far more likely than the average user to spend time digging around in software to find what I need. **warning, long and rambling story** This morning I was cursing a long blue streak at Apple for the (to me very counter-intuitive) way they set up default email preferences. I use Outlook 2011 for work and gmail for everything else.
With the new division of Axiom that I’m building I wanted to be be sure to have some kind of online task-tracking and contact-tracking system for my business partner and I to use. After some digging and playing with some trials I chose CapsuleCRM. When I click on a contact email in Capsule I want it to open Outlook. Capsule has a setting to let me open Gmail if I wish, but not Outlook. The default behavior of my computer is to open Mac Mail.
So – how do I get the computer to open Outlook when clicking an email address link? I never had to look for this setting before and was verklempt when I discovered that I had to go into Mac Mail, start a new account and then go to preferences to change the default email settings for the computer to be Outlook.
WHAT?!? Who thought putting the default email settings inside Mail was a good idea. GAHHHH! I have to create an account so that I can NOT use Mac Mail?
And Kirsten, your point is?
OK, So that was a long way to go for today’s advice – Do not assume that software is intuitive.
Is is very easy to make software rules that are easy to understand for the other people writing the software. It’s not easy to make rules that are easy to understand for someone who is not already versed in the rules and regs of the development team. When you are looking at a new piece of software (or an update to one that you already use), please remember that is is the job of the software to help you – not the other way around.
But everyone says it’s easy
Everyone? no, not everyone (I don’t) – BUT when you encounter those people (your kids, grandkids, easily frustrated coworker…) keep in mind that they fall into one of two catagories:
- They did find it hard to learn and have forgotten how frustrated they were
- They have previous experience that makes the software familiar, and therefore easier to learn
How many people do you know that find it totally rational to click the Windows “Start” button to get to Exit? (Don’t get me started on the Windows 7 “Orb” – Gack!). How many Mac users think it makes total sense for a picture of an apple to be a menu? Why is Ctrl (or Command on the mac) and Z the shortcut for “Undo” almost everywhere? – “Because”, that’s why.
It’s almost zen really – “It is what is”. Zen – Yes, Easy – No
So… what was rule one?
All together now… “Software is NOT intuitive“.
Thank you. Class dismissed.
AdobeMAX!
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011Adobe announced a LOT of things at AdobeMAX this year!
The new “Creative Cloud”
The idea behind this is essentially to make Adobe into the central hub of your creative life. I’m a regular Dropbox user and it makes having all my files on all my devices at the same time really easy. This works along the same lines… start a file on your tablet, save to the cloud, walk to your laptop and keep working on the same file. Lots and lots of synching. Creative Cloud is a hosted service with a subscription going live in November with 20 GB storage to start.
There are three parts to the Cloud:
Part One – Apps
Along with a cloud subscription of the Creative Suite (the programs will be saved locally), these are also six flash-based touch apps
- Photoshop Touch – scribble selections are ok, tilting layers in space is awesome!
- Collage – one word… moodboards
- Debut – Presenting your mockups has never been easier
- Ideas – finger painting taken to a whole new level
- Kuler – the mobile love child of Kuler.adobe.com
- Proto – really USEFUL interactive wireframer for websites –mock up the site, create a zip with assets, open in Dreamweaver and apply CSS = done!)
Part Two – Services
- DPS Single edition – publish something to the iPad
- Typekit – show every font in every browser
- Business Catalyst – Create sites for your clients complete with hosting and lots of bells and whistles
Part Three – Community .
- An inspiration gallery and support hub
Oh, and that’s not all…
This is really a quick and dirty overview. For more information, check out these links…
Learn more about Touch Apps here
Learn more about Typekit here
Learn more about DSP, Single Edition Here
Learn more about Community here
Learn more about Creative Cloud here
We’ll miss you
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
What is that smudge on the Office Ribbon?
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011In the previous post we looked at Office 2007 and the “Mystery Tabs“. Today let’s look at the Ribbon and it’s secret feature.
First, a quick overview of “The Ribbon” – In 2007 the menus are gone and replaced with a tabbed “ribbon”.
The Ribbon is set up in Groups and are organized in families. Things that never lived together before are now all on the same ribbon. For example, in Word and Excel there is a Page Layout Tab that holds nearly everything you would want when thinking about your document layout.
On the Insert Tab, the products all have a “Illustrations” group. This didn’t exist before. It is the home of Clip Art, Pictures, Shapes (which is really the old Drawing Toolbar), and “Smart Art” (which will need to be another post – just remember, it’s all about the bullets), which is a new way of creating diagrams. The idea is that come of the useful, but buried features are being given a second chance to be used now that they can be easily found. In Excel many helpful features were extracted from the buried Auditing toolbar and moved out were they can be seen (and used).
In Office 2007 and 2010 click each tab and look along the bottom of the big, thick bar (Ribbon) for labels. These are the Groups. In the picture in this post (click on the image for a larger view) you’ll see “Adjust, Picture Styles, Arrange, and Size“. These are the Groups for this Tab, and they have a secret.
Secret?
There are lots of ways to modify the clip art on the page. You can add frames, change colors, and so on.. Somewhere on that tab however is a button that will give you the hidden options. You won’t find it unless you have pretty good vision though.
The features are under the “Dialog Box Launcher Button” (gack, what a name). Not every group has them, but the Size Group on the Picture Tools/Format Tab does. Note: if you don’t see that tab, click on the image. See that little grey smudge in the lower right corner of the group? It’s a grey box with a little arrow in it (and is really, really tiny). That’s the button you want. Fun, right?
So? What’s the problem?
Here’s my frustration with this button. Someone looking for hanging indents in Word (without using the ruler) can spend a long time digging around to get the 2003 dialog box to come out. It’s under the button on the Home Tab in the Font Group.
Once you find it you’re fine but it’s not exactly intuitive now is it?
Intro to ePub – part 2 of 3
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011ePub Tips, Tricks, and Links
In the first post of this series, I had you create a very simple file (with a template the Terry White was nice enough to provide) and preview it in Adobe’s Digital Editions software.
In this post I’m going to share a lot of links and some general Do’s and Don’ts for epub and digial book creation. In the third and final post we will be making a file from scratch.
What am I getting into?
If you are a regular InDesign user making content for eBooks can be a bit of a brain twister. In essence you are making webpages. Much of the control you had is gone, and some of the really fun features that can be seen in interactive files won’t work in book readers. To give you a sense of how new this might be, I’m putting some of the tips I gathered together below
General
- .epub is an XML based format designed to enable text reflow. All content will be linearized so plan for one long stream for text and images.
Layout
- Make each page one text box with inline graphics
- Make the cover ONE image
- Create separate document for cover page – have it be one image or imported ID file
- The book panel is a good way to make separate chapters that are seen in the conversion
- InDesign has an option for automatically making a TOC in an epub file. Create a TOC style and specify it on export. The Automatic ID TOC is turned into navigation men
Formatting
- You are creating Cascading Style Sheets when you convert (think like a web designer)
- Change Nested or Grep styles to regular styles
- Use Space Above, Below, and Indent to make space around images
- Soft Returns are turned into hard Returns
- Use Paragraph and Character Styleson the text (these will convert to CSS for the .epub file).
- You can’t totally control the fonts the user will see (the type of reader that is used will determine how fonts are seen)
- Convert Nested and Grep Styles to Paragraph and Character Styles
- Epub does support font embedding, but not all eBooks formats do and not all eBook readers that support the epub format will use embedded fonts
- Use OpenType Fonts
Exporting
- If you don’t want to make a new file you can apply XML tags to existing content and use the Structure pane to reorder it for export
- For long documents break document into chapters and use the book panel
- Create a Table Of Contents – this will become navigation in the e-reader
- For a true TOC you may need to make a manual page with hyperlinks or cross-ref’s
- Un-anchored content will float and end up at the beginning or end of your file
- Keep main graphics between 300 and 600 px wide
- The cover is often best at 800×600
- Images are converted to RGB
- Add Metadata
Graphics
- Epub supports several image formats, including JPEG, GIF, PNG
- Anchor Images to an empty paragraph (then center align and use space before and after) or paste Inline
- Use color images
- InDesign coverts graphics to JPEG and GIF when exporting to epub unless you choose to copy the original images
- Convert InDesign art by Cut/Paste into Il or PS and Placing in ID
Conversion
Altered
- CMYK will be converted to RGB on export
- Convert Tables to lists or images if you can
Preserved
- Hyperlinks to URL’s, files, email addresses, and text anchors
- Cross Ref’s are converted to hyperlinks on export (Note: Some eBook readers don’t support any hyperlinks)
- Footnotes are kept, but are converted to endnotes
Discarded
- Multiple Carriage returns
- Empty Frames
- Frame attributes such as Fill and Stroke
- Custom settings for Anchored Objects
- Text wrap setting. Use Space before and After instead
- Hyperlinks that reference specific pages
- Master Page Items
- Automatic Page Numbers
- Page Breaks
- TOC generated by the InDesign TOC feature (do this anyway – it becomes navigation )
- Artwork made with InDesign vector tool (those you should copy into Illustrator and place back into InDesign)
- Not all text formatting is preserved
Links
- Digital Editions Reader
- Open-source EpubCheck program hosted by Google at code.google.com/p/epubcheck
- Free, standalone, cross-platform Java™ app, ePubChecker
- More information on epub format - http://idpf.org/
- Free open-source eBook conversion tool www.calibre-ebook.com
- InDesign to Kindle – Adobe
- Terry White – http://terrywhite.com/techblog/
- Colleen Cunningham has a massive and massivly helpful list of resources here - http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/indesign-to-ebook-resources/
Ok, got it – now what?
Take an existing Indesign file (a reasonalbly fancy one) and export it to epub. Look at how the content is moved (and what doen’t convert). Next time we will finish will a soup-to-nuts tutorial – see you then!
Scooby-Doo and the Office 2007 Mystery Tabs
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011In the previous post, we looked at “The Office Button” briefly. Let’s take a quick look at another feature…
Scooby-doo mystery tabs
One of the biggest changes from a behavioral perspective in 2007′s Office Suite is the new “Contextual Tabs” – what I call Scooby-Doo Mystery Tabs. In short, you can’t see certain content from the main tabs.
If you want the see the details on manipulating a picture you must be touching the picture to get the options for it. If you click off the picture, the tab disappears.
In the screen capture you’ll see “Header and Footer Tools” in green. This is the tab you get when you insert a header or footer. When you click back into the document, the tab goes away. When you want the tab back you need to click into the header or footer.
It’s not a huge problem but it does take some getting used for for a lot of my students.
Just remember: Touch the content you want to change.
Trouble finding Print and Save As in 2007?
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011I enjoy a mystery as much as the next person (presuming of course that the next person likes to dig for information only when they are not under stress, a time crunch, or both). Because learning software is my job, a certain amount of digging and testing is normal for me. However, for the vast majority of people, spending time digging around in software to find what you need is comparable to a long, slow root canal.
In the last few years, whenever I teach a “Migrating to 2007″ class, I meet people who are extremely frustrated with the new layout. I understand why the software is all new but I don’t have the same frustration because of one simple fact – I don’t have to do the same tasks for a demanding boss today (on alien software) that I did yesterday, at the same speed.
If you are moving from office 2003 to 2007 there are a few things you need to know that will make the transition much, much easier! The next few posts will cover the “survival skills” that I give all my migration students.
Let’s begin
“where the heck did they move Print and Save As?
- Click on the image
- Look in the upper left corner
- Do you see that cheezy, 80′s drop-shadow monstrosity of a button? Click it
- Voila, meet “The Office Button”, essentially the file menu in disguise
Some people find this with no trouble, but many people don’t think of using office the way they use a website. Why click on a logo?
I assume that the people who designed this thought the web-like aspects would make things easier to find, not harder. If not, then they apparently feel hiding critical features would be no biggie and are either nuts or really miserable with the jones to spread it around. Is this a website? No, it’s an office application! (sounds of forehead hitting desk )
Next Post… Office’s Scooby-Doo Mystery Tabs
From the Blog
- Photoshop compositing and the never ending road
Sunday, November 6th, 2011 - What is rule one?
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 - AdobeMAX!
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011