![[decorative element]](http://designorati.com/wp-content/themes/d3/images/nav1_topics_OFF.png){kind=small}
Archive: 2006 September
-
The oversold story
Tell me if you’ve been here before.
You’re sitting in the Page One meeting and hearing about a photo/story package the paper has been working on all day. You have lots of great pictures and the story line is compelling.
-
Adobe Reveals Little About Photoshop CS3 At PhotoshopWorld
It was revealed by AppleInsider back on 18 September 2006 that the “preview” of Photoshop CS3 at PhotoshopWorld in Las Vegas actually did not show any new features of the application:
Read more on Adobe Reveals Little About Photoshop CS3 At PhotoshopWorld…
-
Rare Map Thief Smiley Sentenced
Prison time reduced due to convicted’s cooperation
Melissa Bailey, of the New Haven Independent, reports that E. Forbes Smiley, formerly a rare-map dealer based on Martha’s Vineyard, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for stealing rare and antique maps:
-
Rand McNally Releases 2007 Road Atlas
Just announced and now available in bookstores and online
Via email, Rand McNally have announced the release of thier 2007 edition Road Atlas. Priced at $13.95 in the basic edition, it boasts (according to RMN) hundreds of updates, more city insets, and improved editorial content. Amongst some of the other touted features:
-
Toward A Cleaner Desktop With A Self-Disinfecting Mouse
IOGEAR aims to protect users from bacteria with a mouse that sterilizes itself
First they made the famous mouse-ball obsolete with lasers. Now, if the idea of a bacteria-ridden desktop makes your skin crawl, you now have a first line of defense, and your white knight is IOGEAR.
Read more on Toward A Cleaner Desktop With A Self-Disinfecting Mouse…
-
I’m Bananas for Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh Tool
Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh lets you add shading you never though possible with a vector application. Here’s how to get started using it.
Using Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh feature you can make complex fills that have amazing realism. I have seen incredible examples of this, like the flower that was the logo for Illustrator CS and of course, Venus, who graced the Illustrator box and the top of the toolbox for many versions. So how do you use this wonderful tool? The best way to learn it is to jump right in and experiment with it.
Read more on I’m Bananas for Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh Tool…
-
Adobe Lightroom Beta Now Up To Version 4
Adobe Systems just announced that Lightroom has just advanced to beta version 4.
It sounds like a pretty important step in the testing process too—this is the first beta version where the Mac and Windows version are equivalent (previously, the Windows version was behind the curve in features and development). Here’s a list of the new features, straight from Adobe:
-
Temple U Refines Pennypack Floodplain
Study refines and updates floodplain lines, bearing on home prices and ownership costs
Updated Floodplain lines in Pennsyvania’s Pennypack Creek watershed (map excerpted from the one at the Philadelphia Inquirer)(click to enlarge) -
FontLab Studio 5 by FontLab
Advanced tool unlocks OpenType, other features; usable, but definitely for the serious digital typefounder.
In a review here recently we gave you the quick lowdown on the entry-level tool by FontLab Ltd, TypeTool 2. With an accessable interface and familiarly-working tools, it opens digital font design for pretty much anybody who wants to do it and has an impressive array of interface elements that makes the font design and generation experience as simple or as complex as the motivated digital typefounder wants.
Read more on FontLab Studio 5 by FontLab…
- CreativePro: Adobe to Let Dreamweaver Into The Suite
CS2.3 expected in November: upgrade paths available.
Word is now out on the street that the design world has expected even since Adobe assimilated Macromedia: Dreamweaver 8 is expected to be admitted into the suite already occupied by InDesign CS2, Photoshop CS2, and Illustrator CS2. In addition to the new Acrobat 8, the pieces will comprise Adobe Creative Suite 2.3; expected ETA, November 2006.
Read more on CreativePro: Adobe to Let Dreamweaver Into The Suite…
- Clearview Promises Road Sign Legibility
New font under interim approval by FHWA expected to replace “Highway Gothic” gradually, touts improved readablilty for senior drivers
A freeway sign in Michigan demonstrates the readability of the new Clearview font. (courtesy Wikipedia)- Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Goes On Line
Public-private partnership with the Boston (USA) Public Libraries aims to make maps available to all
The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center of the Boston, Massachusetts, Public Library, debuted this week.
In an announcement to the map news mailing list, MapHist, Curator of Maps Ronald E. Grim said:
- InstantAtlas adds Adobe Flash to Geographic Reporting Suite
Flash added in anticipation of Adobe’s discontinuation of SVG Viewer: upgrade to be free for current users
Press Release:
EDINBURGH, UK – (www.directionsmag.com)–12 September 2006: Following the news last week that Adobe are discontinuing support for their SVG Viewer next year, GeoWise have accelerated their commitment to adopt the Macromedia Flash Plug-in into the forthcoming Version 4 upgrade to their award-winning InstantAtlas™ software due for release late November 2006.
Read more on InstantAtlas adds Adobe Flash to Geographic Reporting Suite…
- Marie Tharp, Seafloor Mapping Pioneer, 1928-2006
Groundbreaking worked paved the way for modern view of seafloor; plate tectonics
Marie Tharp, an oceanic cartographer whose maps of the seafloor paved the way for the modern view of the ocean’s bed thus paving the way for wide acceptance of the theories of plate tectonics and contiental drift, died of cancer on 23 August 2006, the Los Angeles Times has reported. Tharp was 88 years old.
Read more on Marie Tharp, Seafloor Mapping Pioneer, 1928-2006…
- Quark Vs InDesign Rolls Out New Look, Expanded Mission
The “Authority on The War Between The Publishing Giantsâ„¢” introduces new current look, new future outlook
Since 2002, wired desingers have known that the one place they can go to get the most meaningful news on the battle between the reigning DTP titans, Quark, Inc and Adobe Systems, has been through Pariah S. Burke’s QuarkVsInDesign.com (QVI). Billing itself “The Authority on The War Between The Publishing Giants”, the site has chronicled the rise of Adobe’s flagship, InDesign, the travails of quondam DTP king QuarkXPress, and the transformation of what was once a field with one standard application into a competitive market where the users get the end goodies.
Read more on Quark Vs InDesign Rolls Out New Look, Expanded Mission…
The latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements is here.
Adobe has released Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Windows (no Macintosh version yet). Photoshop Elements has always been a Photoshop application for the everyday consumer, and the latest version adds some cool new features that make it more robust for that consumer group:
- “Do It Yourself” Logos
The best way of “doing yourself” in
I was peacefully surfing the internet, in a moment of cyber relaxation. Suddenly I realize my Firefox has an open tab with some site waiting to be looked at and, wondering whether lack of coffee was getting to my head or my touchpad decided I clicked on some Google link, I clicked on the tab.
Should you use Illustrator’s Object menu to create a compound path, or should you use the Pathfinder palette? Are they the same? No, they aren’t…here’s the difference so you can decide which is the best for your illustration
Read more on Compound Shapes, Compound Paths, and the Pathfinder Palette…
Unlike InDesign and Illustrator, Photoshop does not have a “Convert To Outlines” command for outlining type in production situations…or does it?
More than one might expect, I often find myself creating my layouts in Photoshop rather than InDesign. Image-centric layouts, with only a few lines of type, are often more easily produced right in Photoshop, where the images will be coming from anyway. But there’s always the problem of getting the layout ready for the printer because Photoshop is way behind when it comes to packaging fonts and preflighting, all very important things when it comes to print production. InDesign makes it easy, but Photoshop wasn’t really designed for this even though it has most tools needed for print layout.
- A Suggestion For A Better Middle East
Armed Forced Journal wonders aloud how the situation might be made better by altering borders
It’s hardly original or insightful to note that of all the areas of planet Earth, the area we Westerners call the “Middle East” is one in which the political conditions are arguably the most fragile of the modern age.
- Foreign Mapmakers Held in Suspicion by P.R. China
Punishment promised for foreign cartographers
Mapmakers collect geographic information; security-conscious nations are sometimes made nervous by this.
In this short article, posted recently on AOL’s UK portal, the People’s Republic of China have recently announced an increase in official supervision of mapping projects, fearing national security threats. Said the Chinese news agency Xinhua:
Read more on Foreign Mapmakers Held in Suspicion by P.R. China…
- Daily Mail: The EU Set to Re-Divide Europe?
Recently-published map stirs controversy; some see an “under the radar” attack on national sovereignity
Kent in union with Calais? The West of England partnered with the Biscay coasts? Northern Scotland, Iceland, and Northern Norway as one?
- Freeware Friday: LPS Scripting Utility
A scripting XTension for those sharing QuarkXPress files on a network
Many QuarkXPress users, especially printers as they are most likely to move files through a network, will be familiar with this little but annoying problem. As the developers over at Emerasoft say:
- Freeware Friday: Photofonts and Photofont Start Plug-in
Plugin allows use of “photofonts” in Illustrator, Photoshop, and other similar tools
Photofonts. What are they?
Firstly, they are files with the extension “.phf”. Secondly, they are fonts that contain color, transparency, and texture. Thirdly, it’s an open standard, which means that anyone with a graphics program and XML savvy can create one (or, anyone with FontLab’s BitFonter, if you aren’t XML savvy).
Read more on Freeware Friday: Photofonts and Photofont Start Plug-in…
- Photoshop CS3 To Be Revealed At PhotoshopWorld; CS3 Timetable May Be Accelerated
We know that a glimpse of the next-generation (and Universal Binary) Photoshop application will be shown at PhotoshopWorld this weekend. Could this mean CS3 is coming faster than expected?
From MacWorld UK: “Adobe prepares to unveil next-gen Photoshop“. Seems the PhotoshopWorld conference (starting today in Las Vegas) will have John Loiacono, senior VP of Adobe’s Creative Solutions Business, showing off some new features coming out for the next version of Photoshop.
Read more on Photoshop CS3 To Be Revealed At PhotoshopWorld; CS3 Timetable May Be Accelerated…
- CreativePro: Adobe to Let Dreamweaver Into The Suite
Suggested Links
domain registrationWorldlabel is a source for equivalent Avery® labels sizes and free label templates for designing.
