Don't Fear the Internet

Don't Fear the Internet: Basic HTML and CSS for Non-Web Designers has some good introductory web skills videos geared towards print designers and non-web savvy artists and photographers. By Jessica Hische (from Daily Drop Cap and other projects) and Russ Maschmeyer.

Importing InDesign Workspaces and Keyboard Shortcuts from Version to Version

I'm finally setting up InDesign CS 5.5. With some testing and research I've discovered the secret place where InDesign stores your customized workspace and keyboard shortcut files. So now I can easily copy and paste the shortcut or workspace files from InDesign CS 5 to CS 5.5 and be up and working in CS 5.5 in no time.

The location: Users > "Your Name" > Library > Preferences > Adobe InDesign > Version 7.0 (choose your version — 7.0 is equivalent to CS5) > en_US > InDesign Shortcut Sets or Workspaces.

How to Generate a QR Code

If you don't know what QR code or if you've seen these around but don't know what they were called, here is a good description from wiki:

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) that is readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera telephones. ... The information encoded may be text, URL, or other data.

Here's how to generate a QR code:

1. Open your web browser and navigate to your favorite QR code generating website. This free QR code generating site from Kerem Erkan came highly recommended. The better sites will allow you to create the file in vector .eps format—definitely preferred!


2. Select a Code Action which will most likely be "Browse to a Website" but there's a whole drop down menu of options.


3. Select Code Type: QR Code


4. Select Output Type: Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) (vector data is preferred because it's crisp at any size)


5. I left the defaults for the rest. URL Shortening: None, Error Correction Level: Low, Block Size in Pixels: 10, Margin Size in Blocks: 1, Foreground Color: #000000, Background Color: #FFFFFF, Transparent boxes unchecked



6. Click the Generate Code button and the file will automatically begin downloading


7. Insert the code into your Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator document. QR codes will be hard to read at sizes smaller than .59 inches (15 mm). A good standard QR code size is around 1 inch or 25-30 mm.

Photoshop Smart Object Stacking

There's always another layer to discover in Photoshop! I hadn't used Smart Object stacking before and was recently introduced to it at a conference. The stacking modes have mysterious terms like Entrophy, Kurtosis and Summation (Read Adobe's technical explanation of stacking modes here).

Some of the practical applications of Smart Object stacking:

• If you take multiple photos of the same road or fountain and then use stacking mode Median, you can remove moving objects like cars and people (layers must be aligned first)


• If you take photos of the same room with different light sources use the stacking mode Maximum to combine the light of all of these sources (layers must be aligned first)

How to use Smart Object stacking:

1. Open a new document in Photoshop. Drag in at least 2 images. Select the images in the Layers panel, right click and Convert to Smart Object.


2. Select Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode and choose a stacking mode.


3. If you don't like the results, repeat the previous step to choose another option. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a keyboard shortcut or simpler way to access these options but you could always create custom keyboard shortcuts if you end up using this feature a lot.

I had fun playing around with these 2 photos and different stack modes as a creativity tool to see the different results.

Stacking mode: Summation

Stacking mode: Range

Stacking mode: Maximum

Note: Once something is converted to a Smart Object there is no way to ungroup it (at least that I could find in my research) and release all of the original layers (the way you can ungroup layers). To get back to the original contents, open the Smart Object and drag all the layers back into your document. Then delete the Smart Object.

Indesign and ePub Resource List

I attended an excellent 1 day seminar on InDesign to ePub recently. Erica Gamet, the seminar presenter, has a great list of ePub resources on her website. It includes lists of:

• Desktop ePub readers
• Publishers and aggregators
• Reference books and websites
• Software for testing and working with ePub files
• InDesign scripts and plug-ins
• Useful code snippets

What Does Highlighted Text in InDesign Mean?

If you've ever opened an InDesign document and seen text highlighted in pink, yellow or green, here's what those colors mean:

Pink highlight = font or glyph is missing or wrong
Yellow highlight = H&J Violations or other violations
Green highlight = manually applied kerning or tracking

To turn off all highlights, uncheck all Highlight options in the Preferences panel > Composition. Or if possible, fix the original problem, especially in the case of missing font.

More on this from InDesign Secrets

How to Organize Paper Sample Swatch Books

Photo courtesy of Print Pinball

This tip is for graphic designers that send so many projects to print that they need to maintain a shelf or shelves with paper manufacturer sample swatch books. If you only print a few projects and always use the same 4-5 papers, you won't have enough samples to be disorganized.

So one of my print vendors recently helped me organize our shelves at work into order, the same way that he organizes his swatch books at his office. This is what I learned:

Organize by categories

• Sort into coated, uncoated and specialty.
• Coated includes synthetic papers, flysheets, boards/C1S/C2s (coated one side, two sides), and regular gloss, satin and dull sheets
• Uncoated includes opaque, offset and digital papers plus text and writing papers
• Specialty includes banner and book cover vinyls, book cover materials, anything unique

Once sorted by categories, group by manufacturer.

• You can group all the smaller manufacturers together in a miscellaneous group but bigger paper manufacturers like Neenah or Sappi will need their own sections.
• If you have duplicates of the same paper sample book, look on the back or underneath the samples for the copyright and/or printing date. Keep the newer book and recycle the old one. If you would like to keep duplicates (hopefully all printed in the same year), then group them next to each other.

Within the manufacturer groups, organize by sheet grade/quality.

• Sort left to right with premium, high cost sheets on the left and lower grade, economy sheets on the left.

Resetting the Work Area Background in Photoshop

Somehow when speeding around and keyboard shortcutting and clicking in Photoshop, I accidentally changed my Photoshop work area background color. Not what I wanted! Here's how to set it back to its original color. This tip works for full-screen mode too.

1. The default gray background that Photoshop ships with is R: 204 G: 204 B: 204. Enter this color in the Color Picker as your foreground color.
2. Select the paint bucket. Expand the image window if necessary and shift-click on the background area you wish to change.

Free Photoshop Action: White Photo Border

I've been looking for a simple clean white photo border/photo edge action and couldn't easily find what I wanted online. I wanted something a little more sophisticated than a solid white 50 pixel stroke but still very simple. I created this free Photoshop action with a hint of gradient on the white stroke and hint of inner shadow on the photo to add a little bit more dimension.

Click here to download the free Photoshop action. (In the next window select "Click here to start download")

Note: This works best on images 4 x 6 at 300 dpi or about 1800 px wide. The action doesn't come with a drop shadow - that's just so you can see the border in this example.

Thanks to sxc.hu user mterraza for the photo.

PDF Export and Background Tasks in InDesign CS5

For those of you using InDesign CS5, you may have noticed something happened to the pdf export. There's no longer a status bar/dialog box. Exporting a pdf now happens invisibly as a background task, allowing you to continue to work on your document (which seems completely illogical to me).

People either seem to really like it or really dislike it. I'm in the dislike camp on this one. So if you also find it frustrating to not know when your pdf is done and you can close the file, there is a solution! Here are two places to watch the status of background tasks:

The first place is the minuscule vertical Background Tasks indicator bar that appears in the Application bar. It's below and to the right of the word "Type" in the following screenshot. It appears and moves only when a background task is active — it disappears when that background task is complete.


The second place is the Background Tasks panel. Turn it on by choosing Window > Utilities > Background Tasks. Now you will be able to see what percentage of the pdf export is complete.


Note: The one upside I've noticed about background task pdf export is that you can have multiple pdf exports happening at once. Sometimes I need to provide a spreads layout pdf and single page layout pdf, which I can now do one right after the other, with the pdf processing happening simultaneously.

The Difference between FSC and SFI

As a designer, I use a lot of paper. I use the most paper when printing jobs for clients. Nothing like printing 25,000 copies of something to use up a ton of paper. These days I often get asked to choose certified paper for print jobs. So what's the difference between FSC and SFI certifications?

These two older articles from Treehugger explain FSC vs SFI: Article 1 and Article 2. In summary:

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

• Never harvests more than what grows back
• Protects biodiversity and endangered species
• Saves rare ancient trees
• Guards local streams
• Supports the local people
• Uses narrow skidding trails so as not to disrupt the rest of the forest
• Prohibits replacement by tree plantations
• Bans toxic chemicals
• Bans genetically modified trees (no GMO)

Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)

• Allows large clearcuts
• Allows logging close to rivers and streams that harms water supplies
• Allows use of toxic chemicals
• Allows conversion of old-growth forests to tree plantations
• Allows use of genetically modified trees

Some certification is probably better than no certification and I think SFI certification is improving its standards but at this point, I'm choosing FSC.

From a purely practical point of view, if you are a tight print schedule, FSC tends to be more responsive with my local vendors (getting back within hours) rather than SFI (24-36 hrs).

Paste It in InDesign

Copying and pasting bits of text is even more efficient when you take advantage of all the Paste options InDesign has to offer. Most of the time, when I'm pasting in text, the box or the text area I'm pasting into already has a style applied. I want to make sure the text I'm copying takes on the new style, leaving any previous formatting behind. The following options help keep that formatting in place while pasting text.

When pasting into InDesign from outside of InDesign (email, web, MS Word, etc), make sure your preferences are set up correctly to strip away any extraneous formatting. Under Preferences > Clipboard Handling, check "Text Only" in the "When Pasting Text from Other Applications" box.


When pasting within InDesign, from one text box to another, use Edit > Paste without Formatting (Shift-Cmd-V).

Going Backwards: Extracting a Jpg Tile from a Photoshop Pattern File

It's pretty easy to go forward in the pattern making process—use Photoshop to define a pattern from an existing graphic. It's a little trickier to extract the original file — convert a Photoshop pattern to jpg.

A lot of the free patterns available online are available in Photoshop pattern (.pat) format, but if you want to use a Photoshop pattern as a website background, you need the original tile in jpg or gif format, not the pattern file. Here's how to get an accurate jpg file from a Photoshop pattern (so you don't have to guess where the seams are, crop, test, crop again, test again):

1. Open your file in Photoshop. Choose the layer you want to apply the effect to and choose Pattern Overlay. In the Layer Style dialog box, Pattern Overlay, scroll through the patterns to select the pattern you'd like to use. Click on it to select it.



2. With the thumbnail view still open, hover on the pattern you selected for a while until its tool tip appears. The tool tip will tell you the original file name and pixel dimensions of the original tile! (If there's somewhere else this information is, I'd love to know - this was the only place I could find.) Write down or screen capture the pixel info. In this example the pattern is 250px x 307px. Click OK to to exit the Layer Style dialog box.



3. Select Image > Canvas Size. Select the top left corner of the canvas (patterns are always applied from the top left corner down) and enter the pixel dimensions from the previous step. Click OK to crop the canvas.


4. Export the cropped file as a jpg or gif.


5. Bonus step: If you would like to test your file in Photoshop to be 100% sure the tile was created correctly, make sure the file is flattened, select all (Cmd-A) and select Edit > Define Pattern and save your pattern. Create a new document at a much larger size than your pattern. Then choose Edit > Fill, choose pattern, find your pattern (usually new patterns move to the end of the list) and click OK. The pattern should fill the document seamlessly.

Using Photoshop CS5's HDR Toning Adjustment as an Image Correction Tool

There are so many different ways to adjust an image in Photoshop: Curves, Levels, Brightness/Contrast and more. CS5 introduces one more way to adjust images: HDR Toning. HDR toning can be used to create artistic photographic effects but applied at low settings on high contrast images it works to preserve highlight detail while illuminating the shadow detail.

1. Open your image in Photoshop. Select Image > Adjustment > HDR Toning.


2. Set the Method to Local Adaption (it may already be set on this setting). Tip: if the saturation default is high, set it to 0 first and then adjust the rest of the settings.


3. If you want your adjustments to look realistic, keep the settings low and don't make drastic adjustments. For this specific image, I used: Radius 50px, Strength .50, Gamma 1.14, Exposure 0, Detail +30, Shadow, +10, Highlight -20, Vibrance 0, Saturation 0.


4. Click on the down arrow by Toning Curve and Histogram and make any necessary Curve adjustments.


5. If artistic/drastic adjustments is what you're looking for, go wild. Making major adjustments in the HDR toning settings will yield images like this:

Thanks to sxc.hu user mossholder for the photo

Trimming, Expanding and Revealing in Photoshop

A few of my favorite useful little Photoshop commands reside under the Image menu.

Image > Trim. Crops out all transparent pixels. Favorite use: No more eyeballing it! Using Trim crops to the exact edges of an image. Trim preserves drop shadows too.

Image > Canvas Size (Cmd-Opt-C). Expand the canvas size. My favorite part of this dialog box: Checking 'Relative' and typing in an amount is a speedy way to evenly add white space on all 4 sides.

Image > Reveal All. Expands the canvas to show all pixels hidden off the edges of the image window. Especially useful when layering multiple images and something gets lost off canvas.

Screenshots on a Mac - Good, Better, Best

When I worked on both Macs and PCs, I always appreciated the extra ease of use and control in taking Mac screenshots. Now that I'm always on a Mac, I usually take screenshots for granted. However, today I'm excited to add a new keyboard shortcut to my screenshot repertoire. The basics:

Cmd-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of your entire screen.

Cmd-Shift-4: Take a screenshot of specific area of your screen. Select the area by drawing a box around the area with the crosshairs.

The new (to me) shortcut: Cmd-Shift-4 + Spacebar
Press the first 3 keys together and then, when the crosshairs appear, press the spacebar. The cursor will turn into a camera. Using the cursor/camera, select a specific window or panel to take a screenshot of only that panel. The screenshot image will appear on a transparent background if you open it in Photoshop.


For even more detail on Mac screenshots, see this guide.

Straighten a Photo in Photoshop CS5

One of my most appreciated one click features in Photoshop CS5 is the Straighten button. It's so easy to use. Open a photo with a crooked horizon.


Select the ruler tool and draw a line along the horizon. Click the Straighten button and Photoshop will straighten and crop your image automatically.



Photo courtesy of jawcey

Photoshop Annoyances: Turning off the Pixel Grid

I never noticed the pixel grid in CS4 but somehow it was turned on by default in CS5. I found it annoying to zoom in and have the pixels outlined in white and I couldn't figure out where to turn the grid off for a while. Once I found it, I was relieved because it's so easy to turn off (unlike certain other frustrating CS5 interface upgrades that won't turn off like InDesign's frame edge selection feature).

In Photoshop, select View > Show > Pixel Grid. To turn it off make sure Pixel Grid is unchecked.

The Power of Smart Objects: Editable Raw Files in Photoshop

Want editable Raw files in Photoshop? It's easy - just open your Raw file as a Smart Object. In Camera Raw, hold down the Shift key and Open Image becomes Open Object. When you want to edit the Smart Object, double click it to launch Camera Raw and edit the image.

Something else that can be helpful with this workflow: you can convert the Photoshop document to CMYK but the embedded Camera Raw is still in RGB.

Content Aware Fill Keyboard Shortcuts

The content aware fill keyboard shortcuts were a little confusing to me initially since the video Adobe released showed content aware fill working by just pressing the Delete key. I also discovered that the content aware brush isn't its own separate brush (again - not clear) but an option on the Spot Healing Brush.

The photo above uses the content aware fill with no other retouching and there are definitely a few problem areas. But overall I think the content aware fill and brush are worthy additions to the Photoshop toolbox. The content aware fill keyboard shortcuts are:

• Content Aware Fill on flattened background layer: Delete (which brings up dialog box with Content Aware as the default option)


• Regular Delete on flattened background layer: Command+Delete or Opt+Delete depending on whether you want to fill with background or foreground color


• Content Aware Fill on any floating layer: Shift+Delete (which brings up dialog box with Content Aware as the default option)


• Regular Delete (to transparency) on any floating layer: Delete

Photo credit: sxc.hu user sundstrom