Photoshop CS5 Sneak Peek – Improved Brush Engine
Russell Brown demos CS5’s new improved brush engine.
Wow!
Tune in tomorrow April 12 at 8am PDT for Adobe’s CS5 online announcement. Register now.
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Blurb recently released a great overview of all the issues you need to consider to produce a great photo book – from concept to execution and promotion. Read it and make all your books better.
“Beautiful photo books don’t happen by accident. Talented people invest time and intent using proven design tenets, and the results can be spectacular. To help you up your bookmaking game, we’ve tapped our network of photographers and book designers and collected their best advice on everything from sequencing and layouts to typography and cover design. How to Make a Gorgeous Photo Book includes plenty of tips, tricks, and information to push your creative edge and help you design beautiful books that showcase your best work.”
Find my Blurb book Antarctica here.
Check out these other great design books I recommend.
Stay tuned for dates on my upcoming Blurb seminars and workshop.
Photoshop CS5 Sneak Peek – Better Edge Detection and Masking
Bryan O’Neil Hughes demos CS5’s new improved edge detection and masking.
This will give you better results and save you hours.
Tune in tomorrow April 12 at 8am PDT for Adobe’s CS5 online announcement. Register now.
Photoshop CS5 Sneak Peek – Content Aware Fill
Bryan O’Neil Hughes demos CS5’s new Content Aware Fill feature.
One of the game-changing new features in CS5 is Content Aware Fill. It works like the Patch tool, only it’s easier to use. You simply select an area, click Delete, and choose Content Aware Fill. It’s fantastic for removing unwanted elements in images, even in challenging image areas like smooth gradients in skies. This feature will save you hours and hours. It might even change the way you think about making photographs.
Tune in tomorrow April 12 at 8am PDT for Adobe’s CS5 online announcement. Register now.
iPhone OS 4
Yesterday, Apple announced the new OS 4 for iPhone (summer) and iPad (fall).
There are over 100 new features.
The big news is multi-tasking.
The top 7 of 100 iPhone OS 4 items include …
– Background Audio
– Voice Over IP
– Background Location
– Push Notifications
– Local Notifications
– Task Completion
Here are some interesting figures that put this all in a larger perspective.
– Apple is the largest mobile devices company in the world.
– 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies use the iPhone.
– 50 million iPhones sold to date. Add in the iTouch and it’s 85 million iPhones and iPod touches.
– iPhone is 64% of mobile browser usage. Everything else added together is half of the iPhone.
– 450K iPads sold to date.
– 185 K Apps in the Apple App Store now.
– 3500 iPad Apps now available.
– 1,000,000 Apps downloaded on first day of iPad.
– Over 600K downloads of iBooks.
– iAd is in the iPhone OS itself. 60% of revenue goes to the developer.
Learn more at Apple.
Learn more at BestAppSite.
Review the live coverage of the announcement at AppleInsider.
Learn more at The Huffington Post.
Check out my latest article on The Huffington Post.
36 Reasons To Have A Smart Phone Camera Everywhere You Go
SCAMPER
SCAMPER
Having trouble coming up with new ideas? Get thousands of ideas with one word. Try SCAMPER. In 1939 advertising executive Alex Osborn, “the father of brainstorming”, first proposed a set of nine strategies for creative thinking, seven of which were later rearranged by Bob Eberle into the mnemonic SCAMPER.
S Substitute
C Combine
A Adapt
M Modify
P Put to Other Uses
E Eliminate
R Rearrange
What are the other two missing words?
Minify, which I like to think of as expand and contract or put another way reduce and enlarge.
Reverse, which I think is the most powerful tool of all. It’s typified by the 180 degree rule. Do the opposite.
The underlying assumption with SCAMPER is that new ideas are based on old ones. This may not always be the case, but often it is. To use SCAMPER, you have to start with something.
You can use SCAMPER as a list of questions that can be used to generate new ideas. Simply ask, “Can I ____ something?” inserting the words SCAMPER represents one at a time. Next, you might try using two words at a time. Later try three. Classically, the best solutions are the simplest, but not always.
Find over 20 creativity tips here.
Learn more in my workshops.
Use PDFs to Make Blurb Books
Want to design your Blurb book with something other than BookSmart.
Want to use InDesign or Quark?
Make a PDF with them.
Then make a Blurb book from the PDF.
This way, you’ll have all the refined control of professional design software and still get print-on-demand books from Blurb.
Learn more about Blurb PDF workflow here.
Watch 3 helpful videos here.
Check out these great design books I recommend.
Find my Blurb book Antarctica here.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.
Blurb's BookSmart Makes Design Easy
Blurb’s BookSmart software makes designing books easy. Don’t know how to use InDesign or Quark? No worries. Just want to make a book? Can do. It’s great to use software that intuitively teaches you how to use it as you work with it.
Daniel Milnor makes Blurb books in as little as 20 minutes.
Check out his On Approach here.
Blurb’s new Color Management Resource Center offers BookSmart help.
Find more BookSmart tips here.
Check out these great design books I recommend.
Find my Blurb book Antarctica here.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.
Blurb Widget Makes Online Book Previews Easy
Blurb’s new book preview Widget lets you preview as much or as little of your Blurb book as you like online. You can embed it on any blog or webpage.
Visitors can view your book as a virtual page turning book or as thumbnails.
They can check Full Screen for a larger preview.
They can click the Share button and help you spread the word.
They can click the Comment button and give you instant feedback.
Or, they can click the Purchase button and get a copy of your book.
This HTML code generates the widget.
<object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000? width=”425? height=”300? codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0?><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” /><param name=”src” value=”http://www.blurb.com/assets/embed.swf?book_id=1244722? /><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /><embed type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425? height=”300? src=”http://www.blurb.com/assets/embed.swf?book_id=1244722? allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true”></embed></object>
You can scale the display by changing the dimension numbers.
It’s easy to implement and use.
Here’s more on how to install the widget.
Find out more about how to Share, Promote, Sell your Blurb books here.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.
How To Make a Gorgeous Photo Book – Blurb
Blurb recently released a great overview of all the issues you need to consider to produce a great photo book – from concept to execution and promotion. Read it and make all your books better.
“Beautiful photo books don’t happen by accident. Talented people invest time and intent using proven design tenets, and the results can be spectacular. To help you up your bookmaking game, we’ve tapped our network of photographers and book designers and collected their best advice on everything from sequencing and layouts to typography and cover design. How to Make a Gorgeous Photo Book includes plenty of tips, tricks, and information to push your creative edge and help you design beautiful books that showcase your best work.”
Find my Blurb book Antarctica here.
Check out these other great design books I recommend.
Stay tuned for dates on my upcoming Blurb seminars and workshop.
What Adults Can Learn From Kids – Adora Svitak
Kids!
Gotta love ’em!
Pay no attention to W C Fields.