Fun with Photoshop

Here's a couple of fun and interesting-looking photoshop tutorials I found while browsing the web recently, instead of doing my work.

How to Make a Color Photo Look Like a Black and White Sketch

This one is quick and easy (two of my favorite things). I used it to make the picture for my blog profile, transforming this handsome visage...

...into this!

Excellent! I am now ready to be in that video by A-Ha.

The tutorial for this was provided by the fine folks at wikihow.com:
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Color-Image-Look-Like-a-Sketch-in-Photoshop


The second tutorial is a bit more labor-intensive, and I haven't actually tried it out myself, but it sure looks cool.

How to Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect

Here's the final product: And, the tutorial can be found at the psdtuts.com website:
http://psdtuts.com/text-effects-tutorials/create-a-spectacular-grass-text-effect-in-photoshop/

Digital Print for 1¢

I know it sounds too good to be true, but as Drupa opens today, we will be hearing about new advances that will provide printers a way to increase profits.

One release that caught my eye is Kodak’s new Stream, a digital printer that will give offset a run for the money. Kodak stated the per page cost could be a penny or less.

Just one more thing to put on my must see list for Graph Expo.

Love Fonts? Hate Fonts? Indifferent? Test your Font IQ

Think you know fonts? Quantify your skills with this fun little online Font Identifying game. Rack up the highest score you can and then challenge your friends to best you. Be sure to check out the Hall of Fame as well. We'll see you there. By the way, we can't do any better than 17/34. Good luck.
Test Your Font Knowledge

A Tip-of-the-Hat to ilovetypography and Kari Patila.

Summertime = Backyard BBQ!

We love smoked salmon and pork, but don't want to pony up for an actual smoker...here's how we did it: A DIY Smoker!

Save some scratch, be resourceful, and make your own. Be sure to save some grub for us, please.

A Tip-of-the-Hat to Make Magazine's Blog Contributors and backyard BBQ pros, everywhere.

Off with their heads

The immortal yearbook photo… brings back ugly memories for many of us. That awkward age captured in perpetuity. The hair-do you’ll never live down.

But here’s one you wouldn’t expect: head switching.

A Texas high school requested that the heads on all student photos be made the same size with the eyes at the same level.

Can’t you just hear the prepress staff’s muffled screams of agony? People come in different shapes and sizes, so why shouldn’t their heads?

I guess the prepress staff found a way to escape the boredom and have some laughs.

But it was, "an unfortunate lapse in judgment by an employee” that landed them all in the unemployment line.

How’s that saying go? He who laughs first…...

Firefox: Fantastically Fantastic

I can't say enough good things about Mozilla's Firefox. In fact, I enjoy and use both Firefox and Thunderbird; Mozilla's seemingly limitlessly customizable web-browser and e-mail client. In the coming posts, I will likely do small features on certain aspects or neat tricks I enjoy about both of them. For, now... I've got one to share with you that's easy and a time-saver.

Did you know that you can quickly and easily open your favorite or most-frequented websites without having to type in the entire URL or selecting its bookmark? Again, this is a really simple, little-known feature (among the many) that Firefox affords its users! If you're interested, I'll give you a step-by-step (there are only two) example:

Say you want to make it easy to get to Gmail. Firstly, you'd make a bookmark of the sign-in page and, from there, you would go into your Bookmarks drop-down option at the top of your Firefox browser.

1.) Hovering your cursor over the bookmark for Gmail, you right-click on it and select 'Properties.'
2.) In the field named 'keywords,' you enter your shortcut for the site. Let's say you chose the letter 'g' to represent Gmail. Click OK and you're done!

Then, to make use of your handy-dandy shortcut for Gmail, in any tab, in the URL field, type the letter 'g' and press . Viola! Gmail begins to load, automagically!


Hope this little tip makes things a bit more fun and streamlined for you! More to come, in the future. Have a great weekend!

Minority Report, anyone?

Steven Spielberg's movie Minority Report was a fun, exciting flick that pushed the ideas of the future. After Apple came out with the multi-touch surface for the iPhone, it would be expected that other companies would release similar technology.

Without further adieu, here is Microsoft's take on touch interface control.



Read the entire article at Engadget.com.

Can it be true? File > Export > Flash?

Will all your InD files become fodder for Flash? Supposedly, Macromedia is working on incorporating a Flash export setting for InDesign, making it easy for every Joe Schmoe layout artist/designer to easily transform their InDesign files into functional Flash pieces. We'd love to see this become a reality. Sooner rather than later, please.

InDesign's Future Flash Export Function

A tip-of-the-hat to Creativepro.com and Terri Stone.

Training Online vs. Face to Face

A recent Graphic Arts Online article caught my attention, Online vs. Face to Face Training by NAPL expert Howie Fenton. I think Howie brings up a good point-– too often online education is disguised as online training, leaving the learner frustrated. Corporate education is important, but is not ideally delivered via e-learning. So, I agree with Howie’s comments, from that standpoint.

However, work flow, or process training is best delivered through a consistent, repetitive environment, which often cannot be accomplished one-on-one, and if it is, it is typically not cost effective.

The important thing, no matter what type of training delivery you are using, is that the training program should meet certain criteria. We’ve created a couple to tools to help you out, if you are considering implementing a training program or if you want to evaluate your current training efforts:

The Ideal Training Program

Management Decision Maker Checklist

If you are leaning toward an online delivery, here’s a great evaluation tool I found: Measuring the Total Cost of e-Learning by Kevin Kruse.

We also offer an ROI calculation specific to your company. Just contact us at info@prepresstraining.com to get yours.

Training is extremely important as the economy tightens, so no matter what type of training you do – just do it!