Graphics Unleashed

Price vs. Protection

2010-02-09T01:00:00.025-07:00

I wanted to talk about an issue with you today. I'm bringing it up because I hear people complain about this subject when it isn't something I can control. In describing the situation, I'll present both sides of the issue and I'd appreciate it if you can post a comment (please don't send e-mail as I'll be the only one to see it) and let me know which of the two you prefer.

What we're talking about is whether you prefer to pay more for an application that has limited security or whether you pay a lot less for a product that has very tight security. Let me describe two very similar products along with their price and the security they impose.

Product A costs $400 and can be transferred to different machines, though it is limited to a single computer. Product B costs $70 but can only be installed on a single computer. If you buy a new computer, you will have to purchase another copy of Product B. For the sake of this discussion, let's say that both products do exactly the same thing.

Now I'm sure some of you will say you want the best of both. Sorry, that isn't an option. You either pay the higher price of Product A and have the ability to transfer your license or you pay the lower price of Product B and it is locked to a single machine. So which of the two would you prefer? If possible, explain why you selected the product you did. Again, please post your answer as a comment.

Jeff's Magic Erase

2010-02-08T01:00:00.009-07:00

Not a day goes by without someone asking that infamous question, how to cut an image out of a background. Many times the process is fairly simple and Jeff Harrison has created a macro to make it even easier. This macro is for images where the background to be removed is primarily a solid color. The more complex the background, the less likely this macro will help. Check out Jeff's Magic Erase and see if it is something useful to you. You'll find a demonstration movie on the page to show you exactly how it works.

Heart Shape

2010-02-07T01:00:00.005-07:00

Can you believe that Valentine's Day is only a week away? I can only guess that you are in need of graphics with hearts of all shapes and sizes. Heart Shape gives you what you need in both AI and EPS formats. Even better, you can download them for free!

ColoRotate Plug-In

2010-02-06T01:00:00.016-07:00

Today I'm going to talk about a Photoshop plug-in. Note that while it only works in Photoshop CS4, I'd still like you all to at least take a brief look at it as I have some questions that I'll pose later in this post.

The idea behind this plug-in is that it allows users to pick colors in three dimensions. The chosen colors can be fine-tuned using joysticks and sliders. Once colors are added to a palette, those palettes can be saved and shared with others. If you want to see how it works, check out the tour of Colorotate. There is also a page on their site that gives you a lot of background about color (this isn't specific to Photoshop at all).

The Photoshop plug-in costs $39 and like I said, it will only work in Photoshop CS4. So I'm curious to know if any of you would find it useful to have something similar for use in CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT. And for those who would find it useful, would you spend $39 for it? If there is enough interest, I'll pass along your feedback to the developer and see if they would consider creating a version for CorelDRAW users. Of course if you aren't interested, no need to say anything. So post a comment and let everyone know how you feel. For those who haven't posted a comment, there is a link at the bottom of the post for doing so. Please don't reply via e-mail as I'm the only one who can see it.

Heartbreaker

2010-02-05T01:00:00.007-07:00

We're one week closer to Valentine's Day and so I'll continue my theme of heart and love themed fonts. While Valentine's Day can be a great day for some, it can also be a Heartbreaker for others. This font comes in both a regular and a heavy version. You'll also find a cool logo included within the font. It is licensed for personal use only.

Turn Off the Eye Candy

2010-02-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

We all want Windows to work as fast as possible, right? Part of the progress with Windows Vista and Windows 7 was the aero special effects. They look cool, but they also slow your system down. So if you care more about performance than eye candy, turn it off.

Open Control Panel and type the word "visual" in the search field. You'll be presented with several things you can do. One of them is "Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows". Click on it and select Adjust for best performance in the dialog box that appears. Click Apply and you should see a nice improvement in speed. Personally I would rather turn things off on my own. So under the selection for Adjust for best performance is a long list of things that can be adjusted. If you feel daring, turn off the ones you can live without. The more you turn off, the faster things go. But I'm guessing you don't want to turn them all off. Post a comment and let me know what you find the least useful in that list and what you find the most useful.

Samsung DVD Drive

2010-02-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I talk about hardware that is really cool. Other times it is quite frivolous. Today I'm going to talk about something rather pedestrian, yet something very important.

First off, do you have a DVD drive in your computer? Look at the thing where you insert the shiny discs and see if you see a DVD logo on it. The reason I bring this up is because there are users who don't have a DVD drive and they are becoming increasingly important. CorelDRAW X4 was only supplied on DVD. Ditto for Adobe's latest couple of versions. Nearly all of the disc-based products from Unleashed are on a DVD. I bring this up because occasionally a customer will call with trouble reading our discs. The problem turns out that they only have a CD-ROM drive.

The drives aren't expensive. The Samsung SH-S222 that I recommend is less than $40. If you are even a little bit handy with a screwdriver, you should be able to install it yourself. For those intimidated with installing it, find a geek friend to do it for you. Not only would replacing the CD-ROM drive allow you to read DVDs, you will probably also be upgrading to a much faster drive. It may also be that the upgrade is worthwhile for those who already have a DVD drive to get a fresh drive and/or faster speeds.

All I can tell you is that more and more software will be shipped on DVD-ROM discs so it is something you really need to get in your computer sooner rather than later.

Don't Lose Custom Content

2010-02-02T01:00:00.001-07:00

CorelDRAW allows users to save all sorts of custom content. Examples include pattern fills, artistic media brushes, object sprayers, scripts and more. When you save any of these types of contents, they will default to the AppData folder on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Windows XP users will find them in Documents and Settings. The problem with this is that the AppData folder is a hidden folder.

If you save any of these types of content to AppData, you may never be able to access the files outside of CorelDRAW. There are two ways to avoid this problem. First is to navigate to another folder before clicking the Save button. Unfortunately this could mean that the content won't be automatically recognized by CorelDRAW. Second is to make hidden folders visible. While this is possible, it isn't always a great idea since it also allows you to see more dangerous files like system files.

Supposedly this is done to follow Microsoft's requirements for certification. Let's use an object sprayer as an example. It is saved by users as a CDR file and it must be in a hidden folder based on these requirements. Yet if you save or export any other kind of graphic to CDR format, it can be wherever you like. What's the difference? A user created the file and it is in CDR format.

For now, I can only suggest you save your files to a safe location or make hidden folders visible. We can only hope that Corel addresses this in the future so that you can easily access the content you create.

Does ePub Matter to You?

2010-02-01T01:00:00.016-07:00

Before I get into asking the question posed in the post title, I guess I should step back and tell you a bit about the ePub format. According to Wikipedia, ePub is a free and open e-book standard, by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). OK, so that definition probably still doesn't really clear it up for anyone. Let me tell you where you can read them and that might make it more clear. On your computer, you can use the free Adobe Digital Editions. If you don't have a laptop to lug, you can read on a Sony Reader, a COOL-ER Reader, a Bookeen Cybook Opus, an iPod and an iPhone. And has become so famous in product introductions, there is one more device--the iPad.

The publications we create all include full color and heavy use of graphics. Because of this, I've never considered making anything for Amazon's Kindle (or Kindle DX) since they only support 16 shades of gray. The Sony Reader, COOL-ER Reader and Bookeen Cybook Opus are also grayscale devices and thus not of interest for our publications. Not to mention their sales have been pretty limited. Adobe Digital Editions is nice, but all of our publications are now readable in Adobe Reader which is installed on most all computers. The iPod and iPhone have screens too small to be useful for reading our publications. So really this all boils down to one relevant device at this time, the iPad.

I'll talk more about the iPad in a future post when I've had the chance to learn more about it. In short, Apple is hoping that it will bridge the gap between a smartphone and a laptop. As someone who carries a laptop quite often, the smaller size definitely is appealing. Yet it can't run my Windows software. One of the things it can do very well is read ePub files, or at least the launch makes it sound like a great ePub reader. Of course it can also be used to surf the Web, send/receive e-mail and run all sorts of other apps. As a consumer, I'll at least consider getting one. But the real business decision for me is whether there are enough people desiring ebooks in ePub format to consider making some/all of our publications available in that format.

That leads back to the question I posed in the post title. Does ePub matter to you? Post a comment and give us all your thoughts. As a side note, I know some of you e-mail comments directly and I appreciate that. But when you post a comment here, everyone can participate in the discussion.

Vintage Cupid Shooting Arrow

2010-01-31T01:00:00.001-07:00

I started the theme on Friday with a Valentine's Day related font. So it only made sense to follow up with some cupid themed artwork. I found a vintage hand-drawn image of cupid shooting an arrow that can be download as either a Photoshop file with transparency (should also work fine in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. It is also available as a vector EPS file that you can use in CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator. This might be of even greater appeal to those of you doing engraving since it was digitized from a classic engraving.

Serif PagePlus X4

2010-01-30T01:00:00.001-07:00

Not a day goes by where a CorelDRAW user doesn't beg for more desktop publishing features in CorelDRAW. I really wouldn't hold your breath for these features. Instead, it is in your best interests to find a publishing tool that works the best for you for usage in conjunction with CorelDRAW.

Today I want to introduce you to Serif PagePlus X4 as it packs a lot of bang for the buck. Is it the most powerful tool available? No. But it is also priced under $100 and will meet the needs of many users.

According to the product page, here are the highlighted features:

Open and edit documents from anywhere with impressive PDF editing
Get great results fast using templates, ready-made artwork, and learning zone videos
Create virtually any document type with a massive range of publishing possibilities
Be compatible with images, graphics, text files and your chosen print shop
Edit and enhance photos with an impressive built-in PhotoLab
Design logos and other artwork without leaving PagePlus X4
Print at high quality on desktop printers, at any size, even double-sided

Some of the included features will duplicate tasks you can complete in CorelDRAW or Corel PHOTO-PAINT. Yet you might find the Photo Lab included with PagePlus to be quicker for fixing some photos. You'll also find wizards for some of the most common tasks that will speed the production of your document. One feature I always find important when laying out pages is the ability to anchor a graphic to the related text so that it will flow automatically as text is added or deleted. If nothing else, you'll want to download the free trial and give it a look. While I can't guarantee it will work, you can also try coupon code "PPX4E183" as it may save you a significant amount if you want to purchase.

Heart and Soul

2010-01-29T01:00:00.014-07:00

I'm not one who obsesses over a calendar so I hadn't even realized that we were so close to February already until I looked at the calendar today. With February comes Valentine's Day so I figured I would point you to some fonts with hearts and love as a theme over the next two to three weeks. Today's font is called Heart & Soul and it is a dingbat font with various pictograms geared towards a lover's favorite holiday. I think the font designer has an absolutely wonderful middle name. You'll have to look at the font to see the name. Also make note that this font is free, but it is not licensed for commercial use.

An Interesting Use of the Object Data Manager

2010-01-28T01:00:00.014-07:00

The Object Data Manager is one of those features that has been incredibly useful to a small percentage of users while being ignored by the vast majority. I'm sure that one reason it isn't used more often is that users just haven't found a way it should be used. So today I'm going to show you one way that a developer is using it to create interactive data on a cemetery. Follow the link and then click on the icon in the lower right corner of the page to see an example screen shot. As someone clicks on a lot number on the map of a cemetery, detailed data on that lot are provided in the Object Data Manager Docker.

Now I don't expect that most of you will be doing maps of a cemetery. But try to brainstorm about what else you might draw that would become even more useful if objects had data stored about them. I'm hoping this will inspire more of you to use the feature and I'd be thrilled if you would post a comment and tell us all about it.

Thermaltake BlacX Duet

2010-01-27T01:00:00.009-07:00

I've talked about external hard drives in the past and I've even talked about a simple connector for hooking up a loose hard drive. The Thermaltake BlacX Duet connects to your computer via either USB 2.0 or eSata and allows you to slide either one or two loose drives into the unit. This makes it very say to connect anyones drive to your computer quickly or simply to buy a new hard drive and connect it to your system for transferring files. And it costs less than $50!

PaintShop Photo Pro and VideoStudio Pro Upgraded and On Sale Today

2010-01-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

Corel has released PaintShop Photo Pro X3 and VideoStudio Pro X3 and special pricing is in place today, January 26th, 2010, for the upgrades.I'll give you a brief overview of the products, but I'd highly recommend you follow the links to check out these new products for yourself.

Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 gives you the power to easily organize, edit and share professional-quality photos—fast. Ideal for DSLR cameras, it combines photo organization, easy batch processing, creative projects, sharing, and now HD video slideshows and a new RAW Lab.

Organize and manage all of your photos fast!
Edit fast with advanced editing tools, including new Smart Carver
Fix common problems fast in the Express Lab
Edit one photo, then apply the changes to many others at once
Import, make basic edits and export HD video
Create photo books, HD slideshows, cards and more
Print, burn to disc, send directly to Facebook®, Flickr™ and YouTube™
Bonus! Corel® Painter™ Photo Essentials 4

Corel VideoStudio Pro X3 is your end-to-end video production package. Now twice as fast, it delivers express and advanced editing modes, studio-quality templates from RevoStock, improved filters, titles, and powerful real-time effects from NewBlue. Share your movies with HD and Blu-ray authoring, and send directly to YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook--all from one complete package.

Start with studio-quality templates, real-time effects and royalty-free music
Edit and render faster with GPU acceleration and multi-core Intel® CPU support
Author menus and burn to CD, DVD or Blu-ray
Navigate, assemble clips and edit faster with the redesigned interface
Share on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, iPod and more

If you want to kick the tires of either program, you can download trial versions. Links to download the free trial versions can be found on the product pages.

Of course you can also buy the two products bundled together for a special price.

As always, I highly recommend that anyone wanting to purchase the products should choose the boxed versions so they get everything. Pricing for the download and the boxed versions are the same. Corel does note that the boxed versions will ship on February 8. In that case, use the free trial version until your box arrives.

Simulate Parallel Lines in CorelDRAW

2010-01-26T01:00:00.000-07:00

This tutorial goes back a few years, but the information presented is still very relevant. Jeff Harrison has a free video tutorials showing An Easy Way to Simulate Parallel Lines in CoreDRAW. Even better, you can easily edit the lines after they have been created. Give it a look and I bet you'll learn a new technique that will be quite useful.

MonsterMerge Variable Imaging Suite

2010-01-25T01:00:00.019-07:00

I've told you about the MonsterMerge Variable Imaging Suite before and I decided to talk about it again because it provides features that are useful to so many CorelDRAW users. One thing I should make clear is that CorelDRAW X4 is required to run it. Why not on the older versions? Quite simply because Corel added the ability to merge to a new file in CorelDRAW X4. That feature alone is worth upgrading if you use Print Merge in CorelDRAW. Yes, CorelDRAW's native Print Merge is very powerful at merging text. But it doesn't give you the ability to merge graphics.

MonsterMerge adds the ability to merge graphics as well as a built-in imposition system. Let's use name badges as an example. It is easy to create name badges customized with a person's name, their company, their location and other textual information. But what if you want to put the person's picture on the name badge? Or maybe a graphic related to their category of business? You'd have to do that manually without MonsterMerge. If you had MonsterMerge, you would put the name of the graphic file on the graphic and then MonsterMerge would swap that name with the actual graphic. It support a wide variety of graphic formats.

This is just one example of the many things that MonsterMerge can do. Examples of some projects are posted on the Web site and more are found in the supplied help files. If you do Print Merge, you'll find MonsterMerge to be a valuable addition!

National Hockey Teams

2010-01-24T01:00:00.001-07:00

Can you believe it is less than a month until the 2010 Olympics begins in Vancouver? I have already heard various people talking about their hockey team and how it might do in the Olympics. That led me to searching for the logos of the various national teams. Only a handful are currently available and I suspect that more will become available as we get closer to the start of the games.

PDF Viewing Software

2010-01-23T01:00:00.053-07:00

I don't know about all of you, but I view numerous PDF files each and every day. First, let's take a brief look at the PDF (Portable Document Format) file format. It was created by Adobe in 1993 and was released as an open standard on July 1, 2008. So while it was Adobe's proprietary creation, it is now a format that can be created, modified and read by any software that follows the format standards.

As most of you are aware, CorelDRAW can create PDF files from your artwork and gives you great control over what is created. If you aren't aware of all the settings, check out my CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book. OK, enough of the mandatory book plugs. :) Other popular software, like Microsoft Office 2007, can also create PDF files from within the software. The strange thing is that Microsoft made the Save as PDF feature an add-in you have to download rather than including it in the box.

There are other tools to create PDF files, including some free ones. I'll save that list for another post. Since I'm already using the Adobe CS4 suite for other products, I use Adobe Acrobat Professional 9 to create and edit PDF files.

Back to the topic at hand and that is viewing PDF files. Adobe Reader is certainly one of the most used pieces of software for viewing PDF files. It is a 37.9 MB download and is free. While it works well, it can be slow due to bloat. It also frequently comes under attack if a security hole is found. I've been a big fan of FoxIt Reader for a few years now. It is also a free download that is only 5.1 MB in size. Is is perfect? No, there are a very small number of things that display incorrectly. But it is fast and the flaws will rarely affect most users. A loyal reader recently pointed me to PDF-XChange Viewer. Is is also free and the download is 19.6 MB. I've not yet hand time to do any comparisons about speed, though I find it to be very quick on the few files I tested. I also don't know if there are any flaws in regards to displaying all files, but I found it worked as well if not better than FoxIt Reader on the files I tested. The most important thing to know is that there are good alternatives to Adobe Reader. As graphics professionals, it is good for us to have numerous readers with which to test our files and make sure they work correctly. We just don't know what software will be used to view our files after they are created.

Give the various PDF readers a try and post a comment letting me know what you think of them.

KR Down By the Sea Font

2010-01-22T01:00:00.007-07:00

For the last week, I've been enjoying time on and near the ocean. I've done some diving and saw all kinds of fish. I've walked the beach and found a variety of shells. Since I can't share that directly with you, I thought I'd try to find a font that might do the trick. Check out KR Down By The Sea Font and you'll find pictographs of many of the things I've seen.

Memory and CorelDRAW

2010-01-21T01:00:00.001-07:00

As much as I've tried to inform CorelDRAW users about the useless Memory setting, I still see it referenced on a regular basis. So I'm going to ask all of you to read a post from 2008 titled Memory Usage Setting Does Nothing.

The most recent reference I saw to this setting was from a user who had 5 GB of memory installed in their computer and was complaining that Corel PHOTO-PAINT only was using 2 GB. I thought it was a good time to re-visit this topic and well as explain a few more things.

If you are using a 32-bit operating system, you can use a maximum of 4 GB of RAM. That isn't a limitation imposed by CorelDRAW or any other software, it is imposed by Windows. And even if you have 4 GB of RAM, only around 3 GB will truly be available to use due to Windows limitations. I'm guessing that most of you have hardware that is capable of running a 64-bit operating system. The key is installing a version of Windows that is 64-bit. You can do this with Windows XP, Vista or 7. In fact, I'm pretty sure that all flavors of Windows 7 include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions in the box. It is simply a choice you make when installing. Before you run out and do this, you need to do some homework first.

When running a 64-bit operating system, you must have 64-bit drivers for your hardware. So check with the manufacturers of each of your devices and make sure such a driver exists. When I installed Windows 7 64-bit last fall, I had no problem finding drivers for my equipment. If you have older hardware, you might find it difficult to find a driver. This is especially true for some of the machines used in the production world such as laser engravers.

Unless you have a fairly new computer, I personally think you should wait to move to 64-bit when you get a new system just to make sure all the parts will have drivers. RAM is fairly inexpensive in comparison to other components. When I built my new computer, I installed the maximum RAM possible (12 GB). Just because that much memory exists does not mean CorelDRAW can use all of it. Even under a 64-bit operating system, 32-bit programs are still limited to 2 GB of memory each. The benefit of having a large amount of RAM is that you can have multiple "big" applications running at the same time and still have memory to spare. As I write this, I have six "big" applications and numerous smaller ones running and only 3.5 GB of memory is being used.

Even if you move to a 64-bit OS, CorelDRAW is still 32-bit software so it will not use more than 2 GB of memory. Unless you are working with some incredibly big bitmap images, that is well above what you need. Yes, the Memory setting in CorelDRAW will show you have more than 4 GB of RAM and it will even let you change the setting to whatever number you want. I will repeat once again that the Memory Usage setting does absolutely nothing! So if it makes you feel better to change the setting, have fun. It just won't do anything to improve the performance at all. I can also pretty much guarantee that the development team will remove this in future versions so that users won't be under the impression it does anything.

I do encourage you to move to a 64-bit operating system. Just make sure your system and all of your hardware is ready for 64-bits. As more users move to 64-bits, I think we'll see more software released in a 64-bit version to take advantage of the new hardware and all that extra memory.

Yamaha 2-Way Indoor/Outdoor Speakers

2010-01-20T01:00:00.001-07:00

Last week I told you about the small mixer I am using to provide microphone and computer output for our CorelDRAW Unleashed Boot Camps. There was one other piece of the puzzle that needed to be solved. The training room did not have speakers in the back of the room. Luckily I had thought far enough in advance to wire the room for rear speakers so there were already connections for plugging in speakers. The key was finding the right speakers for our training room needs.

Luckily I already had a good idea what speakers would work great. About a year ago I had gotten for speakers for myself and I thought they would be a good fit for the training room as well. Not only would they look great in the room, they also sound great. I went with the Yamaha NS-AW350W 2-Way Indoor/Outdoor Speakers in white. Even the price was right. These speakers are easy to mount indoors or outdoors and only required drilling four holes. I had them installed in about ten minutes and the sound in our training room is perfect.

Creating Murals with Corel PHOTO-PAINT X4

2010-01-19T01:00:00.002-07:00

I know there are a good number of users who create tile murals with the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. Today's tutorial, Creating Murals with Corel PHOTO-PAINT X4, is a video made of static screen shots explaining the process. There is no sound so I admit the video might be a little tough to watch.

Jeff Harrison and I have discussed the process and we think there is a way to significantly improve both the quality of the output and the time it takes to go through the steps. Once we have fully developed our "improved" solution, we'll post it for you.

Hendrik's Startnode

2010-01-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

Need to find the first node on each path or subpath in your drawing? Hendrik's Startnode will make this process easier for you. To make the process even quicker, assign the macro to a button or shortcut key. Best of all, it is a free download.

Dare to Dream

2010-01-17T01:00:00.001-07:00

Today I'd like to tell you about a really awesome piece of artwork perfect for any of you doing either screen printing or digital garment printing. Sure, it can be used for other things as well. February is Black History Month and the Dare to Dream graphic is a perfect depiction of the month. You get a full color version of the image as well as pre-separated versions for both Photoshop and CorelDRAW. If you want to sell garments celebrating the month, this is a great graphic to put on those garments.