Adobe Announces Lightroom 2

One of the topics we've covered in-depth in CorelDRAW Unleashed magazine is the processing of RAW photos. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 added the ability to process RAW images in the Camera Raw Lab. This certainly makes it very convenient to process the occasional RAW image, but it updates your image quite slowly.

For those of you who need to process large numbers of RAW photos, you may want to give the just announced Adobe Lightroom 2 a long look. Note that while it was announced, it will not begin shipping until August 15, 2008.

Not only can you process your RAW files with Lightroom, you can also use it to manage your files. This includes assigning tags and ratings to files and then being able to search those tags or ratings to find the file you need.

A really good review of Adobe Lightroom was posted on Cnet if you want to learn all of the details of this new release. If you're ready to order, you can get either the full version or the upgrade version from Amazon.com. I'm anxiously awaiting my upgrade so that I can give all the new features a test drive.

Share

FoxIt Reader Provides Small, Fast PDF Reader

Everybody needs the ability to view PDF files, right? For most users this means you install Adobe Reader. A full install of Adobe Reader v8 takes up 210 MB on your hard drive and it can be a bit slow to load. A new version is on the way with even more features and I fear it will be even larger and slower. We'll soon find out.

The good news is that you don't have to use Adobe Reader to read PDF files. Foxit Reader is much smaller and faster. It only takes 7 MB to install (2.55 MB to download) and it loads lightning fast.

For the past few months I have been working with Foxit Reader and I was hesitate to include it with my CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book because it wouldn't automatically open the Bookmarks panel even if it was specified in the PDF file. Foxit Reader 2.3 was released about a month ago and it solved this issue. So we're including both Adobe Reader and Foxit Reader with CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed and the user will have the option of which to install, if any.

For those of you developing PDF files, you really need to have both installed so you can test your files in both products. For the rest of you, I'd highly recommend you use Foxit Reader for its smaller footprint and superior speed!

Share

Great Source for Color Combos

As a designer, you are always trying to find colors that work well together. I ran across a free tool today that can help you create color themes and I want to tell you a bit about it.

Kuler is a free tool on the Adobe Web site. One of its features is that it can create color themes (five color combos) from images posted on flickr. I don't know about you, but I've not used flickr. One of these days I'll have to give it a try.

The great part is that you can see all the themes that have been created right on the kuler Web site. If you have an Adobe ID, you can even download the themes as an Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) file. If you have Adobe's CS2 or CS3 suites, you can use the themes.

I'm a CorelDRAW guy through and through so I wanted to get some of the themes into CorelDRAW. So I used the Eyedropper in CorelDRAW to "Select From Desktop" and snag the colors from the kuler Web site. Once I had captured the five colors from a theme, I could tell CorelDRAW to create a palette from the document and I was all set.

So, visit kuler and create palettes from your favorite themes. Next thing you know, you'll have a nice library of palettes to use in your projects.

Share

Adobe Unveils Acrobat 9

About a week ago there was an announcement from Adobe about the upcoming Acrobat 9. One of the biggest features is that Acrobat has native support for Adobe Flash technology. This means you could embed Flash video inside of a PDF file.

The new version will begin shipping on June 26th and I'll be anxiously awaiting a chance to try out the new version. My CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book uses both PDF and Flash technology to deliver the written word and movies respectively. If I understand the new features correctly, I would be able to embed the movies directly into the PDF file in the future. This will make for one huge PDF file, but it would also integrate the two main features of the book in a really cool way.

Sure, there are other new features and I'll let you read the release to learn about all of them. But it is the integration with Flash that has me excited. If you'd like to order a copy, I've put together a page listing each of the flavors of Acrobat 9 as well as related books.

Share

Photoshop Web Design Book Available For Free Download

I'm certainly not a Photoshop user, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy getting a free book. The folks at Sitepoint are giving away the book The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks and Techniques. This is a book that sells at Amazon for $26. Of course, the free copy is a download so it is a bit different than the printed version. The giveaway is also sponsored by an advertiser so you find one line of text at the very bottom of each page promoting the advertiser. Honestly, this wasn't a distraction at all to me.

There is a running clock on the site that says the offer will expire in a little over 27 days. So expect the offer to be gone by mid-June.

For those of you who use Corel PHOTO-PAINT to do your Web graphics, you might want to get our tutorial The Terms of Adobe Photoshop and Corel PHOTO-PAINT. It will help you translate some of the Photoshop terms used in the book so you can do the same projects in Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

Share

Twisting Pixels Releases Classico Plug-In

The folks at Twisting Pixels have some really cool plug-ins that work with Adobe Photoshop and Corel PHOTO-PAINT. Recently they added a new plug-in that can make your photos look like a painting by one of the masters.

ArtStudioPro Classico gives you filters like Aged Paint, Artistic Edges, Cracked Paint, DaVinci, Graphite Sketch, Sketch, Painted Background and Vintage Sketch. With each filter, there are a number of settings you can adjust to get the exact look you want.

You can download a free trial version of this and other Twisting Pixels plug-ins as well as purchasing full versions at the Twisting Pixels Web site.

Share

PDF is Now an ISO Standard

At this point almost every computer user on the planet knows about the PDF (Portable Document Format) file format. It was created and maintained by Adobe until this point. For CorelDRAW users, this has created some frustration as the file format would get updated and we would have to wait for new import/export filters to support the latest format.

Things are changing and this could help keep all software current with the latest format. The ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) has approved the PDF file format as an international document format standard. This means that Adobe no longer has complete control over the format. Instead there will be a ISO committee that determines any changes. Of course, Adobe will participate in the committee and we can only hope other software companies are also represented on that same committee.

Only time will tell, but I think this is a very good thing.

Share