Blog to Host Graphic Information

I am going to jump in and use my blog to try to help inform people about cool and interesting things in the wonderful word of graphics. Photoshop is my passion and I will be posting tons of items about it and I will also be giving tips and tricks. Along with Photoshop I will be posting information about other Adobe programs and various other software makers that I use or find helpfull in my day to day life. I hope you all enjoy this blog as much as I do creating it. You can contact me eric@eyedeas-design.com.

Thanks and have fun
Eric Saar

Clean-up script for CS3 Mac betas available

Adobe has posted a clean-up script for Mac that will remove vestiges of the Photoshop CS3 public beta as well as other pre-release apps. It's important to run this script (and not just throw the app in the trash!), and/or to use the application uninstaller, before installing the shipping version of CS3 apps.

My top 5 Photoshop Quick Tips

1. Transform. Did you ever bring an image into another Photoshop document and it is HUGE? You need to size the image down, but when you do a free transform you might not see the handles. Well if you do a Command+T (Control+T, PC) and then Command+0 (Control+0, PC) it will shrink the entire image and enlarge your clip board so that you can see the handles.
2. Brush Size. Any tool that uses a brush you can change the brush size just by using the bracket keys "[ Left bracket" will make the brush smaller and the "Right bracket ]" will make the brush bigger. This is so much better than going to the brushes palette all the time.
3. Hex Colors? If you want the Hexadecimal number from a color in an image all you need to do is get the eyedropper tool (I on the keyboard) and Control+Click or right mouse click on that color. This will bring up a menu, just pick “Copy Color as HTML”. Then in Dreamweaver you can just paste your new color number.
4. Zoom. To quickly zoom in and out on your document you can press Command + or -. If you also take your Zoom tool and use it to draw a box around a specific area of an image it will zoom you in right on that section.
5. Selections. To make a complete selection of an image on a transparent layer, just Comand (Control PC) click on the thumbnail on the layer you wish to select and it will make the selection.

Converting Video With MPEG Streamclip

I do some video editing and making little presentation movies for different things. I use Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro , Apple Motion, Apple Sound Track Pro, Apple QuickTime Pro and all the iLife products like iMovie, iDVD and Garage Band. With all this software one would think that I could open and use or save out a promotional video clip from a DVD with one of these high tech programs? This turned out to be a much more difficult task than I expected. After talking to my friend Ted, and his English counter part they recommended the greatest FREE program that just works GREAT! MPEG Streamclip 1.8 is the nicest little download I have found in a while. Just drag pretty much any video clip to the main window when the program opens and you can export it in many different formats that you can then use in one of those fancy editors. Try it you will like it!

The World's Most Photorealistic Vector Art

Totally by accident I stumbled across this, It is to good to pass up. I am a big fan of Burt Monroy who is an artist that uses Adobe Photo shop and Adobe Illustrator to create Photo realistic art work, and I have to tell you, his stuff is great! Well I found a site that has a gallery of Photo realistic art, but mostly Vector art. you have to see it to believe it. This is some masterful Illustrator art work. View it here.

Warm Weather Brings Out The Artist

Last night when I got home from teaching, I was surprised when I pulled into the drive way. When the kids got home from school they decided to do some drawing with the sidewalk chalk. It started out just as some thing fun to do, but quickly turned into a huge fun project. Before they knew it they had covered most of the drive way with their art work. It got me looking around for Kurt Wenner - Master Artist and An English chalk artist who goes by the name of Julian Beever, that does a lot of those great 3D sidewalk drawings that you might of seen in your email. I love these and they are very inspirational, I hope you enjoy them.

Vintage Comic Book Ads

Occasionally I search for different types of ads, and today I cam e across this site that has old comic book ads. "Supermarketing: Ads from the comic books" What a great idea, not only can you see some old layouts and designs but how many crazy stupid things they tried to sell. X-ray glasses or Sea Monkeys any one?

Adobe Ships CS3 Products

As of Monday April 16, Adobe is shipping most of the CS3 products. The Design suites are shipping along with the Web suites. The Video suites are not shipping yet. The good new is that the video products are back to the Mac! I know I talked to my rep where we purchase a lot of our software and he said they are heading out the door.