Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Summary of Class
When I first started this class, I honestly hated it. It was so rough getting the first two month of blogs done because they took so long, but after that things in the class got so much better because we started doing more projects and the blogs took even less time to do. My favorite projects I would say was the variable data project because I had never attempted to make a post card before and I thought it was really neat and will probably use it again for my business sometime in the near future. I also liked designing the newspaper ad because it was nice trying something new for a fake business and seeing if it would work to be distributed. I think that's one great aspect I enjoyed was how much free will we had when designing projects because there was no limit on how little or much we could do. Having a class that has a set schedule was greatly appreciated as well because I always liked to know whats going on and when assignments are due. Overall this class was very beneficial and I am glad I decided to choose graphic design as my minor compared to something else or I wouldn't have known how to combine all the Adobe programs together in InDesign. I also would like to say thanks for all the help I got from you (our teacher) because with all the graphic design classes that I have taken, I would say you taught and helped me more than any other staff member in the department.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Lawsuit Summary Post
Lawsuit Summary Post
Copyright protects everything and lasts the length of the author's life plus 70 years after that. According to the Copyright website, "Copyright is a form of intellectual property law designed to protect authors of creative work from unauthorized reproduction, copying, and selling. It gives authors the ability to license and transfer their works to other parties so that they may legally reproduce, copy, and sell the product under contractual settings." Infringement of copyright is when someone steals copyrighted work and calls it their own.
If not everyone knows, a couple years ago Limewire went to court for copyright infringement of music. Everyone thought or still thinks that this case was settled among 30 and more music publishers. According to this Technology blog website, "Limewire is still facing a lawsuit brought by 13 record companies, including Atlantic, Elektra, Interscope, Motown, Sony BMG, Virgin, and Warner Brothers, which is set for trial in May." Limewire if you don't know is a place you go to download music for free and it allowed free file sharing among its members that anyone could upload a song from somewhere else then it could be downloaded by anyone, which is why this is copyright infringement. Because of this, the record labels have had $1 million in damage. Limewire is still seeking to prove that the damage claims are wrong and exaggerated. I will post below from Google of what the logo from Limewire looks like in case you didn't know. All the information I retrieved this from was from the Copyright website and the IP and Technology blog.
Copyright protects everything and lasts the length of the author's life plus 70 years after that. According to the Copyright website, "Copyright is a form of intellectual property law designed to protect authors of creative work from unauthorized reproduction, copying, and selling. It gives authors the ability to license and transfer their works to other parties so that they may legally reproduce, copy, and sell the product under contractual settings." Infringement of copyright is when someone steals copyrighted work and calls it their own.
If not everyone knows, a couple years ago Limewire went to court for copyright infringement of music. Everyone thought or still thinks that this case was settled among 30 and more music publishers. According to this Technology blog website, "Limewire is still facing a lawsuit brought by 13 record companies, including Atlantic, Elektra, Interscope, Motown, Sony BMG, Virgin, and Warner Brothers, which is set for trial in May." Limewire if you don't know is a place you go to download music for free and it allowed free file sharing among its members that anyone could upload a song from somewhere else then it could be downloaded by anyone, which is why this is copyright infringement. Because of this, the record labels have had $1 million in damage. Limewire is still seeking to prove that the damage claims are wrong and exaggerated. I will post below from Google of what the logo from Limewire looks like in case you didn't know. All the information I retrieved this from was from the Copyright website and the IP and Technology blog.
Limewire Logo image from Google
Adobe Tutorial # 5
Making Eyes Brighter or Stand out in Adobe Photoshop CS5
The last Adobe Tutorial I am going to explain how to do is how to make eyes brighter in a picture. There are other various ways how to do it but this is one of the ways I like to do it the best and will number off the steps for this one since it can be a little complex. I got this tutorial and learned it from this YouTube video.
Steps
1. Open a portrait picture, where you can edit the eyes of a person.
2. The next step is to duplicate the background layer.
3. You then click the Dodge Tool, which is on the left side of the screen.
4. After clicking the Dodge Tool, you then go up at the top of the screen and go to range and scroll down to highlights.
5.Then in the percentage you will type 50% to make sure the eyes look brighter when you start highlighting them.
6. You zoom into the eyes on the photo.
7. You then use the dodge tool to go around the middle of each of the eyes.
8. After this you can either leave it or bring the opacity down to make the eyes look a tad more normal.
9. After you have it the way you like then you can go to Layer > Flatten Image
10. The very last step is to Save As JPG then you are officially done and just learned how to brighten the eyes on a portrait picture.
I know this isn't one of the best photos I have taken of my niece but It showed her eyes the best and you can see my original picture and then the one where her eyes are brighter and can tell the difference. I forgot to mention as well, that you can actually use the Dodge Tool to brighten teeth as well.
The last Adobe Tutorial I am going to explain how to do is how to make eyes brighter in a picture. There are other various ways how to do it but this is one of the ways I like to do it the best and will number off the steps for this one since it can be a little complex. I got this tutorial and learned it from this YouTube video.
Steps
1. Open a portrait picture, where you can edit the eyes of a person.
2. The next step is to duplicate the background layer.
3. You then click the Dodge Tool, which is on the left side of the screen.
4. After clicking the Dodge Tool, you then go up at the top of the screen and go to range and scroll down to highlights.
5.Then in the percentage you will type 50% to make sure the eyes look brighter when you start highlighting them.
6. You zoom into the eyes on the photo.
7. You then use the dodge tool to go around the middle of each of the eyes.
8. After this you can either leave it or bring the opacity down to make the eyes look a tad more normal.
9. After you have it the way you like then you can go to Layer > Flatten Image
10. The very last step is to Save As JPG then you are officially done and just learned how to brighten the eyes on a portrait picture.
I know this isn't one of the best photos I have taken of my niece but It showed her eyes the best and you can see my original picture and then the one where her eyes are brighter and can tell the difference. I forgot to mention as well, that you can actually use the Dodge Tool to brighten teeth as well.
Original Image
Final Image, with a little vibrance that I added to it so she didn't look so white.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Final Project for the Class!
I decided to do a design a graduation card for my final project. My purpose is get my family and friends to come to my graduation on May 12, 2012 at 11 a.m and tell them they are invited to the graduation. There will be three colors used because of the Pittsburg State University colors,which are crimson and gold, and the card will be black with white lettering or font. The target audience is my family and friends from all over to come and celebrate me graduating. The call to action is giving them the location of where the graduation is being held and to inform them that I am graduating this May. The bleed is .125 inches. The margins are .25 inches. The whole sheet or trim size is 10 inches wide by 7 inches high. It will be printed on card stock paper. The live area on each page will be 5 x 7 inches. I did do a folding dummy. I just scanned the front and back of each rough from both outside and inside of the card then uploaded it on here. I had it printed on 80# paper at Quick Print. From the Master Image Checklist, I used a reverse and a clipping path. If I were to print 500 invitations, it would cost me $240.37 according to Quick Print. It cost me $7.67 to print four copies of my invitation. The image of me is actually copyrighted by me because I took it. The texture I used is copyrighted from the Lost and Taken website on the PSU Graphics Blog. Final Images posted toward bottom of the blog.
5 Thumbs for Graduation Card
Front of First Rough Draft
Inside of First Rough Draft
Front of Rough Draft # 2
Inside of Rough Draft # 2
Back Side and Front Side of Card
Inside of the Graduation Card
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Adobe Tutorial #4
Adding to convert an image to Neon Glow in Adobe Photoshop CS5
The first step to do this is open the picture you want to do this too, which I suggest you pick a scenery picture because if you do it with a portrait of a person, it will look kind of odd. I chose my night picture when I converted it to Neon Glow. The next step after opening your picture is to go to Filter (at the top of the screen) > Artistic > then click Neon Glow. After this you can change the color from blue to any color you want. You can also adjust the glow size and the glow brightness so you can let it shine more if you would like too. The last couple of steps after doing this is to press OK then you just go to File > Save As then you save it as a JPG then that's it you are done and just converted an image to Neon Glow. I didn't get this from any website. I just learned it on my own by messing around with Adobe Photoshop CS5. There are also many more artistic aspects you can do as well when you look through them. All these images are copyrighted under me as well.
Original Image
Neon Glow Image
Job Search Analysis: Position 3
I know this is not due til May 1, but I just wanted to get it out the way and over with. The third job posting I found and also applied for, even though it has nothing to do with my major is being a supervisor for Best Buy in Lincoln, Nebraska. I actually would not be mad if I got a job selling cameras or other electronics and doing my photography business on the side. The supervisor sales jobs' basic requirements are having one year retail sales experience, which I have from working at Wal-Mart back near home for about two years. The other requirements are having to lift 50 lbs, being at least 18 years of age, and having a High School Diploma. I meet all those requirements and you also get a 10% off all electronic items for working there, which is my favorite thing about this position. The key responsibilities for this job are to partner with store management to deliver day to day coaching and training to employees to ensure quality execution of store processes and strategies, ensure sales zones are merchandised according to company SOP, and to create an innovative environment where employees are inspired to provide customer solutions across the store and share ideas regarding new ways to do business, gain new customers, improve processes, and create a more efficient enterprise. I looked up the salary on another site and it said this position makes a salary of $31,000 to $45,000. I feel like I could do this job and would be good at it. I am a very easy person to get along with and with being a communication major I have learned so much that would help me in a job like this. I also don't need to know any basic software according to the posting. I got this job posting from Glassdoor.com. You can also get the basic requirements of this job at Best Buy website. If you click on either web link, it should take you to the job site.
Job Search Analysis: Position 2
The second job I looked into or found that deals with my major was being an employee or photographer full-time for Portrait Innovations in Lincoln, Nebraska. I had to submit a cover letter and a resume' to be considered for this job. The basic requirements of the job is to have an Associates Degree. It doesn't say you need it in anything specific, but you also need to have a strong interest in photography, enthusiastic about sales, high energy/outgoing personality, strong computer skills, ability to multi-task and excel in a fast paced work environment, excellent team player, professional attitude and appearance, and the availability to work weekends, holidays, and extended hours. The responsibilities of the job include overseeing all studio functions, shooting a variety of photographs, selling portrait packages, portrait manufacturing, driving sales and meeting sales goals, cash management, maintaining studio upkeep, and customer relations. The benefits of the job is a paid training program, first year compensation potential of $30,000, annual bonus opportunity, dollar allowance for medical benefits, life insurance, paid vacation and holidays, and lastly fast track career advancement. The salary range is obviously around $30,000 for the first year. The job would like you to have at least two years of photography experience, which I do have. I got this job from the Monster Jobs website. Clicking the link will take you to the specific job post.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Adobe Tutorial Blog 20
How to create a Duotone Image
Step number one on creating a duotone image is pick out a picture you would like to have two different colors mixed. It works best if the colors are gray/black then a different brighter color. The first step when you have your image opened in Adobe Photoshop is to change it to a Grayscale image and to do this you go to Image > Mode > Grayscale. The next step after this is do the same thing, except this time choose Duotone, so Image > Mode > Duotone. You can then choose a color of your choosing you would like to be mixed with black. In my opinion a brighter color works best just make sure its a Pantone Color. You also could choose another color beside black to but it makes it a little harder to see because it blows out the picture a tad bit. After you choose the colors you want then just click OK and your image is now a Duotone. I will have my examples shown below and I learned this from Digital File Prep Class, not just from the Print Production Book, but also in class. These images are pictures that I have taken also.
Step number one on creating a duotone image is pick out a picture you would like to have two different colors mixed. It works best if the colors are gray/black then a different brighter color. The first step when you have your image opened in Adobe Photoshop is to change it to a Grayscale image and to do this you go to Image > Mode > Grayscale. The next step after this is do the same thing, except this time choose Duotone, so Image > Mode > Duotone. You can then choose a color of your choosing you would like to be mixed with black. In my opinion a brighter color works best just make sure its a Pantone Color. You also could choose another color beside black to but it makes it a little harder to see because it blows out the picture a tad bit. After you choose the colors you want then just click OK and your image is now a Duotone. I will have my examples shown below and I learned this from Digital File Prep Class, not just from the Print Production Book, but also in class. These images are pictures that I have taken also.
Original Image
Duotone Image (Final Image)
National Logo Redesign Post
The logo I decided to discuss is the Coca-Cola logos. The Pepsi logo is on this too I realize this but this is the graphic or picture that takes you through the whole years of both products. I got this from the Flowing Data website. Between both soda brands, Coca-Cola to me has the most creative name logo brand because they have so many new improvements to their logo compared to Pepsi, I mean their logo looked cool at first but now it just a plain font that's kind of dull in my opinion. Did you know that each of these soda companies have been going against each other since the late 1800s? They have been throwing mud against each one another for the longest time according to the article I read. Coca-Cola began in 1886. According to Pepsi v. Coke article, "The Coca-Cola script (which is simply a form of Spencerian Script) began life quite thin and irregular, then became much thicker and didn't thin again out to the refined version we're now familiar with until around the 1940s." Coca-Cola has made quite a few adjustments to their logo because of readability. As you can tell, it was harder to read it back then it is now. The plan after 1987 was to add a little hint of shading to the Coca-Cola swoosh. Then by the mid 1990's they starting adding a gradient to the logo to make it more appealing. Coca-Cola tries to get viewers attentions by convincing not just the kids to buy it like Pepsi does, but it convinces the whole family like using the Simpsons TV Show for a commercial and also using the polar bears every year to make people happy during the holidays and helps convince them to purchase Coca-Cola. During the time when the logo for Coca-Cola was being made, supposedly the taste had changed for a few years so when they came up with a better logo that added the word natural in it then the original taste came back with the title. It then became a product with major stability and a huge major icon of the world and industry that everyone recognizes. In my opinion, I love the way Coca-Cola taste better than Pepsi, but with logos I still like the logo for Coca-Cola because it stands out more than any other pop and is easy to find with its bright red color in stores. I got most the information from the Pepsi v. Coke website and I learned quite a bit about Pepsi and Coke logos and the redesigns of each.
Another neat picture online, that I found and thought it would work for this article as well.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Everyday Design Inspiration Blog
Everyday Designs
I have 5 examples that each have their own picture and I will explain the specified criteria that's on the criteria sheet.
The first label I thought looked neat and you do see quite a bit when buying alcohol is McCormick Gin. The target audience is obviously anyone is 21 or older. I feel like the color is good for this clear bottle because the yellow makes the silver typography stand out and the blue at the very top stands out using a reverse technique. The call to action is that the product is obviously going to be bought by someone who wants to drink some alcohol. The production process is done in a specific factory I am sure and that's how these bottles are made. I thought the logo looked really neat and I wanted to share it for this blog. Some of the font is a little tiny at the bottom, but other than that the label looks really good.
The next product that I chose to take a picture of that has a cool design is this pure protein jug. This products target audience is to males probably 16 or older who want to build muscles while lifting weights so they can look fit. The call to action is that it says, "Eat Good, Look Great." It is saying if you use this product you will look good in the end because it has 100% Protein. The production process is from a factory as well because they have to design the label then print an adhesive label then put it on this jug. The color goes with the product because the chocolate flavor being advertised is obviously brown. The typography definitely stands out great because of the different types of fonts they used and the facts it has on the front of it. The logo design looks great overall to me because of what I just said as well.
Another item I took a picture of was my friends canteen that she got from Las Vegas on her Spring break. The target audience I say would be to visitors of 21 or older of age that visited Las Vegas and call to action is basically just inspiring customers to buy this so they can have a momentum of Las Vegas. I would say the typography and logo are very hard to read because you can barely read Las Vegas underneath the blue glitter all over the canteen. The color to me sort of goes with the product, but like I said before it is very hard to read. The production process for this canteen was done probably from a special company that the city of Las Vegas goes through to get specific products made for tourists to remember the town they visited.
The last image I decided to take a picture of was Mr. Goodcents Subs & Pastas magnets. The call to action on this magnets is we deliver. They list their number brightly with the red typography to grab the viewers attention. The target audience is anyone who loves to eat fast food and anyone in general really. The logo design is in a good spot I think and it definitely grabs the viewers attention. I like the fact the call to action is white, the number is red, and the store and its information is in black because it looks more professional. The production process was to go through a print shop and print a bunch of Mr. Goodcents magnets to hand out to the community to gain business from potentially new and old customers. All the information I wrote on here was from what I learned over the years in graphic design and digital file prep because the books explained most of the designed process and each professor explain it well too.
I have 5 examples that each have their own picture and I will explain the specified criteria that's on the criteria sheet.
The first label I thought looked neat and you do see quite a bit when buying alcohol is McCormick Gin. The target audience is obviously anyone is 21 or older. I feel like the color is good for this clear bottle because the yellow makes the silver typography stand out and the blue at the very top stands out using a reverse technique. The call to action is that the product is obviously going to be bought by someone who wants to drink some alcohol. The production process is done in a specific factory I am sure and that's how these bottles are made. I thought the logo looked really neat and I wanted to share it for this blog. Some of the font is a little tiny at the bottom, but other than that the label looks really good.
The next product that I chose to take a picture of that has a cool design is this pure protein jug. This products target audience is to males probably 16 or older who want to build muscles while lifting weights so they can look fit. The call to action is that it says, "Eat Good, Look Great." It is saying if you use this product you will look good in the end because it has 100% Protein. The production process is from a factory as well because they have to design the label then print an adhesive label then put it on this jug. The color goes with the product because the chocolate flavor being advertised is obviously brown. The typography definitely stands out great because of the different types of fonts they used and the facts it has on the front of it. The logo design looks great overall to me because of what I just said as well.
Another item I took a picture of was my friends canteen that she got from Las Vegas on her Spring break. The target audience I say would be to visitors of 21 or older of age that visited Las Vegas and call to action is basically just inspiring customers to buy this so they can have a momentum of Las Vegas. I would say the typography and logo are very hard to read because you can barely read Las Vegas underneath the blue glitter all over the canteen. The color to me sort of goes with the product, but like I said before it is very hard to read. The production process for this canteen was done probably from a special company that the city of Las Vegas goes through to get specific products made for tourists to remember the town they visited.
I found this billboard on my way back to Pittsburg, KS. I thought at first it looked interesting which it does, but the thing that bothers me the most about it is how the main part of it is not straight, its not flatly pressed on there. It's all wrinkly which really bugs me. The target audience could be anyone because it has something that would interest anyone. The call to action is,"The Auto Show, Cruise-In, and Concert." The typography and the logo design to me seems like it is pushed together and I think it could even be put on a bigger billboard then this one specifically. The typography at the bottom I feel could be a little bigger and the fonts seem like there is too many different fonts going on as well. The production process obviously put together by the town of Pittsburg and is sponsored by all the businesses listed all around the border of the billboard.
The last image I decided to take a picture of was Mr. Goodcents Subs & Pastas magnets. The call to action on this magnets is we deliver. They list their number brightly with the red typography to grab the viewers attention. The target audience is anyone who loves to eat fast food and anyone in general really. The logo design is in a good spot I think and it definitely grabs the viewers attention. I like the fact the call to action is white, the number is red, and the store and its information is in black because it looks more professional. The production process was to go through a print shop and print a bunch of Mr. Goodcents magnets to hand out to the community to gain business from potentially new and old customers. All the information I wrote on here was from what I learned over the years in graphic design and digital file prep because the books explained most of the designed process and each professor explain it well too.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Magazine Ad and Billboard Thumbs and Roughs Blog
Magazine Ad Thumbs and Roughs Project
I chose to put an ad if I could would be to put an ad of my photography business in Peoples Magazine. The file format will be done in Adobe InDesign. My design has live area within all the pictures that are on it. All the pictures that are going to be on this project will be my own that I have taken. I am thinking I will do this magazine in black and white so it will save me money in the long run, which would cost me $214,100 which I am pretty sure there is no budget. The cost for color if i decided to do it in color would be $305,900 for a full-page ad. The purpose of the ad is gain viewers attention about booking a session with me and learning about my business. Call to action is getting people interested in sessions and they will find out more scanning the Microsoft Tag that I have placed on the ad. The live area in the ad itself is 7 inches wide by 10 inches high. The bleed size would be 8 1/8 inches by 10 3/4 inches. The trim size would be 7 7/8 inches by 10.5 inches. The From the Master image list I plan to use screen tint, reverse, and gray scale images.
Billboard Thumbs and Roughs Project
The billboard project is way different than others because for one you have to try to catch someones attention from a far away view because a billboard is 10 feet 5 inches by 22 feet 8 inches. It's huge basically and that's a big part of it why it's so different and you need to use as few words possible so it will be easy to read when driving by it on the highway. You do need to focus on your images resolution when doing this project because you want to make sure your image is crisp and sharp looking so it doesn't look awful like since I am doing my project over my photography business than I need to make sure my images look sharp and clean. The pixels when building a billboard need to be at 72 ppi.
The purpose of the billboard is gain viewers attention about booking a session with me and learning about my business. My call to action is making people become familiar with my business by seeing it on a billboard so they know it actually is a business. My target audience is parents and couples because they are the main people who always book sessions, whether its seniors, engagements, etc. My plan is to use a 4 color raster from the master image checklist when doing this project so the billboard stands out. The size of the document in InDesign will be 19.5 inches wide by 15.5 inches high. The actual size of the billboard would be 10 feet 5 inches by 22 feet 8 inches and the trim size is 10 feet 6.5 inches by 22 ft 9.5 inches. The bleed will be .125 inches in the InDesign layout. and margins will be .25 inches. The file type will be a Photoshop document and turn into a JPG when finished. I forgot to mention the price to produce a billboard of 10 feet 5 inches by 22 feet 8 inches is about $700.
I chose to put an ad if I could would be to put an ad of my photography business in Peoples Magazine. The file format will be done in Adobe InDesign. My design has live area within all the pictures that are on it. All the pictures that are going to be on this project will be my own that I have taken. I am thinking I will do this magazine in black and white so it will save me money in the long run, which would cost me $214,100 which I am pretty sure there is no budget. The cost for color if i decided to do it in color would be $305,900 for a full-page ad. The purpose of the ad is gain viewers attention about booking a session with me and learning about my business. Call to action is getting people interested in sessions and they will find out more scanning the Microsoft Tag that I have placed on the ad. The live area in the ad itself is 7 inches wide by 10 inches high. The bleed size would be 8 1/8 inches by 10 3/4 inches. The trim size would be 7 7/8 inches by 10.5 inches. The From the Master image list I plan to use screen tint, reverse, and gray scale images.
Thumbs
Magazine Ad Roughs 1 & 2
Here is the final project image. From the Master Image Checklist I used a screen tint, a reverse, and a 4 color raster for my images that are copyrighted under me.
Billboard Thumbs and Roughs Project
The billboard project is way different than others because for one you have to try to catch someones attention from a far away view because a billboard is 10 feet 5 inches by 22 feet 8 inches. It's huge basically and that's a big part of it why it's so different and you need to use as few words possible so it will be easy to read when driving by it on the highway. You do need to focus on your images resolution when doing this project because you want to make sure your image is crisp and sharp looking so it doesn't look awful like since I am doing my project over my photography business than I need to make sure my images look sharp and clean. The pixels when building a billboard need to be at 72 ppi.
The purpose of the billboard is gain viewers attention about booking a session with me and learning about my business. My call to action is making people become familiar with my business by seeing it on a billboard so they know it actually is a business. My target audience is parents and couples because they are the main people who always book sessions, whether its seniors, engagements, etc. My plan is to use a 4 color raster from the master image checklist when doing this project so the billboard stands out. The size of the document in InDesign will be 19.5 inches wide by 15.5 inches high. The actual size of the billboard would be 10 feet 5 inches by 22 feet 8 inches and the trim size is 10 feet 6.5 inches by 22 ft 9.5 inches. The bleed will be .125 inches in the InDesign layout. and margins will be .25 inches. The file type will be a Photoshop document and turn into a JPG when finished. I forgot to mention the price to produce a billboard of 10 feet 5 inches by 22 feet 8 inches is about $700.
Thumbs
Billboard Roughs 1 & 2
Billboard Final Image. I didn't use anything from my Master Image Checklist for the Billboard Project. The image is copyrighted underneath me.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Job Search Analysis 1
The job I found was being an information technology digital photographer full-time at Northrop Grumman in Topeka, KS. It is a type of corporation. Basically the point of the job is they tell someone what they need to take pictures of then they take them then work at a desk trying to perfect them on Photoshop. I meet the qualifications of having some college experience in my field, because I got it from Pittsburg State University. It says the individual needs to know how to use Photoshop, which again I know to use that because I use it literally almost everyday. The basic qualifications said I need to pass a background and drug test. I have no worries anything will show up because I have nothing on my record and I have never done drugs. The site says, "The work schedule could be flexible to adapt to the person's class schedule. Work would be performed between the hours of 7:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. No weekend or nights are anticipated. This job is located in Topeka, KS so if I was happened to get this job that I did actually apply for I would initially plan to move there so I could work there starting hopefully this coming summer. The job does not list its salary range, but does say its negotiable. I found this posting on Glassdoor.com website and the site where the job is posted is on this link.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Adobe Software Tutorial Blog 15
Adding a Vignette to a Photograph
When adding a vignette to a photo, the first task you do is create a new layer. Then after that you click the gradient tool on the left side of the screen. Make sure you have black as the fill color or this will not work. You also need to make sure above at the top of the screen after you click the gradient tool that you click the arrow pointing down that gives you more options on gradients and you click the second one. After that you click and drag from each side of the picture to how far you would like the gradient to be on your picture. Then you can fade the gradient or vignette by just bringing down the opacity to whatever you want. The tutorial suggest you bring it to at least no lower than 30%. After this you can flatten the image and save it. After that you have just produced vignette photo. Examples of my pictures shown below. I got this tutorial off of YouTube.
Original Image
Final Image after applying a Vignette
When adding a vignette to a photo, the first task you do is create a new layer. Then after that you click the gradient tool on the left side of the screen. Make sure you have black as the fill color or this will not work. You also need to make sure above at the top of the screen after you click the gradient tool that you click the arrow pointing down that gives you more options on gradients and you click the second one. After that you click and drag from each side of the picture to how far you would like the gradient to be on your picture. Then you can fade the gradient or vignette by just bringing down the opacity to whatever you want. The tutorial suggest you bring it to at least no lower than 30%. After this you can flatten the image and save it. After that you have just produced vignette photo. Examples of my pictures shown below. I got this tutorial off of YouTube.
Original Image
Final Image after applying a Vignette
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Adobe Creative Suite Tutorial Blog 14
The tutorial I chose to do is how to watermark your own photos. The first step to do is open up a picture in Photoshop. Then what you do is go the text tool and you click the picture. When the cursor shows up on the picture you can then pick the font you would like to use and type the name of your business on it to make sure the viewer knows its yours. After you type what you want and adjust it to wear you want, you then go to the opacity and bring the color of the text down by dragging the opacity bar down on the right side, so it will turn out to be a watermark. Don't forget before saving to go to Layer > Flatten Image so you know that it will have the watermark on it and now look different than what you expected. Examples of mine shown below. I learned how to do this on a Photoshop Tutorial website.
Original Image
Original Image
Image with Watermark
Newspaper Ad Project
The budget for the newspaper ad project is $97. It can't cost anymore than that. The formula to calculate an ad is column width multiplied by height of ad equals answer then multiplyon it again by $4 and you get your total cost. For my project I chose 3 columns wide by 8 inches high, which equals 24 and multiply that by $4 its $96. It means I am one dollar under my limit, which is great news. My target audience for my pretend bakery business is families or the community in general because they might be interested in having cakes done for their kids or anyone in their family really. My call to action is for my Grand Opening give them a free cupcake just for checking out the new place. The purpose is to convince people to checkout a new place in town.
A bitmap image only contains black and white pixels with no shades of gray and they also need to be at a high resolution. You get a bitmap image by creating it by hand then scanning it in with a scanner. An example of this would be like if someone wrote their name in marker than uploaded it or created an image with a marker and uploading it would work too. Below are my thumbs and roughs for my project. When the image is scanned in for a bitmap it needs to be 1200 ppi.
A bitmap image only contains black and white pixels with no shades of gray and they also need to be at a high resolution. You get a bitmap image by creating it by hand then scanning it in with a scanner. An example of this would be like if someone wrote their name in marker than uploaded it or created an image with a marker and uploading it would work too. Below are my thumbs and roughs for my project. When the image is scanned in for a bitmap it needs to be 1200 ppi.
On the Master Image Checklist I used a bitmap image and I also used a vector image that I created in Adobe Illustrator. It cost me 5 cents to print at Quick Print, but if it were for an actual price in the Collegio, it would be $96 to have it printed in the newspaper.
The Final Finished Image
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Master Image List Blog
A bitmap image only contains black and white pixels with no shades of gray and they also need to be at a high resolution. You get a bitmap image buy creating it by hand then scanning it in with a scanner. An example of this would be like if someone wrote their name in marker than uploaded it or created an image with a marker and uploading it would work too. Here's an example shown below.
Reverse is relatively easy to explain. Reverse is basically when you switch black and white colors on a page. An example is like you type a white font on a black background. This can be done in Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.
Vector art is a pixel free graphic. It generates smooth lines when it's brought it because of like I said before it don't contain pixels. They are also not subjected to scaling restrictions. Not every vector format is the same though, which means they all can't be printed. This can be saved as an EPS or AI file. I didn't have anything to upload for this example.
Grayscale raster is basically a black and white image and is used many times in newspaper advertisements. This is done in Photoshop then you save it as an EPS file then bring it into InDesign. Example of a grayscale raster is below of my friend, who I took a picture of last semester.
Duotone raster is when an image is made up of two colors and one of the colors is usually black while the other is a spot color. It is a great way to add a visual interest to a job. This can be done in Photoshop and is usually saved as an EPS file. Example below is a duotone of a light blue and black. The reason its framed is because I had to move it into InDesign so I could put it on my blog.
A silhouette raster is when you erase the background behind your image usually by creating a mask or path that allows the subject to display without a background. It is also called a dropout. This can be done in Photoshop. It can also be created by the print service provider.
A full bleed raster is when an image covers the whole picture box in InDesign and goes to the bleed marks on the outsides, which is 0.125. It hits every side of the square to make sure the picture is in proportion and helps to make sure you know what will be cut off when it is printed. It's hard to show a picture of this one.
A four color raster is when an image or document uses only four colors in the project, which is CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black.) Most files that are printed are in CMYK just a quick note to this as well. This one is basically all ready set up for you in an InDesign document so its not too complicated to figure out.
Screen tint is when you want to fade or give your object more shade in a document to make it have a neat feature to your project. I used the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue to answer these questions for this blog. All images were taken or created by me.
Reverse is relatively easy to explain. Reverse is basically when you switch black and white colors on a page. An example is like you type a white font on a black background. This can be done in Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.
Vector art is a pixel free graphic. It generates smooth lines when it's brought it because of like I said before it don't contain pixels. They are also not subjected to scaling restrictions. Not every vector format is the same though, which means they all can't be printed. This can be saved as an EPS or AI file. I didn't have anything to upload for this example.
Grayscale raster is basically a black and white image and is used many times in newspaper advertisements. This is done in Photoshop then you save it as an EPS file then bring it into InDesign. Example of a grayscale raster is below of my friend, who I took a picture of last semester.
Duotone raster is when an image is made up of two colors and one of the colors is usually black while the other is a spot color. It is a great way to add a visual interest to a job. This can be done in Photoshop and is usually saved as an EPS file. Example below is a duotone of a light blue and black. The reason its framed is because I had to move it into InDesign so I could put it on my blog.
A silhouette raster is when you erase the background behind your image usually by creating a mask or path that allows the subject to display without a background. It is also called a dropout. This can be done in Photoshop. It can also be created by the print service provider.
A full bleed raster is when an image covers the whole picture box in InDesign and goes to the bleed marks on the outsides, which is 0.125. It hits every side of the square to make sure the picture is in proportion and helps to make sure you know what will be cut off when it is printed. It's hard to show a picture of this one.
A four color raster is when an image or document uses only four colors in the project, which is CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black.) Most files that are printed are in CMYK just a quick note to this as well. This one is basically all ready set up for you in an InDesign document so its not too complicated to figure out.
Screen tint is when you want to fade or give your object more shade in a document to make it have a neat feature to your project. I used the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue to answer these questions for this blog. All images were taken or created by me.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Chapter 11 & 12
Chapter 11
Chapter 11 mainly talks about production tips, such as placing graphics, dragging files, updating missing or modified links, editing graphics, and swatches. PageMaker, QuarkXPress, and Adobe InDesign, all can place graphics on a page. QuarkXPress are most comfortable making a frame to put an image in first. InDesign works the best of both worlds by doing what both PageMaker and QuarkXPress can do. According to the Print Production Book, "It's helpful to know that both the Rectangle Frame tool and the plain old Rectangle tool can create shapes that accept graphics as content." The "Graphic Frame" tools creates shapes. Basically to place an image in InDesign you go to File > Place. You do this after you create the Rectangle Frame in the page-layout. If you do not place the Rectangle Frame then most likely the image will take up most the page.
There are good and bad ways of drag and drop in InDesign. There are many ways to put a file on a page besides File > Place. You can drag and drop from Adobe Bridge. You can use Bridge to drag multiple files and drag them to the top of the InDesign page. Adobe Bridge provides high-quality images and it also makes it easier to find the correct files. Now to explain some of the bad things that can happen when placing images into a document. You can drag and drop Adobe Photoshop images into InDesign, but there are consequences for doing so. The photo will remain RGB instead of CMYK like you are wanting. It will also increase the size of your InDesign document and take up tons of space on your hard drive. If you need to edit the image after putting it in InDesign then it is impossible to edit it in InDesign and you are out of luck.
The next topic in Chapter 11 to discuss is about missing and modified links. The Links panel tells you if you have missing or modified links. If your links are modified then you links will tell you when you have your cursor over the image link. If you have a missing link a question mark will be beside it and if you click it then you will be able to find that image and make sure it is placed correctly. If you package all the files at the end of your project then you will not have any missing links, which is a great thing to make sure happens. Also, forgot to mention that the link will be a blue hyperlink so you know. When transforming graphics, there are several ways to scale frames in InDesign. First thing you do is select the frame with the Selection tool. Then you can use the Scale or Free Transform tool to scale the frame and its contents. You can also enter percentage values in the X/Y scale fields in the Control Panel. When scaling an image, it is best to make sure the scale is proportional using either Command + Shift for a Macintosh or Control + Shift on a PC and dragging the corner of the scaled image while doing so with the mouse.
Swatches are next on the list. Basically there are two kinds. There is RGB and CMYK colors. In InDesign there is a Swatches panel located on the right side of the page. There is such a thing called Lab colors and this is located in the Colors panel. The Color panel does offer a quick way of creating a tint to a certain spot color. It is best to create your own swatches then using the ones provided. You can select from Pantone, Toyo, and TRUMATCH swatchbooks to pick the exact color you want to use. When doing a duotone in Photoshop or Illustrator bringing it into InDesign will actually bring the Pantone Color swatch over without having any problems. There are times occasionally when InDesign will not let you delete a certain swatch at times I learned as well. If you ever have extra swatches you aren't using during a project, the best thing to do is delete them all. According to the Print Production Book, "The primary purpose of the Ink Manager is to fix spot-color errors by remapping extraneous colors to correct inks." It basically fixes the colors so that when it prints, it won't look odd or not the color you are wanting. You can open the Ink Manager in the Separations Preview panel menu or the Swatches panel. You will find it in the Print dialog under Output and also in the Exports dialog for both EPS and PDF. Beside this, I will talk about drop shadows from Chapter 11. Drop Shadows are the little black shadows of either a text or photo. You can manually do this and move the shadow to wherever you want it by going to Object > Drop Shadow, then you can enter whatever you would like to move your shadow. Like I said before always remember when you are completely finished with your InDesign document just to package it so you don't lose anything you want before taking it to the printers. You also need to export it as an Adobe PDF document too just so if you happen to lose the packaging file some way, you still have the PDF to back it up. You just go to File > Export and click Adobe PDF Print. You want to make sure before you click export you want to choose the PDF/X-1a setting. All the images in a PDF/X-1a are converted from a RGB image to a CMYK automatically and your spot color is also maintained as well.
Chapter 12
This chapters summary is all about Acrobat Production tips like Adobe PDF's. PDF files come from the Acrobat program. You can also export PDF files from Adobe InDesign or Illustrator. They could be the result from a PostScript file and feeding that to Distiller, or created by some other process, like Global Graphics Jaws interpreter used by QuarkXPress 6.0 and later. When it comes to PDF files, anyone is allowed to view the information on a PDF reference to write software that creates, reads, or edits PDF files. Not all the PDF creation solutions are the same according to the book. There are various settings of PDF files, such as Standard, Smallest File Size, and Press Qualilty and it gives clues to what kind of PDF is to be created. The PDF/X and PDF/A settings are based on standards to make sure that a PDF works as it's supposed too. The X in PDF/X-1a stands for exchange to signify it will work with one of the PDF/X standards can exchanged between the PDF's originator amd recipients with some assurance, that the file will become a usable file to the user who created it. "The PDF/A settings are based on standards geared toward long-term archiving and retrieval of electronic files (hence the "A")." (McCue) All these settings are stored in a common place that is shared among all Adobe applications.
Like mentioned before it is possible to export PDF files from InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop without using Distiller. The time you use export is when you wish to retain layers, live transparency, or interactivity. Export is way faster and easier than using Distiller. You need to have a long conversation with file recipients to find out why you are being asked to take the long way around using Distiller. You ask them to test an exported PDF that is created to their specification, then the both of you find out if it will really work or not. The last thing I will describe from Chapter 12 to use is editing PDF files. It is very limited to edit a PDF. Usually you aren't even supposed to mess with the files after they are created. They need to be finished files that are ready to be shipped.There are times when a comma is missing or something like that. "Acrobat offers three editing tools in the Advanced Editing Toolbar. Choose Tools > Advanced Editing > Show Advanced Editing Toolbar to display the tools." (McCue) You use the TouchUp text tool for selecting and editing the text of a document. That is assuming that you have the correct font throughout your page. You sue the TouchUp Object tool to fix your images on the page, whether it be vector images or just images from Photoshop. The last tool that can be used for editing is the TouchUp Reading Order tool that actually reads the text you. It is mainly for impaired users. If you want to experiment just go to Read Aloud > Activate Read Out Loud from the View menu in the Acrobat programs. The rest of the chapter basically just talks about comments and the review of the whole book. All this information I got was from the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue.
Chapter 11 mainly talks about production tips, such as placing graphics, dragging files, updating missing or modified links, editing graphics, and swatches. PageMaker, QuarkXPress, and Adobe InDesign, all can place graphics on a page. QuarkXPress are most comfortable making a frame to put an image in first. InDesign works the best of both worlds by doing what both PageMaker and QuarkXPress can do. According to the Print Production Book, "It's helpful to know that both the Rectangle Frame tool and the plain old Rectangle tool can create shapes that accept graphics as content." The "Graphic Frame" tools creates shapes. Basically to place an image in InDesign you go to File > Place. You do this after you create the Rectangle Frame in the page-layout. If you do not place the Rectangle Frame then most likely the image will take up most the page.
There are good and bad ways of drag and drop in InDesign. There are many ways to put a file on a page besides File > Place. You can drag and drop from Adobe Bridge. You can use Bridge to drag multiple files and drag them to the top of the InDesign page. Adobe Bridge provides high-quality images and it also makes it easier to find the correct files. Now to explain some of the bad things that can happen when placing images into a document. You can drag and drop Adobe Photoshop images into InDesign, but there are consequences for doing so. The photo will remain RGB instead of CMYK like you are wanting. It will also increase the size of your InDesign document and take up tons of space on your hard drive. If you need to edit the image after putting it in InDesign then it is impossible to edit it in InDesign and you are out of luck.
The next topic in Chapter 11 to discuss is about missing and modified links. The Links panel tells you if you have missing or modified links. If your links are modified then you links will tell you when you have your cursor over the image link. If you have a missing link a question mark will be beside it and if you click it then you will be able to find that image and make sure it is placed correctly. If you package all the files at the end of your project then you will not have any missing links, which is a great thing to make sure happens. Also, forgot to mention that the link will be a blue hyperlink so you know. When transforming graphics, there are several ways to scale frames in InDesign. First thing you do is select the frame with the Selection tool. Then you can use the Scale or Free Transform tool to scale the frame and its contents. You can also enter percentage values in the X/Y scale fields in the Control Panel. When scaling an image, it is best to make sure the scale is proportional using either Command + Shift for a Macintosh or Control + Shift on a PC and dragging the corner of the scaled image while doing so with the mouse.
Swatches are next on the list. Basically there are two kinds. There is RGB and CMYK colors. In InDesign there is a Swatches panel located on the right side of the page. There is such a thing called Lab colors and this is located in the Colors panel. The Color panel does offer a quick way of creating a tint to a certain spot color. It is best to create your own swatches then using the ones provided. You can select from Pantone, Toyo, and TRUMATCH swatchbooks to pick the exact color you want to use. When doing a duotone in Photoshop or Illustrator bringing it into InDesign will actually bring the Pantone Color swatch over without having any problems. There are times occasionally when InDesign will not let you delete a certain swatch at times I learned as well. If you ever have extra swatches you aren't using during a project, the best thing to do is delete them all. According to the Print Production Book, "The primary purpose of the Ink Manager is to fix spot-color errors by remapping extraneous colors to correct inks." It basically fixes the colors so that when it prints, it won't look odd or not the color you are wanting. You can open the Ink Manager in the Separations Preview panel menu or the Swatches panel. You will find it in the Print dialog under Output and also in the Exports dialog for both EPS and PDF. Beside this, I will talk about drop shadows from Chapter 11. Drop Shadows are the little black shadows of either a text or photo. You can manually do this and move the shadow to wherever you want it by going to Object > Drop Shadow, then you can enter whatever you would like to move your shadow. Like I said before always remember when you are completely finished with your InDesign document just to package it so you don't lose anything you want before taking it to the printers. You also need to export it as an Adobe PDF document too just so if you happen to lose the packaging file some way, you still have the PDF to back it up. You just go to File > Export and click Adobe PDF Print. You want to make sure before you click export you want to choose the PDF/X-1a setting. All the images in a PDF/X-1a are converted from a RGB image to a CMYK automatically and your spot color is also maintained as well.
Chapter 12
This chapters summary is all about Acrobat Production tips like Adobe PDF's. PDF files come from the Acrobat program. You can also export PDF files from Adobe InDesign or Illustrator. They could be the result from a PostScript file and feeding that to Distiller, or created by some other process, like Global Graphics Jaws interpreter used by QuarkXPress 6.0 and later. When it comes to PDF files, anyone is allowed to view the information on a PDF reference to write software that creates, reads, or edits PDF files. Not all the PDF creation solutions are the same according to the book. There are various settings of PDF files, such as Standard, Smallest File Size, and Press Qualilty and it gives clues to what kind of PDF is to be created. The PDF/X and PDF/A settings are based on standards to make sure that a PDF works as it's supposed too. The X in PDF/X-1a stands for exchange to signify it will work with one of the PDF/X standards can exchanged between the PDF's originator amd recipients with some assurance, that the file will become a usable file to the user who created it. "The PDF/A settings are based on standards geared toward long-term archiving and retrieval of electronic files (hence the "A")." (McCue) All these settings are stored in a common place that is shared among all Adobe applications.
Like mentioned before it is possible to export PDF files from InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop without using Distiller. The time you use export is when you wish to retain layers, live transparency, or interactivity. Export is way faster and easier than using Distiller. You need to have a long conversation with file recipients to find out why you are being asked to take the long way around using Distiller. You ask them to test an exported PDF that is created to their specification, then the both of you find out if it will really work or not. The last thing I will describe from Chapter 12 to use is editing PDF files. It is very limited to edit a PDF. Usually you aren't even supposed to mess with the files after they are created. They need to be finished files that are ready to be shipped.There are times when a comma is missing or something like that. "Acrobat offers three editing tools in the Advanced Editing Toolbar. Choose Tools > Advanced Editing > Show Advanced Editing Toolbar to display the tools." (McCue) You use the TouchUp text tool for selecting and editing the text of a document. That is assuming that you have the correct font throughout your page. You sue the TouchUp Object tool to fix your images on the page, whether it be vector images or just images from Photoshop. The last tool that can be used for editing is the TouchUp Reading Order tool that actually reads the text you. It is mainly for impaired users. If you want to experiment just go to Read Aloud > Activate Read Out Loud from the View menu in the Acrobat programs. The rest of the chapter basically just talks about comments and the review of the whole book. All this information I got was from the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Microsoft Tag
You usually find tag bar codes, QR codes, and other recognition technologies in magazines, product packages, or bumper stickers. "The Microsoft Tag marketing solution gives you and your customers the easy way to use a rich suite of recognition technologies, from QR codes to the current Tag barcodes and beyond to the next generation in mobile, Near Field Communication (NFC)." It is possible to create a simple campaign with a text message from a mobile phone or by just giving the phone number out. You can get videos, contact information, and much more by downloading this one certain video app. Using the Tag solution, you get free reporting access of measuring the success of your campaigns you created, using the free Tag Manager Tool, by just scanning the Tag with your smart phone. That is how you track the Microsoft Tag. Like I said before you can generate and track these Microsoft Tags from your cell phone. The reason you would want to use a Tag on your project is because it will tell or show the viewer or customer more information about your product or business and what they would benefit from buying that certain product or considering looking into it. Using Microsoft Tag, makes it a lot easier for customers or clients to use. It's becoming more and more popular everyday because it is so easy to use and everyone likes to make designs for a certain campaign that he/she designed for free.
One of the differences between the QR codes and the Tag barcodes is that QR codes can't have as many different colors,designs, or pictures like the Tag barcodes can. Tag barcodes are more flexible than QR codes. They are also the newest thing compared to the QR codes. QR codes are not stored on a service like the Tag barcodes are. QR codes are meant to have simple designs, unlike where the Tag barcodes have the more creative design look. QR codes do actually contain more information than the Tag barcodes do, which is kind of surprising. Posted below is an example I made of my photography business into a Custom Tag. All the information I got this information from was the Microsoft Tag Website.
One of the differences between the QR codes and the Tag barcodes is that QR codes can't have as many different colors,designs, or pictures like the Tag barcodes can. Tag barcodes are more flexible than QR codes. They are also the newest thing compared to the QR codes. QR codes are not stored on a service like the Tag barcodes are. QR codes are meant to have simple designs, unlike where the Tag barcodes have the more creative design look. QR codes do actually contain more information than the Tag barcodes do, which is kind of surprising. Posted below is an example I made of my photography business into a Custom Tag. All the information I got this information from was the Microsoft Tag Website.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Chapters 8, 9, & 10
Chapter 8
Chapter 8 deals with explaining how to prep your designs so you can get ready to submit your work to the printers the correct way. It explains how to do it in each design program to like InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. When you are contacting a printing company, it will probably be the salesperson you will speak to first. They will gather your information and provide you with an estimate of how much it will cost to produce your work and tell you all the steps you need to go through along the way. The steps will include like when you can expect the first set of proofs, when the press run will take place, and when it will be delivered to you. The salesman then sends your work to a CSR, which is a customer service representative. The CSR will give you information on what you will need for your job's special needs. The CSR is the main contact for jobs and is expected to know everything about a job. A key point to remember is to inform the CSR as soon as possible about if anything about your job or project needs to be changed.
You need to discuss special issues with a CSR, such as unusual stock, special mixed inks, varnishes or coatings, custom finishing, unusual content. It is important to keep your sanity and theirs. Only contact the main CSR people, know about your project so you can give specific details about when you want your print job done so it doesn't screw up the final date its supposed to be done. Planning for print is the next step. It is important to do this building from the ground up. Make sure you established the following important specifications like external document size, adequate bleed, internal panel sizes, artwork interactions with folds, perforations, or die cut trims, correct number of pages, and correct inks.
Next step to do is check the raster images or vector artwork. "It is important that all your images are sufficient resolution at final size, and that you've saved the images in an appropriate format and in the correct color space." (McCue) Make sure you consult your print service provider so you know they get your job requirements right. Some of the guidelines are resolution should be 300 ppi, color space, which comes in one of five major flavors for printing purposes like CMYK, RGB, grayscale, monochrome, and duotone. The other guidelines are retouching, rotations and scaling, and filenames. For vector artwork, illustrator or freehand allow you to place raster images as content, and you actually encounter the same issues that you would with page-layout applications. "Make sure you check for correct colors, images, fonts, text, and bleed. Image proofs are sometimes referred to as random proofs or scatter proofs, since they are proofs of just the images without any page-layout context." (McCue) You may want to print some of your proofs before just giving them to the print service provider just to make sure it turns out the way you want it. There are two kinds of proofs and they are image proofs and page proofs. The only different is you do one in Photoshop and the other in InDesign. They each have their checklist as well.
Chapter 9
Chapter 9 is all about Photoshop and tips how to do it. When scaling or rotating an image you need to know the fate of the image. You need to ask yourself a few questions. At what scale factor will the image be used? Will the image be used at multiple sizes? Will the image be rotated in its final size? What are the important elements in the image? Will the image be used on the Web, as well as for print? When scaling you basically definitely want to make sure its in proportion or it will not turn out well. For rotating it looks best when you rotate at every 15 degrees or the image will have curvy lines on the side of the image. The scaling depends a lot on the size of the image when you bring it into Photoshop as well. Resolution has similar rules to the image size, because the concepts are connected. 300 ppi is the final image size that is best to use when printing. If your project is going to be printed at a higher line screen, such as 175 lpi or above then you need to increase the resolution of your image that is over 300 ppi. Color space in Photoshop deals with the image being in either RGB or CMYK. When printing you always want to convert your image either to CMYK or grayscale depending on what you want to use it for. When you convert an image to CMYK you lose some flexibility. When puttting images on a website you will need to make sure its RGB. When you use an Illustrator file you need to make sure its converted into CMYK or it won't be able to print because of the color space.
When working with a layered image it is best to save the original copy of the image so if you need to back and edit you can., but for printing you need to make sure the image is flattened, which can be done by going to under the layers panel and choose merge layers in CS4. In CS5, underneath the layer panel there is an option now you can go to by just clicking flatten image. It works the exact same. Transparency is the percentage in Photoshop that is by the opacity. This is honored not just by Photoshop, but also my InDesign and Illustrator. It basically fades the background or image in a document to create a creative project. There are right and wrong ways when creating a path in Photoshop. "Photoshop's attempts to convert an active selection ("marching ants") to a clipping path are valiant, but the results are usually less than stellar." (McCue) Magic Wand selection is not the best tool used for clipping a path. A better clipping path is made by the Pen Tool. There's no wiggles in the lines using it. Duotone's are images made up of two colors, which one color is usually black then one spot color to go with it. It adds a lot of visual interest to a job with a limited color palette.
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 is basically the same as chapter 9, only difference is this is covering Illustrator. Artboards is like an imaginary piece of paper in Illustrator and its a bit confusing to a relationship to the actual artwork. To create an new artboard you just create a new Illustrator document then its automatically created after you enter the dimensions. You can actually make a total of 100 artboards manually in one existing document. All you have to do is click and drag the artboard drag tool. When it comes to bleeds you can actually go to an existing document and go to File > Document Set Up. Bleed values are usually applied to Illustrator within the actual document.
To simply artwork you can go to Choose Object > Path > Clean Up to delete little stray points that are caused from pen clicks or objects that have no fill and stroke, and empty text paths. This also is how you clean up your document when you are done. Clean up deletes all unnecessary artwork that you don't plan to use and it simplifies your complex art as well. "Illustrator offers a number of imaginative live effects that allow you to transform a simple object into something much more interesting with just a few clicks." (McCue) Live means that you can modify how an object looks by editing effects in the Appearance panel, without altering anything. It is also possible to hide or remove an effect from a specific object. The Effects menu is divided into two parts, which are Illustrator Effects and Photoshop effects. "The Illustrator are applied to the interiors and the edges of vector objects, including objects being used as Clipping Masks for placed images." (McCue) The Photoshop effects apply to the interior of vector objects without having to do any modification to the images, even including the ones as Clipping Masks. Effects would be like shadows or glowing as examples.
Transparency is similar to the one in Photoshop because it makes an image lighter and blends the image into its background and adds more of a creative look to your project. With Illustrator, spot colors may be involved because you are converting the image to CMYK. You may have bad results if you try to create spot color objects and try to bring them into InDesign because the color may not be the same as you intended it to be. Overprint Preview is a great tool to overlap objects and it won't cause any problems because in fact it can help you figure out problems you have. You can also flatten a transparency in Illustrator like you can in Photoshop as well.
Lastly, I will explain linked and embedded images. There are pros and cons to each. When you link an image in Illustrator it actually is a smaller file than when its embedded. Its because they are easily color corrected or retouched. When you embed an image, it actually increases the file size, since the file image is added to the file. The good thing about embedding is that its easier to track all the components in a file because if its a Link, it would then send you to Photoshop for that specific image. Embedding complicates image editing. If the original image is available then you can go the Re-links underneath the Links panel menu and find that image you are searching for. Afterwards you can then update your Link so that doesn't happen again unless you don't Package the file. All the information I got this from was the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue.
Chapter 8 deals with explaining how to prep your designs so you can get ready to submit your work to the printers the correct way. It explains how to do it in each design program to like InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. When you are contacting a printing company, it will probably be the salesperson you will speak to first. They will gather your information and provide you with an estimate of how much it will cost to produce your work and tell you all the steps you need to go through along the way. The steps will include like when you can expect the first set of proofs, when the press run will take place, and when it will be delivered to you. The salesman then sends your work to a CSR, which is a customer service representative. The CSR will give you information on what you will need for your job's special needs. The CSR is the main contact for jobs and is expected to know everything about a job. A key point to remember is to inform the CSR as soon as possible about if anything about your job or project needs to be changed.
You need to discuss special issues with a CSR, such as unusual stock, special mixed inks, varnishes or coatings, custom finishing, unusual content. It is important to keep your sanity and theirs. Only contact the main CSR people, know about your project so you can give specific details about when you want your print job done so it doesn't screw up the final date its supposed to be done. Planning for print is the next step. It is important to do this building from the ground up. Make sure you established the following important specifications like external document size, adequate bleed, internal panel sizes, artwork interactions with folds, perforations, or die cut trims, correct number of pages, and correct inks.
Next step to do is check the raster images or vector artwork. "It is important that all your images are sufficient resolution at final size, and that you've saved the images in an appropriate format and in the correct color space." (McCue) Make sure you consult your print service provider so you know they get your job requirements right. Some of the guidelines are resolution should be 300 ppi, color space, which comes in one of five major flavors for printing purposes like CMYK, RGB, grayscale, monochrome, and duotone. The other guidelines are retouching, rotations and scaling, and filenames. For vector artwork, illustrator or freehand allow you to place raster images as content, and you actually encounter the same issues that you would with page-layout applications. "Make sure you check for correct colors, images, fonts, text, and bleed. Image proofs are sometimes referred to as random proofs or scatter proofs, since they are proofs of just the images without any page-layout context." (McCue) You may want to print some of your proofs before just giving them to the print service provider just to make sure it turns out the way you want it. There are two kinds of proofs and they are image proofs and page proofs. The only different is you do one in Photoshop and the other in InDesign. They each have their checklist as well.
Chapter 9
Chapter 9 is all about Photoshop and tips how to do it. When scaling or rotating an image you need to know the fate of the image. You need to ask yourself a few questions. At what scale factor will the image be used? Will the image be used at multiple sizes? Will the image be rotated in its final size? What are the important elements in the image? Will the image be used on the Web, as well as for print? When scaling you basically definitely want to make sure its in proportion or it will not turn out well. For rotating it looks best when you rotate at every 15 degrees or the image will have curvy lines on the side of the image. The scaling depends a lot on the size of the image when you bring it into Photoshop as well. Resolution has similar rules to the image size, because the concepts are connected. 300 ppi is the final image size that is best to use when printing. If your project is going to be printed at a higher line screen, such as 175 lpi or above then you need to increase the resolution of your image that is over 300 ppi. Color space in Photoshop deals with the image being in either RGB or CMYK. When printing you always want to convert your image either to CMYK or grayscale depending on what you want to use it for. When you convert an image to CMYK you lose some flexibility. When puttting images on a website you will need to make sure its RGB. When you use an Illustrator file you need to make sure its converted into CMYK or it won't be able to print because of the color space.
When working with a layered image it is best to save the original copy of the image so if you need to back and edit you can., but for printing you need to make sure the image is flattened, which can be done by going to under the layers panel and choose merge layers in CS4. In CS5, underneath the layer panel there is an option now you can go to by just clicking flatten image. It works the exact same. Transparency is the percentage in Photoshop that is by the opacity. This is honored not just by Photoshop, but also my InDesign and Illustrator. It basically fades the background or image in a document to create a creative project. There are right and wrong ways when creating a path in Photoshop. "Photoshop's attempts to convert an active selection ("marching ants") to a clipping path are valiant, but the results are usually less than stellar." (McCue) Magic Wand selection is not the best tool used for clipping a path. A better clipping path is made by the Pen Tool. There's no wiggles in the lines using it. Duotone's are images made up of two colors, which one color is usually black then one spot color to go with it. It adds a lot of visual interest to a job with a limited color palette.
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 is basically the same as chapter 9, only difference is this is covering Illustrator. Artboards is like an imaginary piece of paper in Illustrator and its a bit confusing to a relationship to the actual artwork. To create an new artboard you just create a new Illustrator document then its automatically created after you enter the dimensions. You can actually make a total of 100 artboards manually in one existing document. All you have to do is click and drag the artboard drag tool. When it comes to bleeds you can actually go to an existing document and go to File > Document Set Up. Bleed values are usually applied to Illustrator within the actual document.
To simply artwork you can go to Choose Object > Path > Clean Up to delete little stray points that are caused from pen clicks or objects that have no fill and stroke, and empty text paths. This also is how you clean up your document when you are done. Clean up deletes all unnecessary artwork that you don't plan to use and it simplifies your complex art as well. "Illustrator offers a number of imaginative live effects that allow you to transform a simple object into something much more interesting with just a few clicks." (McCue) Live means that you can modify how an object looks by editing effects in the Appearance panel, without altering anything. It is also possible to hide or remove an effect from a specific object. The Effects menu is divided into two parts, which are Illustrator Effects and Photoshop effects. "The Illustrator are applied to the interiors and the edges of vector objects, including objects being used as Clipping Masks for placed images." (McCue) The Photoshop effects apply to the interior of vector objects without having to do any modification to the images, even including the ones as Clipping Masks. Effects would be like shadows or glowing as examples.
Transparency is similar to the one in Photoshop because it makes an image lighter and blends the image into its background and adds more of a creative look to your project. With Illustrator, spot colors may be involved because you are converting the image to CMYK. You may have bad results if you try to create spot color objects and try to bring them into InDesign because the color may not be the same as you intended it to be. Overprint Preview is a great tool to overlap objects and it won't cause any problems because in fact it can help you figure out problems you have. You can also flatten a transparency in Illustrator like you can in Photoshop as well.
Lastly, I will explain linked and embedded images. There are pros and cons to each. When you link an image in Illustrator it actually is a smaller file than when its embedded. Its because they are easily color corrected or retouched. When you embed an image, it actually increases the file size, since the file image is added to the file. The good thing about embedding is that its easier to track all the components in a file because if its a Link, it would then send you to Photoshop for that specific image. Embedding complicates image editing. If the original image is available then you can go the Re-links underneath the Links panel menu and find that image you are searching for. Afterwards you can then update your Link so that doesn't happen again unless you don't Package the file. All the information I got this from was the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue.
Variable Data Project
The purpose of my variable data project beside making a post card is to promote my photography business. Variable data printing is creating a postcard, but targeting it at two different audiences having the same design but different text. My two target audiences are males and females who are seniors in High School or older. I plan to put a picture of a girl on the front of the card to attract the ladies and put a guy on the front of the post card for the ladies to read. It is basically to get each of them interested in doing a photo session and receiving 30% off for St. Patrick's Day special for the month of March. I plan to do make the photo duotone so I can mark it off the master checklist along with a full bleed. My call to action is get people interested in photo sessions that are 30% off. All the images going to be used in this project are all copyrighted by me (John Saunders).
- 7 x 5 inches post card.
- Bleed- 0.125 inches
- Margins- .25 inches
- Colors- 3 or 4
10 Thumbnails and Rough Drafts Posted Below
To print the card from Quick-Print Services it cost $0.65 to print. To make an actual post card I found out it cost $0.58 each. From the Master Checklist I used a full bleed on the front of the post card and I also made the picture a duotone so that's two marked off the list for me.
The Final Finish
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Chapter 6 & 7
Chapter 6
Chapter 6 talks about fonts and the kinds there are plus tells you the problems you could run into with some fonts compared to others. PostScript is referred to as Type 1. The 3 major categories of fonts are PostScript, TrueType, and OpenType. PostScript fonts consist of two files and they are a bitmap "screen font", which is used for an onscreen display, and printer component that contains instruction for PostScript. Since this is made of pixels, the bitmap component alone can not provide the correct resolution for the output, so the big thing you can do is not misplace the printer font or it will end badly. Don't get rid of the screen font either. It also contains additional resources you may need. According to the Print Production Book, "TrueType was the result of a collaboration between Apple Computer and Microsoft and consists of a single file (that is, no separate components for screen and printer font component)." There is no need to keep track of the two different components for screen and print. TrueType could also cause terror to a prepress operator because RIPS can't interpret them so they changed the feel of it to a PostScript.
OpenType fonts are single-file fonts. They do not have a separate screen and printer fonts to keep track of. These fonts are a cross platform. The same font file of an OpenType can be opened using either Mac or PC with no special handling. The next topic introduced is a glyph. A glyph is a distinct letter form, a number, or lowercase p, or an ampersand. This would allow a font designer to include swashes, contextual ligatures, titling alternates, even fractions, all in one font. All this information is from the book Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue. According to Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue, "The entirety of a font family that previously required separate expert and titling sets can now be contained in one font." Not every font in OpenType contains glyphs.You can use OpenType fonts without having any worries about imaging problems. They are very compatible with RIPs. They can also be activated by a Font Book application on a Macintosh or by Windows Fonts control panel of a PC.
Dfonts is a moniker derived from the fact the fonts are data-only, and not a two headed file consisting of a data fork and a resource fork. According to the book, if this doesn't mean much to you then don't worry about it. Dfonts are very problematic because their names are not recognized from their PostScript counterparts. They are usually active by default. Macintosh systems and PC systems contain mostly the same fonts between the two of them. PC uses more of the Arial system because it has the ability to display an extensive character set, like Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic characters. Macintosh's use fonts like Geneva, Monaco, Chicago, and Charcoal because of their distinctive names. Multiple Master Fonts are another fear to a post press operate because the fonts come up as unknown. The process goes like this, "Start with a PostScript font, and then give users the ability to create multiple weights, angles, and widths (such as condensed or extended) of a single font. Problems happened from lack of education. Multiple Master Fonts are still used for display and printing when fonts are missing in a PDF and for displaying text when fonts are unavailable for an InDesign or Illustrator file. Fonts are licensed because you don't think of it as a software because its usually included in a software, which is why its copyrighted. They contain instructions for their appearance and imaging. It is actually very expensive and complex when designing fonts. When you use fonts for a project be careful when you send them to a printer because the licensing situation for fonts are more complicated than you think. You need to be in compliance with the End User License Agreements (EULAs) because sometimes the printer doesn't always own the font you would like to use.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7 is all about cross-platform issues, such as naming files, file extensions, fonts, and graphic formats. When naming files, you do not need punctuation. Most people use an underscore where there should be a space so you computer will recognize the file quicker and have no confusion. Length is not the only thing that affects file names. Like I said before using an underscore is the best, don't use characters like these: !@#$%^&*()":{}<>?,. Stick mainly to letters that are coupled with numerals, spaces, underscores, and hyphens. When you upload images to the web, it is best not to put any spaces between any letter or word of the file name or the file won't be recognized. Sometimes it is also best to include file extensions. Macintosh does not yet require this to determine which application should be used to open a file, which the icon should have a picture on it of the file it needs to be open in. Most file extensions consist of three letters such as .rtf, .pdf, and .tif. The period always separates the file name from its extension. Failure you to do this will result that you won't be able to open this on a PC from a Mac or vise versa. Ending this blog, I will talk about formats that can cross platforms. The Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue says, "All current graphics formats including TIFF, PSD, EPS, AI, JPEG, and PDF, are perfectly happy jumping platforms. Just don't forget the file extensions." All the information that I typed above was all from the Chapters 6 and 7 in the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue.
Chapter 6 talks about fonts and the kinds there are plus tells you the problems you could run into with some fonts compared to others. PostScript is referred to as Type 1. The 3 major categories of fonts are PostScript, TrueType, and OpenType. PostScript fonts consist of two files and they are a bitmap "screen font", which is used for an onscreen display, and printer component that contains instruction for PostScript. Since this is made of pixels, the bitmap component alone can not provide the correct resolution for the output, so the big thing you can do is not misplace the printer font or it will end badly. Don't get rid of the screen font either. It also contains additional resources you may need. According to the Print Production Book, "TrueType was the result of a collaboration between Apple Computer and Microsoft and consists of a single file (that is, no separate components for screen and printer font component)." There is no need to keep track of the two different components for screen and print. TrueType could also cause terror to a prepress operator because RIPS can't interpret them so they changed the feel of it to a PostScript.
OpenType fonts are single-file fonts. They do not have a separate screen and printer fonts to keep track of. These fonts are a cross platform. The same font file of an OpenType can be opened using either Mac or PC with no special handling. The next topic introduced is a glyph. A glyph is a distinct letter form, a number, or lowercase p, or an ampersand. This would allow a font designer to include swashes, contextual ligatures, titling alternates, even fractions, all in one font. All this information is from the book Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue. According to Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue, "The entirety of a font family that previously required separate expert and titling sets can now be contained in one font." Not every font in OpenType contains glyphs.You can use OpenType fonts without having any worries about imaging problems. They are very compatible with RIPs. They can also be activated by a Font Book application on a Macintosh or by Windows Fonts control panel of a PC.
Dfonts is a moniker derived from the fact the fonts are data-only, and not a two headed file consisting of a data fork and a resource fork. According to the book, if this doesn't mean much to you then don't worry about it. Dfonts are very problematic because their names are not recognized from their PostScript counterparts. They are usually active by default. Macintosh systems and PC systems contain mostly the same fonts between the two of them. PC uses more of the Arial system because it has the ability to display an extensive character set, like Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic characters. Macintosh's use fonts like Geneva, Monaco, Chicago, and Charcoal because of their distinctive names. Multiple Master Fonts are another fear to a post press operate because the fonts come up as unknown. The process goes like this, "Start with a PostScript font, and then give users the ability to create multiple weights, angles, and widths (such as condensed or extended) of a single font. Problems happened from lack of education. Multiple Master Fonts are still used for display and printing when fonts are missing in a PDF and for displaying text when fonts are unavailable for an InDesign or Illustrator file. Fonts are licensed because you don't think of it as a software because its usually included in a software, which is why its copyrighted. They contain instructions for their appearance and imaging. It is actually very expensive and complex when designing fonts. When you use fonts for a project be careful when you send them to a printer because the licensing situation for fonts are more complicated than you think. You need to be in compliance with the End User License Agreements (EULAs) because sometimes the printer doesn't always own the font you would like to use.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7 is all about cross-platform issues, such as naming files, file extensions, fonts, and graphic formats. When naming files, you do not need punctuation. Most people use an underscore where there should be a space so you computer will recognize the file quicker and have no confusion. Length is not the only thing that affects file names. Like I said before using an underscore is the best, don't use characters like these: !@#$%^&*()":{}<>?,. Stick mainly to letters that are coupled with numerals, spaces, underscores, and hyphens. When you upload images to the web, it is best not to put any spaces between any letter or word of the file name or the file won't be recognized. Sometimes it is also best to include file extensions. Macintosh does not yet require this to determine which application should be used to open a file, which the icon should have a picture on it of the file it needs to be open in. Most file extensions consist of three letters such as .rtf, .pdf, and .tif. The period always separates the file name from its extension. Failure you to do this will result that you won't be able to open this on a PC from a Mac or vise versa. Ending this blog, I will talk about formats that can cross platforms. The Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue says, "All current graphics formats including TIFF, PSD, EPS, AI, JPEG, and PDF, are perfectly happy jumping platforms. Just don't forget the file extensions." All the information that I typed above was all from the Chapters 6 and 7 in the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudi McCue.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Copyright for Designers
According to Copyright website, "Copyright protects a range of materials, including artistic works, written material (such as journal articles, novels, and reports), musical works and films. Drawings logos, photographs and other visual images are likely to be protected by copyright as artistic works." Owners of copyright have the right to do only certain aspects with their material. Artistic works have the right to reproduce it, make it public, and communicate it to the public. Copyright owners can assign their own rights. The reason to have copyrights is to make sure you get credit for your actual creation so nobody else takes your image or project and calls it their own. Everyone has moral rights in respect of their own work. Copyright protection is available for all unprotected and protected works regardless of who created it. According to the Copyright website, there are eight categories that are protected by copyright laws, and they are literary works, musical works, dramatic works, pantomimes and choreographic works, graphic works, motion pictures, sound recordings, and architectural works.
Copyrights last for the duration of the persons life who created the material and then you add another 70 years on top of that until the copyright is no good anymore. Copyright affects images, content, fonts, and intellectual property all the same because like I just said, it last the duration of the persons life who created the works then you add another 70 years too it so really in the end you are copyright protected and nobody can take it away from you once you have it. You need to have a copyright registration form to prove it after you fill out the paper work because once you do that then it entitles you the copyrights of your creations. Registrations can be done either on paper or online, which ever one prefers to do. There is also a small fee to create a copyright too. If anyone is caught infringing on copyright laws then it could lead to court and possibly jail time. Everything you find online is mostly protected by copyright also. There are certain sites that allow you to use their images, but you can only use so many and usually need a user name and password to get into the site like istock.com for example. There are restrictions on most though so be careful what you copy from the internet especially images and quotes from other peoples news articles or books. All the information I got this from was the Copyright website.
Copyrights last for the duration of the persons life who created the material and then you add another 70 years on top of that until the copyright is no good anymore. Copyright affects images, content, fonts, and intellectual property all the same because like I just said, it last the duration of the persons life who created the works then you add another 70 years too it so really in the end you are copyright protected and nobody can take it away from you once you have it. You need to have a copyright registration form to prove it after you fill out the paper work because once you do that then it entitles you the copyrights of your creations. Registrations can be done either on paper or online, which ever one prefers to do. There is also a small fee to create a copyright too. If anyone is caught infringing on copyright laws then it could lead to court and possibly jail time. Everything you find online is mostly protected by copyright also. There are certain sites that allow you to use their images, but you can only use so many and usually need a user name and password to get into the site like istock.com for example. There are restrictions on most though so be careful what you copy from the internet especially images and quotes from other peoples news articles or books. All the information I got this from was the Copyright website.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Chapter 4 & 5
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 starts talking about ancient times before pixels was even created and about how now its all about pixels when it comes to taking pictures with digital cameras. Pixels are the the tiny specs or dots that makes up an image. Without it we wouldn't have pictures or videos without them. If we did the pictures and movies wouldn't turn out near as good that it should be. JPEG is a compressed format that is delivered by a regular point and shoot camera. Professional digital cameras makes images into the Camera RAW format, has hardly any compression to it compared to a JPEG image. RAW images can be opened quickly into Photoshop and saved into other formats easier than a JPEG image. One big difference between the two is that RAW images take up more space on your computer and on your memory card than a JPEG does. RAW is also very flexible to work with. The chapter than goes on talking about all the Adobe Photoshop programs like Adobe Photoshop elements and Adobe Lightroom. Ppi is pixels per inch and its the resolution of an image. For websites, web images are used at 72 ppi at the final size. According to the Print Production book, "They are strongly held regarding the appropriate image resolution for printing." I learned from the book that 300 ppi image would be lost in a newspaper. The chapter then introduces bitmap images, which are sometimes referred to as line art images because the images contain black and white pixels with no shades of gray. Bitmap scans can provide a crisp clear image when it's scanned at a high resolution as well. It still produces small file sizes too.
After this the chapter goes on talking about scaling up and down then leads to planning ahead so you won't screw anything up on the scaling part of an assignment. Digital photographs are talked about next, which leads to our next topic, which is cropping and rotating images. Cropping should occur when you're saving an image or when you first to scan an image. If you are not sure you want to crop an image then it can always wait til later just as long as you save it so it don't become lost. Rotating images requires interpolation of pixel information. The safest rotations are 90 degrees. If you do anything else it will result in softening the detail of the image. Don't be afraid to crop or edit a picture just make sure its yours not some one else's or you will break copyright laws. The next part our chapter talks about is the image formats you can use when printing. The most commonly used files used to print are TIFF (tagged image file format) and EPS (encapsulated PostScript). They now say that some PSD (Photoshop document) is more flexible to work with than it used to be. TIFF is the most widely supported file format. I know when I have to turn photos in for the Kanza Yearbook, it has to be a TIFF file. PDF can also a good format for printing as well. Screen captures is then discussed and then talks about how to convert them to CMYK. RGB is then compared to CMYK and the differences between them, which was discussed in a previous blog I believe. The last part the chapter talks about is the files that aren't the greatest to print. Portable Network Graphics (PNG), BMP (bitmap), Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) are the files that are not good to print. Most files are over the amount of the colors that the printer is able to print. The transparency tip talks about how certain software's do not correctly handle blending modes in a Photoshop file. An example would be like if you add a drop shadow to an image because you wouldn't see it after you brought it into InDesign or Illustrator. It would make your project look odd in other words. To make a drop shadow work the best, you need to do it in InDesign or Illustrator so you can make it look the way you want it too.
Chapter 5
A basic summary over chapter 5 is that its all about vector graphics and the formats of it. Vector graphics are pixel free. They are also not subjected to scaling restrictions either. Smooth shapes of vector drawings are usually smooth so its easier to be enlarged and reduced with nothing affecting the image. According to the Print Production book, "Since the File > Save and File > Export dialogs of popular drawing programs offer a dizzying list of prospective file types, it's important to know what's acceptable for print and what's not." The most common file format for the vector artwork used to be EPS, which is Encapsulated PostScript. The most common now is Adobe Illustrator file. When using Adobe Illustrator it is best when submitting a vector file to save it as an illustrator file not a EPS file because you can use illustrator files in other programs like Adobe InDesign. For a page-layout software file, there's really no reason to save it as a PDF. The vector formats that are not available to print are Microsoft Windows Metafile Format (WMF), Enhanced Metafile Format (EMF), and Raster Formats.
To embed fonts you can use Adobe Illustrator in either a EPS or AI file for placing it in other programs. It means the font information should be open or available to display and print. The only downside to this is that it does not allow the fonts to become available in the EPS or AI file. According to Print Production, "To edit text, you'll still need the appropriate fonts active on your system; embedding does not deliver fonts to you." It comes as a surprise to many people that not all fonts can be embedded. All fonts contain data, which is called hinting. It processes the look and printing of the text. "Converting text to outlines eliminates hinting, so text may display onscreen as of slightly bloated and will print slightly heavier on desktop printers because of the lower resolution of those devices," according to the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue. If you have something that needs to be printed on a digital press then you need to avoid outlining the text. To simply your paths in Adobe Illustrator, you need to stop clicking all over the place with the pen tool. The less points you have on an image then the smoother the image your path or image will look. It will also be easier in the end when you move your image to Adobe InDesign. It is difficult to do at first, but all it takes is practice. I know I had to do that to make a path work for me bunches of times. This is why Adobe Illustrator is considered a drawing program not a page-layout program.
All the information I learned and used in my blog was from the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue.
Chapter 4 starts talking about ancient times before pixels was even created and about how now its all about pixels when it comes to taking pictures with digital cameras. Pixels are the the tiny specs or dots that makes up an image. Without it we wouldn't have pictures or videos without them. If we did the pictures and movies wouldn't turn out near as good that it should be. JPEG is a compressed format that is delivered by a regular point and shoot camera. Professional digital cameras makes images into the Camera RAW format, has hardly any compression to it compared to a JPEG image. RAW images can be opened quickly into Photoshop and saved into other formats easier than a JPEG image. One big difference between the two is that RAW images take up more space on your computer and on your memory card than a JPEG does. RAW is also very flexible to work with. The chapter than goes on talking about all the Adobe Photoshop programs like Adobe Photoshop elements and Adobe Lightroom. Ppi is pixels per inch and its the resolution of an image. For websites, web images are used at 72 ppi at the final size. According to the Print Production book, "They are strongly held regarding the appropriate image resolution for printing." I learned from the book that 300 ppi image would be lost in a newspaper. The chapter then introduces bitmap images, which are sometimes referred to as line art images because the images contain black and white pixels with no shades of gray. Bitmap scans can provide a crisp clear image when it's scanned at a high resolution as well. It still produces small file sizes too.
After this the chapter goes on talking about scaling up and down then leads to planning ahead so you won't screw anything up on the scaling part of an assignment. Digital photographs are talked about next, which leads to our next topic, which is cropping and rotating images. Cropping should occur when you're saving an image or when you first to scan an image. If you are not sure you want to crop an image then it can always wait til later just as long as you save it so it don't become lost. Rotating images requires interpolation of pixel information. The safest rotations are 90 degrees. If you do anything else it will result in softening the detail of the image. Don't be afraid to crop or edit a picture just make sure its yours not some one else's or you will break copyright laws. The next part our chapter talks about is the image formats you can use when printing. The most commonly used files used to print are TIFF (tagged image file format) and EPS (encapsulated PostScript). They now say that some PSD (Photoshop document) is more flexible to work with than it used to be. TIFF is the most widely supported file format. I know when I have to turn photos in for the Kanza Yearbook, it has to be a TIFF file. PDF can also a good format for printing as well. Screen captures is then discussed and then talks about how to convert them to CMYK. RGB is then compared to CMYK and the differences between them, which was discussed in a previous blog I believe. The last part the chapter talks about is the files that aren't the greatest to print. Portable Network Graphics (PNG), BMP (bitmap), Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) are the files that are not good to print. Most files are over the amount of the colors that the printer is able to print. The transparency tip talks about how certain software's do not correctly handle blending modes in a Photoshop file. An example would be like if you add a drop shadow to an image because you wouldn't see it after you brought it into InDesign or Illustrator. It would make your project look odd in other words. To make a drop shadow work the best, you need to do it in InDesign or Illustrator so you can make it look the way you want it too.
Chapter 5
A basic summary over chapter 5 is that its all about vector graphics and the formats of it. Vector graphics are pixel free. They are also not subjected to scaling restrictions either. Smooth shapes of vector drawings are usually smooth so its easier to be enlarged and reduced with nothing affecting the image. According to the Print Production book, "Since the File > Save and File > Export dialogs of popular drawing programs offer a dizzying list of prospective file types, it's important to know what's acceptable for print and what's not." The most common file format for the vector artwork used to be EPS, which is Encapsulated PostScript. The most common now is Adobe Illustrator file. When using Adobe Illustrator it is best when submitting a vector file to save it as an illustrator file not a EPS file because you can use illustrator files in other programs like Adobe InDesign. For a page-layout software file, there's really no reason to save it as a PDF. The vector formats that are not available to print are Microsoft Windows Metafile Format (WMF), Enhanced Metafile Format (EMF), and Raster Formats.
To embed fonts you can use Adobe Illustrator in either a EPS or AI file for placing it in other programs. It means the font information should be open or available to display and print. The only downside to this is that it does not allow the fonts to become available in the EPS or AI file. According to Print Production, "To edit text, you'll still need the appropriate fonts active on your system; embedding does not deliver fonts to you." It comes as a surprise to many people that not all fonts can be embedded. All fonts contain data, which is called hinting. It processes the look and printing of the text. "Converting text to outlines eliminates hinting, so text may display onscreen as of slightly bloated and will print slightly heavier on desktop printers because of the lower resolution of those devices," according to the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue. If you have something that needs to be printed on a digital press then you need to avoid outlining the text. To simply your paths in Adobe Illustrator, you need to stop clicking all over the place with the pen tool. The less points you have on an image then the smoother the image your path or image will look. It will also be easier in the end when you move your image to Adobe InDesign. It is difficult to do at first, but all it takes is practice. I know I had to do that to make a path work for me bunches of times. This is why Adobe Illustrator is considered a drawing program not a page-layout program.
All the information I learned and used in my blog was from the book, Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications by Claudia McCue.
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