Apple’s new MacBook Pro 15″ with Retina Display = Mehhhhhh!

Ok, so maybe that headline is a tad bit misleading. The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display (MBPR) is a great laptop if you love the latest & greatest from Apple. But when I look at a PRO machine, I’m looking at specs. And when I look at the specs of the new MBPR, I see a lot of trade-offs. I also see a big, giant whammy!

You’re giving up ethernet & firewire. You’re losing your CD/DVD burner. You’re giving up a great MagSafe power connector (the new one sucks). You’re losing quite a bit of storage (the SSD drive is half the size of the regular MB Pro. You’re also losing dedicated audio line in and line out ports in exchange for a single audio port. In exchange you’re getting a much faster SSD storage drive, an HDMI port, more video RAM on the low end model, and a lighter weight computer overall.

Since I can live without the losses, and find the additional features enticing, I’ll call all those specs a wash. That means it comes down to the Retina Display.

MB Pro Retina

The MBPR offers a ridiculous 2880 x 1800 Retina resolution that looks absolutely stunning. The color and vibrancy is incredible. But unless I’m watching video or looking at photos, it’s really not something that offers much benefit to me. I was more interested in the increased screen real estate.

The problem is, at the highest resolution setting, the MBPR’s display makes everything on the screen tiny. Really tiny. I fired up Photoshop on the MBPR at my local Apple store and could barely distinguish the icons in the toolbar. I had to move up so close to the display that I felt like I was looking at my iPhone, rather than a 15″ laptop. Apps that aren’t specifically built for Retina Displays show some blurriness (though I didn’t think it was bad as some tech reviews I’ve read).

You can of course change the resolution 1920 x 1200, but I found that to be a bit too small as well. The next step down is what Apple considers the middle of the road, or “best,” setting in the Display Preferences: 1680 x 1050. I agree with Apple, it was the best setting for me. The regular 15″ MB Pro comes with a 1440 x 900 resolution display by default, but for $100 you can upgrade to the HD screen with the same 1680 x 1050 resolution.

So at the end of the day the MBPR costs $400 more, and I must accept the trade-offs mentioned above, and I can’t enjoy or take advantage of the premiere feature – the display. In the end, I can spend the same amount of money to upgrade the regular MB Pro to the same specs as the MBPR, and keep the Ethernet, optical drive, etc.

Observe Photoshop’s scratch disk use with the Efficiency Monitor

If you’re experiencing a slow-down while using Adobe Photoshop, you may be thinking you need more RAM (always a good idea!), but there’s a chance that isn’t the problem. Thankfully, Adobe offers an easy way to help you decide if more RAM is necessary for a better user experience.

At the bottom left of Photoshop CS5 and CS6’s window is an indicator that can display all sorts of information. Among file size, color profile and save progress, is one called Efficiency. You can click the flyout window arrow and choose Efficiency to get the indicator just to the left (see the image below).

Photoshop Efficiency Indicator

If you’re lucky, it will always say 100%. Anything below 100% indicates that Photoshop has used all its allocated RAM and is using your hard drive as a scratch disk, thus slowing it down. You can allocate more RAM to Photoshop in the preferences, but if memory serves me, Photoshop allocates around 60-70% of your RAM by default. Any more than that and you’re likely to start having problems with the rest of the system. If the Efficiency Indicator displays anything below about 85-90%, I would highly recommend investing in more RAM.

Suitcase Fusion 4 gains Adobe Creative Suite 6 compatibility

Suitcase FusionI reviewed Suitcase Fusion 4 just about a month ago and mentioned that Adobe CS6 compatibility was surely on the way. This week, Extensis released an update that does just that.

The update brings auto-font activation to InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop CS6, as well as the new Font Panel plugin for ID and AI (a Photoshop version is in the works).

If you’re a current Suitcase Fusion 4 user, simply visit the Suitcase Fusion menu and select Check for Updates to get the latest update. If you haven’t tried Fusion 4 yet, download the demo and give it a shot.

Extensis to host free font management webcast for creatives

Extensis, makers of Suitcase Fusion 4, is hosting a free instructional webcast about managing fonts in the creative workflow. In this webcast, Extensis font expert Jim Kidwell will show you practical management techniques and helpful tips that can tame your unruly font beast.

Jim Kidwell will be available for a live Q&A at the end of the webcast

Managing Fonts in Modern Digital Design Workflows
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
11:00 AM Pacific / 2:00 PM Eastern

To participate: www.extensis.com/sf4-design

8 handy Safari keyboard shortcuts I use every day

Apple Safari

  • View current page in Reader – Command + Shift + R
  • Scroll down by one screen – Spacebar
  • Scroll up by one screen – Shift + Spacebar
  • Empty browser cache – Command + Option + E
  • View page source – Command + Option + U
  • Show Reading List – Command + Shift + L
  • Open link in a new tab – Command + Click any link
  • Mail current web page link – Command + Shift + I

These are just my favorite shortcuts, but you can view a full searching for ‘shortcuts’ under Safari’s Help menu.

Photoshop CS6 interface color keyboard shortcut

Photoshop CS6 introduced a new interface option which allows you to choose from four shades of brightness while working in the app. It was jarring at first, but once I got used to it I loved it. Still, there are times when I want to leave the new dark interface and use something a bit lighter. Adobe made it easy with a handy keyboard shortcut.

Photoshop CS6 interface

Photoshop CS6 offers interface brightness flexibility

Simply hit Shift + Function + F1 to lighten the interface, or Shift + Function + F2 to darken it.

InDesign CS6 adds link indicator badges for easy troubleshooting

InDesign link indicator badgeAdobe InDesign CS6 added a great feature to help designers quickly located missing or edited images and other placed objects without the need to visit the Links panel.

When you’re working in a document and an image or placed graphic is missing or has been edited but not updated, InDesign places a small colored badge at the top of the object to indicate its status. In the case of my missing logo in the screenshot, InDesign has placed the red alert badge on the object box.

This method of badging is handy because most designers probably don’t think about the status of their placed objects until the project is finished. If an object has changed enough, it can mess-up the overall layout. With these new badges, you can see problems on the fly with no interaction necessary.

Learn your keyboard shortcuts with CheatSheet for Mac

CheatSheetKnowing and using keyboard shortcuts can save an incredible amount of time over the period of a full work day. Not to mention it doesn’t stop the flow of creativity.

Having used the Mac since the mid 80s, and Adobe Creative Suite apps just as long, my brain is trained to use keyboard shortcuts. I can’t remember the last time I moused up to the menubar for something that has a keyboard shortcut available.

Learning keyboard shortcuts can take a long time, but a clever Swedish developer has created CheatSheet for the Mac OS X 10.7 that displays all the available keyboard shortcuts for the app you’re working in with the click of a button.

CheatSheet

Learning keyboard shortcuts is made easy with CheatSheet

CheatSheet is a faceless application. There is no interface, no preferences to set. You simply hold the Command key down and a large white overlay appears which displays all the keyboard shortcuts. CheatSheet runs on Lion only, and is free.

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