Archive for January, 2010

Download over 6,000 Photoshop brushes

Download over 6,000 Photoshop brushes

Photoshop brush mecca

Photoshop brush mecca

BrushKing offers over 6,000 brushes in multitudes of brush packs, all free and available for download. All the brushes are categorized for easy surfing, and each brush pack has its own page with a preview image, brush info, author, license and download links.

01/29/2010 Read More
InDesign page changing shortcuts you may not know about

InDesign page changing shortcuts you may not know about

Adobe InDesignEverybody knows you can go to any particular page in you InDesign document by double-clicking its page icon in the Pages palette, or by typing the page number you want to go to in the little Page indicator box in the lower left of your document window. Of course, there’s always the old Command + J shortcut to bring up a dialog box where you can type your desired page number in. Here’s another page changing tip. Hold down the Option key while double-clicking the page icon in the Pages palette to not only go to that page, but switch the view to Fit Page in Window at the same time.

01/28/2010 Read More
New design. More content.

New design. More content.

The Graphic Mac

It’s been several years since I moved the original Creative Guy blog from WordPress to Drupal; renaming it The Graphic Mac in the process. While Drupal served it’s purpose, I just never was able to “simplify” the site design and layout. Today marks The Graphic Mac’s return to WordPress. I hope you find the new design more pleasing to the eye.

Why?

One of the reasons I made the switch was so that I could focus more on the content, and much less on actually getting the content posted; as well as making the site something I actually enjoyed looking at. The new design isn’t going to win me any awards, but it definitely puts more focus on the content. Gone are the seldom used features from the old site, such as dedicated discussion forums. The forums never really caught on, instead I was fielding dozens of emails a day from readers. At first I felt bothered by the fact that people weren’t using the forums. But after a while, I began to appreciate the one-on-one interaction with readers. The contact form is up at the top, and I welcome the emails!

01/25/2010 Read More
Easily select similar objects in Illustrator

Easily select similar objects in Illustrator

If you work with complicated artwork in Adobe Illustrator, you’ve no doubt come across the task of having to select many objects that contain similar attributes, such as same color fill or stroke, Appearance attributes, etc. Thankfully, Illustrator has a few tools that can make your job much easier. If you select an object and visit the Select>Same menubar item, you’ll find several methods to accomplish your goal.

Select similar objects in Adobe Illustrator

Select similar objects in Adobe Illustrator

As you can see in the screenshot above, you have a wide variety of choices to make selecting similar objects easy.

01/22/2010 Read More
8 Great Web resources for freelancers

8 Great Web resources for freelancers

Freelance resourcesIf you’re new to freelancing, or even a seasoned veteran, you can never have too many resources, answers, and free advice available.

I’ve found the following Web sites to be a fantastic resource for advice, resources, and in one case, a little light-hearted laugh on a tough day with clients. FreelanceSwitch – FreelanceSwitch is a community of expert freelancers from around the world contributing to a blog which covers a vast array of topics about life as a freelancer. AIGA – Founded in 1914, AIGA remains the oldest and largest professional membership organization for design. Guerrilla Freelancing – Provides straight, to the point advice and tips for the guerrilla freelancer. Freelance Folder – A community for all types of freelancers, entrepreneurs, work-at-home business owners, and web-workers. Smashing Magazine – Along with all the great resources and inspiration, Smashing Magazine offers a fantastic job board. Fuel Your Creativity – The place to turn to when you’re having one of your “I’m-going-to-implode-if-I-don’t-get-an-idea-soon” moments. Fuel Your Writing – An offspring of the original Fuel Your Creativity. Being A Starving Artist Sucks – Some great advice for freelancers, wrapped inside a big dose of humor. If you have another great site for freelancers, feel free to share in the comments.

01/20/2010 Read More
Extended volume control for Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) users

Extended volume control for Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) users

PTHVolumeIf you’re a Mac OS X user who hasn’t upgraded to Snow Leopard yet, but you want more control over the volume and sound output sources, PTH Consulting has a great little app that offers the same functionality as Apple’s built-in volume control menubar widget found in Mac OS x 10.6. PTHVolume 2 is a menubar application that not only allows you to adjust the volume of your Mac, but offers you the ability to switch the sound output sources without making a tiresome trip to the OS X System Preferences. PTHVolume menubar appPTHVolume (free) is particularly useful for Mac OS X users who, like me, have a nice set of external speakers set up on their Mac, but also like to use headphones at night or when anyone around you isn’t particularly interested in listening to your personal taste in music. As you can see in the screenshot at the left, you can adjust the volume for each source individually; something you cannot do with Apple’s built-in widget in Snow Leopard. Up until Snow Leopard, I was using this utility for a long time with no stability issues at all. It works perfectly.

01/16/2010 Read More
Quickly rotate your canvas view in Photoshop

Quickly rotate your canvas view in Photoshop

PhotoshopAdobe added a handy feature to Photoshop CS4 with the rotate canvas tool, which allows you to temporarily rotate your view of the canvas on screen without actually rotating the physical document. You can quickly rotate the canvas no matter what tool you currently have selected simply by holding down the R key for a second or two, then dragging your mouse to rotate the view.

01/14/2010 Read More
Zoom shortcuts for InDesign

Zoom shortcuts for InDesign

When working in your Adobe InDesign document, you can quickly zoom in or out on your page or spread with a few quick shortcuts. Command + Spacebar + Click zooms in on your document page, centering on the area around your cursor. Command + Option + Spacebar + Click zooms out on your document page. Double-click the Hand Tool in the Toolbar, or hit Command + Option + 0 (zero), to automatically fit the page or spread to the screen (obviously, the zoom amount will vary depending on the size of your monitor). Double-click the Zoom Tool in the Toolbar, or hit Command + 1, to view your page or spread at 100%

01/12/2010 Read More