Archive for June, 2011

Alien Skin announces Snap Art 3

Alien Skin announces Snap Art 3

Alien Skin Software has announced Snap Art 3, the new version of its artistic natural media plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Lightroom. Snap Art turns a photo into a beautiful work of art that looks completely handmade. You make the creative choices while Snap Art takes care of all the tedious work of drawing brush strokes.

AlienSkin Snap Art 3

AlienSkin Snap Art 3 turns your photos into works of art

Snap Art 3 will be available in August 2011 for $199. Owners of Snap Art 1 or 2 may upgrade for $99, and if you buy Snap Art 2 now, you’ll get the upgrade to version 3 for free.

06/30/2011 Read More
How to upload a photo to your preferred Facebook Album on your iPhone

How to upload a photo to your preferred Facebook Album on your iPhone

If you use your iPhone to upload photos you take on the go to your Facebook account, you may be annoyed that Facebook automatically created an album called “Mobile Uploads” and places the photo there.

If you’re like me, you’d rather place them in your carefully crafted custom Albums, like “family” or “friends” – and there is a way to do it.

Facebook mobile album trick

Uploading a photo to your preferred Album from the iPhone Facebook
app isn't as easy as it should be - but there is a workaround

  • First, on your iPhone Facebook app, click on the Photos icon and tap the Facebook Album you would like the photo to be uploaded into.
  • Next, either choose a photo you’ve already taken from your photo Library, or hit the camera button in the upper right corner to take a photo.
  • Finally, select your photo and give it a caption, then hit Upload.

Your photo will now appear in the Album you chose in the first step. I’m not sure why Facebook doesn’t make it easier to choose your preferred Album, but this workaround does the trick.

06/29/2011 Read More
OS X Lion: It’s the little features that will make a big difference

OS X Lion: It’s the little features that will make a big difference

You’ve no doubt read a lot about OS X Lion, Apple’s next generation operating system for the Mac. The last few weeks have seen the tech media publishing gobs of information, but some of the new features in Lion aren’t getting the attention that some of the more popular features like Launchpad, the new Mail and Calendar apps, and iCloud are.

OS X Lion

A few features that should be in the final release of Lion when it ships in July that you may not have read about include:

06/28/2011 Read More
MobileMe to iCloud transition: some questions answered

MobileMe to iCloud transition: some questions answered

MobileMe to iCloud transition

Some of your MobileMe to iCloud transition questions answered

The core services provided by MobileMe have been put on death watch in the wake of iCloud’s release coming soon. While most people are excited about signing up for the free iCloud service, many of us have questions about the transition from MobileMe and older .Mac accounts – specifically as it relates to the use of our current Apple IDs.

While there are still questions as to how iCloud will work, and how we’ll integrate our current purchases using our old Apple IDs, Apple has at least answered some questions in a recently-released iCloud transition FAQ.

06/27/2011 Read More
The Graphic Mac Link Box #3

The Graphic Mac Link Box #3

The Graphic Mac Link BoxA collection of interesting or otherwise helpful links I’ve come across recently that you may not have seen:

Prepare for Pixelmator 2
For those who want full featured image editing but don’t want the price tag attached to Photoshop, Pixelmator is the perfect app. Pixelmator 2.0 will be available later this summer via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store. For now, anyone who doesn’t have the app can purchase the currently available version of Pixelmator on the Mac App Store for $29 and receive a free upgrade of Pixelmator 2.0 once it is released.

Control your privacy in Google Chrome
I love Google Chrome, it’s a great Web browser with plenty of features and extensions. The problem is, it was made by Google; so you know they’re collecting all sorts of data while you’re using it. Ahad Bokhari has a great tutorial on how to protect your privacy while using Google Chrome.

Photoshop CS5 vs. CS5.5
If you work primarily in Adobe Photoshop, you may be wondering what the difference between PS CS5 (v. 12.0.4) and PS CS5.5 (v. 12.1) actually is. The answer is: absolutely nothing. John Nack explains on his blog.

Google stands by 15-minute refunds
Google offers a 15-minute time frame to receive a refund on apps purchased in the Android Marketplace. While many users complain that it takes that longer than 15-minutes to download and configure some apps, it’s still better than Apple’s refund time of zero!

View Instagram stream on your Mac
Screenstagram allows avid Instagram users to view their Instagram photo stream as a screensaver on any Snow Leopard Mac desktop or laptop.

40 Online generators for web designers and developers
Web forms, charts, button makers, AJAX plugins, fonts, color schemes, CSS menus, and more. Tripwire Magazine has a list of 40 great generators to save you some coding time.

06/24/2011 Read More
Prevent color shifting in your Photoshop image by adjusting only the gray values

Prevent color shifting in your Photoshop image by adjusting only the gray values

Photoshop Adjustment Layer iconWhen you’re using Curves, Color Balance, Levels, Hue & Saturation, and other color correcting filters on your Adobe Photoshop image, it’s always best to use an Adjustment Layer (the icon at the bottom of the Layers panel shown at right). Doing so allows you to make further adjustments to your image later on using the Adjustments panel, leaving the original image intact. It also gives you an easy way to adjust only the gray values in your image, thus preventing color shifting.

Luminosity Blend Mode allows you to adjust only the gray values in your image

Using the Luminosity Blend Mode allows you to adjust only the gray values in your image

First create an adjustment layer using the color adjustment of your choice. In the example above, I’ve chosen Color Balance. Next use the Blending Mode drop down menu at the top of the Layers panel to set the layer blending mode to Luminosity.

Now when you tweak the settings in your Adjustments panel, Photoshop will limit the changes to only the gray values in your image. As you can see in the image above, leaving the Blending Mode of the Adjustment Layer set to Normal introduces a lot of color shifting in the image. By changing it to Luminosity, Photoshop prevents it from taking place.

06/21/2011 Read More
Free textures: Essential Grunge

Free textures: Essential Grunge

Essential Grunge

Click image to download 18 essential grunge textures

06/20/2011 Read More
VectorScribe takes vector path and shape editing to new levels

VectorScribe takes vector path and shape editing to new levels

Astute GraphicsPlease join me in welcoming The Graphic Mac’s latest site sponsor, Astute Graphics. The first time I heard of Astute Graphics was back in 2008 when I reviewed Phantasm CS, a new plugin suite for Adobe Illustrator. In that review, I called Phantasm CS “the most useful plugin set I’ve ever come across for any version of Adobe Illustrator.”

Today I want to introduce you to VectorScribe, the latest plugin from Astute Graphics. VectorScribe allows you to quickly and easily create and manipulate vector paths in Adobe Illustrator CS3 to CS5 through the use of several new tools and panels.

VectorScribe by Astute Graphics

VectorScribe makes complex path operations easy

Because there are two versions of VectorScribe, Designer and Studio, and the tools are so incredibly powerful and in-depth, I’m just going to briefly overview them here. But before I do, let me just say that if you’re the type of Illustrator user who only opens AI once or twice per month to quickly edit an existing logo, VectorScribe probably isn’t for you. But if you spend a good amount of time in Illustrator, working as a logo designer, architect, illustrator, or cartographer, then you’ll definitely enjoy this plugin!

06/14/2011 Read More
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