CS4 – The Graphic Mac

Create your own Adobe CS5 style icons

James — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:00:15 +0000

With the release of Creative Suite 5, Adobe brought with it a new set of icons for all their applications. Now I won’t get into the whole debate about whether or not they’re better or worse than the previous ones, but they are different. And if you’re like me, you may have an interest in altering them a bit, and creating similar ones for other folder and applications in your OS X Dock.

Icon Generator is a website and a companion Adobe AIR application, both free, that allow you to create your own CS5-style icons with little effort.

Create your own CS5-style icons easily

As you can see in the screenshot above, you can type in your own letters (up to 15, but it looks bad beyond three), choose a face and font color, and even add or remove icon shadows and glare. I should also note that if you preferred the Adobe CS4-style icons, you can choose that style instead.

But it Icon Generator doesn’t stop there. You can choose to use an image on the face of your icon, rather than letters. You simply upload a 512×512 pixel JPG or PNG file. As you can see below, the results are pretty darn good!

Icon Generator allows you to use images instead of text on your icons

Once you’re finished customizing, Icon Generator allows you to download a .zip file containing various sized PNG files of your icon, and even update your Twitter profile icon if you wish.

Icon Generator is free, so if you like the Adobe CS4 or CS5 icons and want to customize more icons to match, this little AIR app is just what the doctor ordered.

Working with Document Tabs in Adobe CS4 Apps

James — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:55:17 +0000

With the release of the Adobe Creative Suite 4, all the major apps have adopted a tabbed document interface. At first it’s a bit difficult to get used to, but I’ve found it to be a pretty decent productivity increase. The one thing that baffled me was how difficult it was to get objects from one document to another. I of course am not one for reading manuals, so it took me a while to figure out how simple it really is. You can drag objects (or entire layers for that matter) from one document to another when they’re both open simply by selecting the object(s) or layer(s) from one document and dragging them to the tab of the second document and hovering them over the tab for a brief second. The second document moves to the front and you can let go of them to place them.

Is OS X Snow Leopard ready for heavy-duty design work?

James — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:56:34 +0000

Whenever Apple releases a new operating system, the first thing creatives consider before updating is whether or not the new OS will play nicely with their existing investments in hardware and software. For most designers and artists, that means Adobe Creative Suite, font managers, and Web browsers, not to mention their existing Macs. In my latest article at Macworld, I share a brief overview of Snow Leopard, and how it might affect designers using the Adobe Creative Suite 4 applications. To make a long story short, the answer is yes, go ahead and upgrade. While the speed increases are nominal at this point; future upgrades to individual applications will boost speed in the not-so-distant future – as shown by Safari, Mail and iCal. I experienced no issues running Adobe CS4, Extensis Suitcase Fusion 2 or any other applications I use on a daily basis.

Changing Illustrator CS4 artboard orientation

James — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:12:10 +0000

I recently received an email from a fellow Mac user asking how you go about changing the orientation of an Adobe Illustrator document once you’ve already created it. Previously, you could do it in the Document Setup dialog box, but with CS4 that has changed – probably due to multiple artboard support being added to Illustrator CS4. Below I’ve outlined how you change the various aspects of your document, including orientation, size, etc.

To change your Illustrator document orientation (as well as the size of each artboard), do the following:

First: Click the Document Setup button in the Control Bar, or select Document Setup from the File menu. If you’re a keyboard shortcut-junkie, hit Command + Option + P: Second: In the Document Setup dialog box that comes up, click the Edit Artboards button at the top of the dialog box: Third: If you have multiple artboards in your document, click the one you want to edit the orientation/size of. The selected artboard will have a dashed outline around it, along with object handles for manual adjustments. Fourth: In the Control Bar at the top of your document window, you’ll notice that you have several artboard controls. You can use the presets in the drop-down menu, click the page orientation icons, create or delete artboards, as well as alter the size of your selected artboard via numeric input boxes. Finally: Commit the changes to your artboard(s) by clicking any tool in the Toolbar, or using any tool-switching keyboard shortcut.

Reverting to old-style window interface in Photoshop CS4

James — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:09:56 +0000

Photoshop document tabs

If you’re a long-time Mac user and don’t care for Adobe Photoshop CS4’s new Tabbed document interface, you can revert back to the old-style single image windows by going to PhotoshopPreferencesInterface and unchecking the Open Documents as Tabs button in the Panels & Document section.… Read the rest

Dealing with Adobe CS4 “license stopped working” errors

James — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:22:37 +0000

If you own a LEGAL copy of Adobe Acrobat, or any of the other Adobe Creative Suite 4 applications, and have suddenly received a “Licensing for this product has stopped working” error message, uninstalling and reinstalling is not likely to fix the problem. Adobe is apparently aware of the issue, and has posted a KnowledgeBase article covering some possible solutions. The article covers all operating system versions that CS4 will run on, and offers several solutions you can try (in order) to fix the problem.… Read the rest

Don’t upgrade to Adobe Illustrator CS4!

James — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:00:50 +0000

That is, unless you want two of the most sought-after features that Illustrator users have been begging for since at least version 8.

Adobe Illustrator CS4 brings those two huge features and a whole lot of existing feature enhancements to Illustrator users who’ve been patiently waiting. Multiple Artboards: Think of multiple Artboards as essentially multi-page documents, much like a page layout program, except that it allows you to have different size artboards within your document. So what’s the big deal you ask? Read on… Let’s look at an example of why this is so great. Before Illustrator CS4, you probably had an Illustrator version of client X’s logo in full color, another file for the logo in Pantone colors, another version for solid black, yet another version solid white (for placing on dark backgrounds), and finally, another version in grayscale (for placing in B&W ads, etc.). That’s a minimum of five .ai or .eps files for a single logo. The most minor of changes to the logo would require you to edit five files, and then update five different files in every InDesign document they were used in. With Illustrator CS4, you have a single logo file containing all five versions of the logo. And when you place the logo file into InDesign, you choose which artboard (via InDesign’s Place options) you wish to have in your document. If you choose the artboard with the black only version of the logo, the Pantone colors used in the logo on another artboard are not brought into your document, keeping your swatches panel free of the clutter of unused colors. Illustrator CS4 allows up to 100 artboards in each document, and you can even create an artboard inside another artboard, allowing you to easily export just a piece of a composition. Also included as part of the new artboard feature is the ability to set bleed amounts to your Illustrator documents, much like you can in InDesign documents. While not a huge feature, it’s nice to be able to work in Illustrator with a completely accurate artboard and not have to “fake” a bleed area. When exporting your artwork from Illustrator, you have the option of saving each artboard as a single mutli-page PDF file, or as single page files in a numbered sequence. Gradient Transparency: The second big feature request from Illustrator users for years has been the ability to use transparency in gradients. Previously, you had to use a complicated method of setting up masks to simulate transparency. Even then, it rarely yielded the results you wanted. With Illustrator CS4, you can set the colors of your gradient, the use the gradient slider to use adjust one or both color stops to a custom level of opacity to show objects beneath the gradient. Along with the ability to use transparency in gradients, Adobe has added the ability to adjust your gradients right on the object, rather than being forced to make a trip to the gradient panel every time you want to adjust your gradient. With the gradient controls right on your object, you get immediate visual feedback, allowing you to focus on your design without interruption. Radial gradients have also seen an upgrade, with the new ability to set dimensions independently. You can now create radial gradients of any proportion or shape. User Interface: Adobe Illustrator CS4 shares the new GUI with it’s Creative Suite counterparts. Tabbed documents are spring-loaded, making it easy to transfer objects between documents. Simply by dragging your object over another document tab, that document pops open so you can drop your objects right where you want it placed. The application frame keeps your document and all the panels in a single, resizable window, and features spring-loaded panels which allow you to expand the panel of your choice simply by dragging an object on top of the panel icon. Feature Enhancements: Another feature shared between Creative Suite applications are Smart Guides. Objects can be aligned to the artboard rather than the cursor. The guides are more intuitive in CS4 with on-object readouts, allowing you to stay focused on your work, rather than on the alignment panel. Isolation mode has also seen advancements. I can’t say enough how useful Isolation mode is. By double-clicking a group of objects, you can visually isolate those objects on the artboard, having all other objects grayed out. Once in Isolation mode, you can adjust objects such as clipping masks, images, gradient mesh objects and compound paths. It’s also much easier to adjust the stacking order of objects in Isolation mode, greatly reducing the need to use Paste In Front/Back and Arrange commands. Once you’re finished editing, simply hit the Escape key to exit Isolation mode. The Appearance panel has added the ability to turn on and off individual effects, much like you can show/hide layer effects in Photoshop. But it doesn’t stop there. You can also apply and edit individual effects right in the Appearance panel. In the past, if you tried to apply a Graphic Style to an object that already had another Graphic Style applied to it, the new style would replace the original. With CS4, the new style is applied on top of the original, meaning you can apply multiple styles to the same object. So if you have a style to add a custom stroke, you can apply that, then apply a second style that would include a drop shadow or gradient. Very handy! Text on Path has been greatly improved, which is to say that it’s actually usable now. Adobe has adjusted kerning methods in the type engine so that type on a path truly looks great right out of the box. Performance: Illustrator CS4 doesn’t really perform much faster than CS3 overall, but specific features do, making the whole application feel faster in the end. The usability enhancements to gradients, guides and various other tools all contribute to a much more productive Illustrator experience. Should you upgrade?: This depends on just how much you use Illustrator. Designers who use Illustrator primarily for occasional logo creation and nothing more may find that the feature additions just aren’t enough. However, if you spend any amount of time every day in Illustrator, you’re probably going to be quite pleased with Illustrator CS4. As for me, the unified interface with the rest of the Creative Suite applications, multi-artboard support, tabbed windows, and feature enhancements more than justify the cost. Pricing: Adobe Illustrator will ship in October with the rest of the Creative Suite applications, and will be available for $599. Owners of Illustrator CS, CS2 or CS3 can upgrade to CS4 for $199. Owners of Freehand 9, 10 or MX, and CorelDRAW users can switch to Illustrator CS4 for $199 as well. See Adobe’s Web site for more Illustrator purchase information.

Photoshop CS4’s shortcut changes and missing features

James — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:00:38 +0000

While I don’t consider it a big deal, I thought I would mention that Adobe has removed a few items from Photoshop CS4 that were found in CS3 and earlier, as well as changed some keyboard shortcuts. Extract, Pattern Maker, Web Photo Gallery, Contact Sheet, Picture Package and PDF Presentation have all been removed from the default installation of Photoshop. The latter four have been replaced by the Output module in Bridge CS4. Several of the CS3 optional plugins have also gone missing, but you can download them here. The plugins include:

Alias
Bigger Tiles
DisableGetInfoComment
DisableScratchCompress
DisableVMBuffering
ElectricImage
Force VM Compression
Force VM Buffering
HSBHSL
JPEG2000
Overscroll Always
Overscroll Floating Windows
RememberSlowFiles
RLA
SGIRGB
SoftImage
Texture Fill
TWAIN
Unlimited Clipboard Size
Unlimited Preview Size

You may also notice that Command + 1 now resets the view to 100%, making it consistent with other Creative Suite tools. You can see a larger list of keyboard shortcut changes at John Nack’s blog. There are very good reasons for the keyboard shortcut changes, but John also provides a link in the article to download a plug-in to switch the commands back on a few of them. That being said, I would avoid using it because it most likely won’t work forever, so you might as well get used to the new commands.

Adobe releases Creative Suite 4

James — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:24:36 +0000

Adobe officially released Creative Suite 4 today. Adobe Creative Suite 4 delivers tightly integrated software and services that measurably improve productivity and enable you to produce richly expressive work in print, web, interactive, video, audio, and mobile.

Creative Suite 4 pricing is as follows:

Design Premium InDesign, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Acrobat, Bridge, Device Central, Version Cue

$1,799 full
$599 upgrade

Design Standard InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Bridge, Device Central, Version Cue

$1,399 full
$499 upgrade

Web Premium Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Acrobat, Soundbooth, Contribute, Bridge, Device Central, Version Cue

$1,699 full
$599 upgrade

Web Standard Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Contribute, Bridge, Device Central, Version Cue

$999 full
$399 upgrade

Production Premium After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop Extended, Flash, Illustrator, Soundbooth, OnLocation, Encore, Bridge, Device Central, Dynamic Link

$1,699 full
$599 upgrade

Master Collection InDesign, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Acrobat, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Contribute, After Effects, Premiere, Soundbooth, OnLocation, Encore, Bridge, Device Central, Dynamic Link, Version Cue

$2,499 full
$899 upgrade

Full Creative Suites, as well as individual applications can be purchased directly from Adobe’s Web store, or through authorized Adobe dealers. Downloadable demo versions of Creative Suite software will be available soon.