Recently I was dealing with a problem in GarageBand, where the application would lock up when I was attempting the change the tempo of a song. For many months I struggled with this until it got to the point where I decided to do some in-depth troubleshooting. How does this relate to illustration you may ask? Turns out the problem was font related, and affected the performance of the software. Since this could affect any piece of software on your Mac, and therefore productivity, I thought it worth passing along as this could easily affect your graphics software as well.

After looking through the very geeky Console—which is kind of a system status readout of what your Mac is doing behingd the scenes—I noticed references to fonts whenever I had the issue with GarageBand. This was my focus for the troubleshooting. To make a long story short, after some Google searches and scouring the Apple Discussion boards, I decided to make sure that all my essential System fonts were installed and activated.

Since I use a font manager (current the free version of Font Explorer X from Linotype), I thought that perhaps I may have accidentally disabled some required System or User fonts. Lo and behold, I found that indeed this was the case. I discovered this list on Apple’s support site detailing all the required Mac OS X 10.5 fonts as well as the required Mac OS X 10.4 fonts. I found some fonts were missing, and some disabled in both the System fonts folder as well as the User fonts folder. I also discovered that some Microsoft versions of OS X fonts had seemed to have supplanted the OS X versions (grrrr!).

After manually checking each and every font and making sure all were in their proper place as well as activated, I launched GarageBand to find my issue resolved. As a final measure, I went into my font manager and made special groups for all of these fonts—one for the System fonts, one for the User fonts—so I could easily determine at any time if the required fonts were installed and activated or not.

Because of the nature of any operating system, software programs will assume you have certain fonts installed and use these for items such as palettes, menus, dialog boxes and the like. Even with OS X 10.5’s auto-activation feature, there may be software-level fonts that will not get auto-activated by this. And as my example shows, missing or deactivated fonts can cause havoc on your system and be a very obscure source of problems.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Mac OS X 10.5: Essential System Fonts is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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It’s been about a few months since I upgraded to Adobe’s Creative Suite CS3 suite of graphic & design applications, and am running them all on a PowerMac G4 (dual 1.25 processors, 2 Gb RAM). I thought I would share my experiences with anyone out there contemplating upgrading to CS3 with an older Macintosh. I also have one of the original MacBooks, so there’s a decent comparison with CS3 running on an Intel processor Mac.

In short, I would recommend waiting to upgrade your Mac to at least a G5 or an Intel based Mac before going to CS3, but that said it’s still usable.

I should point out that I am a shareware junkie, and over the years I have demoed (and kept or bought) many freeware and shareware applications for my Macintosh machines. The positive thing is that some of these independently developed software applications can be very handy and speed up your workflow and productivity (and I will be posting some reviews on the best ones in the future). The potential negative side to these add-ons are the increased load on your Mac, as well as apps that might not be engineered the best, and might be causing overall system performance degradation. That said, I have tested CS3 out on a clean user account, and the performance seems about the same. So, to some degree this can all be read with a grain of silicon, but keep in mind CS1 was running just fine before the upgrade, and really I am basing performance issues on that comparison.

And to clarify — this will not be a review per se of the Creative Suite CS3 software, but rather the performance on a G4 PowerMac compared to CS1.

The first (and worst, for me) issue was with Adobe Illustrator. Things seemed OK after the install, but I noticed over time that the Mac was becoming dead slow, and after looking at the Activity Monitor, I saw Illustrator was sucking up almost 35—40% of my CPU usage just sitting idle. That was a red flag. After a lot of research on the Adobe message boards, user Wade helped out with a suggestion to delete the “Settings” files (found in Users/Username/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS3 Settings) , which are separate from the Preference file in the Preferences folder (and a standard troubleshooting step for any application: “delete the prefs”). That cleared things right up. After a week or so I finally got a response from an Adobe tech with a generic support answer. I was pretty disappointed with Adobe’s tech support, especially compared to those Adobe Forums demigods who seem to always have the answer (and keep up on the posts). Thanks again Wade!

So I was back to a usable level with Illustrator, expect for the fact that things just seemed sluggish overall — slight delays when dragging objects, both in Illustrator and InDesign were the biggest culprits.Even using the keyboard arrows was giving me a lag. Photoshop brushes, with the Wacom tablet & pen, were juuuust a tad bit behind where I would draw, and this was a basic brush with no fancy settings applied.
Everything works fine — no crashes, decent launch times (usually). But the general usability in relation to everything running just a bit slower is, to be honest, kind of annoying and a bit unproductive. Since most of my projects are “low overhead”, I have been sticking with CS3 just to get a feel for it and try out some new features (which I really haven’t had the time to do just yet). I have an annual toy catalog design project coming up very soon, and I am debating if I should even bother using InDesign CS3 for the project or not. I have a feeling it’s going to choke on the 36-page layout.

I’m going to give it a shot though, as almost every new feature in InDesign CS3 I like, and have become very handy — except for the new way keyboard resizing works on objects. I hate it! Why they can’t make it a user-configurable option is beyond me. The new method of resizing the container box only is not very cool, at least not all the time. Needs to allow for another modifier key to resize both the container as well as the contained object. Anyways…

Illustrator seems fast enough when working on basic vector art, but as I have not delved into a really complex object yet, I am not sure how it will handle things. I was using some simple drop shadows for a project, and it was unbearably slow moving vector objects around. Things are much snappier on the Intel MacBook 1.83 Core Duo (2 Gb RAM).

As mentioned before, using a Wacom tablet and brushes in Photoshop is just a bit too slow in the response time compared to CS1. You notice you are working on a computer in CS3, as opposed to CS1 where the computer and software became transparent as you worked, which is the desired working situation. Again, things are much more fluid on the MacBook.

I realize that my old G4 just barely meets the requirements for CS3, but I really expected the optimized code to run better on even a G4 machine than it does for me. And part of me wonders if running dual flat-screen monitors on the stock video card (with 64 MB RAM) is also an issue. If I knew that was the cause, I would get a new video card this second. Otherwise, I’d rather put that cash towards a new Mac Pro.

Overall, CS3 is usable on the G4 but I would really have to say that anyone with a similar setup to mine might want to consider waiting until they have upgraded their Mac before making the jump. Me, I am going for a mid-range Mac Pro. I was considering one of the new aluminum iMac 24 inchers (they seem to have decent power and the cost is lower), but after this experience I realized what I want is a powerful machine that will also last me a few extra years with that added power and expandability. I’d also be paying for a monitor that I don’t really need. The extra cash for the Mac Pro will more than pay for itself in the productivity benefits alone.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

CS3 + G4: Using Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on a PowerMac G4 is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Backup. It’s something most computer users – let alone artistic types – never think about, at least not until after it’s too late. Trust me, once it happens to you, it will never be forgotten. Perhaps I can convince you to never have to go through that by recommending you start your backup system now.

All that precious time spent creating, tweaking, and perfecting your masterpiece is well worth a few measly bucks and a bit of effort (which will be automated once it’s all set up) to ensure you don’t lose those hours of hard work.

Hard drives are amazing little devices, but really they are just really tiny, complicated record players with magnetic dust all over the platters (blatantly reversed engineered from UFO technology – did they think we wouldn’t notice?). And they do break. Hard drives are so dang inexpensive anymore you have no excuse not to back things up at least to one backup drive. Redundant backups are even better, with off-site and multiple media-type backups (such as CDs & DVDs) even more so.

Let’s get into the type of backup system I have in place first, and then jump into the software.

Backup Your Mac.

Backup is not only for your art files. You are going to also want to make sure you have a backup of your System files as well, and the preferable method is to have what is called a “clone” or a bootable backup. This ensures you can get back up and running if anything goes wrong with the hard drive running your Macintosh.

• Get An External Hard Drive

This is pretty simple: you’ll need and external (FireWire or USB 2.0) hard drive, or alternatively if you have expansion bays for additional hard drives in your PowerMac desktop, you can buy just a “bare” drive. If you aren’t comfortable installing a hard drive, just go the external route. It’s much easier, and also portable to other and/or future computers. On a side note, an external drive for your iTunes music library is a great idea. But that’s another topic entirely.

• Format The External Hard Drive

Once you have your external drive, you’ll need to format it for your Mac. OS X will read a PC formatted drive, but you want this thing all Mac through and through, since this will not only be your backup, but also your emergency boot – or startup – hard drive. So, plug in the power and the FireWire/USB cable. the drive should appear on your Desktop with a cool-looking orange “external drive” icon.

Fire up the application “Disk Utilities”, which is in your Applications folder in the “Utilities” folder. Highlight the new drive in the left hand column, then over on the right-hand side click on the “Erase” tab (which IMO should be the “Format” tab, but I’m just a guy who draws funny pictures, right?). Format should be the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) – which is the default. Click “Erase”, and it will do it’s thing.

• Get Hard Drive Cloning Backup Software

OK, so we have a new external drive setup, what’s next? Well, two options: free and not-free software. As I mentioned we’ll need to clone this drive, and not all backup software does this. The two champs from everything I have read are Carbon Copy Cloner (free) and SuperDuper! (shareware). As usual, the free version does it’s thing, but don’t expect much support. I personally went with SuperDuper as it seemed a bit more intuitive and user-friendly, and having the support access is well worth the $30 bucks I paid.

• Automate Your Clone

Next, you set up a backup with whichever software you choose – and I am not going into the details about how to do this, the user manuals should do the trick. I set up a recurring event with an alarm in iCal, and run this incremental clone backup weekly on Sundays (I have a kooky external hard drive setup now which requires me to manually run the clone). SuperDuper! will even let you schedule this if you keep the drive attached and powered up 24/7. I’d say this is the best option, and I will be doing this myself soon.

That’s pretty much it for the System backup. And if you only have one hard drive on your machine (as most users do) then this will give you a perfect copy of your hard drive which you can boot (start up) from in case anything goes wrong. If you only run one backup, this is the one to do. And if this is your only backup system, then I might suggest running it more than weekly. Set up the scheduler to run nightly after you are usually done using the computer. If you’re like me, that’s from 5AM to 8AM (or 10AM if I don’t have to be at any on-site contract job!).

Archive That Artwork!

So now you have an automated backup system in place, and for most users this will suffice. As I mentioned, if this is your only drive, and you run it nightly, you should be all set. However, some people may have multiple drives (internal or external, or both), or may want another backup in place for added security. That’s me on both counts. And if you want to sync certain folder or files with your laptop, the clone will not be the option you want to go with either.

Cloning a drive takes time, even though the cloning software usually only backs up what’s changed. It’s still gotta go through all the files to analyze everything, and that takes time. I prefer to run a cloned backup weekly (and I actually alternate between an “A” and “B” clone just to have two layers of “undo” just in case). In the meantime I also run daily backups with other backup software designed to run these kinds of regular backups of specific folders. I can backup just my Documents folder, my Work folder, etc. at their own schedule, and since these are only acting on specific folders, they can happen much quicker than if you were to clone the entire drive.

The other cool thing is that you can mirror folders between your target folder and it’s associated backup folder (or any other folder) – including deleted files, which can be moved to an archive folder for safety. This is great for syncing folder contents with a laptop. You can mirror in one direction (which is just a regular backup I suppose) or mirror in both directions, which is a true synchronization.

• The Software

I actually own three backup software applications now, as I kept trying new ones to find the one that worked best for me. The first was Deja Vu, then Lifeboat and finally I think I have settled on ChronoSync.

Deja Vu worked great, but the major drawback was not being able to run manual synchronizations. So many times when I was working on a large project I wanted to backup immediately, not at 5AM, and Deja Vu had no way of letting me do this easily. After being in contact with the developer, I realized it would never be a feature and started looking elsewhere.

This is where Lifeboat came along, a new app but I was willing to try it out. At first it was great and had all the features I was looking for. The developer was even responsive to adding new features that he agreed were helpful. However, over time I realized how slow the backups were, and I would get frequent crashes. It also didn’t seem to like my external USB 2.0 drive (attached via a 3rd party USB 2.0 expansion card). I also started getting annoyed that I couldn’t mirror deletions, and as I started working up these crazy convoluted backup schemes to work around this, I decided instead to start the hunt for backup software again.

I had demoed ChronoSync before (and had read and saw great reviews & testimonials all over the Mac web), but didn’t like one aspect of the software: all of you syncs are separate documents which you must open to run. I wanted an iTunes-style interface where I could just highlight each sync from a master list and run it, get info on it, tweak it, etc. (Lifeboat had this setup, which I really liked). After a few emails with the developers he flatly stated that he would not be implementing that. A small issue in light of the other positive aspects of ChronoSync though.

ChronoSync allows for all the features I wanted: individual backup syncs, tons of control over sync settings, exclude lists (filters), scheduling, mirroring with deletions mirrored (and archived if desired). The mirroring allows you to keep two folder synced to each other so that changes in either one are reflected in the other. The “sync deletions” allows you to have any files you deleted in one folder become deleted in the other, which is great. Otherwise you can get things very confused with all sorts of old files in one folder that you aren’t sure why they aren’t in the other folder.

This also allows you to keep a laptop & desktop in sync with each other so you can work on files remotely. Note that this will not allow you to keep your Address Book or iCal in sync, in fact you definitely don’t want to do this, as mirroring will only overwrite the older one with the newer one, it will not sync the actual data in the database file.

I run straight backups (with synced deletions) from the Desktop to the External backup drive for all my work folders, my Documents folder for my user account on my Mac, my Photos folder, etc. I then also have a sync set up to sync my work folder with my MacBook, and the cool thing is that you can set up the sync to happen whenever you mount the MacBook on the Desktop computer. And I do this via a wireless router – works great!

Another cool feature is the “Resolve Aliases” option, which can be used to keep your existing folder structure intact while only syncing (or backing up) specific folders. I set up a “Work sync” folder, and then drag aliases of my current projects into this folder, and what ChronoSync does is copy the contents of where the aliases point to. This is great because then you just have to add or delete folder aliases in this sync folder to keep things updated regularly without having to set up and modify your syncs & filters all the time.

Aliases, for those unaware, are Finder shortcuts on the Mac that allow you to access a folder anywhere the alias is without moving the original folder. For example, I keep a folder in my Finder window Sidebar into which I place aliases of all the current work I have. I also keep an alias in a client’s folder that points to their archived projects folder. You can make aliases by highlighting the folder or item, then either go to the Finder’s “File” menu and choose “Make Alias”, or hit Command(Apple key)-L, or even better just drag the folder/item, and then hold down the Command and Option keys before letting go – you’ll see the cursor turn into a little curly arrow to indicate you’re about to make an alias. The resulting file/folder will also have this little curly arrow on it to indicate it’s an alias to the original.

I know it’s kind of a bummer that one software application doesn’t handle all of this, but really that’s they way shareware works – a niche is filled. The positive thing about this is that usually the developer geeks out on this niche, so you really get an in-depth application that does exactly what you want it to do.

The cloning option might be something most people don’t want to bother with, but for me I need to know I can be up and running, on my exact setup, in a moment’s notice. I am not even that diligent about keeping my G4 & MacBook exactly the same – I even have different shortcuts assigned for some of the Adobe apps for each machine (I was trying out different setups and never went back and synced them). My G4 is the main machine right now, so I make sure that baby is backed up redundantly and that I can boot from the clone. I also have a bunch of internal drives for all my files, and need to back those up independently anyways since the clone software only syncs one drive at a time. I could clone them, but that would be overkill since really only a few files change here and there, and I want to be able to back up quickly, daily and also manually if need be. ChronoSync lets me do this, and also lets me sync work files to the MacBook as well.

So now you have all the basic info you need to start backing up you artwork. Stop making excuses, stop putting it off – do it right now. You can be set up with all the software & hardware for around $200 and it will be worth every last cent if that dreaded day ever comes where your precious Mac has a hard drive meltdown. Get an external hard drive, pick up a license for ChronoSync and SuperDuper!, then go off and make some awesome artwork worth all this trouble!

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Archive That Artwork! Backup Tips & Software Advice for Mac OS X is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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A simple concept: Photoshop keyboard commands & shortcuts printed right on to a super-flexible rubber keyboard protector.

An ingenious idea inspired no doubt by those fancy-schmancy video editing keyboards you see video editors using on the movie behind-the-scenes DVD extras.

These are designed for the newer Apple keyboards. All G5/Intel iMacs and G5 Powermacs are packaged with this new Apple keyboard. It is also compatible with the Apple Bluetooth Wireless keyboard. Note that it is not compatible with the older Apple Pro Keyboard and Apple USB Keyboard.
zCover also offers MacBook keyboard protectors with shortcuts and MacBook Pro keyboard protectors with shortcuts, as well as models for Adobe InDesign and a slew of Adobe & Apple video editing apps and music creation software. They also sell blank ones and versions with thew regular ol’ standard keys printed on for those of you who don’t want to become a master of keyboard shortcuts (and shame on you!).

I have not tested these personally, but am thinking about ordering one soon, not only to beef up the Photoshop skill set, but to keep all that junk from getting trapped in that clear keyboard enclosure.

See also:
Annotated Keyboard Graphic With Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts
Free Printable Keyboard Shortcut Cards for Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop & More

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Keyboard Protective Cover With Photoshop Shortcuts is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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A quick post regarding an issue brought up by a comment to my original post about the Pantone Huey and dual (or multiple) monitors…

A suggestion by a commenter (as well as Pantone tech support) regarding the calibration of a second monitor using the Pantone Huey was to disconnect & reconnect your monitors, run the config, reconnect to original setup.

I discovered a simpler method:

Just make the secondary monitor the main monitor, temporarily, in the OS X Displays preference pane, run Huey, then set the main monitor back to the main monitor. It worked!

To make the secondary monitor the main monitor, in the Arrangement tab of the Displays preference pane, drag the menubar to the secondary monitor. After running the Huey setup, drag the menubar back to the main monitor. Bingo.

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Use A Pantone Huey Monitor Calibrator On Dual Monitors is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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I recently purchased one of these Pantone Huey monitor calibration gizmos to enhance my on-screen ability to proof colors for accuracy when printing. In short, it’s awesome and worth every penny. Read on for more…

The basic premise of this tool is simple: it sticks to your screen (during calibration) and samples colors using a sensor to determine how your monitor is displaying color, and how it should look. It then saves a monitor profile, which is a small preferences file your computer uses when it displays images/colors. The result? On-screen colors that more or less accurately display how the final out put will appear when printed.

When I first set it up and ran through the initial calibration, I held up the most recent issue of the monthly full-color, glossy magazine I was designing at the time next to the actual PDFs which were sent to the printer. In the words of Darth Vader, “Impressive, most impressive.”. While not 100% accurate, it was far and away closer than my setup had been previously, so much so that I now can rely on on-screen viewing of my design & illustration work and feel confident that I know how it will print. Very, very cool.

The Pantone Huey has some preset “user environments” to help in simulating on-screen appearances. Obviously I used the ‘Graphic Design’ settting, but there were others to choose from such as ‘Gaming’, ‘Web Browsing’ & ‘Photo Editing’, as well as some other choices that seeemed to defeat the purpose of this device: ‘Warm, medium contrast’; ‘Cool, low contrast’ & variations. These seemed arbitrary and not tied to a standard, so how does this make anything more accurate when you are just tweaking the colors to your taste, visually? To me that’s no difference than going through and tweaking the settings without the Huey. Maybe I am missing the point.

The odd thing about this device is the resulting settings — man was my brand new ViewSonic VP2030b 20.1″ LCD Monitor looking yellow! The weird thing is now that I have used it for some time, it looks exactly right. In fact, my other monitor [dual monitors are a must have for me once I tried it years ago] looks way too blue, and I even went in and tried to visually match it to the main monitor using the built-in monitor calibration in Mac OS X. No luck.

The Huey, I was told by a helpful Pantone rep via email, is a consumer level device and does not support multiple-monitor setups like mine. He suggested one of their (of course) more expensive models. I really feel that after my experience with the Huey I will be upgrading in the future. My secondary monitor is primarily used for Adobe Illustrator/InDesign/Photoshop palettes, to keep my main screen image-only, and the occasional reference document when I am working on something, so color accuracy is not an issue for the other screen.

One other neat feature: it optionally sits on your desk and monitors the ambient light in the room, and adjusts itself accordingly. Of course, in my dimly lit cave the light rarely changes, but there are some cool Knight Rider KITT-esque lights that flash when it does it thing, and what self-respecting computer geek/gadget freak doesn’t want another USB device cluttering their creative workspace?

I highly recommend this device to anyone working with graphics on a computer monitor, especially those who work in the print medium. At around $70, it’s worth every last cent having that color-correct security blanket wrapped around your artwork.

Get it cheap from Amazon:

by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Pantone Huey Monitor Calibration Tool is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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