I recently wrote a guest-review over at Mac OS X-based graphic design blog The Graphic Mac for the brand-new font management utility Fontcase.

In short, I have found Fontcase to be a very cool new font manager for OS X. It has a few limitations, but the good news is that the developers at Bohemian Coding have told me all the small gripes I had were to be remedied in the near future and the ones they weren’t aware of (which I suggested) were also added to the feature list.

The biggest drawback for me was the lack of auto-activation plugins for the Adobe Creative Suite software. I currently use the free version of Font Explorer X by Linotype, and it’s something that would be difficult to work without. But it’s coming for Fontcase, and once it does I can see myself seriously considering picking up a license and switching my font manager in the (hopefully) near future.

Head on over to the Fontcase review at The Graphic Mac for my full thoughts.

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

Fontcase Review at The Graphic Mac is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Wikipedia Goes Legit (1)
• Wacom Tablet: Scroll Click (4)
• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet: Nice Entry-Level Tool, But Limited (19)
• Pantone Huey Monitor Calibration Tool (6)

Rick over at MacMerc has just posted an excellent overview on the three main online print-on-demand t-shirt printing shops: CafePress, Zazzle and Spreadshirt. For artists considering using one of these services, this is a great in-depth review on the similarities/differences between all three shops and their printing methods, as well as the pros and cons of each service and type of printing. Included are samples of shirts from each company, as well as magnified images of the printing.

The review is a companion blog post to his video segment on The Lab with Leo Laporte, which is included as a Google video clip on the post as well.

Rick’s opinion overall is that Spreadshirt is the way to go. Personally, I use the Zazzle service for my cartoon art t-shirts, and have not seen samples of the other services so I can’t compare. I have only seen samples of the light-color shirt printing from Zazzle, and thought it had pretty good quality for the printing technology. I need to order a dark shirt and compare quality.

Spreadshirt has one feature not offered by the others: plot printing. Plot printing is basically like a vinyl sign print, and therefore is limited to flat colors only, and three colors max. While this eliminates blends, gradients and the like, one could still make some exaggerated halftone dots in plot-printed designs. James Dempsey has a great Adobe Illustrator tutorial on creating halftone dots, and Vonster has another excellent halftone dot effect tutorial over at Illustration Class. Note that plot-printing with Spreadshirt requires elements to be a minimum width of .061″.

Overall, an excellent resource for anyone wanting a comparison of these services.

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

CafePress, Zazzle & Spreadshirt Showdown is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• News Hound (0)
• Cartoon Art & Halftones Tutorial: From Inkjet Printer to Photocopier (0)
• ‘Hairy Canary’ T-Shirt Illustration (1)
• “I Heart Vectors” T-Shirt (2)

I recently had the opportunity to try out a Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet, having purchased one for my Dad this holiday season. Dad is not a graphics guy by any means, but I use my Wacom tablets for so much more than just drawing and graphics applications – and love it so much – that I thought the Bamboo was a perfect accessory for another ardent computer geek.

In short, the Bamboo is a great entry-level tablet for casual users, but graphic artists will want to seriously consider investing in one of the pricier, but more fully-featured Intuos3 models. Read on for full details.

Out of the box, this thing impresses. Looks very slick, and is amazingly and significantly thinner than the Intuos3 series graphics tablets. Also, the non-active area around the tablet is much reduced, although it may be an optical illusion based on the differing placement of the buttons and scroll area.

The scroll area is round, as opposed to the vertical Touch Strip on the Intuos. I don’t like the Intuos3’s TouchStrip, and found the round touch-sensitive scroll area on the Bamboo to be much more ergonomic. The Bamboo has a unique pen as well, about the same thickness as the Intuos3 stylus, but shorter. It has a decent weight and balance to it, but here I prefer the Intuos3 stylus.

Driver installation was a breeze – the software doesn’t even require a reboot on OS X. Otherwise you just plug it in to a free USB port and you’re all set. One nice feature on the Bamboo that I wish my Intuos had: a detachable USB cable. Nice touch, and I have no idea why the smallest model in the Intuos3 series doesn’t follow suit. Not a deal-breaker for the Intuos3, but cool nonetheless.

I let Dad play around for a while, a bit (understandably) bewildered. Using a graphics tablet takes some acclimatization; I usually recommend using for at least an hour a day for about a month or so. Your mind & meat need to get used to the mechanics of the new device. I swear by ‘Pen Mode’ , where the area of the tablet is matched exactly to the area of the monitor. There’s also ‘Mouse Mode’, where the tablet acts just like a mouse – you can lift away from the tablet surface and drop the stylus back down in another area on the tablet, and the pointer stays where you left it on-screen. Dad seemed to prefer Mouse Mode, but I think that preference will soon wear off. It probably helps with the transition, however.

When I finally had my chance to play with the Bamboo a bit, the first glaring difference I noticed was in the material used for the tablet surface itself – much less silky than the Intuos3 surface. Not bad by any means, but after using the pro series, it’s very noticeable. It reminds me very much of the surface on the old Wacom tablet I use at a contract client’s office who still uses G3 computers (and OS9!) – those older tablets need Apple’s old ADB/serial port that is now (thankfully) discontinued on Macs in favor of USB. I’m not sure of the exact model, but it was not a pro series for sure. Probably an equivalent to the niche the Bamboo now fills.

Another major difference was the driver software. I was quite surprised to see that the Bamboo driver software does not support application-specific settings as does the Intuos3 series. You can set sensitivity settings and customize the stylus buttons, but these are applied system-wide.

Not a major issue, but for customization geeks like myself, this is a limiting feature. Per-application settings for stylus button functions and pressure sensitivity is handy for those instances when you want it. For the target Bamboo customer though, probably fine. The driver software also required you to set everything with sliders, as opposed to the small “scratch pad” area on the Intuos3 driver which would interpret your actual stylus usage and set the sliders automagically.

I thought to myself that Wacom should incorporate the advanced Intuos3 features in the preferences – but gray them out so users would know what other features are available with the high-end models.

Otherwise, the Bamboo was quite impressive, especially considering the price point. I went with the bare-bones version because I knew the Bamboo Fun’s mouse would never be used, and the Bamboo Fun also didn’t look a sleek as the standard version – the rounded edges make it look too toy-like. With a lower pressure sensitivity than the Intuos3 series, you have to allow for the inherent differences. But for basic, casual drawing and photo retouching — as well as general input device usage — the Bamboo delivers.

If you are a graphics professional, or prefer more customization with your tools, I highly suggest spending the extra cash to get an Intuos3 series graphics tablet instead; it’s well worth the price jump. However for the basic, occasional use — or for an introduction into the world of graphics tablets — you can’t go wrong with the Wacom Bamboo.

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

Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet: Nice Entry-Level Tool, But Limited is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• Wikipedia Goes Legit (1)
• Wacom Tablet: Scroll Click (4)
• Great Wacom Tablet Scrolling Software For Mac OS X: Smart Scroll X (4)
• CS3 + G4: Using Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on a PowerMac G4 (2)

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

Related posts

• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• Pantone Huey Monitor Calibration Tool (6)
• Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool (0)
• Adobe Creative Suite 3: First Thoughts (0)
• Wacom Tablet: Scroll Click (4)

The more I try out image editors Pixelmator & Acorn, the more Acorn’s simplicity and new perspective on the interface grows on me. Pixelmator is looking to be just about perfect for those people who need a Photoshop Elements style app with low overhead at a sweet price point.

Acorn, on the other hand, seems to be carving out a new niche, and developer Gus Mueller has shown in some of the details that’s he’s not trying to compete with Photoshop (or even Pixelmator), rather he’s attempting to do something new & unique. From the single, unified tools palette to the Option & Control key resizing & crop features (with the live pixel dimension display on the bottom left of the window frame) to the live brush size on the brush slider, Mueller demonstrates that he’s been using graphics software, he’s been frustrated with some things, and he’s thought of a way to make it painless, effortless and intuitive.

Once you’ve worked a bit in Acorn with some of these novel approaches to old habits, you’ll soon wonder why it was never done this way before.

To be fair, I’m talking about quick image editing and prep for a blog post, an email attachment, a sketch. Times when you need to open up the file, do some quick tweaks and get out. Acorn lets you do this transparently.

One limitation at this point in time with the 1.01 release is the lack of control over, or the ability at all, to save a web-optimized JPG or GIF. You only get a vague “low – medium – high” slider which tells you nothing of the resulting file size. There’s no live preview either. This, however, is coming to Acorn in a future release as noted in the Acorn forums.

I have never been one to have much use for filters, and thus have not really experimented much with these in either Acorn, Pixelmator — or Photoshop for that matter. My primary need for a lightweight bitmap graphics editor would be for resizing, cropping, minor image/photo cleanup & tweaking, annotating and occasional screenshots. For me, Acorn is just about the ideal application for these tasks.

With neither Pixelmator nor Acorn supporting CMYK color modes currently, these aren’t going to replace Photoshop anytime soon for print production work. And I don’t think that’s the target audience anyways. But once CMYK is supported, both could be viable contenders for those people who only need to dip into the print world on occasion.

At present, Pixelmator is too much like Photoshop for me to have a need for it, despite the small resource footprint. Possibly with proper pressure sensitivity tablet support I might change my mind. In the meantime, I really like Acorn for it’s clever and new approach to some of the regular, basic tasks for which Photoshop is definitely overkill. Pixelmator also needs to get brush size cursors; drawing with the Brush icon cursor is not the way to go at all.

One thing I have noticed is that both apps really start to slow down on large-ish images. I have found that a 240 dpi image works just about perfect for me as far as fleshing out rough sketches, and neither app was very responsive with an 8″ by 10″ document at 240 dpi. Pixelmator resized my 72 dpi JPEG file no problem, but Acorn really choked on it, freezing up the MacBook for a few minutes. Granted, the MacBook doesn’t have the best “video card” — in fact it doesn’t even have a dedicated video card. But I think these apps are targeted to just the kind of user that would own a MacBook. Seems an issue that needs attention.

This brings me back to my original focus, specifically for Acorn: it’s perfect for basic cropping, resizing and touchups for average to small sized images. Until Pixelmator is a bit more responsive on the MacBook for larger images (and gets proper tablet pressure sensitivity), it’s pretty much out of the running for me. Acorn really needs to step up to the plate in performance for larger images before I can even consider doing anything productive with it outside the above-mentioned tasks.

If you need a Photoshop-like image editor, and have been balking due to price, Pixelmator is definitely the way to go. It seems a great companion to iPhoto as well. Acorn on the other hand is more like the Leatherman tool of graphics software; a few great tools, not something you’d use for a big job but perfect for those times when you just need to do the basics.

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

Acorn: The Leatherman Tool of Image Editors is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Wikipedia Goes Legit (1)
• Acorn: Handy Lightweight Pixel-Based Image Editor (0)
• Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool (0)
• Paintbrush: Free Bitmap Image Editor For Mac OS X (0)
• New Mac OS X Photo Editing & Bitmap Graphics Software: Pixelmator (1)

Default Folder X is one of those shareware utility applications that seem pretty handy while you are demoing, but until you use another Mac without Default Folder installed (or the demo runs out), you don’t realize exactly how perfect the software actually is.

I constantly run across these “714 Absolutely Essential Mac Applications” blog posts that always leave this one out. And I think the only reason is that the author is unaware of it’s existence. There’s no other explanation. Half of the time the apps I see on those lists are so-so anyways.

So what is this so-called “Default Folder” anyways? In short, it’s a way for you to access — from the Open/Save dialog windows — not only commonly used folders, but also recently used folders and open Finder windows, all with (mostly) user-defined keyboard shortcuts.

Not only that, but you can rename and trash folder or files from the Open/Save dialog boxes as well! Awesome. And all the preferences and settings are right there in one of the new set of buttons hovering to the right side of your dialog boxes — set things up while you are working on them and thinking about it. Awesome again.

Always saving files from certain programs to the same folder or same enclosing folder? Set it as the default and spring to that folder every time. Some other main features:

• Rebound to the last selected file when a file dialog opens
• Make Save dialogs automatically default to the current document’s folder
• Open and Save to the same folder
• Copy filenames in Save dialogs by clicking on them (with option for a modifier key for stray click protection).

There’s a demo on the website, and really this software shines more in the actual use than the feature list. It might not be so obvious what it does until you start playing with it a bit.

My number one favorite feature? Option—Down Arrow will cycle backwards through the ten most recently used folders (while in the Open/Save window). How many times have you saved a JPEG preview of some vector art, then headed over to Mail to send the art to a client, but hitting the “Attachments” keystroke plops you into some obscure window you were using to send a friend something from the Desktop? With Default Folder, there’s no need any longer to trudge through the disk hierarchy just to get to that folder you were just in two seconds ago — Option+Down Arrow, and boom you’re there. That feature alone is worth the price of admission.

Or how about those times when you use the “New Folder” button, only to enter a typo in the name? Aaaagggkkhh!! Now you have to go back through the Finder and hunt that sucker down — or do you? Could perhaps Default Folder have an option to rename folders and files while you are still in the Open/Save dialog? A resounding yes. Decide that folder was superfluous after all? Move it to the Trash — again, right from the dialog.

Another cool thing is Default Folder’s ability to sense the open Finder windows under the dialog box. So say you have a project folder open (and it’s not a favorite folder ,or you haven’t recently accessed it via the Open/Save dialogs). You’ve recently opened a file in another location and want to save the tweaked version to the project folder. Instead of navigating your way down to the project folder you can just move the mouse over the general area of the Finder/Desktop and (with the proper preference settings) you will see the name of the folders near the mouse pointer as you pass over them; click, and they become the current folder in the dialog box. Sweeet.

There’s lots of other features as well, like a Spotlight comments field box that has it’s own voodoo going on. I don’t use it so I can’t talk much about it. Regardless, there’s even more than the already amazingly productive features I have pointed out, and this sucker can be customized to the Nth level.

Best thing to do is download a copy and demo it for yourself. Just know that the license purchase is a foregone conclusion after using this for more than a day or so.

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

Default Folder X – Essential Mac Productivity Utility Software is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Great Wacom Tablet Scrolling Software For Mac OS X: Smart Scroll X (4)
• Must-have Adobe Illustrator plugin: Zoom to Selection (4)
• Free Printable Keyboard Shortcut Cards for Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop & More (4)
• Adobe Pen Tool Cheatsheet: Free Download (2)
• Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool (0)

Illustrator extraordinaire Von Glitschka has a very cool podcast out that I just started listening to, The Illustrative Designer podcast. Each podcast is basically an interview by “the Vonster” (as he calls himself) with a chosen professional illustrator, cartoonist or designer. The most recent illustrator interview was with (the unimaginably prolific) cartoon illustrator & designer Bob Staake.

The “illustrative designer” moniker comes from Von’s idea that when asked to describe his work, he says he’s not a graphic designer that can draw, but rather an illustrator who can design. Hence, “illustrative designer”.

Von is a very cool and laid back guy, and has an easygoing approach with insightful and relevant questions and discussions with his guests. Von touches on the business side of the work to a good degree, which I really enjoy. I am always interested in how other artists work, how they find work, how they approach work. I guess to me, the drawing side is something that can only be learned through repetition & dedication, but the business side — an extremely important aspect to commercial artists — is something that can be absorbed immediately, and any insights gained can be applied instantly to your approach.

Von also includes some quick illustration & design industry news and recommended links at the beginning of the podcast, as well as original music from various indie artists at the end of the show. The website also has a decent cross-reference of things mentioned in the podcast, except for (strangely enough) web links to mentioned websites & products.

Highly recommended to all cartoonists & illustrators specifically, and designers and other related creative types as well.

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

Podcast review: The Illustrative Designer is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Creative Binge – New Free Portfolio & Social Networking Website for Creatives (0)
• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• Sugar Frosted Goodness: Community Illustrator Blog (0)
• Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool (0)
• Free Vector Logo & Brand Art – Brands Of The World (5)

Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 arrived this morning, and was immediately installed on both my trusty G4 and the MacBook. Here are my very initial thoughts on the first run of the main software applications: Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.

I ran the Photoshop CS3 beta release many moons ago – for about 14 seconds on both machines – the brush cursors weren’t showing the brush size, and I can’t work without those. Anyways, I bring this up because you need to do an uninstall of the PS CS3 beta before installing the Creative Suite, and if you have any problems there’s another cleanup program you can download from Adobe.

I didn’t need to run it on the G4, but did need to do so on the MacBook, and I think because I don’t run my main accounts as Administrator accounts (for extra security), I had to actually log in to the Admin account to run the script. It just wouldn’t run under my regular non-Admin user account (”not enough permissions” blah blah blah).

Installation took a bit longer than I thought, but I did go for the CS3 Design Premium version as I wanted/needed Dreamweaver CS3 and to a lesser extent Flash CS3.

Today was not the best day to get new software (especially for a geek like me) as I had a client meeting this afternoon, and also have a bunch of projects on my plate right now. I knew I could still use the CS1 versions I had been using, so I knew it wouldn’t hurt to install.

I have not had much time to play with all of the software, but just launching the programs is significantly faster on both machines, especially the MacBook (both Macs are maxed out at 2Gb of RAM). I have not really used any of the apps at all on the MacBook, so I will hold off on that review for another post.

Of course I opened up Illustrator first on the G4, and tried out the new features I was most looking forward to – OK, I admit it; the features I was most excited about (yes, I was excited about software features). For Illustrator it was the Zooming Anchor Points and Isolation Mode. Isolation Mode kicks butt, and it’s something you immediately know the first time you use it that it will speed up workflow and make things much easier.

Isolation Mode allows you to double-click on a group (a collection of objects that have been grouped), and once you double click you enter into Isolation Mode which fades out the rest of the artwork, and then allows you to work on just the group. The killer thing here is that the objects are no longer grouped, meaning you don’t have to switch over to the Group Selection tool (white arrow with the plus sign) to select individual objects. You are in a “virtual space” inside the group. If you’ve worked with Flash at all you’ll know exactly what I mean, and I am sure Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia played a part in this. It’s awesome.

Zooming Anchor Points are a feature that I was really amped about, but it’s implementation – unless I am missing something – is just not all that great. Granted, I have yet to work seriously with Illustrator CS3, but just trying them out left me unimpressed. Still handy, but I felt they could have allowed for more customization of the size of the zoom. It’s pretty minor. I’ll hold off judgement until I have used them more though.

Photoshop CS3 I used for a while today on a drawing project that I am finishing up. Purely layers with color and line art, so I though working on a copy couldn’t hurt anything. The great thing was that I jumped into things immediately, and while I didn’t notice any major speed improvements, it also seemed just as if I picked up where I left off with CS1. That in itself is important. Everything worked fine with the Wacom tablets (which I had to reconfigure for the new software, as well as update my brushes for CS3 – I never saved the previous brushes as an actual set).

I also dipped into InDesign a bit and there are some really cool new features in there as well. I am curious how many are CS2 features I never had, since I skipped a version for the upgrade. Regardless, lots of cool and time-saving stuff in all the apps so far, and this is just a few hours for all of them combined.

All in all, things installed smoothly, I was able to use the new software with existing work and transition just fine. As I mentioned I haven’t yet grasped the full extent of all the new features – I’m actually not even aware of all them them for each program yet. But so far, a satisfying purchase, and I am really looking forward to immersing myself into CS3 and sharing all the good stuff I discover.

More to come.

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

Adobe Creative Suite 3: First Thoughts is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• CS3 + G4: Using Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on a PowerMac G4 (2)
• Wacom Tablet: Scroll Click (4)
• Pantone Huey Monitor Calibration Tool (6)
• Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool (0)

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

Related posts

• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• Must-have Adobe Illustrator plugin: Zoom to Selection (4)
• Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool (0)
• Free Printable Keyboard Shortcut Cards for Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop & More (4)
• Adobe Pen Tool Cheatsheet: Free Download (2)

In some previous posts, I rambled on about the ability to scroll, one-handed, using the Wacom software, and a shareware alternative, Smart Scroll X. I also touched on this a bit in my Wacom Intuos graphics tablets review.
I am very pleased to report that the developer of Smart Scroll X has worked out the issues with Camino and NetNewsWire. The newly introduced scrolling feature in the Wacom tablet driver software is very cool, and should be more than sufficient for most users. Smart Scroll X fills a gap that the more nerdy of us may appreciate. And I think this is the proper situation for a shareware app – to extend functionality.

Smart Scroll X will work without a Wacom tablet – it’s basic functionality is to enhance the scrolling behavior in OS X, making it more fluid. It gives a bit of that iPhone style scrolling to OS X. You can modify the speed and the coasting, and there is also the functionality of assigning system- and software-wide scroll keys so you don’t have to learn different keyboard shortcuts to scroll for every single application.

I picked up a license for this software primarily for the enhanced Grab Scroll functionality when using the Wacom tablet. I assigned one of the pen buttons to Grab Scroll, and also set up the recent feature to invert the X and Y axis for scrolling. Inverting the X and Y axis gives you the same effect you get when scrolling using a mouse ball/wheel – grab-scrolling down moves the page up (it makes more sense when you actually use it).

A big difference from the Wacom feature and Smart Scroll X is the fact that the Wacom feature requires you to actually make a click and then drag on the tablet, while Smart Scroll X allows the drag to be a hover drag. And of course the speed customization and the coasting feature.

All in all, Smart Scroll X is not a must-have now that Wacom has included a basic version of this feature in the driver software, but for those out there who want greater control and customization, Smart Scroll X is a solid shareware choice and to date has been working rock-solid on both my PPC G4 as well as my Intel MacBook.

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

Great Wacom Tablet Scrolling Software For Mac OS X: Smart Scroll X is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Related posts

• Must-have Adobe Illustrator plugin: Zoom to Selection (4)
• Wacom Tablet: Scroll Click (4)
• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (16)
• CS3 + G4: Using Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on a PowerMac G4 (2)
• Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool (0)