Archive for the 'reviews' Category

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CS3 + G4: Using Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on a PowerMac G4

Published on October 5, 2007 in Apple/OS X, productivity, reviews, software and tools. 2 Comments Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Apple, art, Creative Suite, CS3, G4, graphic design, graphics, graphics tablet, illustrator, InDesign, Intel, Mac, Mac OS X, Mac Pro, MacBook, monitor, opinions, OS X, Photoshop, PowerMac, productivity, rants, review, shareware, software, vector, Wacom.

Apple Macintosh PowerMac G4 desktop computer 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.

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Acorn: The Leatherman Tool of Image Editors

Published on October 2, 2007 in reviews, software and tools. 0 Comments Tags: Acorn, Adobe, Adobe Photoshop, Apple, art, bitmap, CMYK, drawing, graphics, graphics tablet, Mac, Mac OS X, MacBook, OS X, Photoshop, Pixelmator, RGB, shareware, sketch, software, tool, Wacom.

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.

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Acorn: Handy Lightweight Pixel-Based Image Editor

Published on September 17, 2007 in reviews, software and tools. 0 Comments Tags: Adobe, Adobe Photoshop, Apple, art, bitmap, graphics tablet, Illustration, Mac, Mac OS X, OS X, Photoshop, shareware, sketch, software, tool, vector, Wacom.

Screenshot of single palette pixel-based image editor Acorn A new image editor snuck in under the radar a few days back: Acorn. It’s a pretty nice lightweight alternative to Photoshop for either users who don’t need all the bells and whistles the Adobe juggernaut has to offer, or would like to have a companion app for those times when you just need to do some quick edits and don’t want to fire up Photoshop just for an annotated screenshot.

If Adobe has Photoshop Elements, you could call Acorn “Photoshop Molecule”.

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Default Folder X – Essential Mac Productivity Utility Software

Published on September 9, 2007 in productivity, reviews, software and tools. 0 Comments Tags: Apple, art, keyboard commands, keyboard shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X, OS X, productivity, shareware, software, tool, vector.

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.

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Podcast review: The Illustrative Designer

Published on September 6, 2007 in reviews. 0 Comments Tags: art, artist, cartoon, cartooning, cartoonist, creativity, design, drawing, free, graphic design, graphics, Illustration, illustrator, podcast, review, web links.

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”.

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