Tag Archive for 'graphic design'

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Color Blindness Software Tools for Artists

Published on October 12, 2007 in software and tools. 1 Comment Tags: art, artist, calibration, CMYK, color, color theory, design, free, freeware, graphic design, graphics, Mac, Mac OS X, OS X, resources, software, tool, web, web design.

Color blindness screenshot Just stumbled across these handy Mac OS X software applications to help designers and artists simulate the effects of color blindness on-screen: Sim Daltonism and Color Oracle.

Sim Daltonism works as a floating palette which converts an area under your mouse cursor to the selected type of color blindness — it works similar to the Apple Digital Color Meter sampling utility. There are 8 different types of color blindness to test. Color Oracle works as a menubar item which converts the entire monitor to the selected mode of color blindness, but only offers the three most common forms.

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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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Pixelmator & Acorn: Quick Comparison Review

Published on September 26, 2007 in software and tools. 0 Comments Tags: Adobe, Adobe Photoshop, Apple, bitmap, design, graphic design, graphics, Mac, Mac OS X, OS X, Photoshop, review, software, tool.

A quick overview comparing the two new image editors Pixelmator and Acorn by designer John Whipple. I would have to agree with most of his points. The one thing I really, really like about Acorn is the handy resizing & cropping keyboard modifiers: hold Option and drag to resize, hold Control and drag to crop. It’s a very clever and very handy way to do things quickly. The zoom slider at the bottom of the window is nice as well. Oh, and the integrated screenshot tool.
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Illustrator CS3 Tip: Create A Color Group From Selected Artwork

Published on September 20, 2007 in productivity. 0 Comments Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, art, Creative Suite, CS3, design, graphic design, how-to, illustrator, productivity, resources, technique, tip, vector.

A great quick tip, from the excellent design blog BittBox, to create a color group of all the colors in an Illustrator document: Select all the art in your document, go to the Swatches fly-out menu and choose “New color group” – you now have a color group folder of all the colors in the artwork. Very cool!

Since color groups are a CS3 feature, this tip is Illustrator CS3 only.

via BittBox

Pantone Announces New “Goe” Color Matching System

Published on September 7, 2007 in Illustration, tools and updates. 0 Comments Tags: Adobe, Apple, art, CMYK, color, color theory, design, gadgets, graphic design, graphics, Mac, Pantone, print, printing, software, tool.

Pantone Goe color matching system product photo Pantone just released a brand new color matching system, touted as a “complement” to the PMS system they’ve used for 45 years. Once Adobe gives it the OK, PMS colors will be out the window. This has been in the works for about 4 years, so it predates the X-Rite buyout.

Supposedly the new numbering system is much more logical and expandable. It even comes with it’s own software now — even those who just opt for the standard fan books. Adobe hasn’t yet embraced the new system, but I can’t see why that won’t happen eventually.

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