Someone on a non prepress/graphic design related forum pointed this out ...



Update on the Standard Model Higgs searches in ATLAS and CMS

E=MC²  :cheesy:

Maybe everyone knows about this trick already but here goes anyway.

Have you ever gotten a job that was designed in Photoshop that was full of 4 color blacks that you wanted to be on the black plate only? Here's a trick that works like a charm.

Step 1: Convert to profile ...


Step 2: Click Advanced button ...


Step 3: Pick Custom CMYK ...


Step 4: Pick Maximum for Black Generation setting ...


Step 5: Click OK x2. :tongue:

Now everything that's supposed to be black should be on the black plate only. :smiley:

Be sure to embed the profile when you save. You will also need to be sure to use the embedded profile in stead of your working CMYK when you open the file again in Photoshop otherwise the blacks will be on all 4 plates again.

Can anyone open a .SIG file? Webpages that I looked up said that it was created by Print Shop ...

http://www.broderbund.com/c-31-the-print-shop.aspx

Either that or it's an e-mail sig.  :undecided:

Hi, my name is ratintrap, you may have heard of me. :cheesy: (couldn't find a rat smiley)

We recently redesigned the newspaper that I worked at. Part of the new design involves a couple of photos with the background knocked out for each edition. I was just wondering what your favorite (hopefully fastest) techniques are for doing background knock outs.

I've tried the Magnetic Lasso, the Magic Eraser, the Pen Tool and other techniques, including channels based techniques like DCS suggested. Some of these techniques work very well if you've got a best case scenario type photo to work with but that is rarely what I get. I'm embarrassed to say that my old stand by technique of choice is this ...

  :embarrassed:

Any help would be appreciated because I always have a ton of photo editing to do and I could get quite a few photos done in the time I'm spending knocking these backgrounds out.

I guess one part of the solution would be to refuse to knock out the background of a fifteen person group shot. I guess I exaggerating slightly, only slightly though.

Is there any easy/reliable way to convert an InDesign document to Word format?

The reason I'm asking is because our salespeople have log sheets that list info pertaining to their advertisers that have been managed by my department in the past. I'd like to convert them to Word format for sales so they can manage them on their own. Up until a couple of years ago they didn't have computers of their own ( :embarrassed:), that was the reason we took care of the log sheets for them.

I've tried exporting the document as a PDF and then converted it to Word using Zamzar.com but the conversion wasn't perfect. I can just clean up the .doc I got from Zamzar but a cleaner conversion would be good if anyone knows of a better option.

A coworker is having a problem with font sizing in InDesign.  The arrows to increase or decrease the font size won't work, but the leading does and typing in a specific size in the field works.  The odd thing about it is that it doesn't work in the InDesign Dock, but works fine in the Character palate.  He tried throwing the preferences away, tried a new document, restarted it, etc.., but it still isn't working.

I just heard that the head office has been having font issues with InDesign files that have ads PDFs placed in them and are then exported as PDFs themselves. I guess the problem cropped up when they got new Minis that came with Snow Leopard installed. The problem occurs in CS4 and CS5.

The solution that is being put forth is to save all ads as EPSs, apparently the placed EPSs eliminate the problem. We are using 10.5 so the problem hasn't affected us. For consistency's sake, they do want us to move to using EPSs rather than PDFs for the ads. This means that we will have to convert all of the fill ads that we use to EPS, something I'd rather not do if there is a better solution out there somewhere. Anyone heard of this? Any solutions?

The other thing that they want us to do is print our finished pages as PostScript and then distill them as PDFs rather than exporting to PDF. This all seems like a step backward to me. I asked if this was most likely a temporary fix and was told it probably wouldn't be temporary. I asked if the problem had anything to to with a particular type of font or not but they said it didn't.

Any input would be appreciated. (be nice DCS  :grin:)

I was under the impression that it is perfectly fine to use PSDs with transparency in InDesign layouts but our new designer that previously worked at the head office said that they were told to use clipping paths rather than transparency if they need the background knocked out of an image.

I've had trouble in the past with clipping paths and have avoided using them. I've used transparent PSDs several times with no apparent issues. Are they just being old school at the head office or could the transparent PSDs really cause problems?

If clipping paths are the way to go, what Flatness setting should I use? Seems to me that I heard somewhere that you could just leave the Flatness field blank. :undecided:

Up until a couple of weeks ago I had never used Image>Adjustments>Shadows/Highlights... in Photoshop. I guess the fact that we had been using Photoshop 7 up until recently contributed to that.

If you aren't familiar with it, Shadows/Highlights... allows you to improve shadow detail without losing the highlights. You can get some pretty spectacular results if you don't overdo it, like this . . .

I figured this would be a nice anonymous way for us to get a feeling for how much of the Illy PDF editing goes on.

"Illustrator is not a PDF editor."

I've heard this many times on the forum here. So, what are the issues that could arise if someone did do this?

The local chamber of commerce is supposed to be sending us PDFs for a 4 page pull out that will be running in Saturday's paper. When I heard that they were sending finished PDFs I was very skeptical. I was just on the phone with the person from the chamber and she said that they are going to be using Publisher to do the page layouts. My question is this, is there a web page that I can point her to that tells how to produce a press ready PDF using Publisher? Does anyone have some fairly simple guidelines that I can email to her?

I know it won't be perfect, I just want to get something I can work with.

The deadline for them getting this to us was yesterday, as it stands now, they are hoping to get the pages to us by the end of the day today. :sad:

So, how does one convert text to outlines in PitStop?

Does anyone know of good free ftp software that will work with OSX 10.4.1?

I thought it would be interesting to get everyone's opinions on this. Do you think it is the employer's responsibility to train employees how to do the most basic things in regard to computer operation or do you think the employee bears some responsibility in learning these things on their own? When I talk about basic computer operation I mean things like knowing how to browse the web, send email attachments and basic things about using the OS, like making new folders and copying and pasting and such.

I don't plan on throwing my co-workers to the wolves and telling them that they should know this stuff already, I just wanted to get your opinions.

The new owners want us to do more process color ads. As of now, I'm the only one who really knows much about designing in process color.

I have a few questions about rich black. What are the situations where it would be advantageous to use rich black rather than 100%K? What are the situations where it would be bad to use rich black? I already know you shouldn't use it on small type. What color numbers would you use for rich black for a newspaper ad?

Up until the company that did our printing bought us out, process color was a very rare thing in the newspaper that I work for. The new owners want to have process color on a regular basis.

Since I haven't had much experience with CMYK color correction in the past, I've always been kind of insecure about my CMYK color correction skills. :embarrassed:

Does anyone have any tips or pointers that would help me out? Anyone know of some some online resources for that kind of thing?

Why do some people think that every portrait needs to be retouched beyond belief?

Here's an outstandingly horrible example of what I'm talking about.

http://www.apostropher.com/cache/angelswithattitudes.htm

We knew it was coming . . .

http://mobile.photoshop.com/iphone/

Here are some comic strips about everything Apple, they are pretty funny. :cheesy:

http://ncwinters.com/comics/?album=5&gallery=7