Resources
Current magazines
Advanced Photoshop
October
This new magazine says it is for “professionals by professionals.” The content is rather mixed, and this is no contest for Photoshop User, which also is often pitched at less than a professional level. A master class covers aging faces, but this takes an unusual and interesting tack by also reducing the age of the subject. Other master classes cover layer masks and gradient meshes in Illustrator. Trevor Morris who always dispenses useful and inventive information, gives advice on turning photos into illustrations with striking vector-like effects. He uses many interesting techniques, explaining exactly how and why for each.
Computer Arts
November
A review of the new Flash authoring application, Tivity (3 stars), says it's powerful with good tutorials and comprehensive controls. They criticize it for the lack of a timeline and limited drawing tools. nik Multimedia's Sharpener Pro 2 is lauded for its inherent 16-bit support and ease of use, but is said to over-sharpen.
DG magazine
120
Design Graphics is now called DG magazine. This first issue has some remarkable illustrations and photographs, and the cover story is about the Oscar-winning, short animation, Ryan. A review of Studio 8 from Macromedia states that the emphasis of this new version is on workflow. A Studio Skills article by John Feld of The Graphics Report outlines how to start podcasting. The other tutorial covers fixing spots and healing in ways that you probably had not imagined, resulting in some excellent results.
Design Tools Monthly
November
There is a brief article on Aperture, Apple's new photo editing software available in November. A news story states that Apple now gets 4.3% of new computer sales, closing in on Acer at 4.7%. In addition to the usual tips for Photoshop and other applications, there is advice on quickly accessing the Dictionary in Tiger.
Digital Photo Pro
October
Jeff Schewe has an excellent article on converting color to black-and-white. Another piece explains color spaces, which is essential information for anyone who wants to fully comprehend color management.
HOW
December
A survey on salaries and hiring trends is less than conclusive, and fails to report any actual salary ranges or specific trends. The conclusion of the writer is that the industry is not changing, with things remaining as-is. Wait for the comprehensive salary report in the spring. A review of Painter IX highly praises the application saying it is a painless way to rediscover the pleasures of art and is described as one of the best tools the reviewer has used in 14 years. He gives it 5 out of 4 stars.
iCreate
23
A review of the new Macromedia Studio 8 (rated 90% out of 100%) says that Dreamweaver and Flash are the two that will star in the Adobe lineup, when the sale of Macromedia is complete. Dreamweaver is said to be quicker and easier to use, and they particularly praise the Code toolbar and the improved CSS utilities. With Flash, they like the Shadows, Glow, and Blur and the fact these are saved with instructions, and that their effects are rendered on the recipient’s computer in the Flash player. They also say the new Flash Video Encoder is the biggest advance in desktop video compression. A review of Poser 6 awards it 85%, praising the clothing room and the facial expression controls.
Layers
November/December
An article discusses choosing the correct typeface for easy reading. Others discuss sharpening, Merge to HDR, and Blend Modes in Photoshop, making cutaways in Illustrator, and basic site setup in GoLive. With this issue there is a Bonus issue. This contains an overview of InDesign, flattening files in Photoshop , Illustrator, and PDF documents, file management with Bridge, using styles and text wrap in InDesign. These two magazines contain a lot of information, much of it fairly basic, and the experienced user may find little here of use.
Mac Addict
October
There is an article on organizing fonts in OSX. A review of Bryce 5.5 gets 3 stars and is called a fun tool for experimenting with 3D landscapes. There is a fairly basic article on making panoramas in Photoshop.
MacCreative
Two
A tutorial explains some of the details needed to retouch faces in Photoshop. A tutorial of drawing with Illustrator suffers from the inherent problem of illustration tutorials. They teach you to draw that subject in that style. But, if you are learning the software, then they cover many important steps, without too much explanation. Another article teaches some of the issues of managing fonts.
Macworld
December
An overview of FireWire drives selects the Iomega Black Series Triple Interface ($240, 250GB) as the top desktop drive, while in the portable range they select the LaCie Porsche Mobile Hard Drive ($240, 60GB). As a drive for the Mac Mini they recommend the Newer Technology ministack ($260, 320GB). An article explains how to use Tiger’s Automater for automating repetitive chores in Photoshop.
PC Magazine
November 8
A look at photograph organizers looks at ACDSee 8, Photoshop Elements 4 and gives them both 4½ stars. A review of Macromedia Studio 8, (4½ stars) is full of praise for the new version of Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Contribute, and FlashPaper, and they call it a “must-have” product.
PC World
November
A comparison of Photoshop Elements 4 (4½ stars) and Paint Shop Pro X (3½ stars) says that Elements is still the best low-cost image editor/organizer. An overview of DVD drives gives top marks for internal drives to the new Pioneer DVR-R100 (4 stars, $90) says the drive’s value is enhanced by the software: Ulead DVD Movie Factory 4, Video Studio 9 SE, and NovaBackup 7.2. It writes 8 and 16x DVDs and 40x CDs. The external winner is the LG Electronics Super-Multi GSA-2166D (4½ stars, $180) which is described as being packed with features including DVD-RAM and labeling.
New in the Top 15 lists:
Power desktops
#4 Velocity Micro Vision 64 (4 stars, $3954) described as a fast dual-core system suitable for graphics or game enthusiasts.
Desktop replacement laptops
#4 Compaq Presario M2000Z (4 stars, $1314) Termed a nicely priced, boxy laptop with impressive battery life.
All purpose laptops
#3 Gateway M250E (4 stars, $1729)
#4 Dell Latitude D510 (3½ stars, $1509)
Inkjet printers
#1 Canon Pixma iP4200 (4 stars, $130) Fast with sharp and vibrant colors on glossy paper#4 HP Deskjet 5440 (3½ stars, $80) Portrayed as speedy with attractive graphics.
Value scanner
#1 Epson Perfection 4490 Photo (4½ stars, $249) Scans film also, and includes Photoshop Elements; produces beautiful high-res scans.
#2 Epson Perfection 3490 Photo (4 stars, $99) Said to be a great deal for anyone performing basic tasks.
#3 Microtek ScanMaker S400 (4 stars, $150) Somewhat slower than the Epson, but has good software and scans up to four slide or five negatives at one time.
Photoshop Creative
One
Another new large glossy magazine devoted to Photoshop users. The interesting parts of this publication are the tutorials, some of which border on elementary, but are all termed Intermediate. One covers copying a Van Gogh painting, and other specializes on using different brushes to transform a photo in to a semi-painting. Another explains the water–making Aurora plug-in from Digital Elements, another covers the very basics of making duotones, while another explains the use of filters. Other shorter pieces cover resizing with smart objects, basic retouching and blend modes.
Photoshop User
October/November
A how-to shows making a water reflection. Ben Willmore discusses setting up Photoshop CS2 for peak performance. Taz Tally takes images from Illustrator to Photoshop as Smart Objects, pixels, paths, and a Shape Layer. Kevin Ames explains how to use Merge to HDR with remarkable results. Dan Margulis continues to expound on the Lab color space, this time showing how it can be used to make difficult selections.
Shutterbug
December
Photoshop Elements 4 is evaluated, and the new version is described as evolutionary rather than revolutionary. They praise the extraction tool, the Magic Extractor, and point out that the Mac version is lagging behind in the development cycle, remaining at version 3.10. A look at the new Nikon D50 says it is very fast, and produces good color images with a marked lack of noise. It is described as being a good value, but has daunting menus with only a few analog controls. The reviewer prefers the D70s for its faster speed, better analog dials, depth of field preview and grid lines on the preview screen. Another review looks at the new Epson Stylus Photo R 2400, 13”x19” printer. It manages to reproduce subtle variations of neutral tones and intense colors. The reviewer says it out-performs the R1800 when reproducing skin tones, and states the reports of the printer’s excellent black-and-white output are well founded, although he did have a some issues with the default Epson drivers.
XRay Magazine
Three
This Quark everything magazine is packed with information. There is an article on setting up new documents. It covers a lot more than you would imagine—mostly old stuff, but an interesting article. For Mac users there is part-one of a tutorial on AppleScripting. It describes automating the construction of text boxes, then adding text to these boxes. We look forward to where this will go in the next issue. One of the biggest problems for some XPress users is making decent PDF documents. An article on doing this is very informative. Other articles cover text flow and Web-based forms. The lead article compares XPress and InDesign, and not surprisingly finds QuarkXPress comes out ahead on nearly everything.
