Tuesday, February 26, 2008

I'm Alive!

As I mentioned in the comments, lunch was successfully had and I've returned to Brooklyn with all my bodily parts intact. I will be filing the complete report shortly (hopefully). I am currently involved in a deathmatch with Photoshop. When I ask "How dense can I be?", the answer, apparently is...Very!

12 comments:

Random Michelle K said...

Nathan,

Try this: http://iso.hsc.wvu.edu/cblc/HowTo/HowTo.html

Scroll down to the photoshop section and then see if those documents answer your questions.

You can also try and pick my brain--I just taught Photoshop I this morning. The problem is I don't have PS on this computer, and I just don't know the software well enough to provide good support without having the program in front of me.

But if I'm right in guessin what you wan to do, those two documents should walk you through everything you need to know.

There's also a glossary in addition to the table of contents, all properly hyperlinked.

And they're pdf documents because I'll be damned if I'll let someone come along and steal all my hard work.

E-mail me if you want-my address is on my site or, use my full name for gmail or yahoo.

Random Michelle K said...

And I wouldn't feel bad, photoshop is the LEAST intuitive program I have ever had to learn.

I actually had to buy a book, because I couldn't figure it out on my on, and my JOB is to figure out software

Nathan said...

Here's what's pissing me off. What I'm trying to do is the simplest thing in the world. I'm clueless.

What I've done in the past, is to create what I want in the mac program .pages, then save that as a pdf. Then I import the pdf into photoshop and save it as a jpg. For some reason, blogger won't import the jpg I created that way.

BaaaaaH!

Jeff Hentosz said...

One possibility (but I'm not positive because I don't use it) is that Pages is exporting PDFs in the CMYK color model for use in printing. If you aren't paying attention, it's easy to open such a file in Photoshop and save it as a CMYK JPEG, to which a web browser will protest, "Oh, no you didn't!"

So, first, make sure your Photoshop window has "RGB" in the title bar. If not, change it with menu items Image>Mode>RGB Color. Then, instead of simply saving as a JPEG, use the File menu command "Save for Web..." That process makes much better-looking, better compressed JPEGs.

Ask questions, unfrozen caveman. You got a teacher up there, and I use Adobe Creative Suite every day to help put food on my family.

Random Michelle K said...

why would you take an image, create a pdf from that image, and then remake that as an image? That sounds like a lot of extra steps--steps that may well be leading to image degradation.

That possibly may be why blogger is having issues--be because it may be a pdf and not an image?

I'm only guessing though.

Where did the original image come from? I don't have a mac, so I'm not familiar with mac software.

Random Michelle K said...

Oooh! Jeff knows the software inside out! I just know the basics!

So Jeff, PS will actually let you save a jpg in CMYK format? That seems... unreasonable. And stupid.

I tend to do NOTHING in CMYK format (because I don't even own a color printer) so my only mistake is forgetting to change an image to Indexed color if I want to create a gif.

Which I usually don't want to. Which is why I forget to.

I know that other programs I have used forced me to export RGB images when I wanted to save them as gifs. Since I haven't found that option in PS, I assumed it changed the file format when saving. So this is wrong?

That's something I may well need to know one day--even if I do try and foist all PS support questions off on my boss.

Jeff Hentosz said...

Michelle:

On using PDFs: I actually do this a lot. I'll create a page layout in a program like InDesign, QuarkXpress (or Apple's Pages), export a PDF -- this is a built-in option of Mac OS printing -- and then open it in Photoshop and make a JPEG to post on, for example, someone's portfolio web site.

It's also handy to create pieces-parts for digital artwork in Illustrator and save it as, among other things, a PDF, which you'd open to use in PS.

On CMYK: Not stupid at all. Even though JPEG is a "lossy" format (i.e., it actually throws out data to compress an image and keeps doing it every time you save, hence JPEG "artifacts" over time), it's acceptable enough on a first save that stock photography vendors will provide images as CMYK JPEGs as an option for designers who don't want to do their own color conversions for offset printing.

That's the part I don't understand -- why anyone would go CMYK right off the bat. RGB is the only color mode under which you can use all of PS's bells and whistles. Work over the RGB and then convert at the last minute (you shouldn't ever need CMYK unless you are sending out art for printing plate separations). Modern desktop printers do the conversion on-the-fly just dandy. Often better than PS.

Also, I'm pretty sure GIF is, by definition, an indexed color format. You shouldn't be able to save an RGB one if you wanted to...?

Next time on Polybloggimous Photoshop with Jeff and Michelle: Displacement maps and -- bonus -- the Domino's filter with fucktard adjustment!

Random Michelle K said...

Well, that whole CMYK thing is just ... strange.

I got sucked into dealing with Photoshop because I teach web design, and wanted to create a class that showed people the basics of PS so they could take their digital pictures and get a decent image for their web page.

So to say that my interest in PS is limited would be a bit of an understatement. Kinda like taking out a horsefly with a grenade. But since I needed the software for something I got suckered into writing the documentation and teaching the class.

But NOW I know whose brain to pick when I have PS questions! MUAHAHAHAH!

And apropos only of PS, two weeks ago I went to teach a PS basics class, and discovered that my boss had upgraded every computer to CS3--except mine. So I had to teach a class on a software version I'd only looked at once, and couldn't even feel my way through, since my computer had CS1.

And when I told my boss what he'd done to me? He LAUGHED. Bastard. :)

Tania said...

I am so glad that I am not the only person to find PS ridiculously non-intuitive. You may have just made my week.

Nathan said...

I officially no longer have any idea what you guys are talking about...except for the fucktard dominos filter. Gotta get me one-o-them!

MWT said...

Uhh.

I just use the freebie graphics thingy that came with my Canon printer. Called Photostudio, I think. Does everything I need and very easy to figure out. Think I'll stick with that. ;)

Janiece said...

MWT, I use that too. Just fine for my needs, and if I need something more advanced, I call my Hot Mom, the former graphic artist and PS expert.